Hello. How is it going everyone? I hope you are doing OK. My name is Andrew and I'm going to be your host and your English study buddy for this episode, which is bonus episode number 61. Can you believe it?

We're already at episode number 61 of this series. And just to explain what the bonus series is here, it's where I hang out with you for around 20 to 30 minutes and I share some stories with you about what I have been up to over the last week here as a Canadian person living abroad in South Korea.

I share about some of the interesting or funny or maybe sad parts of my week. I guess it depends, each week is a little bit different.

And lately on the bonus series, I have been sharing some kind of stressful stories from my life, but don't worry, this week I have good news only good news and I'm gonna share about some happy things and some positive things that have been happening in my life recently.

And in fact, I have two stories to share with you today. So, we'll get to those stories in just a moment but before I do I want to let you know that there is a free transcript that accompanies this episode.

You can download it as a PDF file if you would like to save to your computer and print it out so you can have the physical paper version of the transcript.

But it also comes in an interactive version which I recommend if you're studying with your phone or your computer or your tablet, some kind of digital device, then the interactive transcript is really best because you can click on any word in the transcript and hear the audio from that point.

So, it's a fantastic way to listen to certain parts of the episode again and again and again. You know, you could be listening along to the episode, and everything is fine and dandy and easy to understand. And then suddenly, there's like one word or one expression or one part that you didn't quite get.

Well then, this is the perfect situation for using the interactive transcript because you can just click on that sentence again or that word again and hear it a few more times.

And of course, you guys know this I don't need to remind you, but repetition is so key in learning English and to be able to hear something again and again and again so easily I think is a great way to study.

So definitely check out the interactive transcript or the PDF version of this transcript to help you with studying along and of course to get that you can just visit the link that we will put in the description for this episode or you can go to website Culips.com and find it there.

Now we give these transcripts away for free for all of our bonus episodes, but we also give them away to Culips members for all of our episodes and in fact not just the transcripts but also full study guides which include vocabulary breakdowns and examples.

There are quizzes, there are questions that you can use for speaking practice or writing practice.

So, if you would like to take your English to the next level, get a little more serious about your studies, and also support the work that we do here at Culips, then I would recommend at least checking out some of the benefits of becoming a Culips member.

And again to do that you can just visit our website Culips.com. One more little piece of housekeeping here before we get to the stories and that is please join us on our Discord server if you haven’t already. We have this wonderful Discord server that is still quite new.

It's only been operating for, well, less than two months, but we have many people who are a part of the community. Over a thousand people last time I have checked and we're having fantastic, interesting discussions every day over on our Discord.

So many Culips listeners have written to me in the past and they said, Andrew I love the podcast. It's helpful for building my English listening skills, but it's not helpful for helping me build my English speaking skills.

What can you recommend that will help me build my English speaking skills as well? So, we heard all of these requests and finally we have a solution that is our Discord because there you can practice your English output.

And in fact, Discord is a way to practice all four of the essential English skills or even you could say more of the essential English skills. Usually, we think of the essential English skills as reading, writing, speaking, and listening, right? But actually, there's more skills than that. There's pronunciation.

There's knowing about using the right expression at the right time. There's knowing about grammar, et cetera, et cetera. But you can practice all of these things on the Discord, right? You can read messages from others. You can listen to audio messages from others.

You can leave audio messages and you can also write comments and there are also chat rooms where you can jump in the voice chat room or the video chat room and actually practice conversations with others.

So, I think everyone who is a part of the Discord community already knows how amazing it is for studying and learning English. But if you haven't checked it out yet, then I really want to encourage you to do that and to spend a little bit of time from your week using the Discord.

OK, of course, it's fine just to sign up and be passive. You know, to read some of the messages, to listen to some of the audio messages. Doing that is good but if you want to make real progress with your English, then of course you have to invest some time, right? You have to invest some time into using it actively.

So, I encourage you to do that, and of course to visit and sign up for the Discord, which is free by the way, good news is it is free. Then you can just follow the link in the description for this episode, sign up and join the community there.

OK, so I think those are all of the announcements, all of the housekeeping that I wanted to get out of the way here at the start of the program. And now let's jump into this week's stories. I have two of them, like I mentioned. The first one is about celebrating my wife's birthday.

This last week we had a nice little party for her, so I will share that story. And then the second story is about me. And well, why don't I save the details for when I actually tell the story? So, we'll get to that in a moment, but we'll start here by talking about my wife's birthday party. So here we go, enjoy.

