The North South Divide with Anna | RnR English with @EnglishLikeANative | EP 315

Today we have a very special guest and I speak to a very special guest! Anna from @EnglishLikeANative joins us today and we speak about the North South divide in England where we look at the typical stereotypes – are people from the North friendlier? Are men from the South not “real men?” Is the weather in the North really worse than in the South? All of these questions are explored as well as much more, so get the headphones on and keeeeeeeep on ROCKin’! 👊

Here’s what you’ll discover in today’s episode:

*📚 Advanced Vocabulary & Stories*
• “I do get overwhelmed” with messages
• “Good things come to those who wait”
• We have a “staycation”
• I’m just “priced out”
• Don’t take this as “gospel”
• He knows how to “put a cupboard together”
• Men “scattered” around the north of England
• He’s very “handy with” a saw
• “Holding” a hammer is an important job that is often overlooked
• A “tankard” of beer
• We were having difficulty even “lifting” them let alone “drinking” them
• They were “drinking us under the table”
• Everyone there was on a “stag do” or “hen do”
• “Local leisure centre”
• “Seeing everyone on” the beers
• I “pack” a lot of layers
• I’m not gonna be “deceived”

*🔍 Deep Dive*
• Parties that may get a bit too wild
• The importance of being “handy with a saw” or “holding a hammer”
• Deciphering English idioms like “drinking someone under the table”

*📖 RnR Family Membership Area*
For the FULL chat, access to 1000+ RnR episodes with transcripts, exclusive podcasts, and to bond with global enthusiasts, join our membership!
RnR Membership https://bit.ly/RnRmembership

*🎧 Jungle Listening Course*
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Jungle Listening https://www.rocknrollenglish.com/courses/junglelistening

*Stay Connected*
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*Learning Key Moments & Timestamps*
6:05 Cost differences between North & South
10:32 Stereotypes about Northerners & Southerners
15:54 Weather variations between regions
20:14 The fading Cockney accent in London
22:37 UK mnemonic for cardinal directions
30:03 English phrases & their meanings
30:25 My struggle with the pronunciation of “down south”
30:53 Anna’s special offer for listeners

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of rock and roll English episode number 315 baby oh yeah and in today’s episode we have a special special guest someone famous in the English teaching world but the English teaching world is international so she is also internationally famous so I speak to

Anna from English like a native have you heard of her probably yes now I wanted to get her on the podcast for a very very very long time and there’s a very RNR story let’s say about me trying to get her on the podcast that you will

Hear at the very beginning of the podcast so I am very happy to finally have her here and we speak about something which maybe is not so well known outside of the UK which is the north south divide in England because there is a north south divide because

There are many differences between the North and the South of England so it’s one of those rock and roll English episodes where you may actually learn something and not just talking about pooing so quickly before we start I am doing another YouTube live this Thursday so Thursday the 26th of October at 8

P.m. UK time 900 p.m. in Europe but if you can’t make it live don’t worry you can obviously watch it later and we will analyze the language from the podcast break things down and especially connected speech this is something which everyone really enjoyed in the last live

So make sure you don’t miss it and of course if you have difficulty understanding anything from this episode or at work or films or wherever don’t forget to check out my online course jungle listening which is the only course on the market which breaks down fast spoken jungle English and

Transforms it into something simple and learnable so click the link in the podcast you are listening to right now to check it out or or below in this YouTube video because yes I forgot to mention this podcast is on YouTube too so if you’re listening to the podcast

Version go to YouTube if you want to see my face and Anna’s face maybe you probably don’t want to see my face so much and I understand that but maybe Anna’s so go to YouTube and check it out anyway that is enough of me talking here is the episode happy listening hello

Hello Anna and welcome to rock and roll English hello thank you for having me it is an absolute pleasure to have you and I couldn’t not mention this okay I’m sorry Anna I have to mention this I sent Anna a message in 2017 said hi Anna I like your stuff blah

Blah blah would you like to come on the podcast and I didn’t get a response but I thought that was normal because you were and are like you’ve got a much bigger following I’m sure when to your spam thing and then out of the blue a

Few months ago six years later I got a response yeah hi Martin that would be great so it was unbelievable we must have set some kind of record there Anna yeah I’m I’m quite well known for delayed responses but that has to be an abute record I I think I I don’t know

How Instagram Works in terms of how it sorts your messages but I do get overwhelmed with messages so I just don’t see all of them and of course it seems to have this kind of uh like highlighted section now when you first go into your DMs where it kind of pulls

