This week a friend sent me an interesting email. Here it is:

DID YOU KNOW…?

‘Stewardesses’

is the longest word typed with only the left hand

And ‘lollipop’
is the longest word typed with your right hand.
(Bet you tried this out mentally, didn’t you?)

No word in the English language rhymes with
month, orange, silver, or purple.

‘Dreamt’ is the only English word that ends in the letters ‘mt’.
(Are you doubting this?)

Our eyes are always the same size from birth,

but our nose and ears

never stop growing.

The sentence:
‘The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog’
uses every letter of the alphabet.
(Now, you KNOW you’re going to try this out for accuracy, right?

The words ‘racecar,’

‘kayak’

and ‘level’
are the same whether they are read left to right or right to left (palindromes).
(Yep, I knew you were going to ‘do’ this one.)

TYPEWRITER is the longest word
that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
(All you typists are going to test this out)

A cat has 32 muscles in each ear.

A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.
(Some days that’s about what my memory span is.)

Many people choose to learn a second language by living amongst those who speak it as a native language. But the one thing of most importance is that they are happy in that situation otherwise their language studies will suffer.

So instead of permanently relocating, many people go on an extended trip to the country instead. Sometimes, the very best opportunities to gain experience speaking the new language can come from the most simple tasks – for example catching a bus or buying an item from a shop.

One of the reasons for this is because when someone is presented with a study course, or left to choose which parts of the language they study, they fail to tackle the really difficult parts (for a variety of reasons). But when the focus is simply on getting something done (such as catching a bus or buying some food) they have no choice in the matter and no way of avoiding learning the necessary words and vocabulary in order to complete the task. If you are going to travel abroad for a language course it’s just as well to make sure that you retain as much as possible!

Another reason is that the student is not just reciting phrases from a book. Conversations will develop into unexpected verbal ‘territory’ and the student will have to try to be understood. It’s a lot easier to give up on a difficult task when failure only involves closing a book. When it involves walking out of a shop empty-handed, or walking off a bus – it’s a little more frustrating, therefore the person learning the language is much more likely to dig in,learn quickly and retain the information – fear of embarrassment is a great learning tool!

While on a language course, the student is likely to spend a lot of time surrounded by natural speakers of the country’s native tongue. This has a lot of benefits, some obvious and some not so obvious. It’s possible to pick up ideas and and understanding subconsciously just by being in their presence. This type of learning can greatly improve the student’s ability to master the little nuances of the language, such as intonation and emphasis on certain words.

An excellent way to encourage the mind to develop all of the skills required to master a new language is distraction. For example, imagine spending day after day consciously trying to learn a language. Once the task becomes boring or tedious, the mind has a tendency to rebel in order to remove the perceived ‘pain’ felt by continuing with the task. Trying to learn a new language, like the English language, for example, should be enjoyable, not a chore.

There is a perfect solution for this that not only helps the student to learn the language more quickly and thoroughly,but also makes the whole language course a much more fun and memorable experience – mix the heavy learning sessions up with totally different sessions where having fun is the key aim. These activities are carefully planned in order to develop the individual, as well as ensuring that while distracted with simply having fun, they are also in an environment where they will be exposed to native speakers of the language while also occasionally being required to either just listen or also speak in the language that they are learning.

Particularly if the student is young, this also provides the perfect opportunity to get them involved in character building activities that require and develop teamwork, communication skills, courage, leadership, listening to and acting on instructions whilst using initiative as well – and many other crucial abilities that will help them throughout their life. The end result is that the learner will probably feel like they have been intensively studying constantly, but in fact they will have picked up new language skills throughout all of the different experiences – perfect! Lots of English language course participants will be pleased to hear this – you learn much more when you’re having lots of fun!

QUESTION:

What do you think? Is it better to study English in an English speaking country? Or in your own country?

Put your answer in the comments!

Put your answer in the comments!

This video starts out looking very cool. The man is using technology to build something.

At the end of the video, we see why he is building it. It may make you cry!

Can’t see the video? Click HERE

Activity:

Watch the video and answer the question:

WHY IS THE MAN BUILDING HIS OWN WORLD?

Record or type your answer in the comments!

Today, a guest writer shares some tips on how to write a eulogy speech.

Q: What’s a eulogy speech?

A: It’s a speech made at a funeral. It is a speech about someone who has died. Usually a eulogy speech will talk about how special someone was.

Writing a eulogy can be very difficult, not only because of the language. It is hard to write a speech if you are sad.

Activity:

1) Listen to the article. Click the ‘listen’ button above to start listening.

2) Read the article.

3) Answer the question after the article.

Here’s the article:

The main reason for giving a funeral speech is to give the highest possible respect for that person that everybody has already missed so much. Speaking before a swarm of people present during the funeral service will make them keep in mind and cherish those memories that they had with that missed person and it will give them a sense of peacefulness and will constantly remind everyone that life in this world is not the life that everybody should be after but rather the After Life where everyone will be coming home to one way or the other and live an everlasting Life.

Eulogy speeches can also help all people present during the service lessen the burden of their heavy and saddened hearts by recalling those memories and instead of saying goodbye to that person feeling mighty sad, they can say “goodbye and hope to see you again” with a smile and a radiance of hope and a positive thinking of what life is really all about.

