YouTube and Mousetraps

Does anyone know how long YouTube has been around? Amazingly, nearly 20 years and was founded in 2005 in the US by three former PayPal employees. Said to be the second most popular website in the world after Google, can we imagine life without it? I’m often told by the younger members of my family to use YouTube when I don’t know how to do something. Now that certainly worked a few weeks ago when my neighbour rang me in a panic at 06:30 in the morning to ask if we had a mousetrap as Willy, her cat had brought in a mouse … We certainly do but could I remember how to set it up? Of course not 😊. So YouTube came to my rescue and I couldn’t believe how many videos there are on how to set it up with a Nutella-coated raisin to attract the mouse and then let it it out later when it was running around inside trying to figure out how to escape! As you can imagine, I was the hero of the day …

A colleague recently pointed to me to a YouTube video on all the things you can do with it to help you learn English – slow down the text, read the transcript, use subtitles etc.

You may know them but if you don’t, try them out, as there is a wealth of good material out there.

A.J.Hoge’s channel is good for his uplifting and motivating style (and he speaks slowly!) and ‘Speak confident English’ has some excellent tips.

Are there any you can recommend?

Any by the way, did you know that ‘Tube’ is an old word for TV and where the name comes from!