Learning English Podcast - March 12, 2025
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Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Katie Weaver. And I'm Mario Ritter, Jr. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases especially written for people learning English.

Today, Brian Lynn tells the story of the president also known as the father of the U.S. Constitution, James Madison. Jill Robbins reports on the rescue of a man trying to cross the Pacific Ocean in a rowboat. Alice Bryant gives advice on using word maps to strengthen your vocabulary.

Then, the lesson of the day. But first, here is Brian. The men who created America's Constitution are often called the nation's founders. But only one of those men, James Madison, is widely considered the father of the Constitution.

madison was elected president of the united states in eighteen o eight he served for two terms but many americans remember madison more for the work he did to strengthen the national government before he served as president

madison was one of the writers of the state constitution in his home state of virginia in seventeen seventy six later he proposed a more structured national government after the revolutionary war that conflict resulted in the american colonists separating from britain

madison imagined a three-part american government one with an executive a legislature and an independent supreme court his ideas became the basis for the u s constitution tom howard has served as an educator at madison's home in southern virginia

he said madison did not receive as much attention as some of america's other founding members he's not somehow historically as well known as other founding statesmen howard said

but he's certainly every bit as important we are not even sure there would be a constitution had it not been for james madison he added howard noted how james madison used his own library to prepare for the nation's constitutional convention

he went up there and studied for months and that's having just a light breakfast and then studying throughout the entire day before he finally took a break to rest up to go back at it the next day historians say madison took very detailed notes during the constitutional convention in philadelphia pennsylvania

he sat behind george washington taking notes and trying to determine how the debates were going in discussions that he could prepare for the next day and how he would influence that madison understood his notes were important not only for him

he knew they would also be interesting for historians and other people who wanted to know what happened at the meeting he included information on speeches and ideas expressed by other delegates

after a new constitution was created at the convention the legislatures of each state had to ratify or vote to approve the document madison and other supporters of the proposed government eventually succeeded in persuading the states to ratify the constitution

he was then elected to the house of representatives in the first congress under the new government but it was his actions in support of a strong national government and federal laws that earned madison a place in history as father of the constitution brian

A Lithuanian rower attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean has been rescued by an Australian warship after hitting stormy waters off the coast of Queensland State. Royal Australian Navy officer Justin Jones said in a statement that Orimas Moscos was brought aboard the warship on March 3rd.

The 44-year-old adventurer began his trip alone in October from San Diego, California. He made it to within 740 kilometers of Australia's mainland before running into a tropical cyclone. Australia's Maritime Safety Authority organized the rescue. It said the enclosed boat that Moskos traveled in was mostly destroyed by the powerful waters.

he was only able to recover a few personal belongings from the boat moskos was stranded for three days in the coral sea east of queensland's coastal city of mackay his goal was to make it from california to the australian state's capital brisbane the whole distance is about twelve thousand kilometers

the rower turned on an emergency signal while experiencing stormy seas fueled by eighty kilometer per hour winds caused by tropical storm alfred that led to rescuers establishing radio contact with moscos moscos reported he was fatigued the team said navy officials said the warship was taking moscos to sydney in new south wales

rowers traveling by themselves have crossed the pacific ocean non-stop in the past moskos was attempting to become one of the few to cross the sea alone and without stopping peter bird of britain became the first to do so in nineteen eighty three he rowed from san francisco and was pulled behind another boat for the last forty-eight kilometers to the australian mainland

even though he did not complete the whole trip alone he is considered to have rode close enough to australia to have made the crossing fellow british citizen john beadon rode from san francisco to the queensland city of cairns in twenty fifteen he is considered by some to have made the first successful crossing australian michelle lee became the first woman to successfully make the crossing in twenty twenty three

she rode from the mexican coastal city of encinada to port douglas in queensland another australian tom robinson attempted to become the youngest to row across the pacific in twenty twenty two he was twenty-four years old at the time during his trip robinson took a rest in the cook islands

He set out from Peru and spent 265 days at sea before he was rescued off the southwestern Pacific nation of Vanuatu in 2023. I'm Jill Robbins. Suppose you are listening to a program in English and hear the word borrow. You have heard this word many times, but forget its meaning.

So, you look up the equivalent word in your own language. Ah, yes, now you remember. A few days later, you see the word again, but again cannot remember its meaning. Why? It is easy to blame yourself or think, "I have a terrible memory," but your memory is not the problem.

The problem is that translating a word to its equivalent word in your language is not an effective way to learn vocabulary. This is because it does not create strong connections in the brain, something critical for remembering information.

