 Everyone, as people sort of come into this live, we're gonna be making sure that we can have YouTube open and Facebook open so that we can see everyone's comments. Yeah, Adam, how have you been? I have been well. I've been enjoying the warmer weather. I have my short sleeve shirts on and I've been getting outside a lot and it has been a good change of season here in Michigan where we live. I'm sure you also have appreciated that. Yes, it's the sun is out and you can hear, I don't know if you can hear them now, but there are birds singing outside and yeah, it's just so much warmer. Everything just seems so much brighter like when it's coming to life after winter and so yeah, I have really been appreciating that. I think it does something really great for my mood. Oh yes, my attitude is much better. Yes. We've got a lot of people saying hello. We wanna make sure we say hi to all of you. Yes, give a shout out. Yeah, if we miss you, we apologize, but Abdullah says hello. Hello, Abdullah, Isabella, Marie, hello. Robon, DeVica. Adam, I have a question though. Are we on YouTube? Yep. Oh, okay. I haven't been able to see anyone's comments on YouTube. So you continue shouting out. I am seeing both Facebook and YouTube comments appearing. Wow, you're lucky. I will let you know if we have any questions. We say hello to Keltum, to Yam, Nezrudin, Tatiana. Wow, we do have a lot. Hi everyone. Some of you, I'm starting to recognize your avatars and I can tell you've been on our live events before. Oh, that's so great. I think you've been, you've visited with us before. So we were talking and we will, please put your questions in the chat. We'll try to answer them. Yes. We always love to also hear where you're from. So we- Sorry, Adam. That's fine. Yam asks, where are you from? Adam and Liz, we are from the United States and we live in the state of Michigan, which is- Yes. You can find on a map because there's lots of lakes. We call them the Great Lakes. We don't, I mean, that's what their names are. And Adam, the great thing about Michigan, I don't know which side I'm on or if this is gonna be right, but you can always, if you're in Michigan, show a map of where you live. Yeah. Because Michigan is shaped like a hand. And so we live about right here in Michigan. That's fair. Which is a very dorky thing to say, but you know, that's how we go. Yeah. Regheb says, I am Syrian watching from Turkey. Hello, Regheb. Again, as always, we apologize for- We strive to say your names correctly and we fail, but we ask for forgiveness. Oh, we have best regards from Serbia, from Franco, Jesus says, hi. Mona Lisa says, hi. Oh, and we have Sue Miat from Myanmar, hi from Hungary, hi from Bulgaria, from Mexico City, from Sri Lanka. I love it. Yeah. So Nessa Radine, I think I'm saying name correctly, asks Liz and Adam, why don't you put pictures on your videos? Oh, that is a good question. And we do have people who ask for that quite often. Well, maybe not quite often, but sometimes. For one, I think sometimes it's kind of, it's distracting. People wanna follow along with the words. And then another thing is it takes a lot more work to put in pictures, and you have to find pictures that are not owned by anyone or you have to pay for pictures. So that is more cost for us. And as a program that is free, yeah, we don't wanna pass on that cost. Well, and I will say that if you've been watching our programs on just on YouTube, yes, you have not seen pictures. However, if you go to our website and you follow along and listen on the website, you can follow along with the script, but also there are pictures on there. And that's really helpful on certain programs where we're talking about a person or a specific place. And sometimes you can see pictures of that. Yeah. Adam, I just realized we never played our intro. Oh. Da-da-da-da, da-da-da, da-da-da. That's true, is it too late? Should we play it now? No, I just did it. Yeah, there you go. We need to redo our intro, I think. Next time we're able to be together, we have a lot of people watching. You still can't see YouTube comments, so I'm still... I can, yes. Oh, you can now. I can now. That's how I knew where everyone was. Yes, we have people from all over. We've got a high from Sri Lanka, from Devika, high from Korea, we have people from the Netherlands. Yeah, so Liz, I have to interrupt these wonderful, wonderful comments because I just noticed, I think you're wearing a Jurassic Park t-shirt and I have to tell you, that is, if I'm correct in that... Yeah. I have, when that movie came out, I saw that movie in the theater seven times. I was young. Really? Yup. The first one? The first one, I went seven times because it was a very... Adam, you were doing like, what, seven years old? No. 14? I could not drive, but I could ride my bike. Oh, okay. To the movie. Oh, that's a lot of times. Anyway, yes, you are right. It is, I don't know, can you see it here? Yup. Yup. It is a Jurassic Park t-shirt. It's actually a Jurassic World shirt. Okay. Which, okay, so I will say, I am a