The highlight of my week last week was celebrating my wife's birthday. My wife is a year younger than I am and my birthday is in May but she's a summer baby, so she was born in July and yeah, we get to have a nice birthday celebration for her in July.

And when I was writing my wife's birthday card to her, I wrote in the card that her birthday is one of my favorite days of the year. And the reason why her birthday is one of my favorite days of the year is because it is a day where we get to celebrate her, and she is my favorite person.

So of course, her birthday would be one of my favorite days so it's always lovely to celebrate the birthdays of your loved ones. I think most of you would agree with me there. So, because her birthday was on Tuesday, it was a mid-week birthday this year, well we didn't really get up to too much.

We had a very low-key birthday party for her. It's not like we invited all of our friends over and had a big celebration at our house or at a restaurant. We didn't do anything like that. My wife and I, now we are in our late 30s.

Oh my God, I am going to be turning 40 next year and my wife is just a year younger than I am. So, we're getting up there a little bit, inching towards middle age, maybe quicker than we would like.

But because, you know, now that we are a little bit older, we tend to enjoy just having a low-key birthday celebration. Just usually the two of us in fact. Anyways, so that's what we decided to do on Tuesday is just to have a low-key birthday party.

And these days my wife has been very, very busy in an important project at her work. So, she has been doing a lot of overtime work and usually working almost until 10 or 11 p.m. at night.

Now that's pretty intense, it's a little bit painful for me to have to see my wife work all day you know from the morning when she starts at 9 a.m. all the way till 9, 10, 11, sometimes even later at night.

It's, yeah, not so fun to have to watch her be so busy like that but thankfully this is kind of rare she doesn't have to do this too, too often it's just a special big project that she's working on right now. So, she is in fact quite busy at the moment.

At least one of the good things is she works from home. So that is nice. I can at least, you know, make coffee for her, or sometimes make lunch or dinner for her if she's so busy like that. And yeah, she is just working at home.

So that's good. Anyways, because she is so busy these days, we thought that probably it's best just to have a little birthday celebration at home and just keep things low-key, as I mentioned. And low-key is a wonderful expression to know if you don't know it already.

It just means not too fancy or not too extravagant. So, we just decided to stay at home. We tossed around the idea of going to a restaurant or going out, but on Tuesday it was quite rainy here and my wife really doesn't like the rain.

So if it's raining, she prefers just to stay at home so because of the rain and because of how busy she was we yeah just decided to stay at home. And I said that I could cook if she wanted me to cook or we could order some food from a restaurant and have it delivered if she wanted that.

And in the end, she said that she just wanted to have a very simple, light meal with some salad and chicken breast if you can believe it or not. So, I was able to prepare those things easily and we decided to go out for a fancier birthday dinner a little bit later when she is not so busy at work.

Now, here's one funny thing about my wife and I wonder if you'll think that this is funny as well. So, my wife doesn't like cake.

Actually, probably the cake part of cake is OK but like the icing, she really doesn't like the icing on cake and dairy is not a food that she really likes especially cream so anything with cream in it just like the icing on cake she doesn't enjoy.

However, she really does like the birthday ritual around birthday cake. So you know, putting the candle in the cake and blowing out the candle and having the birthday song sung to her she really enjoys these things, so every time it's her birthday, she always wants to have birthday cake, but she'll never eat the cake.

And I've gone to some lengths in the past, like last year I made a special cake for her with no cream inside of it, and sometimes instead of cake, I'll buy her, you know, like some other kind of dessert, like a pastry or a cookie or something, but it's just not the same, like to try and put a birthday candle into a cookie and blow out just doesn't have the same feeling to it.

So, my wife said that she wanted cake for her birthday even though she doesn't like cake. So I thought that was funny and so on Tuesday I went to go find some birthday cake for her.

And if you're a frequent Culips listener then you'll know that recently I just moved to a new neighborhood and one thing I've discovered about this new neighborhood it's great in many ways, I love this new neighborhood. It's very convenient.

It's got nice parks, it's got easy access to a place where I can go running and biking, it's got a nice place to walk our dog Pinky, it's close to supermarkets and restaurants. In many ways it's very convenient, but one thing that I have noticed about this new neighborhood is that there isn't a great bakery.