To really learn words, you have to bring attention to them and connect them with mental images or your existing knowledge. This helps your brain recall words quickly and easily when you need them. On today's Education Tips, we will discuss three methods that use images to retain vocabulary. First, let's discuss the most straightforward method,

using pictures as visual aids. Danielle Zelen is an English teacher and teacher trainer. She has taught for nearly 25 years, including in South Africa, Latvia, and Mauritius, her homeland. Zelen says visual aids are important for language learners because humans think in images.

When we hear a sentence, somebody's talking to us, we see the pictures. We don't see the words, we don't see the sentence in our brain. Like yesterday I went to the beach, if I tell you that you will see me on the beach. You will not see the sentence in written form. She uses pictures or images with her beginning students and some of her mid-level students.

Cristiane Galvão has used pictures to teach vocabulary to students of every level, from grade school to the university level. Galvão, who is based in California, has taught English for 20 years, including in the United States and Brazil.

She suggests learners make visual dictionaries with pictures from the internet, for example. This would involve writing an English word next to its image. Before you make the dictionary, think about your goals, she says.

If the goal is to reinforce what you already learned about, put the words in alphabetical order and organize them into related groups. But if the goal is to write a sentence using each new word, then you probably do not need to put the words into groups. Next, let's talk about mnemonics.

These are mental tools you can use to recall information better. Most mnemonics tools involve creating mental imagery to trigger your memory. Some of you have already done this without realizing there was a name for it. One great mnemonics tool is keywords.

This involves making a mental image that ties two similar sounding words together. Take the word bald as an example. It means having little or no hair. The word ball sounds like bald and can help us remember the target word. In your mind, make a mental picture of a ball with a face on it.

Then picture it with no hair on top, maybe a little on the sides. Keep this image in your mind for maybe 15 seconds. The next time you try to recall "bald" it will be easier because of the keyword and connected imagery. Alex Mullen is a biomedical engineer and one of the world's top memory competitors.

In 2016, he was the USA Memory Champion. Mullen calls the mnemonics keywords tool "the art of memory" because your mind makes a kind of picture stories. In his video on mnemonics keywords, he talks about remembering the target word "chorale" by joining its imagery with an image of a sea coral.

He draws a group of stick figures trapped or corralled in a coral. In real life, you would probably make a mental image rather than a drawing. But Mullen's drawing demonstrates the idea of connecting a mental image of the target word with its keyword. One final method for today is word maps, also known as semantic maps or word webs.

In a word map, you write a central word or idea in the middle and connect it with lines to related words. This helps to build mental associations between related ideas. Danielle Zelen gives the example of the word "sharp." If you center that word, you can connect it to words of things that are sharp, such as "knife," "paper," and "scissors."

Zelen says words are much easier to remember when they have meaning in your own life. For instance, one of her French students has an English-speaking dentist, so she learned words that she needed for her recent dental visit. Christiane Galvault also says that context is important.

She uses word maps in the classroom only after she has already discussed a subject and shown pictures. This makes the words meaningful before putting them into map form. Otherwise, she says, you are just reading and memorizing words, which is a bad idea.

Vocabulary is a big part of language learning. So the more meaningful it is, the easier it is for the student to absorb. Galvão says not every student will learn through a word map, but the maps can help you visualize and create a method that works for you. I'm Alice Bryant. Hello, my name is Ana Mateo.

My name is Andrew Smith. And I'm Faith Perlow. You're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series, Let's Learn English. The series shows Ana Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C.,

In Lesson 44 of the series, Anna has a conflict when she goes to buy food at the grocery store. But her conflict is not with another person. Instead, it is with herself. Anna is fighting with herself? In a way, she is. How is that? Problem is, Anna wants two things at the same time. And the two things don't really go together.

Hmm. Now I'm curious. Let's listen to find out more about these two things and Anna's inner conflict. Hi there, Ashley. Anna, hi. Where are you going? What was that? I'm hungry.

When I'm hungry, I only want to eat junk food. But I know I should eat healthy food. So I fight with myself. One side says, you should eat healthy food. The other side says, but I want to eat junk food. Well, Anna, go to the giant supermarket. You should be able to find all kinds of food there for all of you. Good idea, Ashley. See you later. Bye, Anna. Ah, yes.

The conflict between junk food and healthy food. I think this is something many people can relate to in modern life, but faith. I suppose we should explain a bit about this word junk and what exactly we mean by junk food. I think our listeners can understand that junk food is not healthy food.

