Don't Make This Mistake Anymore + How Innovative Ideas Arise

Episode Transcript

I started teaching again and I noticed a common mistake that people make regardless of level. I think it's because it feels like it's just a minor detail, but minor or not, I don't want you to make this mistake anymore. + We read a short article about an interesting topic that happens to be packed full of useful vocabulary, so get ready to level up.

Transcript

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On today's episode, we're doing two things. We are debuting or inaugurating a new section that I think will be really useful for everyone. And we're also going to read a short article together about how innovative ideas arise, which I thought was a good read. This is an article I read a few weeks ago or a few weeks back that had some great vocabulary as well as interesting insights. So I thought we could read through it together. As always, we'll stop along the way to talk about certain words, phrases, or expressions. So be ready to write down anything you like or that you think you would use in your life. So let's do this. You are listening to episode 46 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. And I think in part it's because of these group sessions I've been doing recently. I hadn't been actually teaching for a while, and now that I'm back to teaching, I realize how much I missed it. It's a great feeling. Those of you who have taught, que han enseñado, those of you who have taught know the feeling I'm talking about. It's really fulfilling to see people improve and feel more comfortable and kind of unlock their potential as cliche as it sounds. Most people struggle with the same thing regardless of level, and that's feeling like they're not coming across as themselves in English. You want to feel like you're doing yourself justice, que te estás haciendo justicia, that you're doing yourself justice in a second language. So helping someone overcome that fear or that worry is awesome. I feel like a lot of people have a negative relationship with the language because they feel like it's been holding them back for a while, professionally or socially, or both. So it's been nice to kind of put that worry to rest by helping them be on their way. So that's the main thing from these sessions that has been improving my life. However, there's also another aspect of this whole back to teaching thing that I didn't foresee, que no brevi, that I didn't foresee. Foresee is grito F-O-R-E-S-E-E. So what I didn't foresee is how useful these sessions have been for me to pinpoint the things that are giving people trouble. To pinpoint escrito P-I-N-P-O-I-N-T, to pinpoint means to find or identify with great accuracy or precision. So I've been able to pinpoint things that tend to be tricky for people who are trying to improve their English. So what I thought to do from now on, a partir de ahora, from now on, is to have a short section where I address or talk about one of these things that I've picked up on or that I've noticed from these group sessions. So let's start doing that right now. Let's inaugurate this section in today's episode. So the other day, a student was having trouble with word order. Word order, specifically with switching from questions to statements. What's interesting about this is that this is an issue that seems kind of basic on the surface. On the surface, it's a mistake that you wouldn't maybe expect a solid intermediate speaker to make, let alone an advanced speaker, yet it comes up over and over again almost regardless of level, like I said. Here's what I'm talking about. Let's take a basic question like what does he do? A que se le dica, what does he do? Now, if we take that question and turn it into a statement, so I want to know what he does, the structure changes, right? We've gone from question, what does he do, to statement, I want to know what he does. Because we are no longer asking the question directly, and instead we are embedding that question or that information request inside of a statement, the word order goes back to normal, subject and verb, because it's no longer a question. So instead of what does he do, we say what he does. So what we don't want to say is I want to know what does he do. That's incorrect because it maintains the question structure when it should switch to the statement structure. Of course, the correct version is I want to know what he does. Another example that's really common would be what time is it? which turns into I want to know what time it is, and not I want to know what time is it. I hear all sorts of people make this mistake, and oftentimes they're not even aware of it. I think it's because it's just a small difference in terms of sounds, it is versus is it. Obviously, this happens with Spanish speakers a lot because in Spanish we don't need to change the order of the words to ask a question, just the tone or the intonation. So we get a bit lazy and kind of apply that logic to English. So make sure you're getting the word order right when you change from direct questions to statements. Okay, I hope that's clear. If you pay attention to this and if you're around people who speak English or use English as a second language, I'm sure you'll hear this mistake from time to time. But I don't want you to make it anymore. Alright, let's shift gears and read about how innovative ideas arise. Ojo a esa pronunciación the innovative. There are some good new vocabulary words in this article, so if you hear any words or expressions that you think would be useful, write them down and write them down in context, please, with an example or two. Write something down that you would actually say. Okay, let's read it. This article was written by James Clear, and I got it from his website, JamesClear.com, which has a bunch of interesting reads. This piece is called Don't Start From Scratch: How innovative ideas arise. From scratch means business ethical, like making a meal from scratch. So don't start from scratch. In 2010, Thomas Thwaites decided he wanted to build a toaster from scratch. He walked into a shop, purchased the cheapest toaster he could find, and promptly went home and broke it down piece by piece. Promptly means rapidamente o de immediato. He promptly went home and broke it down