Not yet. There are a couple of bakeries close to where we live but they're not so good, unfortunately.

So, because of this, I didn't want to get a piece of birthday cake that's not delicious. And especially because my wife essentially just wants the birthday cake for the looks, she wants it to look delicious and look cool when we take a picture, then I wanted to make sure that I could find a nice piece of birthday cake.

And funnily enough, one of my coworkers had recently recommended a cafe to me where the cafe owner makes and sells these homemade cakes and he told me, Andrew this is the best cake place in Seoul, in the whole city.

He said that if I ever try this cake then I will just hands down agree with him it is the best cake in the city. And he said that when his wife celebrated her birthday her only request for like her birthday present was seven or eight pieces of cake from this cafe.

So I thought, well this is the perfect opportunity for me to go to this cafe and try it. And in fact, I had been to that cafe once actually for my birthday I had been to that cafe once around my birthday and my wife bought me piece of carrot cake and it made a very deep impression on me.

I'm actually not a huge lover of cake or sweet foods, but this birthday cake, this carrot cake from that cafe was amazing. So, I wanted to go back and buy a piece of that cake, that beautiful cake, and present that to my wife on her birthday.

So, I did that and it took me I would say about 45 minutes or an hour to get there in the rain on Tuesday, but I went to that cafe and I secured the cake. And thankfully, that cafe is right beside another bakery, this other neighborhood has really high-quality bakeries, great for cakes, great for bread and all of these delicious baked goods.

And that bakery has some bread, they sell a loaf of bread that my wife really, really loves. So, I was able to get a treat for both myself and for my wife because my wife would be presented with the she would blow out the candles, I would sing her the birthday song, but then I would actually eat the birthday cake.

So, I guess I was doing a favor for both my wife and for myself at the same time, right? By buying the delicious cake because I knew in the end, I would be the person to eat it. So anyways I bought the cake and I also bought her the bread so that she could have a baked treat that she enjoys as well.

And then, I came home and I prepared the meal that my wife wanted to have. And in fact, she was still working really, really hard at that time even though this was getting into the evening around dinner time.

And so, as I was starting to cook my wife said oh I'm gonna finish my work up here soon but I'm so tired from working all day long that I just want to shut my eyes and take a nap for 15 or 20 minutes. And this is something that my wife says often I'm gonna take a nap for 15 or 20 minutes, but in reality it's never 15 or 20 minutes.

She is an amazing napper and if she lies down to take a nap then usually it's at least an hour, I would say. So I thought, OK I'm gonna put the cooking on pause and let her sleep. Of course, it's her birthday she can do what she wants. I'm happy to let her take a rest after working so hard.

So, she took a nap and didn't wake up until well I would say maybe 9 30 or 10 and then we had a late dinner together. I gave her her birthday cake and we sang the birthday song, or at least I sang the birthday song.

She blew out the candles and I had also prepared some gifts for her which really wasn't a surprise because we had already shopped for it the pervious week. So, we went out shopping, she had this robe that she wanted to get as her birthday gift.

So, we went to the specific shop that sells this one kind of robe. And what I mean by robe everyone is just a kind of light jacket that you can wear for lounging around the home. It's kind of like home wear essentially.

So, she had this specific one that she wanted to buy from this specific shop that has these homemade really beautiful robes that are made with some fabric that I think is imported from India, if I'm not mistaken.

So, she said instead of me just choosing one, it would be better if we went to the store together so she could try it on and select the fabric that she liked the best. So, we did that the previous weekend. So, she already knew what she was getting.

So, it wasn't like I gave her a big surprise present or anything like that. But yeah, we had a nice little birthday party. We sat outside on our deck in our front yard, and we just had, yeah, a nice dinner, some birthday cake and spent some time together.

And it was a wonderful way to celebrate her birthday. And that was essentially it. Like I said, we're still going to go out for a fancier dinner when she has a bit more free time and she is thinking about what kind of food she wants to eat.

So, as soon as she locks in the menu then we'll try and go out and have a fancy dinner celebration, Because I think everybody can agree that sometimes it's nice to have a light meal like some chicken breast and some salad, but you know for a special day like your birthday, it's nice to go out and do something a little bit different than normal.

So, we're planning to do that soon in the future and that was the highlight of my week, celebrating my wife's birthday there on Tuesday.