Up any messages you haven’t looked at and so I’ve obviously gone through a number of messages recently and just brought yours back up to the top and I didn’t I didn’t even recognize the fact that it was from six years previous yeah I actually had to highlight that to you

Because I thought has she not seen that because it does have the date on it and it said like I don’t know September 2017 because I had to double check and I thought did I contact her again recently and so I looked at the message like no

That was from 2017 right okay yeah very embarrassing it’s good that You’ got a good sense of humor and I was oh my goodness M how did I miss that but I’m glad that you know we finally made it work exactly yeah ex good things come to

Those who wait so yeah I am delighted to have you here on the podcast so thanks very much um so I’m sure actually most people know you so just a quick intro um about you so tell us who you are what you do like I said I’m sure most people

Have heard of you already but for those that haven’t yes I’m Anna I’m Anna from English like a native I’m on most social platforms primarily uh on podcast now in the English like a native podcast and YouTube um as the name will suggest to most of you I’m a native English speaker

And I teach native English as in full of grammatical errors because we often speak with grammatical errors I cover a lot of dialect and accent um with many accent tutorials because we have a variety of Accents in this country and a lot of idiomatic English and I just try

And make learning fun and ordinary so it’s not like textbook English or ordinary classroom English it’s just just Chit Chats really just how kids learn you just listen to it and hopefully it’ll sink in exactly and that’s exactly what we do here on rock and roll English so you are the perfect

Guest to have um so you actually mentioned there about lots of like different accents and things in the UK so correct me if I’m wrong here you were born in the north but you now live in the south of England that’s correct yeah yes yes I’ve I’ve moved over to the dark

Side as some golders would say um yeah I was born in a small town called Southport which is I think technically Mery side so I think so um and I was I brought I was brought up mostly around Manchester um and yeah then when I was

Uh in my 20s I moved down to London for studying uh and haven’t really left I’ve kind of moved away from the city a little bit but stayed in the South I can’t really imagine going back up north these days right interesting now lots of people not sure how well this is known

In other countries so talking about specifically England there is a north south divide no so the main thing the reason I say there is I actually remember I did this in school for an economics project about the north south divide because like economically a house I’m sure you’ll

Know this probably where you grew up like near Manchester would cost a lot less than it costs probably where you live now no absolutely that generally the further south you go in this country the more expensive everything is it’s always a pleasure when we go on holiday

Like we have a station in the UK and we we go maybe to Wales or we go up north to the Lake District or somewhere it’s always a pleasure traveling up north because the petrol becomes cheaper the food becomes cheaper you know everything is just cheaper but yeah housing housing

Particularly around the capital is insane like there I used to dream about the day I could buy my own house because we have a thing in this country about owning our own house which is a bit crazy um and I used to think when I was

21 yeah you know by the time I’m 30 I’ll own a house not even there I’m 41 now there I’m nowhere near owning my own house I don’t think I ever will be able to because I’m just priced out that it’s exactly the same as me this is why I

Still ask myself whether it was a good idea to move back to the UK I had a lovely life in Italy see view lovely apartment my own apartment move back to the UK and yeah it’s it’s a dream to why did you move back ah let’s not get into

That we could have a whole podcast about that desate to move to Italy like that’s my dream is to go and and live over there so many people say that same thing to him that’s again why I I ask myself what am I doing um so yeah there clearly

Is a north south divide in fact as my teacher told me in school because I wanted to do my project on is there a north south divide and he said to me that’s a ridiculous title because I can tell you now there is because of like prices and I also found something very

Strange at school when I was doing this this was in economics one of the things that we measure this by so like house prizes but another one is the cost of beer which I think is a reflection of our country that our culture exactly that one of the measurements we have of

How much things cost is a pint of beer which down south now is like5 pound yeah it’s crazy yeah crazy when like you know when I’m pricing my products or my services I’m always like oh is it too expensive to ask someone to spend a five

And I’m like you wouldn’t even get a drink or a sandwich for that exact actually it’s not that much I mean you know it’s relative to everyone’s situation but yeah down here it’s expensive to eat out or get or whatever absolutely everything breathing is expensive um so I thought you would be a

Great person to talk about some other aspects of this because as I said we’re not going to go into our houses more expensive in the north because they clearly are so we’re going to look at some other like stereotypes let’s say because not only like economic differences there are differences in the

Way people are and the way Northerners look at Southern and the way Southerners look at Northerners so we’re going to look at a few of these and have a chat about from our experience whether they are true or not obviously I don’t think don’t take this as gospel hoping not to