huge fan of Jurassic Park. That original movie, like the first one, is one of my absolute favorite movies of all time. I would watch that movie all the time. There are a lot of lines from that movie that get quoted in my own life. Yes. Yes. Well, the one that sometimes I quote when maybe I'm driving around a corner or something, I'll go, hang on to your butts. Yup. I knew where you were going with that. Like, I knew the exact line. Or, he left us, but that's not what I'm gonna do. Exactly. I love that line. There's so many. Life finds a way. Yes, life finds a way. Oh, now I'm blushing, because I'm so embarrassed with what this movie. But, about this shirt, I will say, I saw it and I was like, I love that shirt. I'm gonna buy it. I love Jurassic Park. And then I realized, just this morning, as I was putting it on for the first time, that it says Jurassic World, not Jurassic Park. Have you seen those movies? The... I have not. I haven't either. It's not the same yet. See, this is the thing. I feel like, and I love this, Isabella Marie on YouTube says, absolutely a fan to Jurassic Park. I love it. Yeah, and Sumiat says, what a wonderful t-shirt. Yes, I really do love this movie. But, I have not seen them, because sometimes I feel like maybe a redo of a movie is not as good. I don't think they're, well, they are, they're not like a redo. Right, it's not a redo. It's a continuation of the story. I've heard good things about them. And I do like Chris Pratt. Yeah, that's true. And, what's her name? Ron Howard's daughter. I don't know. She's got red hair. She looks just like Ron Howard. Bryce Dallas Howard? Is that her daughter? Yes! Bryce Dallas Howard. See, this is on my trivia brain. I don't know who the, I didn't know that was Ron Howard's daughter, but I just knew that was a Howard. It is, yeah. She looks just like him. Anyway, so yes, this shirt, I love Jurassic Park. So there, there's something about me. And something about you. Oh, that's what Dean says. Please speak slowly. We get excited, and then we talk faster. And Edgar agrees that I love Jurassic Park. It's an amazing movie. I love dinosaurs. Yeah, yeah. You know, but I did wanna say something about speaking more slowly. You know, we have worked this past year or so to really make, or two years actually, time passes so fast. Yeah. To make our program a sort of, what would you say? Like to cover everyone? And to really get journey? Yeah, like a different, the way that different people need different foods and different, like different foods, there are different levels, I guess. Right. So you can come into spotlight English at like a classic, our classic level, our basic level, and you know, work with those programs. And then after that, we have some advanced programs that you can listen to. Maybe you listen to like a program and you think, oh, this is too slow for me. You can go to the advanced program. And if you have the advanced program and that is too slow for you or too simple, then you can go to our conversation about that same program. So, but Nasreddin, I am really proud of you for sticking with this, even though it's a little fast. So, I mean, great job hanging in there and just, yeah, even, I like to think of it as just kind of like sitting in the language, like absorbing it. Yeah. Well, speaking of learning language, Fatima Atef asks a very interesting question. Says, what's better, study English with myself or with the university? Ooh. That's a good question. Yeah, what do you think, Adam? I think finding a group of people to learn English with is very helpful. Whether in a university setting, you're gonna get specific rules and lessons that tell you how English is supposed to be spoken. If you, I think spotlight is more along the lines of this is how people actually speak. And in this conversation, we're definitely, we're using slang, we're using idioms, we're interrupting each other. So, I would say that there's, I don't know if one's better than the other. You can definitely learn English without a university degree. Yeah. For my own experience, maybe like 10 years ago, I really wanted to start studying Spanish. So, I know that for myself, sometimes I have a hard time sitting down, maybe say like every night or every other night and studying on my own for an hour or two. So, what I decided is that I would take a class at a local community college and I would learn some basic Spanish that way. And I think for me, it was really good. I took two years actually of basic Spanish. So, vocabulary, some basic sentence structure and verb formation and stuff like that. And, but ever since then, now I just try to like practice on my own just a little bit through, sometimes listening to things in Spanish or I've actually visited Spain and I practiced my Spanish there. So, I think if you can, it's nice to get a base of the grammar in sort of an educational setting. But really keeping and learning a language is so much about practice and consistency. So, English movies says if I'm not in any college, what to do, that is a