Today in History, Strange News & Listener Questions

TRANSCRIPT (follow along while you listen)

A fun, varied little mix. We're starting off with the first Human vs Machine chess duel (1996), followed by the story of a family that tried to scam a restaurant in Sydney by putting armpit hair in their food, and then we're finishing off with questions from listeners who are understandably looking for advice. A bunch of great vocabulary and expressions in this one, too.

Transcript

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Hey, what's up? What's going on? Welcome to another episode of English with Dane, a podcast designed to help you enjoy the process of perfecting your English. As always, I'm your host Dane, and you can find me on Instagram and TikTok at EnglishwithDane. Real quick, we've changed the full day immersion to the 8th of March, which is a Sunday. So if you already had plans on Saturday 7th, and that's why you couldn't make it, then good news for you. Sunday, 8th of March. A full day of speaking English and working on breaking through any obstacles you're facing with a beautiful nature setting. What more could you want? If you're up for it, let me know. Email me at englishwithdane at gmail.com or message me on Instagram at Englishwithdane. Okay, on this episode, we're going to do a little bit of everything. We're starting off with Today in History, which is a segment I haven't done in a while, where we take a look back to see what happened on a day like today many years ago. Then we're doing Strange News, where we read through an unusual news story to get some new vocabulary, and also because it's just fun to see how ridiculous we can be as people. And then we're going to answer a few mailbag questions that I've received from listeners. So let's do this. You are listening to episode 42 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. Alright, you heard the music, so you know we have officially started the show. Like I said, we're starting with today in history, so let's check out what happened on a day like today many years ago. This is one I talked about several years ago on the show, but I think it's just really cool, and I wanted to talk about it again. The year is 1996, and the headline reads, Human beats machine. On this day in 1996, world chess champion Gary Kasparov defeated IBM's deep blue computer, but it wasn't as easy as he predicted. He had once stated, he had once stated that he would never lose to a machine, but perhaps he was too confident. The very first game of the six-round tournament saw Kasparov defeated in what he called a shattering experience. It was the first instance of a machine defeating a human within the confines of a traditional chess tournament, and possibly the first time Kasparov had had his confidence shaken by a machine. To shatter means to break into a lot of pieces. And if something is shattering, it is devastating or very tough to overcome. Kasparov, a chess prodigy and fearless, decisive player, was born in what is now Azerbaijan in 1963 and became the Soviet youth champion by the age of 13. He won an international tournament when he was just 16, and became the youngest world champion at 22. His encounter with IBM's deep blue marked the first time a reigning world chess champion faced off against a computer on the world stage. Kasparov would later say that Deep Blue had given him a run for his money during that first match because of one innocuous move, a simple pawn sacrifice that appeared to serve no greater purpose. We use it for lots of stuff nowadays, not just gambling, of course. You can say something like, I think that the Leonardo DiCaprio movie, One Battle After Another, is going to win Best Picture, but I think the Brazilian movie, The Secret Agent, could give it a run for its money. Let's keep going. Of course, it was less mystical than that. Deep Blue, like many artificial intelligence-based machines, could see many moves ahead and had presumably used its powers of probability to predict that losing a pawn would not affect its chances of winning the match. Kasparov, once he understood this line of thinking, was significantly less intimidated. He said in an essay for Time magazine, I could figure out its priorities and adjust my play. It couldn't do the same to me. Now armed with a better understanding of Deep Blue and its limitations, Kasparov did not underestimate his mechanical opponent after the initial loss, and went on to win three additional games and tie two more, ultimately emerging as the tournament champion. The victory was a narrow one, however, and underscored, resalto, it underscored Todo Junto how rapidly computers were advancing, especially in the context of structured, rules-based games such as chess. In a 1997 rematch, Deep Blue defeated Kasparov at last, a turning point that saw machine finally prevailing over man. That's kind of a disappointing ending, but hey, still an amazing feat. Una asaña, an amazing feat. Feat spelled F-E-A-T. I'm pretty sure that that's an impossible thing to do now with the advancements in technology that we've had since then. So from that today in history segment, we got some good words and a great expression. We got the adjective shattering, as in something that is devastating and really difficult to come back from or to overcome. And we took a look at the expression to give someone a run for their money, as in to compete and really challenge someone that is expected to win. If you're eating, maybe pause the episode real quick and come back to it later. The headline reads Restaurants warned after diner allegedly plants hair to dodge$600 bill at popular Sydney restaurant. A diner isn't just a type of restaurant, okay? It's also uncomensal, someone who is dining at a restaurant. And to dodge means to avoid, right? Evitar or esquivar, as in the sport dodgeball, which we call balon prisonero here in Spain for some reason. Again, restaurants warned after diner allegedly, supuestamente, plants hair to dodge$600 bill at popular Sydney restaurant. It says the group had ordered high-value dishes, including a 1.8 kilo tomahawk steak along with entrees and drinks. A tomahawk steak spelled T-O-M-A-H-A-W-K is a thick cut, un corte grueso, a thick cut of steak with the bone left attached. It's called a tomahawk steak because with the bone left attached like that, it resembles or looks like it resembles a tomahawk. That is, you know, that small axe, acha, that small axe that you associate with Native American tribes. Okay. Hospitality venues have now been warned to remain vigilant after a family was allegedly spotted, Bista, allegedly spotted, deliberately planting a hair on their own plate before refusing to pay a$600 