• Bad English

  • By: SBS
  • Podcast

Bad English

By: SBS
Listen for free

  • Summary

  • Let’s face it, learning English is a nightmare. Time to take revenge. Bad English is like an audio support group for anyone who’s ever had to learn English, chaired by comedian Ivan Aristeguieta. Ivan and guests poke fun at the infuriating absurdity of learning the world’s most-studied language – unpacking rules and nuances that make learning English a misery for millions around the world, and leave even Anglophones scratching their heads.
    Copyright 2024, Special Broadcasting Services
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Comedy & Humor Language Learning
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Episodes
  • English the vampire language, sucking life from other tongues

    English the vampire language, sucking life from other tongues
    Nov 7 2023
    We investigate “word aversion” and our host Ivan ends up with a bad case of hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia, a 35-letter word meaning fear of long words. Our guest Deng Adut was a child soldier in Sudan. After arriving in Australia as a teenage refugee, he learned English by singing along with The Wiggles, reading the bible and working at a petrol station. He sees English as a 'vampire language', sucking words from other languages like Latin, Italian, Spanish and German. It’s holy mayhem as language teacher Ai-Lin Bhugun encourages them to unpack the bonkers world of idioms and Australian slang. There are over 25,000 English idioms!
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    35 mins
  • When verbs gang up on you

    When verbs gang up on you
    Oct 31 2023
    English is an ode to uncertainty, as host Ivan explains with his ALDI theory (A Ludicrous Display of Inconsistency). Ethiopian-born comedian Joe White (real name Tilahun) loves his mum and is constantly bailing her out of awkward situations resulting from her loose grasp of English. Language teacher Ai-Lin Bhugun takes 'doing words' to the next level, unpacking what happens when verbs band together like the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story and become phrasal verbs.
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    34 mins
  • How many nouns does it take?!

    How many nouns does it take?!
    Oct 24 2023
    The birth rate for new words in English is extraordinary. There are over 170,000 words in the English dictionary but some estimates put the vocab tally at over one million words... Ivan asks if we really need more? Tamil refugee Niro Vithyasekar learnt English and cooking in a detention centre. He now runs the successful pop-up food truck Tuka Tuka Kotthu Roti Man in Melbourne. English language teacher Ai-Lin gives Niro the lowdown on nouns, and what happens when they become uncountable.
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    26 mins

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