A weekly podcast for intermediate to advanced speakers of English. Learn the perfect words and phrases to express yourself in any situation, from disastrous job interviews to zombie attacks.

ENGLISH IN A TEACUP

Learn ESL idioms, phrasal verbs and more with this short story about Benny, who is desperate to start his career in organised crime!

The Mr Vocab Podcast

Benny Joins The Mafia

From cheap student dinners to quick lunches and easy camping meals, people around the world love instant noodles.

According to the World Instant Noodle Association, the world ate more than 118 billion servings of instant noodles in 2021.

While they are easy to make, instant noodles can sometimes be a bit boring — but they don't have to be! So if you'd like your instant noodles to be a little tastier, here are some easy changes you can make:

Add flavor
Fresh ginger, green onions and garlic are found in many Asian dishes, and adding them to your instant noodles is an easy way to improve the taste.

Then, try adding extra sauces, like soy sauce, chili paste, oyster sauce, sesame oil or gochujang paste, among others. You could also try mixing a few of them together.

Add vegetables and eggs
Adding vegetables and eggs to your noodles will not only make them taste better — they'll also increase the nutrients in the dish.

Put an egg into the boiling water that your noodles are cooking in for an easy poached egg. You can also throw in some vegetables — like mushrooms, carrots or spinach — or cook them on their own and add them to your noodles afterward.

Add coconut milk
Add coconut milk to the noodle water to make a sweeter, creamier soup. You could then add some vegetables, meat or fish, and some lime and you'll end up with a dish that's similar to a Malaysian laksa — and just as tasty!

Practice Listening, Reading & Comprehension

Cooking Skills: How to Make Instant Noodles Tastier

Let´s talk about a very traditional and popular drink from the South of Brazil.

Keep Speaking Portuguese

Um conversa sobre o Chimarrão

aprendiendo con Carolina

¡Hola querido aprendiz extranjero, hoy te traigo un episodio que te ayudará a desarrollar tu compresión auditiva y expresión escrita. Si escuchas este audio hasta el final, encontrarás un ejercicio en el cual responderás unas preguntas usando tu cuaderno de apuntes, según la historia de María.

Aprendiendo a lo Smart 

LA SEMANA MÁS SIGNIFICATIVA 

Ancient Egyptians loved and respected cats, believing they brought good luck.

Some families even dressed their cats in jewelry, and mummified them after death. They would mourn the death of their cat by shaving off their eyebrows, and continue to mourn until their eyebrows grew back.

Inspired by this ancient love for cats, the Shanghai Museum in China held a special event called Meowseum Nights.

Held 10 times during last summer and fall, the event invited 200 cats and 2,000 people to explore the exhibition On Top of the Pyramid: The Civilization of Ancient Egypt.

Some of the artifacts shown in the exhibition came from a temple discovered years ago in Egypt. The temple was for Bastet, an Egyptian goddess who could change into a cat. This gave the Shanghai Museum another reason to use cats as the theme for their event.

Museum director Chu Xiaobo said that the event was created to bring cat lovers to the museum, as in Shanghai, where there are over a million pet cats, cat-friendly public spaces are rare.

"There are dog parks, dog brunches, but not that much for cat parents to do with their pets," Wen Liuli, a visitor to the exhibition, told The Art Newspaper.

The museum took measures to keep all visitors and artifacts safe. Cats had to stay in strollers or bags, but there were certain areas where people could take their cats out for photos, such as in front of a statue of Bastet. All the other artifacts were kept behind glass.

The museum also had vets, doctors, and even an ambulance on-site, and over 80 animal welfare workers attended each night to help and give advice.

While the museum doesn't plan to hold another Meowseum Night, Chu hopes it might inspire other museums to try similar ideas.

"Cat people now have a special affection for the Shanghai Museum," he said.




Cats Take a Tour of Ancient Egypt at Chinese Museum

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pCAsVMytGg2IJtVN9SomHM6m-H-T2h0c/view?usp=drivesdk

Teacher Joseph's Podcast

The Perfect Holiday (with transcript)

The phrase to lash out and some news about the Mayor of London and the metro system. 
Transcript: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fBz2Rr3Z9fjX--cHdPNZTlo63mOnJm1G/view?usp=drivesdk