In fact, it's pretty much the opposite of healthy food, in general anyway. When we use the noun junk, that means things are not valuable or things of bad quality, the kinds of things that we really don't want. So junk food is basically food that we don't want? Not exactly. The problem is junk food sometimes tastes pretty good.

It can be sweet and salty and have fat, things that make us want to eat it. Things like salty chips with flavors that are made by mixing together chemicals. Or food with lots of fat and sugar, like some cakes or cookies. I think this episode of Let's Learn English is going to make me hungry. So when I think about junk food, it seems we don't want it.

But at the same time, we do want it, and that creates a conflict. Let's listen to more of Lesson 44 and see how Anna deals with her conflict. Wow, this supermarket is huge. Look at all of these fruits and vegetables. I should eat more vegetables. Good idea, Anna. You must eat more vegetables. Like...

Celery! Celery? Do you know what the web says about celery? No, what? Celery is 95% water, 100% not ice cream! I love the web! Anna, you mustn't eat junk food. Junk food will kill- You are being silly! No, you are! No, you are. Will you two please be nice to each other?

It is important to eat healthy foods, but a little junk food will not kill me. Ice cream. Ice cream does sound good. Okay, we are in the frozen food aisle. Mmm, ice cream. Mmm, frozen peas. Nobody says, "Mmm, frozen peas." They say, "Mmm, ice cream."

We should explain to our listeners what is going on here. In the Lesson 44 video, Anna has two small imaginary people talking to her. And there's one of them on each of her shoulders. One of them, who wants junk food, looks like a devil or evil spirit.

and the other looks like an angel or good spirit. In Western culture, we use this picture of an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other to represent two different kinds of thoughts: those that make us want to do good things and those that make us want to do bad things, or sometimes just two different things.

I'm Faith Perlow, and you're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. In Lesson 44, the healthy food angel talks about what Anna shouldn't eat. But notice how she says it in this sentence. Anna, you mustn't eat junk food. "Mustn't" is the contraction of the two words "must not."

It's a stronger and more formal sounding way of saying that you should not do something. So Faith, I have to ask you, do you ever have an internal conflict or a fight with yourself over what you should eat? I have, Andrew. I love ice cream and I always keep a pint of it in my freezer.

I don't eat it every day, but sometimes when I have a hard day, I reach for it. What about you, Andrew? You know, I like ice cream too, and that sounds like something that I could also do a lot.

I tend to eat pretty healthy food, but at night before I go to bed, I sometimes want something sweet or filling, like a piece of cake or bread or cookies or ice cream. So sometimes I have a little, not a fight, but a discussion with myself over whether or not I should eat them.

Our internal dialogue or what we say to ourselves can be interesting or even funny. But you know, I think it is okay to enjoy a guilty pleasure from time to time. I agree. It's hard to be strict all the time. And I think that's a great expression, a guilty pleasure. Can you explain it for our listeners? So a pleasure is something you like.

But guilty is the feeling you get, or you should get if you are a good person, and you've done something wrong. But a guilty pleasure is not something that is seriously wrong. It's just a little thing you like to do, something that's not harmful. But if you did it a lot, then it might be bad for you.

Right. So if I ate cookies every single night, that would not be good. But if I eat them only from time to time, it's not really harmful. So it's just a guilty pleasure. What about you, Faith? Do you have any guilty pleasures? I do. I love eating popcorn. I love eating popcorn so much that I make it myself.

So, I have popcorn kernels around all the time, just waiting to be popped. Popcorn isn't necessarily bad. It is quite healthy for snacking. But my problem is the amount I eat. I can eat a lot of it. So, Andrew, the devil and the angel keep fighting with each other. In the Lesson 44 video, how do you think Anna can make them stop? I'm not sure she can make them stop.

but she can stop hearing them. Let's listen to the end of the video. Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! And tired of the both of you! I know what you two need! What are you doing? Down! You two need to cool off. I am going to buy my healthy food and my junk food. Until next time. When someone is angry or arguing, we say they are hot and that they need to cool off.

Anna is sick and tired of all the fighting, so she puts the devil and the angel in a cold container in the store. Well, that should cool them off. And we'll have more to say about the expression sick and tired in another lesson of the day. But for now, listeners, do you have any guilty pleasures?

Write to us at learningenglish at voanews.com and let us know. And remember that you can find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. And thanks for listening to the Learning English Podcast. I'm Faith Perlow. And I'm Andrew Smith.

And that's our show for today. But join us again tomorrow to keep learning English on The Voice of America. I'm Katie Weaver. And I'm...