Disc Golf? Wow!

A podcast for English learners!  Improve your listening skills, practice your pronunciation, learn new vocabulary!     
  
This episode, I'm chatting with Viktor!   We chatted about learning English at a young age, everything you need to know about Disc Golf, speaking English when you don’t need to, and not worrying too much your vocabulary...

Pronunciation tip = Practicing the difference between the  /dʒ/  ('jam') and /j/ ('yam') consonant sounds!

Presenter = Sam @_emaileng (Twitter, IG), @emaileng (TikTok)     

Music = "Baby Bloodheart" by Mara Carlyle   @MaraCarlyle    www.maracarlyle.bandcamp.com       

Artwork = Penny Rossano  @pennyrossanomusicart (IG)     www.pennyrossanoillustrations.com    

Guest = Viktor   https://www.discgolfstream.com/inside-disc-golf-podcast

Transcript

EPISODE 35 = DISC GOLF? WOW!

Hello!  And welcome to Chat ENG – a podcast where people chat about how they learn and use English.  My name is Sam, I’m a CELTA teacher and a performer, and I have a particular interest in pronunciation and expression.   

In each episode, non-native and native speakers will chat about their experiences with English, share their advice and, at the end, I’ll give some pronunciation tips for you to take away and practice.  

So – ready?  Let’s get Chat ENG!

This episode, I’m chatting with Viktor!  Viktor is originally from Sweden, he is an opera singer and, now, a sports commentator for the sport of Disc Golf!   We were online for our chat, and his cat was very well behaved!

We chatted about learning English at a young age, everything you need to know about Disc Golf, speaking English when you don’t need to, and not worrying too much your vocabulary, but I started by asking Viktor to tell me a little bit about himself…

INTERVIEW

V: Happy to do so!  My name is Viktor Tågestad. I'm a 35-year-old Swedish guy. I'm a singer - that's my, like, profession... or what do you say? Whatever you want to call it, even though - as many singers know - it's not that easy to make a living out of it!  So, I have been doing a few other things as well - not only working as a singer, now, I actually started a job as a sports commentator doing live commenting for the European Pro-Tour for Disc Golf.

S: I mean - this is what I really want to talk to you about! So, let's go back a little bit then, Viktor. Tell me about when you started learning English.

V: In Sweden, at least in the 90s when I started school, you started learning English already at first grade. So, I was six when we started with English, and that was basically one of my first lessons in school. Of course, it wasn't on any higher level or so, but English has been with me since I was a kid basically. 

S: So, lots of experience then working and living with English. In general, what do you like about the language? Is there something that you particularly like about English? 

V: Oh, that's a difficult question. I haven't really thought about it like that but, of course, it's a language that is so... everyone knows English. In a way, at least, everyone can relate to the language and there are so many different ways to speak it. So, I can't say that there is one “right way” and one “wrong way”. English is spoken all over the world with different accents, and different rhythms, and different melodies - and that's a relief in many ways, that you know that you're never like, wrong. It's so living and it's so, like, when there's something new happening in the world, you always find a way to talk about that in English. It's easier to find words for it in English rather than in many other languages.

S: Okay, so then as an opposite question, is there anything in English that you find particularly tricky or that you think “Ah! I never get that right”?

V: Now, of course, a few pronunciations that are difficult as a Swede - I wouldn't say that there are any big things, and now I have been speaking English for so long time, but it's not really something that I think that much about but anyway, something that I keep coming back to is the /dʒ/ sound, the letter J. (Okay) Because that's something that we don't have in Swedish. For example, the word “jungle” in Swedish it's the same word but it's spelled a ‘DJ’ and in English, it's only a ‘j’ but in Swedish you don't say the /dʒ/ sound, it's just /jungle/. You wear a pair of ‘yeans’.

S: Do you have to really concentrate when you go to buy a pair of jeans?!

V: For a long time, I did!  But I think it's starting to come more and more natural, but that's one of those things that I really need to focus, like to commentate, to get right.  Other one is the letter ‘v’, because in Swedish, there is no difference between ‘v’ and ‘w’. So, for example, in my sports commenting, when I say “the winner of an event”... that I get wrong every single time! “the winner of an ewent”! And then to know how big difference one should do with those two consonants - it's just very difficult and I'm so aware of it all the time...

S: We don't realise just quite how engaged our lips are when we say a /w/ sound.

V: Yeah, I heard one good trick from a singer to do that, at least for a Swede: Pretend that it's an ‘o’ sound. So, it's a vowel rather than a consonant. 

S: Oh, that's interesting.

V: Yeah, that was kind of cool.

S:  I think it's good to find a way in, isn't it? (I think so) It doesn't matter which trick, as long as the trick works for you I think... Hey, listen - let's start talking about sports commentary then. (Oh, yeah!). Tell me about Disc Golf!

