'In' or 'On' The Internet?

A podcast for English learners!  Improve your listening skills, practice your pronunciation, learn new vocabulary!     
  
This episode, I'm chatting with Marlene!   We chatted about holidays in the USA, learning English through gaming, and the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality...

Grammar tip = How we view things in English = is it ON or IN the Internet?  Do we get IN or ON a bus?  Do we go ON or IN holiday?     

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     

Transcript

EPISODE 21 = IN OR ON THE INTERNET?

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 Marlene.  Marlene is originally from Austria and is currently completing her Masters degree.  As we were in different countries, we were online – and I think we recorded our chat without any major hiccups!

We chatted about holidays in the USA, learning English through gaming, and the difference between virtual reality and augmented reality, which was a new one for me, but I started by asking Marlene to tell me a little bit about herself… 

INTERVIEW

M: Yeah, thanks! I am from Austria originally and yeah I study Computer Science but with a focus on Game Development and some related areas. 

S: Awesome! Tell me a little bit about learning English in Austria - do you start learning English quite young or is it when you’re a little bit older? Is their a lot in learning of English – how does it work? 

M: I think the first time I started learning English at school was at 9 or 10 years of age, so I think it’s the right time to start because then you also know a bit about grammar in Germans and so on…and I think, like, the English improved the lot with Upper schools, around the age of 14 and 15, where we had… I also had the pleasure to have a really good teacher who motivated us a lot!  and for me personally it was a bit easier because I have been on a few holidays in the US with my parents, so I already knew some stuff before I learned it in school.

S: Oh, awesome!  Where did you.. do you remember where you went on holiday?

M: Oh, yeah – multiple places across the US!

S: Now, as an English learner, was it easy for you to notice the difference in accents depending on where you were? 

M:  I think back then I didn’t notice at all!  I mostly developed that sense in the recent years with more access to media, and also being more exposed to British and Australian and now I have sense of that, and I can hear the differences also in the US American dialects and accent differences, but back then I think I did not realise that - I was just that the beginning of learning English, so…

S: Ok, let’s go back to your studies - were your studies in English or have your studies been in English?

M: Yeah – most of it, yes, like, the bachelors studies were in German but many of the professors also held the lectures in English or everything that we got and we needed was in English. And the Masters as well was completely in English, so .. we also had International students there, and I think it fits because the content is mostly English as well.  

S: Right, so when it comes to gaming and learning about it, what sort of things are you learning about? 

M: Actually, in my study what I really liked is that we learned a lot of different things, like usual studies focused either on coding or art or narratives and story and stuff like that, but in my bachelors degree we learned a bit about everything, so I personally really liked that because I saw the benefits of working in bigger teams and knowing what the others are doing, even though I'm focusing now on user experience and user interfaces, and I did a lot on human computer interaction, like I also did some projects with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, and there it’s a lot of conceptual and design things that you work on.  But an interesting fact is that I know many people in… at least in Austria from my friends,  who learned English through computer games, because when you're exposed to them as a kid, and it doesn't exist in German but you still wanna play it, you learn a lot of vocabulary and words through gaming – for example, one of the, probably, most popular games Mindcraft has a lot of, you know, elements in there from everyday life and, like, elements that you find in nature, and you learn all the names for these.

S: That’s so cool, isn’t it? You’re sort of learning and not really thinking about learning it .  Did you learn much English this way?

M: Yeah, I do think so.  Probably not the biggest part of my vocabulary, but some games definitely helped with my English.

S: Tell me about your English, then - what do you find easy about the English language, like what do you like about it? 

M: I think it’s now easy for me to, like, form the sentences, and I feel like there are not that many exceptions, but in reality there are, and when I started learning it was very hard.  I think it’s hard when you start but when you advance and it just… you get in the flow and you know things just because you know them! and I think it’s way in most languages but many languages have these obstacles that you never really get over, for example in German the articles - even people who have learned German for a long time still have problems using the correct ones.  In English you get to a point where most of the things are just… yeah… you know it from the top of your head without thinking about it.          

S: So then I guess my next question will be the opposite - is there anything that you find tricky in English, where you think “oh, I just can’t get that right”? 

M: Right now, my answer is probably influenced by me writing my Masters thesis in English! (aha) I would say all the little things that… and the concepts that speakers of different languages view differently.  One of our professors actually gave really good advice on some of the things, how we view some specific concepts differently and just use different phrases to describe - for example in German it’s “in the Internet” but in English it’s “on the Internet” because of the way we view this network.

S: Tell me a little bit about your Masters degree that so what’s the thesis?

