Real English is listening.

We have upgraded the Real English servers, causing some unexpected problems. If you are not able to log into your Real English account, or create a new one, please forgive us for the inconvenience.
HOWEVER, you can still access all the videos by going to
http://www.real-english.com/reo/index.html

You will not find many of the exercises on these pages, but you will find ALL the classic videos, plus some new ones. This is a free-access area. No login is required. 

Once again, please excuse us for this glitch! Everything will soon be back to normal.

Hackers are actively exploiting a “zero-day hole” in RealNetworks’ RealPlayer media player, which is installed on tens of millions of Windows computers worldwide, and which is required to view Real English videos. Go to
http://service.real.com/realplayer/security/191007_player/en/ 

On this page, you will note that there are two different patches, according to the version of the player installed on your computer - one for RealPlayer 10.5 and RealPlayer 11 beta, and another for RealOne Player, RealOne Player v2 and RealPlayer 10.

If you don’t know which version of the Real Player you have installed, you can open your Real Player, and click on “Help”, then click on “About Real Player” to see the version you are running. If your Real Player is in compact mode like mine, you will first have two click on  the two >> (2 arrows at the top) to expand, and then you will see “Help”, and finally “About Real Player” at the bottom.

After the patch is applied, you will see no confirmation message telling you that the update has been successful. The patch is, nevertheless, and apparently, effective if you see no error messages during or after the brief update process. I don’t understand why this big company doesn’t do a better job with security related matters.

Additional general info at ZDNet Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=599

We have interviewed thousands of people since we began Real English in 1992. Sometimes these people contact us after seeing themselves on our site.

This morning we received a message from Maira, who lives in Brazil. We interviewed her and her friend Roberta 4 years ago. You can see her video here on YouTube, or here on the Real English site.

Here is the message she wrote us:

Hi, I’m Maíra, the girl in the video you made on Nantucket.We didn’t know if you were going to use our interview or not, we thought it was a video for some language school in France. We were so surprised to see it here. Anyway, we liked it. And it’s nice to be one of the most viewed videos.Oh, I just loved how you guys described us: Culture Collectors. I had never thought in that way but you are right, its so me!!! I don’t know if you can understand me or if I got to express myself correctly, it just feel good think about myself as a culture collector. Thanks. I’d appreciate if you could send this message to the interviewer and the rest of the group.

Like I said in the video, let me add something else… we went to Europe, one month backpacking, 10 countries even Marocco. Definitely the best trip we’ve ever had.