V:  Disc Golf is growing like crazy. The big professional scene of Disc Golf is in the US, but it's growing like crazy here in Europe also. It's basically golf, but instead of a ball, you throw a frisbee, and the frisbee is a little bit different than what you're used to - it's not something that you throw on the beach! It's a little bit smaller, a little bit, like, smaller diameter, a little bit heavier. So, you can actually put a lot of power behind it and throw it... even an amateur like me can throw it way over 100 metres. 

S: Wow, really? 

V:  Yeah. And the professionals can easily get up to 200, maybe 250 metres...yeah, it’s kind of cool!

S: I'd no idea about the distances!

V: Yeah, that's what you can do. This sport has really had an explosion around the pandemic time, like people couldn't be inside, people couldn't do sports, but Disc Golf was something that people could do. So, within two years now, the sport has been growing, like, 10 times easily. But it has been a thing, there has been World Championships for many, many years, but it was big already in the 90s and existed in the 80s and 70s, as well, but I think it was in the 90s that it started to form to what it is now and then, especially now that last two years, turned into a multi-million dollar industry.

S: There probably isn't a typical game...but what does a typical game look like?

V: The rules are very similar to normal golf. The courses are in 99% of the cases 18 holes, just like in golf. There is a par for every single hole. So, typically, like, par three or four, which means that - ideally  - you should be able to get your Frisbee or Disc in the basket - yeah, there are baskets instead of holes! You can call them holes, but so you should get them in the basket in that amount of throws and if you're good, even lower.  So to a big event, like on the European Pro-Tour, that's usually a three day event that you have one round per day. So, it's three rounds and after that, you have a winner!

S: So it could take a few hours then (Easily!) to go around the course.

V: Yeah, one round usually takes about three hours, I would say - if it's a competition round and our live broadcast can be somewhere around four or five, six hours.

S:  Four, five or six hours. What do you talk about, then?!

V: That's a good question! I don't know sometimes how we can find things to talk about, but there's always things going on because we are usually following the card with the four people and then you always need to keep track of what's going on behind, so you have the Leader Board on the side. We try to keep track of who's playing great, who is up to something and you need to check what the tricky things about this hole and even though it seems kind of easy, somehow someone found their way out from the track and you need to find a tiny gap through the trees or something and how can they get out from there and other... there's always something to talk about!

S: Is it easy to do that in a second language?  The continuous chat and updating and statistics, I suppose?

V: It can definitely be draining, if you're already tired. Yeah, some days it feels like it just doesn't come naturally. Luckily, my co-host is American, so he has saved me quite a few times when I get stuck on words.  And, also luckily I'm not the kind of person who worries that much about it. I can laugh about the situations and I just think it's funny, and yeah - he's saving me many times when I lose words and I'm saving him a lot of times when it comes to Swedish or Norwegian names of the players, so yeah.

S: Have there been any moments that when it gets really exciting, that you sort of forget that you're supposed to talk in English and then just respond really quickly in Swedish?

V: Honestly, that has never happened, but the opposite has happened quite a few times! Now, I have realised that I sometimes tend to speak English with my parents when I get excited - I speak English when something is happening when I'm around Swedish people, because that's what has been closest to me for so many years now. So even when I'm with myself and I talk with my cat, I start speaking English until I realise, like “what am I doing? This is kind of silly...”!

S: It seems to me that different sports have different catchphrases that commentators like to use - I wonder if Disc Golf is the same?

V: I'm sure. I'm trying not to think about that too much, because I am worried that I will get stuck in some catchphrases or limit my vocabulary in that way. So, I'm trying not to listen to it. But yeah, something I noticed that I was doing, at least in the beginning quite a lot, was I kept saying “Wow! “Wow!”, like that was my gut reaction to a good shot, for example, and I got aware of it and I started to feel slightly embarrassed about it, because when I saw the highlight videos of good shots, I had that “Wow!” “Wow!” came all the time. And then I started to listen to some American commentators on the American Pro-tour and I noticed that they're doing the same. So, then I realised maybe I shouldn’t listen that much to myself and just, like, go with the flow and - so far - I don't think I have picked up any, like, cheesy catchphrases in that way... I'm sure they're gonna come, I'm still kind of new in my job, but this kind of job, just like being a singer, it's impossible to please everyone. The only thing you can do is try to be yourself and try to have honest reactions to things, and then if people like you or not, that's not something that is up to you. But if you're fake, then people can see through that quite quickly. So, I'm just trying to be me and see where that leads me.

S:  I think that's definitely the best approach, and you listen to commentators for that natural, sort of, reaction don't you?