Offend anyone yeah of course needed meant just from our experience okay so the first one is Northerners are real men what do you find have you found this to be true now real men obviously we’re going by the like stereotypical real man big strong can drink lots of beer knows

How to like if you buy something knows how to put it together like a cupboard or something like that what’s your experience of this so there’s lots of images flicking through my mind now of all the men that I know who are not kind of Southern or kind of scattered around

The north of England and the ones that I know from London and you know I think no stereotype is the is the overall rule there are lots of exceptions of course but I I think I think the reason the stereotype exists is because there’s in the past particularly there was a lot more

Industry physical industry in the north you know the mining for example yeah you know these these men were doing very physical work mining all the all the coal and stuff like that um and whereas if you came to London you were coming to do you you academic study and and things

Around Finance it’s the financial Hub it’s the capital so people here sit in offices mostly you don’t come to London to work in a mine come to London to sit in an office in a suit and not do much so I think that’s possibly where that’s interesting yeah I think that is yeah

And I you know my partner Works in finance and he’s not like your big muscular type of guy but he can make a shelf in fact he’s made like wind window seats he’s very handy with a saw okay if there’s anything that needs doing in the house

If there’s a leak or you know Electronics or whatever I’m like you know Nick can you can you have a look at that because I’m sure you’ll figure it out so I think he’s he’s a real a man he’s a real man but then I’ve had previous boyfriends from the south who

Couldn’t who wouldn’t know what to do with a hammer you know that I would be in that category of people when there is something to do luckily my dad’s really good and my wife’s dad is really good at these things so generally call them like hold the hammer for them an important

Job which is sometimes overlooked yeah um you’re the like typal you’re the tool belt oh yeah exactly exactly you’re a souer right yeah of course so yeah I’m I grew up and live in Essex so um and maybe it’s just because you kind of attract people similar to you but my group of

Friends we are all definitely we would not pass a test to be a real man absolutely not so6 Lads Lads Lads but not very good with a hammer definitely not so in fact like from my experience I remember being like on holiday and like making friends with some Northerners and we would

Always have this like north south banter Etc and our impression of them was always like whoa they are real men really well they better drinkers than you oh my god 100% um so much so once I was in Germany with a friend and we got to the point because of in Germany we’re

Drinking I can’t remember what they’re called like the really big beers I wouldn’t want to I wouldn’t want to make a statement there but the really big ones they’re really big ones and like a tanker of tanker that that’s a good point so tankered yeah so we got to

The point where we were actually having difficulty even lifting them let alone drinking them because we after a few of them yeah let’s say we were feeling a bit dizzy um so yeah they were drinking us under the table they were bigger and stronger luckily we’d made friends with them so

Um it wasn’t end we didn’t have any problems but yeah our impression of them was very much like whoo the that’s that’s a man that’s a man we we were impressed by them um and another time we went to Blackpool which apologies from anyone from Blackpool but I must admit I

Think was the worst place I’ve ever been to in my whole life everyone there was on a stago or hu except us and that’s what it’s famous for that’s the big place to have your stag do or your hand do and I remember we on the Saturday thought right let’s do

Something in the day so we were as well like 25 something like this so we decided to go swimming to the in the local Leisure Center oh right not in the sea I was gonna say no no no we’ll see the local Leisure Center walking down and seeing everyone like already on the

Beers drinking and just thinking like this is this is too much for us this these Northerners um so so in my opinion that stereotype is true um so going to the next one difference in weather because this so I can see you nodding there it’s true yeah yeah yeah I mean

One of my friends she moved out of the city London City to move up to Cambridge where she was originally from so her family’s there she moved back to Cambridge I was like that’s fine I understand that then she said to me recently actually I’m thinking of moving up to

Yorkshire and I was like and she said the reason was because she was feeling quite depressed where she was and I was like but do you realize in Yorkshire it’s going to rain so much more and if you’re feeling depressed now just stick yourself alone in a a place where you

Don’t know anyone with loads more rain you’re going to feel even worse but it’s the temperature as well the temperature is always you know a good five degrees difference between True North you know when you’re getting up like north of Manchester you’re going to get about 5 degrees difference between the

Temperature in London and the temperature up there so uh whenever I’m doing a station no matter how hot it feels where I am in London I always pack like a number layers for going up north because even though it says it’s summertime lots of sunshine like no I’m

Not going to be deceived it’s going to be cold it’s going to be windy and there’s probably going to be some rain yeah no that’s interesting because that again is was my experience of going to the north but I found it strange that like when I’ve been on stackd and things