If you're a regular Culips listener, then you probably know that I'm a guy who has many hobbies. I enjoy doing a lot of different things in life and I spend my free time in many different ways. I of course am a huge music fan, so I love watching music videos on YouTube, I love watching concerts specifically, live music performances on YouTube.

I love watching concerts in real life too, if I get the opportunity. And I love listening to music. I also love playing chess, and reading books and studying the Korean language. I love going outside and riding my bike and I also love running.

These are just some of the hobbies that I enjoy and there are also other ways that I like to spend my free time, but I think those are the main ways that I enjoy spending some of my free time.

I've mentioned this in recent bonus episodes as well, so maybe you've heard it before, but over the last three to four to five months, well, actually, to be honest with you, most of this year, I haven't been able to do one of my hobbies, which is running very often, just because I've been so preoccupied with building the house that my wife and I now live in.

We spent a lot of time renovating this old house here in Seoul. Finally, the renovation project is complete. We've moved into the new house, and that means suddenly I've got free time again. It's amazing, and so I've been able to start doing some of my hobbies again.

And one of the things that I've been doing a lot recently is running. I told you in the first story there that I like to go to the river that is near my house to go running and biking and I have been taking full advantage of our close proximity to this stream that we live beside.

One thing that's kind of cool about living in Korea is that I think most of the big Korean cities, and probably the smaller ones as well, have a lot of these little streams or rivers they really sometimes are streams sometimes are rivers depending on the time of year.

In the dry season they're more like streams but in the rainy season, like we're living in now, they can fill up with a lot of water and look more like a river. But anyways these rivers are a great place to go and exercise. They often have a walking path beside them and a bike lane beside them.

They're filled with exercise equipment as well like some machines, that honestly are not for doing serious exercise, they're more for the seniors, the grandmas and the grandpas in the neighborhood so they can do some light exercise.

But there's also things like pull-up bars which I enjoy doing some pull-ups from time to time and so yeah they're just a great place to go and get some exercise. And now we live quite close to one so it is fantastic.

So now that I have some free time, and I also live close to this great place to go running, well that's what I've been doing I've been running and so I started running again shortly after moving into our new home, but I really started in earnest last week because one of my American friends who also lives in Korea here, his name is Jimmy, Jimmy contacted me and he asked me if I would like to train for a marathon with him.

So, listeners of Culips who have been here for a while along with me, you guys will know that in 2019, I completed my first full marathon, and it was awesome. It was a great experience.

I trained really hard for it, and I was able to complete the marathon and it was such a great feeling to have this goal that I worked hard towards and then achieved.

And after finishing that marathon, I was so stoked and excited, and I was just filled with all of these dreams to continue running more and more marathons.

It's kind of funny, like this is something that runners often say amongst themselves as well, is like when you're training for the race and you do the race, it's almost like torture. It's really difficult and you're just like, oh, I just want to finish and after I finish that I'm going to quit this sport.

You know, this sport is stupid. Why do we put ourselves through all of this pain and suffering? But then as soon as you cross the finish line, you're like, oh, that was amazing. When's the next marathon? I want to sign up for the next one.

Something weird about the sport where as soon as you finish, you just get this huge feeling of motivation, and you want to keep going and do another race.

So after I finished my first marathon in 2019, I had that exact same feeling. I thought oh my god I want to just take a little bit of time to rest and recover, but then I want to do another marathon. And I had the goal of doing at least one or two marathons each year.

But then, as you guys know, COVID hit, right? And as soon as COVID hit then all of the marathons and races shut down. And around that time, you know, I was still running, but I lost some of the motivation that I had when there were no races for me to participate in, then it just didn't feel as exciting, like I didn't have a goal to work towards.

There was nothing that I could do with my running, other than just run around outside by myself. And then combine that with starting the house renovation project that took up all of our free time, well, I just kind of fell out of the sport.

I don't want to say that I quit completely because I still was doing some running from time to time, but I wasn't as invested as I used to be. However, when I got this message from my friend Jimmy last week asking me to sign up and do a full marathon with him in October, I was stoked.

I was like Jimmy, you read my mind. This is perfect timing because now I finally can train for it. And so yeah, we have signed up together to do a full marathon on October 21st. And I know we have a lot of listeners in Korea.

So, if we have any listeners in Gyeongju, then you guys should come out and support Jimmy and me. Because we will be running the Gyeongju International Marathon on October 21st.

