 Hello and welcome to a real conversation between two native English speakers. I'm Adam Navas. Here with me is the wonderful Liz Wade. Hello Liz. Hi Adam. Today we're going to be discussing the program Who Was Sherlock Holmes. If you have not listened to this program, we encourage you to do that. Stop this video. Go listen to that program either in our classic version or our advanced and then come back and you will be better prepared to participate in this conversation. If you have already listened to that, why don't you hit that like button right below this video helps us out. You can always join this YouTube channel to get even more content and yeah, you can get our programs by email and so many ways, so many different ways. Follow us on social media and all that because we are wherever you want to learn English, wherever you want to practice your English, we'll be there. Yeah, do the social thing. Do the social thing. So, Liz. Yes. Let's talk about Sherlock Holmes. Okay, well first of all, Adam, I want to say, I'm going to say a public apology because I've been getting a lot of comments lately that this isn't a real conversation. It's just Liz monologuing, just talking too much. Well, it's probably because I'm very timid and don't express myself well enough. See, somebody said this in a very kind way which was like, Liz is a good talker or a good speaker and Adam is a good listener. That's true. That's true. Tell me more. I felt like that was a very, very nice way of somebody to say, Liz, maybe listen more. Well, okay. Well, here's my public apology and my promise that today I will definitely not take over the conversation and I will try not to interrupt you. Okay, good. Well, it is you get to talk about the program though. Yes. So, to everyone, we did talk about this a little ahead of time. So, we do have a plan and this is her turn. So, I will listen. Okay. And I also want to say that I brought a prop for today's discussion. This is my magnifying glass. Oh, you're going to get the light. The light looks like a screen. Yeah. Anyway, and I brought that because this is talking about a very famous detective or crime solver. What other kind of word would you use? He was not a police officer, so I wouldn't use that. Right. But somebody who solved crimes using evidence. Yes. And we thought when we kind of came up with this program that it was such an interesting program because Sherlock Holmes in the Western sort of world is such an important character. Yeah. Which and for being just a character, a made up character in a book is a really interesting place for just a character to be so important to Western literature and culture in general. So, I am really excited about this program. It really goes through a couple examples of Sherlock Holmes stories, if you haven't read them before. We talk a little bit about who Sherlock Holmes was and why he was so important in like actual crime scene investigations and why people follow his methods for solving crimes even today. Right. It's hard to imagine a different way of solving crimes, but it used to be people would like criminals had a shaped skull or like there were traits of people's personalities that were criminal or like that was used to convict people. It was just dumb luck, maybe. Yeah, yeah. You just, you know, you were a criminal by Nate. It was in your nature to do crimes and Sherlock Holmes and the author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle kind of created this way of viewing crime scenes or evidence in a different way that was a little more detached. So maybe we should talk a little bit about some of these aspects. So like who was Sherlock Holmes and what was, what were the traits of Sherlock Holmes? We've already talked about one that he was obsessed with evidence. He tried to be very logical to the point of in some of the depictions in the books and the many depictions that have followed, he's often logical to the point of being anti-social, like not people don't know how to interact with him or he doesn't know how to interact with people because he's just so evidence based and logical and of course we know that humanity, you know, we have feelings. We need emotion. We need emotions. So do you have a favorite aspect or another aspect of Sherlock Holmes that? Yes. Okay, so I would like to point out that Sherlock Holmes is in the Guinness Book of World Records, we say this in the program, for the most portrayed human character ever. So and of course when you, and that that means like, so Sherlock Holmes stories in films and books and, you know, other sort of media, more people have played him than any other character, which is cool. But that also means that like some aspects of his character are a little different every time. But in general, he always has and I think this is an important thing that we didn't really emphasize in the program. One important thing is he always has a friend with him, Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson. Dr. Watson. And Dr. Watson is a little different every time too, but basically Dr. Watson, the stories are always set up with Dr. Watson writing the adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So that's the perspective. It's Dr. Watson is writing the stories and saying, and then Sherlock did this and then he did that and stuff like that. So I think that's one important part of the character of Sherlock Holmes is that he has this supporting character who's very important in his life as a friend and a confidant. Which is kind of counter to what I was saying. He's got, he doesn't know how to navigate a lot of social situations, but he has this one friend who's very loyal and very committed, even though it's not always an easy relationship. Yes. And I also think part of his character is that he's always very messy. Like in all of the stories and depictions, his apartment is always very messy. Very chaotic externally because he's got all these. He likes to do experiments and try weird, crazy things. Right. Oh, and there is one more important aspect to his character is that sometimes he depends on drugs. Yes. In the books, I think it's heroin. Yes. A nice little heroin habit. Exactly. And in some of the other movies and things, it's different things, but I think the idea behind him taking the drugs is to be able to give his mind a break because there are so many things constantly going on in his mind that the drugs slow it down. Right. Am I right? No, I think that's true. I'm trying to think of, I haven't seen every, obviously every characterization of Sherlock Holmes, but the ones that I'm thinking of right now, yes, they all have some aspect of that. And of course, he plays an instrument. Do you know the instrument? He, well, most often, I think it's the violin, poorly. He plays it very poorly. No, I think he plays it very well, doesn't he? I don't know. Depends on... See, there could be difference in depictions. Difference in depictions, that's right. So, do you have a favorite... Well, do you like Sherlock Holmes? First