Writing a eulogy doesn’t only mean that you have to make it as sad as you want it to be. . Do you know what can make all people in a funeral service have a light heart? Humorous speeches. You see, when you deliver some eulogy speech for someone who just died, be it a member of a family or even a pal, the people present should need to have good memories for that person and eulogy speech can help and mind you, you also need to put a little humor in your speech to let everybody remind that the person is also a jolly good one even for once in his life. So, how can you mix humor with a solemn eulogy speech? The giving of a hilarious speech is actually easier than you think. The same process is always involved: you just got to bring to mind all the fun memories you had with that person. But the organizing of thoughts and arranging them is the hardest part because as what have said earlier, you might have all the right ideas but once you are facing a crowd of mourners with a deep feeling in your heart, you might get stumped and you could even break down in tears before you even get to start speaking your first word. And to overcome this, you need a funeral speech guide that can give you an example of eulogies or two and eventually make an original one that you can call your own. You might even need to write your own original funeral poem to make it more appropriate and more solemn, poems that come straight from the heart and guide that person going to the next life- the Everlife with peace and serenity.

So, where can you find the best funeral speech guide? As always, the best source of all kinds of things these days is through Cyberspace and here, you will find the best of all eulogy speech guides which is called “A Eulogy To Remember” and you can say that it’s the best for it was written by a professional public speaker and funeral presider by the name of Kevin Burch. And before you get to the part of getting a copy of yours of this book, here are the six basic steps you need and learn how to give a eulogy and they actually came from Kevin Burch. 1) Take a moment for yourself before you write that eulogy speech, 2) then, decide the kind of eulogy you want to create and it depends on the situation and the kind of person that you have already missed in death, 3) gather all the needed information, 4) bring it all together in one big idea, 5) rehearse your speech (this is the part where most people would eventually ignore and it’s the biggest mistake in preparing for a funeral speech) and 6) you finally deliver the eulogy.

Put your answer in the comments.

Today, let’s look at ‘I got it’!

 Q: What does ‘I got it‘ mean?

  A: ‘I got it‘ usually means ‘I understand‘. In this case ‘get‘ means ‘understand‘
  

Note that ‘I got it’ is different to ‘I have got it‘, which means ‘I have it‘.

Question: Do you get it?

Put your answer in the comments!

Practice: Would you like some beer?

Put your answer in the comments!

Recently, I visited a friend of mine. This friend is not a native English speaker.

It was my first time to visit their house and when I arrived, they were busy in the kitchen. They asked me to wait for a moment. That was fine.

I asked them, “Do you mind if I sit down?”

They answered, “Yes.”

This confused me, because their answer means “Yes, I do mind!”, which means “You cannot sit down!”

Actually, they wanted to say that it was okay for me to sit down. So what happened? Why did they make this mistake?

Actually, questions using  ‘do you mind …?‘ often confuse English students:

Let’s take a look:

do you mind = do you think it is a problem

“Do you mind if I sit down?” = “Do you think it is a problem if I sit down?”

“Yes, I mind (if you sit down)” = “Yes, it is a problem if you sit down.”

“No, I don’t mind (if you sit down)” = “No, it is not a problem if you sit down.”

Example:

So if someone asks:

Do you mind if I turn on the TV?

You should answer:
Yes, I do (this means DON’T turn on the TV)
No, I don’t (this means GO AHEAD and turn on the TV)

I explained this to my friend and he then said he didn’t mind if I sat down! I was happy!

ACTIVITY:

How would you answer the following:

1) You are staying with a family in Australia. You want to go out with some friends tonight.

You ask them: “Do you mind if I come home late tonight?”
They answer: “Yes.”

What does their answer mean? Is it okay for you to go out or not?

2) You live with a room mate.

Your room mate asks: “Do you mind if I smoke?”

But, you HATE smoking. What would you say? “Yes” or “No”

3) Your friend asks you: “Do you mind if I borrow $100?”

What would you answer? Explain why you agree or do not agree to lend them the money.

Today, let’s talk about how to make friends with native English speakers!

Recently, I interviewed a good friend of mine. I asked him how he made friends when he first moved to Australia. Watch the video below and see what he said!

Recently I wrote an article asking if you know what the phrase “I am stuffed” means.

You can read that article here: http://www.askjohnenglish.com/vocabulary-all/i-am-stuffed

THE ANSWER:

I am stuffed = I am very, very tired

DID YOU KNOW…

I am stuffed also can mean “I am in big trouble”!

HOW CAN I UNDERSTAND THE MEANING IN CONVERSATION?

From the context.

Context means the topic you are talking about.

Example:

In my article I talked about working very hard. So from my topic you can see that I mean “tired”

CHALLENGE

Look at the sentences below.

Tell me which sentences mean “I am in trouble” and which mean “I am very tired”.

1) I went to a party last night and now I am stuffed.

2) I didn’t study for the test at all. I think I am stuffed!

3) I was so busy today, I didn’t have time for lunch. I am so stuffed, I am just going to go to bed. Goodnight!

4) Why did you lie to your girlfriend? I think you are stuffed!

Put your answer in the comments! 

EXTRA CHALLENGE

Do you know one more meaning for the phrase “I am stuffed”? Hint – after dinner!