So, I should tell you a little bit about my Jimmy. He's a guy from the USA and he's another English instructor here in South Korea and that's how we met. We met through teaching together and actually a mutual acquaintance who's another teacher of ours introduced us.

And Jimmy and I have a lot in common. He also likes playing chess. He is from the northern USA very, very close to Canada so although he is American he seems like a Canadian, like he has a way of speaking that's almost Canadian it's kind of funny that he knows a lot of Canadian slang and a lot of Canadian-isms just because he lived so close to the border back home in the States.

And also he's a really big ice hockey fan and played ice hockey growing up. So yeah, I don't feel like there's any cultural divide between us. It almost feels like he's Canadian even though he is American.

And when I met him for the first time, he also said that he was into running and that he had completed a couple of marathons back in the day when he lived in the States, but he had fallen out of the sport and hadn't really kept up with that.

Well, I guess Jimmy is probably a couple of years younger than I am. It's funny, I don't actually know exactly how old he is, but I would guess that he's a couple of years younger than I am, but we're pretty close in age.

But I guess maybe two years ago, probably during the pandemic actually, Jimmy felt like his health was slipping away from him a little bit, if I can say it that way.

That although he used to be active when he was younger playing ice hockey and running and marathoning, all of those things, that over the last few years that he hadn't really been keeping up with an active lifestyle and had let himself go a little bit, not really controlling his diet or his lifestyle at all and just sort of had fallen out of an active lifestyle.

So about two years ago, he decided to change that. He thought that he wasn't feeling very good, wasn't feeling very healthy, and wanted to change his lifestyle and just live a healthier life.

So, he changed his diet, he changed his sleeping patterns, and he started running regularly. And it was actually very motivating to see his transformation.

He lost a lot of weight. Now he was never overweight in the first place, but it's kind of funny sometimes when people change their lifestyle, they change their diet, they change their sleep habits, they start exercising, even people who you think are not overweight at all, like I never would have said that Jimmy is overweight at all.

But he lost some weight and then all of a sudden he just looked so much better, like he looked just really healthy, his skin was good, his complexion was good, his eyes started to become very clear, and you could notice that, wow, all of these things were having just a great effect on his health.

And yeah, he started running regularly, and it was actually really inspiring for me to see, like he was doing this all on his own.

There's an app that the two of us use called Strava, and I could see that every morning, well, not every morning, but you know, very regularly, three, four, five times a week, Jimmy would be up running early in the morning, like 5:30 in the morning, six in the morning, and yeah, that was super inspiring for me to see. And he told me that he was training towards doing the Seoul Marathon.

The Seoul Marathon happens here in the spring I believe in March or early April, and so he was really running hard training for that Seoul Marathon.

And at that time he invited me to do the marathon with him and said oh Andrew come on let's do it together it will be great, but I had to say no to that just because it was impossible given the house renovation project at the time.

So, I said, sorry, Jimmy, I can't do it, but maybe in the fall I can do a marathon with you. Anyways, he completed the Seoul Marathon and yeah, another thing that was awesome for me to see. I don't know about how you feel, but I just love seeing my friends succeed.

Anytime one of my friends does something amazing, you know, if they, I have a lot of musician friends, so if they release an album or write a new song, I just feel so proud of them. If I see someone like Jimmy set this goal and work hard towards achieving that goal, I feel so proud of them.

Anytime one of my friends does something great, this is just one of the best feelings for me. I love that I can feel happy just because my friend does something really amazing. So yeah, I was just very happy to see Jimmy do so well and complete that marathon.

And after he finished it, we talked and we said, yeah, you know, let's do a marathon together in the fall. And I think I'll have time to train for that. And so, we kind of left it at that. And last week on Monday, Jimmy reached out to me, and he said, Andrew, come on, let's go. It's time to start training.

We have about 15 or 16 weeks before the marathons in the fall start up. So, if we're gonna do this, we need to make a plan and we need to get going. So, to be honest with you guys, I was a little bit on the fence. Because a marathon is 42.2 kilometers, I think? 42 and a little bit of change.

And so that is a long distance. And although I have been running for many, many years, I looked at my total kilometers that I had run so far in 2023, and it was about only 200 kilometers.

So I haven't been doing very much running at all in 2023 and so to ramp up and get ready to run a full marathon by the end of October, is not gonna be easy. I'm gonna have to do a lot of training just to get my body back into shape, back up into the level where I can handle that amount of distance.