good question. I think there are sites on the internet that can give some of that basic grammar. A teaching program. We don't teach people English. Of course, you know, Adam. But we are really trying to help people practice in a simple way with a wide variety of subjects. Yeah, and I think one of the... So, that's my two cents. One of the problems that we often think about and we haven't solved yet is we have different levels but we don't have a way for you to practice speaking to us. So, we always are struggling with that because it is an important part of learning. You have to step out and you have to try it, right? So, maybe we'll think about, we could, I'm just, we could maybe you try to voice a spotlight program. Take your favorite spotlight paragraph and we'll give you an assignment and you have to voice this paragraph because I think you could listen to us do it and then you could repeat it back and then you could post it on your social media and tag us in it. That would be a lot of fun. I just got a great idea. Okay. So, you know how we have this program Life in a Day which was about people who were all over the world, people sent in just short video clips of their day and then some filmmakers put it together to show what everybody was doing. What day was that? Was it like last May? Oh. Anyway, whatever day it was. July, June. I don't remember. We should have listeners send in like two sentences of a spotlight program and we put together. Oh, that is a good idea. Everyone is doing a spotlight program from all over the world. Yes, if we made a script, spotlight by spotlight. That would be really cool. Yeah, spotlight around the world. Excuse me. Yeah, that's really, that was a good idea. Oh, Isabella says, I was in adult school learning English, but with COVID it's finished and that was very sad for her. Oh, yeah, you know, that COVID. I know, it's not going away real soon, is it? Yeah. Oh, man. Well, we are full of good ideas. You guys are, let me see if there's any questions that we've missed so far. Yeah, if you have questions, please, please ask. We are happy to answer those questions. Liz, either, and I honestly don't know, we should have talked about this before we recorded. The new memberships, is that coming soon or is that available now? It is coming soon. So we had a few, well, you know, there's an English expression about putting out fires. So when there's something like sort of that happens, that's very bad that you have to take care of right away, you've got to put out those fires. So last week, I was putting out some fires, but we should have that membership ready for this week or next. And so that way, if you would like to support Spotlight English or if you would just like a little bit extra of what we offer, you can sign up for a membership and we have different levels, different tiers that you can support at and at each level. We have a few extra things for you. So whether you can hear things early or just get other resources or things like that. Yeah, so it'll be coming soon probably in the next, by the time we have a next Spotlight Live. Or Adam, I also wanted to mention the other thing that I was supposed to set up while I was fighting fires is YouTube, sorry, not YouTube, is the chat on YouTube where you can, why do I always forget the name of this program? You can pay a small amount of money and then have your chat appear at the top so that we definitely see your question. So I am actually looking at our chat right now and Nuri has an important question that they want answered. So for example, if they really wanted to make sure we saw it, they could pay a little amount of money and get it at the top of the chat, but I will answer that question right now. And it is, could you please pronounce sustainable? Sustainable. Sustainable. Let's all say it, if you're watching this, let's all say it together. Yeah. Everybody now. Sustainable. Yeah. Unless you're watching like secretively at work. Exactly. Then maybe just whisper it. Even there, you just pretend to pick up your phone, just take your phone and be like, sustainable. That's all you gotta do. Practice your English and speak it. Anyway, Nuri, I hope that helped you. Umesh says hello to both of us. Hello. Hello. Oh, Umesh says I'm a beginner. So great, thanks for joining us. I'm really glad that you could make it. Yeah, so we've gotten a lot of people welcome to those of you who are just joining us. We're super happy you're here on your English journey, wherever you are. Again, post where you're from. We love to know where around the world you're watching. People are from all over the world. You know, the other thing I wanted to talk about, Adam, is I know we have mentioned this before, but our conversation programs, which I think, first of all, are super fun to make, because for me, at least, sometimes, you know, when I'm in my office and I'm making a program or putting it onto our website, I think this is a really interesting program and I wish that I had someone to talk to about it. And Adam, there