V: Exactly! It's impossible to be as excited when you're sitting at home watching sports as when you're commenting, so you need to find your reaction, then elevate it a few percent to make that come through the microphone, and out for the viewers - so it's a bit of acting, but not with fake emotions. So, it's still your own emotions and feelings and reactions, but they're just elevated a little bit.

S: Do you feel that being a singer actually enhances that extra effort that, perhaps, you put in when you're commentating?

V: I think so - well, I have learned how to be able to communicate to an audience being a tiny person on a big stage but still reach out to the back row and in the hall. And I think that comes through also when you're sitting in a studio with a microphone. It's the same kind of... same way to communicate in a way, yeah.

S: Have you noticed if “Singer Victor’s voice” is different from “Commentator Victor's voice”, like... I don't know, do you have a deeper voice when you're commentating?

V: I clearly noticed a difference when before we got the job and we were shooting a promo video, I prepared myself in the way that I was gonna go out and have a concert or an audition or something, and then when we put on the microphones and then stood there in front of the camera, and I started to speak with my ‘big opera voice’ and they both were like...just looking at me, like... “you're very loud, now - you’re aware of this?”. I'm like "Yeah, Sorry! This is just the way I’m used to communicating - I'm on  the stage, I'm sorry!"  And then we did it, like, 35 times and, like, at the end my voice was, like back to normal in a way. I also notice when I'm a little bit nervous before live broadcasts that I start to hum and I start to sing just like if I would go in for an audition, so... but I don't think that I sound too, like, ‘stereotypical operatic’ in a way behind the microphone, but the preparations are, anyway, the same - that's the way to handle your nerves...or my nerves.

S: So, I'm trying to think about advice. Normally, I ask people what advice they would give to a language learner if learning English, but yours... your area of expertise is very niche. Let's think about it like this, then: as this is a new, amazing niche field, what will you do to grow and improve your skills?

V: I think it's mostly just to continue what I'm doing right now - to be honest, to be even more comfortable... no, but just, like, not fake it. Not fake it, have fun behind the microphone and when following the things that's going on, and that shines through clearly... (yeah), and not think too much about technicalities, like, what words you're using because you can communicate just by laughing, just by making sound, people... that's the thing - you don't actually need to be that good at the language to be able to be a sports commentator. A laugh can say so much more than whatever words you use!

S: I like that!

V: Yeah!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

A laugh can say so much more than the word you use!  If you want to learn more about Disc Golf, and keep up to date on the European pro-tour scene, check out Viktor and his co-host Andrew’s podcast ‘Inside Disc Golf’ – there’s a link in this episode’s show notes: https://www.discgolfstream.com/inside-disc-golf-podcast

 So - this episode’s pronunciation tip is practicing the /dʒ/ and /j/ sounds. As Viktor said, many different languages pronounce the letter ‘j’ as a /j/, so pronounce the word J-E-A-N-S as “yeans”.  And, to confuse matters, the phonetic symbol for a /j/ sound in English is the letter ‘j’ and not the letter ‘y’, so no wonder learners say ‘yeans’!   To make the /dʒ/ sound for the letter ‘j’ in English, the front part of your tongue connects to the roof, or top, of your mouth – and the tip of your tongue is just behind your teeth = /dʒ/. For the /j/ sound, your tongue comes away from the roof of your mouth, and the tip of your tongue is now behind your bottom teeth = /y/.    To practice, here are 3 sentences with a /dʒ/ sound and a /y/ sound – notice how you change your tongue position from one sound to the other, and also notice how your lips come forward for both sounds:

First: The word “jam” (a sweet food we make from boiling fruit and then spread on bread) and the word “yam” (a root vegetable).  

Try this sentence: “Do you like jam with your yam?”

Next: the word “your” (a possessive adjective, something that belongs to you) and “jaw” (the bone structure at the entrance of your mouth)

Try this sentence: “You have food on your jaw!”

Finally: The word “jeers” (a rude and mocking remark or noise) and “years” (the measure of time, a year = 12 months!)

Try this sentence: There have been no jeers for years!

Bonus sentence:  Let’s combine some these words with new words to make it a bit trickier…

Try this sentence: Was that jam or yam on your jaw and yesterday’s jeans?

So, to recap:  The /dʒ/ sound is a strong consonant that has the front of the tongue connecting with the roof of the mouth, the /y/ sound can be for consonants or vowels (think ‘yes’ and ‘useful’!) and the tongue is down, away from the roof of your mouth. In both cases, your lips come forward!   Over to you to practice!

So, there we are!  The transcript of this episode is available to read on the podcast’s webpage, so take a look!    Join me next time for more pronunciation and grammar tips, more advice and, most importantly, more chatting!   My thanks again to Viktor and, for her music, a huge thanks to the wonderful Mara Carlyle.   Bye for now!