bill. The alleged incident occurred at Pony in The Rocks, Sydney, where staff say a family visiting from Ireland ordered some of the venue's most expensive items. CCTV, reviewed by the restaurant, appears to show a man reaching under his arm, pulling out a hair and placing it onto his plate after finishing his meal. Neil Nolan, who has led the kitchen at the venue for two decades, said the alleged tactic was unlike anything he had encountered. I've never seen this before. Like this was another level of trying to scam, Nolan told Seven News. Staff claimed the issue was raised only once the family had finished eating. Nolan said the man became increasingly agitated, raising his voice and refusing to settle any portion of the account. To settle an account or a bill means to pay in, right? He just went nuts, basically. So he just went nuts, basically, getting louder and louder and refused to pay for any of the bill, he said. The situation escalated in the dining room with the man's wife allegedly breaking down in tears as the other customers looked on. Staff quickly questioned the origin of the hair. So remember, not wave as in hola, but wave W-A-I-V-E. It was only afterwards, the restaurant claims, they learned of similar allegations involving what is believed to be the same family at another nearby venue. Nolan said he reported the matter to the police, but was advised that there was little immediate action that could be taken. Frustrated, he later shared the CCTV footage publicly on social media to alert other operators and to try and locate the family in question. The contact details provided with the booking were allegedly false, and the family is believed to have since left the area. Wow. This really makes me think. Guaranteed. So let's start with Mario Genia's question first. She asked, is it more important to focus on vocabulary or grammar to reach the next level? Okay, first of all, we have to be careful or at least mindful of this level stuff. I think it's more important to focus on how comfortable you feel communicating your thoughts and how to sound more like you. If you're trying to reach a new level, then you're just going to frustrate yourself because one, you won't really know when you reach that next level, because there's no you did it message that's going to pop up like a phone notification. And two, if for some reason you do feel like you've reached that next level, your victory is going to be short-lived. So you're not really going to enjoy that win because you're going to then be focused on the next level after that. So that process will repeat itself, and while it kind of sounds good from like a super motivado perspective, it's not something that is sustainable. That said, I do want to answer your question because I know it's really frustrating when you ask something straightforward or specific and you get an ambiguous or philosophical answer. I would focus on vocabulary, for sure. I think studying grammar is useful, of course, especially if you are a lower-level student, but I find that studying grammar a lot becomes kind of a method for procrastination at times. If you focus on it too much, you'll avoid more natural ways of communicating, which often disrupt or disregard grammatical rules, and you might end up studying and learning and not putting all of that to use. I think vocabulary is maybe a better use of your time because you plug holes, tapas agujeros o puntos débiles, you plug holes more quickly and you can throw these new words in right away. Both are useful, both are great, but I think vocabulary is maybe a faster way to feel more comfortable. I think a good way to approach it is to kind of think of things you say a lot and talk about a lot, and make sure you have all of the appropriate vocabulary to communicate like you would in your native language, which I'm assuming is Spanish, Mario Genia. I hope that helps. Let's finish with this. He wants to know what frustrates me when it comes to English students. I think that's what he meant because the question was worded or constructed in kind of a weird way. Hmm. Interesting. What frustrates me? I don't think I'm easily frustrated at this stage, but one that used to bother me a lot was students who were obsessed with not sounding Spanish. But you've heard me talk about that a lot, so I'll choose a different one. Oh, when people apologize for their English, that drives me crazy. Maybe it's not specific to students or coaching clients I've had in the past, but just people in the world in general. When people present something or talk to a group or something like that, and they start with, oh sorry for my English, to me, that just shows that you aren't confident and being confident or even faking confidence is half the battle when it comes to solid communication. I probably wasn't hating on your English to begin with, but when you start with, oh, sorry for my English, now I'm going to focus on it, which is going to detract, que va a restar, which is going to detract from your message. So please don't do that. I promise people aren't thinking about it that much. Oh, something that is also frustrating, and this does have to do with my students or coaching clients, whatever specifically, is when their words don't match their actions or intentions. When students tell me they are motivated or they have certain goals, but then only rely on the time we have together to work on their English. It's difficult to work with people or to coach people who don't take time out of their day, even if it's five or ten minutes to practice. I can really tell, me doy cuenta, I can really tell when people that I've coached are practicing outside of our sessions. I can tell if you've been reading, if you've been talking to people, and I can tell when you haven't done anything outside of the sessions. That one is really frustrating because it makes me feel like I'm failing them by not motivating them enough, but at the same time I lose confidence in them because they require too much external motivation. So yeah, those two things, starting with sorry for my English and then the motivation thing. Cool. Thank you to Mario Genia and to Essiet for your questions. And sorry, As Yet, if that wasn't exactly your question, but I think it's what you meant to ask. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. I hope you enjoyed it. Be sure to follow the show wherever you listen, and remember that I'm uploading episodes to YouTube now if you want to check them out there. And yeah, share the show with someone who you think would enjoy it. And again, don't be shy. Send me your questions, thoughts, opinions, or whatever you want to say. Alright, have a good week. Talk soon. Later,