Hello everybody and welcome to this week's edition of the language vlog podcast newsletter! :D

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Is it the sniffles going around or should I have wiped down that keyboard last week!? Or maybe it was the smog?

Wasn't feeling too good on Wednesday so we had to move one of our livestreams to Thursday instead.

ALSO, figured out how to work around YouTube streaming issues for now. Feel free to join in!

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This week's videos:

1. Chinese: Using a spectrogram to analyze spoken tones.
2. Russian: Watching YouTube videos with subtitles on.
3. English: Living and working overseas - what's it like?
4. Short: Why would you EVER teach ESL overseas?
5. Played WuKong!

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In this week's Chinese livestream, I tried out something I've been thinking of doing for a while: using a spectrogram to check my tones. Don't know what a spectrogram is? It's a device that's used to measure sound frequencies and gives a visualization of where those frequencies occur. Here's a screenshot:

What I didn't realize, however, was that broadcasting a screen that was using four open windows would muddy up the signal. Soooo, it kinda looked like this:

But it's an idea I think people can use on their own time to practice their own pronunciation. I used the spectrogram at spectrogram.sciencemusic.org.

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For Russian we took it easy this week and simply watched a couple vlogs done by Russian with Max. One video was a walk around the outskirts of this city, and another video was a hike in the Adygea Republic.

I tried to share the window tab so audio could be played through but it slowed down the connection immensely so the stream doesn't include the audio from Max's video. However, I did link to them in the feed.

Hiking / Outdoor Class: https://youtu.be/pLyIiagjfLw?si=ZMWJKhuQvDyuIv6v

Walk outside of town: https://youtu.be/P3UNn3EdkfE?si=8m2fQgcYA1A-sHWV

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This week's English livestream was pushed a day so I wouldn't sound so bad. It happened on Thursday at lunch time instead, just to see if this time slot is a better fit.

The delay seemed to be a good fit, however, as we had some audience participation which facilitated some questions and answers about living and working overseas. In this week's hour-long livestream, we talked a little bit about some of the places people can go live and work and what sort of jobs are commonly available for the working traveller. (Hint: lots.) Based on my own experience, I talked about teaching ESL, working on farms and looking into other industries such as oil and gas, cruise ship work, and even playing professional sports. If you're considering working overseas, this is a stream to look into.

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And this week's YouTube Short was about why someone would EVER go overseas to teach ESL. Isn't there something else you can do?

And the answer is YES. You don't have to teacher English to work and travel overseas. I'd like to think that if I had been a little bit more worldly (and athletic) I could have played hockey, basketball or soccer in another country as a job. Failing that, possibly travel the world as a musician!

The reality is that your ability to go overseas and work will depend largely on where you want to go and what you were thinking of doing. Yes, you could be a soccer player in Angola, but you might not make as much compared to moving to South Korea to teach for a year. But if money isn't the objective, how do you even pick and place and job to go to? THAT'S a very good question!

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We had one other YouTube Short last week that gave a peek into a gamer's den / internet bar wherein I finally played Black Myth: Wukong. I found it a little troublesome to maneuver mainly because I was using the keyboard and mouse as a controller, not a standalone device. As a result, it was frustrating to move around and plan my attack. Then again, this might be a time when trying to blame the tools is really just an excuse... should I try again??

Look for my full video review of the game soon!

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We'll leave it there for this week! I hope you're doing well and taking care. Stay healthy out there as the change of the seasons and back to school means germs are bouncing around all over the place.

Comments? Questions? Concerns? Suggestions? Get in touch! We'd love to hear from you! You can email us here or follow us on YouTube and post a comment, we'll get back to you!

Thanks for reading and let us know if there's anything we can help out with!

-Steve

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