So cities in the North like with my friends there’s always a few jokes about the weather as if we come from like Barbados where it’s like it’s 30 degrees in sunshine every day which is clearly not yeah but London’s in a it’s in a bit

Of a a dip I think like geography if my geography serves me we’re in a bit of a dip so there’s there’s not much like wind we’re kind of sheltered and so I think it kind of warms up a bit more here than anywhere else because of that

We’re not as exposed right interesting but the whole country is known as like the you know the green green the green pastures and and we’re so green in this country because of all the rain so we’ve got to be thankful for that otherwise we’d we’d be a completely different

Country I think without all the grass and the Sheep be thankful for the rain because again having lived in cily it is sometimes tough because like before I never it the weather never bothered me in the slightest but having lived in a sunny country where sometimes like you

Get really sunny days in even December and January and I would go to the beach not necessarily get in the water but have a nice walk and be in like a t-shirt obviously not all the time but once you have had that for so long so

Then when I come here and hear my friends like talking about how bad the weather is in the north I sometimes think it’s not great here though is it it’s it’s certainly unpredictable yeah that’s the only problem with deciding to have a a station here is that you even that especially this year

We haven’t had a summer this year you just can’t rely on the weather that’s exactly why I I don’t really know the like the UK so well because I always thought if I’m going holiday like I I want a bit of sunshine so and it’s equally as expensive to go somewhere in

The UK like as it is to go abroad so generally my experience would would always be go abroad so I don’t actually know much of my own country at all but for example Italy I’ve seen all almost all of it like all of the big cities but in in in England especially hardly

Anything at all um okay so here’s another one again really common stereotype this is it true Northerners are more friendly what do you think I agree with that yeah a general blanket rule um particularly particularly compared to London oh yeah of course yeah so you

Know down here we have a much more kind of is Cosmopolitan the right word we have a mix cultures yeah you know people coming to the UK tend to think I’m going to go to London I’m going to go to London need to be in the South mostly

And so we have if you’re going to London you rarely actually hear the true cotney accent of course you hear accents from all like International accents and and people from all over the UK as well down down in London and so um oh what was your question again I’ve just done that

Mummy braak completely L that Northerners are more yeah friendly um and so I think there is a little bit of like loss of that Community because it’s a big city and people come in and out very quickly I lived in London and moved around London a lot so I was in one

Place for six months and I’d move again and so there’s not really a strong Community sense within London or even the surrounding areas because people if they are there and they’re staying there for a long time they’re just trying really hard to stay in the rat race it’s

So expensive so people just kind of keep themselves to themselves and I’ve noticed living where I live on the suburbs uh on the outskirts of London I found it I try so hard to make friends here and it’s like pulling teeth trying to get a like blood out of a stone it’s

So difficult to make friends and we have children to use as assets for friend making and it’s still so difficult um whereas up north the further north you go especially when you go out to the smaller towns and villages there’s very much a a community sense and not just

The north I’d say over in never each R did we over in the the Southwest you know Cornwall those kind of areas where you still have those Villages there is a community sense there so people tend to be more friendly when they feel more established they know the people in their environment so

When so when a stranger walks in they smile and they go morning all right you’re right um here to look someone in the eye like you just just don’t do it you know you’re on the bus you’re on the tube you don’t look at people if someone

Looks at you you think they’re strange like what do you want he’s going to mug me you know so I I think it’s true no I I actually totally agree with you from my experience again even on that holiday for example these Northern Lads when we

Were staying in a hostel they were very friendly towards us like we would never have like initiated like a conversation with someone else like oh my God we don’t know this person so yeah I I totally agree with basically everything you said and it can be really

Difficult to make friends here but I can’t not mention the fact that you said never eat Shredded Wheat to remember your NorthEast Southwest that’s how what what we do in the UK how to remember it but I hadn’t heard that in such a long

As such a long time as soon as you said that I thought wow that is amazing I’m because I’m dyslexic I’m dyslexic with directions and with colors and some numbers I switch around but I always forget like my left from my right right my Direction so I have to I have to do

That moving a clockwise direction that works yeah yeah so yeah again I I I have to agree with that but like you said especially in London and i’ I’m the same when I go into London I immediately just become like really I was in London at

The weekend and I was going up the escalator and someone was on the left just standing there when they shouldn’t have been because obviously you stand on the right don’t you but if you want to walk quickly go on the left and someone was just there and I was thinking I was