you are. So I love it because every week, I get to talk to you about something interesting and we get to share that conversation. And so we have had a lot of people comment that it's super helpful for them to hear a conversation. Some people have joined in to our conversation by using the comments below, which is, of course, also really good for your writing English practice. And I have really enjoyed making those conversations. Yeah. So I think it's something you should check out. If you haven't, if you've just stumbled across this live and you haven't either gone back into our playlists, make sure to subscribe and click the bell to get notified because you don't wanna miss, they usually correspond. Early in the week, you'll get the program. Later in the week, you'll get the conversation about that program. So you can listen to the program, learn about the program, think about the subject, and then here Liz and I talk further about what we're talking about there. And you know, another way to not miss anything is to sign up for our newsletter that comes every week. And then in that newsletter, we have just gathered all the things that go together and that all you have to do is open the newsletter and it's all right there. Yeah. So we have been chatting for about 20 minutes now, which is usually what we like to keep these, but I wanna make sure we've covered all the things we need to talk about. Yes, and I wanted to shout out Huang, who says hi from Vietnam, and Sunil, who says hi from India. Yes, hello to all of you. We hope you are doing well, staying safe, being healthy. Oh, and we've got Nasreddin is from Algeria. Ah, we are a global- Adam, do you know Algeria, she asks? I have never been to Algeria. No, but I bet it's fascinating. Yeah. I have gotten a little bit of having not traveled. I am getting that sense of like, I'm about ready to go somewhere again and travel somewhere. Yes. Yeah, I agree. This might have been the longest I have been without traveling. Yeah. So, and I do love to travel. Yeah, let us know in the comments where you would travel if you could travel somewhere. Do you have a- Yes. I would love to hear your ideas. Dream destination? Yeah. Yeah, people, yeah. Oh man. You're letting us know people are from Saudi Arabia. We should really have like a man. I would like to go to Saudi Arabia. I think that would be a very interesting place. I've never been anywhere in the world like Saudi Arabia. I think that would be fascinating. Yeah, I don't think I've ever been to the Middle East. From Rene is from Kosovo, Dardania, Albania. I have been to Albania. Oh, yeah. Yeah. In 2007, I think. Okay, that's cool. Yeah. Yeah, the interesting thing, well, one interesting thing about Albania for me is that language is like no other. Yeah, it is. Yeah, it's on its own language branch of the tree. So some languages are similar, maybe like French and German have some similarities. Spanish and Portuguese have some similarities. I mean, of course, there are different languages, but Albanian has no. No relationship. No relations. And I know a few words in Albanian. I think it's, Shtuje is push. And Kater is four. Those are all Albanian words I know. That's great. Yeah, when you hope whoever taught you that I wasn't making a fool out of you, you had to trust. Well, you know, the doors would say, oh yeah, Shtuje, see, Rene says that's great. And Kater, see? I'm good, I'm good. You are passable at those two words. Yeah, I can get anything that way. See, we seem, you know, we struggle just, like you guys might struggle with English, we struggle with other languages as well. Learning a language is not an easy thing to do because it's like, yes, learning a language that's related to your language is gonna be easier. Like for you and I, Liz, to learn Spanish. Yes. Okay. But if I had to learn, say Japanese or Persian or Arabic, those are just, they're so different, it would be a real challenge. So I'm so impressed that each of you who are learning English, keep it up. It's not easy. Yeah. Isabella says, I would like to travel to Turkey in Egypt. Patrick says Cameroon. I think that's to travel to Cameroon, but maybe from Cameroon. Tin says, have you ever been to Israel? No, I have not been to Israel, though I know that some people I know have. Guitar990 says, travel to Buenos Aires. Ooh, I have been to Buenos Aires. I have been to Buenos Aires. Yes. That's a very interesting city as well. Yes. Yeah, anyway. Yeah, it's been fun to talk to you, to have a conversation with all of you. Thank you for joining us. We are hoping to have, sorry, I'm trying to catch up on some comments. We are hoping to have a live show once a month again to be really consistent. So we really hope that you will join us for those usually on a Wednesday. So hopefully that will work for you, just like it works for us. And what else am I missing, Adam? I think you've covered everything. So we'll keep, you know how to find us, keep learning English, and we'll be here every step of the way. Yep, thanks for joining us. Bye.