But Jimmy really convinced me that it would be OK. I guess he really wanted to run the marathon together. So, he said oh Andrew I've got this plan for us, and he showed me this really detailed 15-week plan and I looked at it and I thought, you know what, you've convinced me, Jimmy, you have got me on board.

So, I started getting excited once I saw this plan and yeah, I said, OK, let's do it. So, we signed up for the marathon that day. We put our money where our mouth is and we actually paid the registration fee. Which was not cheap. It's probably around 40 US dollars, 50,000 Korean won, which is not cheap.

I think this is actually one of the ways that you can motivate yourself for anyone who's suffering from a lack of motivation is to put some money on the line. Bet on yourself, right? Like if I was just like, yeah, I'm gonna do the marathon. OK, OK.

Well, if I didn't sign up for it, then it would be easy to quit and give up, I think. but now that I've paid the money, I don't know if this is just me, but I feel like many, many of us out there probably have the same kind of feeling, it's like you hate to waste money, right?

So once I paid that registration fee then I have to go through with it because I don't want to waste that 50,000 Korean won by just giving up and quitting. So, I put the money on the line, I signed up, I registered, and now I have started training in earnest.

So, I'm following Jimmy's plan. Like I said, he's got this great 15-week training plan. And it details what kind of run I have to do, the speed that I have to run at, the distance that I have to go, when I can rest and when I have to work hard.

But of course, just doing the running isn't enough. I also have to get my sleep schedule in order and develop good sleep habits, because so much of running a marathon is being well rested so I have to get that in order. I have pretty good sleep habits overall but of course there's always room for improvement, right?

And diet as well. Nutrition and eating healthy foods and the correct amount of food so that I can be in the best shape possible, these are all things that I'm going to have to pay attention to.

So anyways, our goal for the marathon is to run a three hour and 30 minute pace, which is nice because before, when I was training for a marathon in 2019, my goal was to get under three hours, a sub three marathon.

Which I think for non-professional athletes like me, obviously I'm just an amateur runner, I'm not a professional or anything, But I think getting a sub 3 marathon, under 3 hours, is kind of like a badge of pride.

You can wear that around like I'm a sub 3 runner and it's really just showing that you're a pretty good runner. So unfortunately, when I tried that last marathon in 2019, I was just slightly short of my goal. I came in at 3 hours and 7 minutes. So, 7 minutes.

It's like so short, but also so long at the same time in so many ways. But anyways, I think I'm not in shape to try and break that record right now. And Jimmy suggested, you know, let's go at a good speed, but let's not kill ourselves.

So, we're going to try and do a three hour and 30-minute marathon. So that's what we're training for, which is nice for me because I can run at a slightly slower pace than I'm used to. So, I think that is possible. And actually, what Jimmy suggested, he said, Andrew, let's do this marathon in the fall a little bit slower.

Let's try and do a three hour and 30-minute marathon. And then if you are interested, then we can push and try and do a sub three marathon in the spring. So, I thought, yeah, that's a good plan. You know, I'm getting older now and I don't want to really kill myself with over exertion.

So, we'll take it slow here for the fall. And when I say take it slow, I mean, three hours and 30 minutes is still a pretty fast pace. So, it's not too slow, but I think it's just in the right zone for us.

So, I think that is going to be my life for the next 15 to 16 weeks is just consistently training and spending a lot of time on my feet. Because I believe that the key for being successful in this marathon is just going to be building up the amount of kilometers that I run each week.

So, I spent about four or five hours this last week running, and I ran around 52 kilometers last week. So, it's a good start but I'm going to need to ramp that mileage up to maybe 80 to 100 kilometers a week.

And I think once you can consistently run, you know, 80, 70, 80, 100 kilometers per week, then doing a marathon is OK. But if I start out with that amount of distance, well then it is likely that I will burn out and just not be able to handle it. So, I got to slowly ramp up to around 100 kilometers per week of running.

That is my goal. And I think consistency is going to be super key. And yeah, hopefully now that I've shared my story here with the whole world on Culips, that I will be held accountable. And everybody please wish me luck.

And like I said, if you're in Gyeongju or living close to that place, then come out and cheer me on on October 21st.

And now it's time for this week's vocabulary lesson.

So, for this week's vocabulary lesson, I want to teach you about the idiom: to put your money where your mouth is. To put your money where your mouth is. Have you heard this expression before?