M: The thesis is about virtual reality and super imposing real content, so you use cameras and there are devices that actually capture the surroundings and through that you can interact with real devices because there are some advantages to real objects that we currently don’t have in virtual environments.  Many companies, either IT or game companies, also are starting Virtual Reality or Augmented Reality departments. 

S: What’s the difference between Virtual reality and Augmented reality?         

M: So in virtual reality you’re surrounded by a usually completely virtual world, so everything you see is digital and its objects and you interact with it, and augmented reality has a big range of applications, it can also be mobile augmented reality where you see  through the camera - you still see the surroundings but there are little, for example, animals or other objects, but there are also, like, these head-mounted displays, the head-sets that you can wear, and they intend to show information on how to interact with the real world, so you basically see all the real surroundings but there are digital enhancements and augmentation is in there. 

S: My goodness that is very interesting!  Let’s talk about your English then, Marlene - tell me if there was anything you could improve about your own English - vocabulary or grammar or pronunciation - what would you focus on?

M: I think I’d focus on talking more fluently, like, I feel like I’m already quite good but it also… I can also feel how hard it is for me to form the sentences and that it still requires some effort and I would like that to go more smoothly.

S:  Okay well that’s fine - moving to another country where you don’t speak the language probably means that you’ll be speaking English!

M:  Yes, hopefully!

S: I’m really fascinated with the gaming area - which direction do you want to go in?

M: So I have applied to, and I have had some interviews with a few companies, and this mostly focussed on either mobile gaming and user experience, and user interface design or general application design and game design, but I’ve also talked to educational gaming and these kind of meaningful companies that are mostly indie companies, smaller studios that focus on spreading awareness about a topic or similar things.

S: Okay and in this, then - the educational area - are there many games that lean towards language learning?

M: I know there are a few… I know there are many about language learning, but I don’t know exactly how they work or, like, what concepts they build upon because there is a lot of psychology involved and that’s something I don’t know a lot about, so… but I definitely hope that educational gaming will increase - especially during the past year we saw how essential it is to provide digital learning resources, and I think it’s, like, gamification and gaming can be quite beneficial there - not just sharing resources online and via those devices, but also integrating the gamified part of learning.

S:  Absolutely! I totally agree!  Okay final question then, Marlene - what advice would you give an English learner to help them, like what things have you done in the past to help improve your English?

M: Mostly just expose yourself to English in any way, like everything you do - do that language, so watch videos and movies, or read books – I think books are really good resource for that as well, and one thing that helped me there was reading e-books on an e-reader, because you can then directly translate the words - usually they have translators inbuilt - so it’s not extra effort to translate it on a phone or something, just directly in the e-book. 

S: Yeah, that’s a really good point… and I suppose more gaming, if people are interested in games? 

M: Yeah, definitely. If you play games and, even if they’re available in your language, you can try switching them to English so… 

S: Yes! What a great idea! excellent!                                                                             

(Music)

A great tip from Marlene – if you have one, try reading books in English on an e-reader, where you can quickly translate new words… but try not to translate every new word – limit yourself to a maximum of 5 words per page.  

So, this week’s pronunciation tip is a grammar tip.  Marlene talked about the idea of concepts and how we view things differently in different languages – she gave the great example of ‘on the internet’ in English and ‘in the Internet’ in German. This can make learning English a little tricky, as direct translations don’t always work.  So, I have 3 examples of how we view things in English for you to practice: 

First:  With the verb ARRIVE.  Many learners think we ‘arrive to’ a place or a location, but in English you have 2 options.  You arrive IN a country or a city/a town/a village, and you arrive AT a location, like a station or a shop.

Try this sentence: “We will arrive at Central Station in New York shortly.”

Next: Public Transport versus Independent Transport.  When we enter and exit public transport, like a train or a bus, we get ON and get OFF.  When we enter and exit independent transport, like a car or a van, we get IN / INTO or get OUT OF.

Try this sentence: “I got off the train at 8pm and then got into my car 5 minutes later.”

Finally:  With the verb GO. Many learners think we ‘go in’ a place and ‘go to’ holiday, but again we have 2 options: With movement, we go TO a place.  If we’re lucky and stop working for a week or two and travel, we go ON holiday.

Try this sentence: “We’re going on holiday tomorrow – we’re going to Italy!” 

So, really, just be aware that direct translations aren’t always correct – as these examples show you, our different languages may not share the same view!   

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 Marlene and, for her music, a massive thanks to the wonderful Mara Carlyle.   Bye for now!