piece by piece. Thwaites had assumed the toaster would be a relatively simple machine. By the time he was finished deconstructing it, however, there were more than 400 components laid out on his floor. The toaster contained over 100 different materials, with three of the primary ones being plastic, nickel, and steel. Sierra está laid out, spelled L-A-I-D-O-U-T. It is displayed in an organized way, so more than 400 components laid out on his floor. He decided to create the steel components first. After discovering that iron ore was required to make steel, Thwaites called up an iron mine in his region and asked if they would let him use some for the project. Surprisingly, they agreed. This next part is called the Toaster Project. The victory was short-lived. The victory was short-lived. When it came time to create the plastic case for his toaster, Thwaites realized he would need crude oil to make the plastic. Let's keep going. To create the nickel components, for example, he had to resort to, to lo que recurrir, he had to resort to melting old coins. He would later say, I realized that if you started absolutely from scratch, you could easily spend your life making a toaster. The next part is, don't start from scratch. Starting from scratch is usually a bad idea. Too often we assume innovative ideas and meaningful changes require a blank slate, una hoja en blanco o una tabula raza, a blank slate. When business projects fail, we say things like, let's go back to the drawing board. When we consider the habits we would like to change, we think, I just need a fresh start. However, creative progress is rarely the result of throwing out all previous ideas and innovations and completely reimagining the world. To go back to the drawing board. The context was when business projects fail, we say things like, let's go back to the drawing board. So this expression means to start over from zero, from square one, or to return to the initial stages of ideation, let's say. So replandearse todo, to go back to the drawing board. Seguimos. It says, consider an example from nature. Some experts believe the feathers of birds evolved from reptilian scales, escamas, from reptilian scales. Through the forces of evolution, scales gradually became small feathers which were used for warmth and insulation at first. Eventually, these small fluffs, pelusilla, these small fluffs developed into larger feathers capable of flight. There wasn't a magical moment when the animal kingdom said, let's start from scratch and create an animal that can fly. The development of flying birds was a gradual process of iterating and expanding upon ideas that already worked. Ojo que con expand, we use the preposition upon, to expand upon something. Again, the development of flying birds was a gradual process of iterating and expanding upon ideas that already worked. Y otra cosa, the d in gradual isn't really a d sound. It's a j sound. It's more like the j sound in project. So don't say gradual, say gradual instead. The process of human flight followed a similar path. We typically credit Orville and Wilbur Wright as the inventors of modern flight. However, we seldom discussed the aviation pioneers who preceded them, like Otto Lillenthal, Samuel Langley, and Octave Chanute or Chanute. The Wright brothers learned from and built upon, I start upon otra vez, the Wright brothers learned from and built upon the work of these people during their quest to create the world's first flying machine. There was a great word there. Seldom, seldom spelled S-E-L-D-O-M, means rarely, rara vez. The sentence was, however, we seldom discuss the aviation pioneers who preceded them. Rara vez hablamos de, we seldom discuss. Seguimos. The most creative innovations are often new combinations of old ideas. Innovative thinkers don't create, they connect. Furthermore, the most effective way to make progress is usually by making 1% improvements to what already works, rather than breaking down the whole system and starting over. And this last part is called Iterate, Don't Originate. The Toaster Project is an example of how we often fail to notice the complexity of our modern world. When you buy a toaster, you don't think about everything that has to happen before it appears in the store. You aren't aware of the iron being carved out of the mountain or the oil being drawn up from the earth. To draw up, in this case, means to bring up out of, okay, oil being drawn up from the earth. We are mostly blind to the remarkable interconnectedness of things. Oh, Josapalabra. We are often blind to the remarkable interconnectedness of things. This is important to understand because in a complex world, it is hard to see which forces are working for you as well as which forces are working against you. Similar to buying a toaster, we tend to focus on the final product and fail to recognize the many processes leading up to it. When you are dealing with a complex problem, it is usually better to build upon what already works. Any idea that is currently working has passed a lot of tests. Old ideas are a secret weapon because they have already managed to survive in a complex world. Iterate, don't originate. When what things really need is maybe just a tweak or a small change, or maybe just a shift in perspective to unlock that next level. I have to remind myself that the progress comes faster when you build upon something instead of resetting everything out of frustration or impatience. Alright, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. I hope you got something from it. I hope you enjoyed it. And if you did, share this episode with someone who you think would also enjoy it. Let's keep this thing going. Did you like the new section, by the way? Let me know. If you think it's a good idea to bring things to the show that real people are struggling with, because it gives us a chance to address them and clear them up here. Because if one person is finding something a bit tricky or a bit difficult or they're stuck on something, there are bound to be more people who are in the same boat. Okay, that's it from me. Follow the show on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you listen, and don't hesitate to reach out with comments, questions, topic suggestions, or just to say, hey. All right, have a good week later.