It is a fantastic English expression that you can use when you wanna talk about seriously doing something and taking action towards doing something, not just talking about it. You know, we have another expression, "talk is cheap."

And that means that it's easy to talk about fixing a problem, or it's easy to talk about doing something, but doing it in reality is much, much, much more difficult, right?

I think you can probably agree with me there that sometimes, you know, when we're talking about how to fix a problem in society, like think about the country or the city where you live, and it's probably not a perfect place. There are probably some issues.

There are always issues going on in the world, right? With society and politics and this and that. And so, talking about, you know, solving one of those issues very easy. You can always come up with many solutions that seem great about how to solve a problem.

But actually doing it in reality is a whole other thing, right? So, talk is cheap, but action is difficult. So, this expression is perfect to use in this situation where you want to say oh don't just talk about it but actually do something about it, OK?

Put your money where your mouth is. And I used this expression in the second story from today's episode when I was talking about running in a marathon that's going to be upcoming here at the end of October.

I said I put my money where my mouth is because I Decided to actually sign up for the marathon and pay the registration fee. So, I'm not just talking about oh, yeah, I'm gonna do a marathon. No, now I've seriously signed up, I've paid the money, and I've put my money where my mouth is.

I'm actually taking action towards achieving that goal. So, I'm gonna give you some example sentences and break down this idiom a little further in just a moment.

But before we do that, I wanna rewind the tape, go back, and just take a listen to the part of that story where I use that expression just a couple of more times so we can hear it used in that natural context when it just slipped out of my mouth naturally.

So, we'll listen to that and then we'll come back, and we'll talk about it a little further. So, let's rewind now and go back. Here we go.

So, let's just break down the meaning of this expression to put your money where your mouth is. And essentially, this expression just means that if you believe in something strongly, then you should invest your time or your effort or your money in that belief instead of just talking about it, right?

Talk is cheap, it's easy to talk, but actually investing your time, investing your money, investing your effort, doing something, then that is much more difficult. But if you're serious about doing something, then you need to put your money where your mouth is.

So now that we know the meaning of this expression, let's take a listen to some example sentences. I have three prepared for you and we'll check out the first one right now. Here we go.

OK, let's break this first example sentence down. In this example sentence, we hear the speaker talking to his friend and he asks his friend to make a bet on his favorite sports team winning the game.

Because I guess the friend is very confident that his team is going to win, but it's easy to say, oh yeah, my team is the best, we're going to win and just go around talking like that, right?

But if you are so confident, well then put your money where your mouth is, place a bet and show that you are serious about your team winning. And this is a situation where you'll hear this expression used a lot, is about sports and is about betting, right?

So, if you want to put your money where your mouth is, when it comes to showing your support for a team, it usually means making a bet and doing some gambling to show that you are indeed serious about how confident you are in your belief that your team will win.

In this example sentence we hear the speaker talking to a friend of his and he says if you believe in this startup, if you believe in this company, well then do something about it.

Express your confidence, invest, buy some stock in the company so that the company can succeed and as a result you can also financially succeed.

So don't just say, oh this company is great, it's going to have a wonderful future, invest with your own money and do something towards making the company better by investing in it.

Alright, let's break down this final example sentence. In this example sentence, we hear the speaker telling his friend that he needs to put his money where his mouth is, OK?

His friend is always saying things like, you should support local artists, support the arts, go to galleries, go to exhibitions, buy their artwork, but maybe this person actually doesn't do this. And so his friend was like hey don't just say these things but actually walk the walk, OK?

This is another interesting English idiom: "talk the talk and walk the walk." That means if you believe in things, like let's say supporting local artists, well then you should say these things you should talk the talk you should say, I support the arts and maybe you should encourage other people to support the arts.

But you should also walk the walk so you should do what you say. You should support local artists if you say these things. So, I guess the speaker of that example sentence was just telling his friend, hey, talk the talk and walk the walk. Put your money where your mouth is.

Don't just say that you support the arts, but also you should buy the artwork of local artists.

And I think this is one of those situations where if we don't put our money where our mouth is and support local artists, then often they disappear, right? without the support of residents of different towns and communities and art scenes, well, then that art can't flourish.

It needs to be supported by customers who buy their work.

Well, that brings us to the end of another bonus episode. Thank you all for joining me here today and congratulations on starting off your week with an English study session, an English practice session here with me. It was a lot of fun. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.