of all, I shouldn't assume that you do. I, yes, I do like Sherlock Holmes. I like mysteries in general as a genre, so that sort of book really appeals to me. Agatha Christie is another, like, is a mystery author that I really enjoy, but I do like Sherlock Holmes, although, of course, it was written. If you are, excuse me, if you are listening to this today, you and then you want to go read a Sherlock Holmes book, I think it would be very difficult even for, if you were reading it in English, even for a fluent speaker to read the books written in 1860s. 1887. Because it's an older type of English, and it's also more formal speaking than we use today. So, I think it's... When I think about reading a Sherlock Holmes book, it seems like a little bit of a chore, like it might be kind of difficult, but I do like Sherlock Holmes, and I do actually watch a couple TV shows based on the character of Sherlock Holmes. Okay, give us one of your favorites. Oh, okay. My favorite is the adaptation called Elementary, which is... It has Johnny Lee Miller as Sherlock, and it has Lucy Liu, who is one of my favorite actors ever, as Dr. Joan Watson. So, in this adaptation, Watson is a woman, and they're friends, they're not romantic partners, they're just friends, and they live in modern times in New York City, and they solve crimes working with the local police department. So, that is my favorite adaptation by far. I love it so much. Okay, so my favorite is from a few years ago... Well, do you like Sherlock Holmes first? Do you...? I like a good detective of any kind, and I think most even detectives on TV shows who are not strictly based, like Elementary is, on Sherlock Holmes and the Dynamic. I like a good detective story. I don't like it if it's too gory about murders and too much gross stuff, but I do enjoy it good, because I think you like, as you're watching a reading, you like to anticipate and try to solve, and there's... You get to kind of have that experience of... If it's too far, if I... Because there have been stories, even Sherlock Holmes stories I've read, I'm like, how could anyone have known that? Like, it is a bit far-fetched. But my favorite adaptation is, I really enjoyed the show, House. Oh, that is a good one. Which is set in a hospital setting, and Dr. House is kind of this rogue doctor who gets to do whatever he wants, because he's so brilliant. He doesn't, you know, easy cases. He wants, like, really complicated. Which, the irony, you know the show is good, because I do not like medical shows. So I don't like, you know, bodies and guts. That wasn't that really too gory, though. No, it's not... Well, they do some, like, animations where, like, the camera goes into the body and you see cells and stuff. I don't like that. But it is, he has a lot of the... He has a friend named Dr. Wilson instead of Dr. Watson. Sorry, all Wilson. Yeah, and he has many of the same. He has prescription drug problems, and is very antisocial, and played by the wonderful actor Hugh Laurie, who is British, but acts with an American accent and does it wonderfully. And so that is probably my favorite. And if you're watching this and you have a favorite, we want to hear. So put it in the comments and let us know what your favorite Sherlock Holmes representation. And if we've never heard it, if it's maybe from your country or from a non-English version, we would love to know if Sherlock Holmes, if there's depictions or versions of Sherlock Holmes that are maybe have gone into a different language, that would be really fun. Yeah, that is really fun. I do think there's one more thing we need to talk about, because as I think about, you know, I could talk about TV all day. Sure. I love TV. But as we think about those, even those two examples where you're talking about house set in a hospital, and I talk about elementary set in New York working with the police department, those two characters, they're in such different situations with entirely different people, but they do solve the case or the crime in a very similar way. And for the time when Sherlock Holmes was first written, this was a very new way of solving crimes, right? Of looking at something and then trying to get all of the evidence. So maybe if there was a crime scene, dusting for fingerprints and matching the fingerprints with somebody's actual fingers or looking at what I love is, you know, a Sherlock Holmes sort of character who looks at someone and is like, oh, you got to work late this morning and you have a dog and you, I don't know, some fantastically weird thing that they did, right? Oh, and you went to a party last Tuesday night or whatever. And then they say, oh, it's because you have a ticket stub sticking out of your out of your pocket. And it says Tuesday. And you have a dog hair on your leg. And so it's looking at all of those things. And that's what house does. And that's what Sherlock does in elementary. And that is one of the things that amazingly, I can't even think about how police wouldn't have been solving crimes that way. Because it's so in our nature now that that that is how you solve crimes. And to have a character who sort of encouraged thinking that way is crazy. Yeah, I can't think of, I mean, I'm sure there are other fictional examples of fictional characters having that level of influence, but not in like actual life, right? Like it might be like, oh, I follow my dreams, not, oh, we need to use evidence to solve crimes. And it really is. There are people, there are experts. You know, when we were researching this script, and even so in the script, there are quotes from people who actually study how his influence appeared in actual crime scene investigation. So I think this is a really great program that you learn a lot. And you think you learn a lot about Western sort of society in it as well. No wonder he was made Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Yeah. Right. He was given that title as a as a special thing from the Queen or the King. I don't know. Well, make sure that you let us know your favorite depiction. Make sure to follow us on social media. We're on Facebook, Instagram, you're already on YouTube. So like and join our channel. We got lots of fun little extra emojis and badges you can get. And we always encourage you. This is something we really, I mean, we just went through the normal YouTube stuff of like and subscribe. But we really want to encourage you to go to our website and click that scripts by email button. People have really enjoyed being able to get and download scripts every week costs $5 a month, which is like a dollar a script helps support us. And we just think it's a great way where it helps us and it helps you. So win, win, right? Yeah. So Liz, anything else? I don't think so. I hope that I gave you an opportunity to speak. You did this week, Adam. Well, why don't you take us out? Give us our tagline. I hope not. Nobody is going to be mad at me this week. So until next time, we hope you listen, watch, practice and learn spotlight out.