Fuming I had like steam coming out with my ears and then I noticed she even had a a pram with a child in there so I thought I can’t I can’t tell her to move but I was still thinking what are you doing like just immediately I just

Become one of those horrible people as soon as I’m in London so first world problem say yeah exactly so yeah we agree on that one okay so we are going to stop the episode there for today and continue this tomorrow in the rock and roll English family membership area so if you would

Like to continue listening to the conversation where we talk about accents and lots of other things and Anna tells us a real RNR story that involves a misunderstanding and a man taking off his underwear so if you would like to listen to the rest of the episode go to

Rock and roll english.com click become a member and follow the instructions Remember by becoming a member you will also get access to more than 1,000 yes 1,000 extra episodes of rock and roll English weekly online lessons with me you will build a close personal relationship with me and with lots of

People around the world and a million other benefits so yes remember Rock and rolling english.com click become a member so for a quick recap of the vocabulary because we will look at some of this in more detail on Thursday at the Facebook live remember 8:00 p.m. UK

Time and we will also look at the connected speech features but just a quick recap so Anna said at the beginning of the podcast that she gets overwhelmed with messages so when you’re overwhelmed with something with messages it’s like you don’t know what to do it’s almost confusing there are so many

Messages and probably that’s why you end up responding six years later to a message so I then said good things come to those who wait very simple to understand I’m just reme remembering I’m just reminding you of this so that you can use it too Anna also mentioned that

When she has a station a lovely word word there I think that’s quite a new word actually which means you go on holiday but you stay in your own country and she also mentioned about buying her own house that she is priced out of the market so the costs of houses are so

High in the UK that she can’t afford it like me US English teachers unfortunately don’t earn so much money so she is priced out and I am priced out so I then mentioned not to take everything we say on this podcast as gospel okay this is just two people

Having a chat we are not experts or anything like that and Anna then said that her partner knows how to put a cupboard together a lovely term there so when you buy something you usually have to put it together something that I am not very good at that Anna also

Mentioned that when she thinks of men that she knows scattered around the north of England so scattered like one in Newcastle one in Liverpool One in Manchester one in Leeds this is scattered a bit here and there let’s say then she mentioned her partner is very

Handy with a sore so the sore is a thing that you use to cut wood and if you are handy it means you very good at that thing so I am definitely not handy with a saw I did mention though holding a hammer is an overlooked job so people don’t really

Value it for what they should we also had a tanker of beer so a tanker is that big glass that really big one which does even get difficult to hold after you’ve had a few of them and then we mentioned sorry I mentioned that I was having difficulty holding it let alone drinking

It a lovely term there let alone and I also mentioned these Northern Lads Northern men were drinking us under the table a very British expression to say someone can drink more than you you drink them under the table I mentioned I went to Blackpool and everyone was on a

Stago or hendu which remember is the party you have before you get married and there was the local Leisure Center now if you go to a Leisure Center normally you can go swimming maybe you can play badminton maybe you can go ice skating normally has all of these

Different things that you can do and I said when we came out of the Leisure Center it was like 34 p.m. and we saw everyone already on the beers notice that as well on the beers and then Anna said when she has a station she will not be deceived so she

Will not be tricked and she always packs lots of layers so if I am wearing a t-shirt a jumper and a jacket that would be three layers she also mentioned London is in a dip so think of a dip when you dip your biscuit into some tea

Of that like going down London is in a dip if you are watching the YouTube video I am making a perfect hand movement of a dip so go and watch the Youtube video and I mentioned before I moved to Italy the weather in the UK never bothered me in the slightest and a

Lovely term there as well it didn’t bother me at all it didn’t bother me in the slightest and an I mentioned as well that everyone down south is just trying to keep themselves in the rat race this is a term we use in the UK I think also

In America the rat race of just going to work work 9 to5 to try and pay the mortgage on your house this is known as the rat race so she mentioned it’s difficult to make friends so trying to speak to people get a conversation is like trying to get blood from a stone

Something very difficult if you’ve ever tried to do that and obviously the same as talking to people from down south like me I even have difficulty saying down south I still say down south f with a f sound I have to really think about that to not do that anyway so that’s all

Of the vocabulary if you are listening to the podcast version remember to check out either the YouTube version or go to rock and roll english.com click podcast episodes and all of the vocabulary will be there as well as lots of links to find Anna in case you don’t know where

To find her and a free pronunciation master class that she is offering directly to you don’t forget YouTube live Thursday this Thursday 20s something of October at 8:00 p.m. UK time I will see you all very soon people thank you very much for listening but in the meantime just keep on rocking baby