This is only a short blog message.

Have you ever thought about this?

When people talk about things, show films, write books and describe about something other than language, we can understand well what they mean to say.

One of the big problems with language learning is that we cannot understand well about it, and how it feels to know another language until we can actually do it.

We can read about other peoples' experiences and listen to them speak in a different language, but we cannot have the feeling of understanding what it is like to know a different language: read, write, speak and listen to it - until we can do these things for ourselves.

So, language learning can be a bit lonely to decide on "what to do" and "when to do", "why we do" and "where we do"...

But, whatever we do.......let's enjoy it!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

I know that I talk a lot on my website about "relaxed learning”. I do believe this is the best way to learn; with a relaxed mind and attitude.

However, sometimes I talk about “challenges”. When we choose to learn a language, we also accept that we will be challenged. These challenges come from the challenge of learning the language itself, but also the challenge of the “real world”.

There are any number of situations in life which would present a challenge to us, even in our own language.

In a different language, the challenges increase.

So, how do we use relaxed learning ideas to meet challenges that are not relaxing?

Here are some challenges that have happened to me in a foreign country:

1. Trying to find my way around.
2. Somebody got angry with me when I did not know why
3. Getting on the wrong bus
4. Ordering food and the wrong food comes.
5. Being stopped by a policeman and being asked for my passport.
6. Driving on the right and trying to reading road signs (In England we drive on the left)
7. Being accosted by a drunken person
8. Ordering breakfast in a hotel but not knowing what the food actually is.
9. Going through customs in an airport and having to explain what is in my suitcase.
10. Losing my wallet.

These are 10 examples of challenges.

So, what can we do as a language explorer?

We can:

1. Practice some important question words: “can you help me please?” “where do I find?” “could you tell me?”
2. Have a small situation in our mind that we can use in difficult situations “I am a visitor here, would you please allow me some time to answer your questions please?”
3. Practice shouting in the language “Help!” “Come here please!” “Leave me alone!” “Why do you want that?!”
4. Make a small notebook with important words in it: Customs, toilets,money changing, credit card, e-mail, internet, airport, bus station etc.
5. Prepare your mind to avoid panic. Find the words for “calm down!” “it's ok!” “it"s very kind of you to offer assistance”
6. If you can, ask someone to try out a scenario. In the airport, on a train, booking a table at a restaurant. But not just the words that we see in text books, make sure you add new ideas for something going wrong.

When a person is training for the police, they do not meet up with criminals during the training. But they meet with special trainers who act like real criminals so the trainee can understand what can happen after they have completed the training.

When we learn to drive, we must study about the special hazards that happen when we drive: bad weather, people walking in the road, bad light, speeding drivers.

Then we practice driving to discover these in practice.

This is called “simulation” and “role-play”.

We need to do the same in language exploration. Let’s practice before we are in the not-so-relaxing situations that we will come up against eventually.

The Scout movement motto says it all: “Be prepared” 

Our language is affected by our moods and feelings.

We can practice mood words as a way of developing our language skills:

Here are some NEGATIVE MOOD WORDS with corresponding POSITIVE MOOD WORDS

I've written some sentences for practice.

*Tense "I've been feeling tense lately about all my problems”

*Light-hearted  "I try to be light-hearted about my problems”

*Gloomy “Cooking food every day makes me gloomy”

*Playful “I like to be playful about cooking food”

*Violent   “my girlfriend gets quite violent when she drinks alcohol” 

*Tender   “my girlfriend is quite tender”

*Pessimistic “I am a pessimistic person”

*Optimistic “I am an optimistic person” 

*Cold   “I'm cold with people I don"t like”

*Warm  “I"m warm with people I like”

*Hopeless  “It’s hopeless, I’ll never go to China”

*Hopeful  “I’m hopeful that I can travel to China in the future”

*Haunting   “Seeing that old photo is haunting”

*Nostalgic  “When I look at old photos it makes me nostalgic”

*Nightmarish “Christmas is a nightmarish time with my family”

*Peaceful    “Christmas is a peaceful time with my family”

* Hostile      “My neighbours are quite hostile to me”

*Welcoming   “My friends are welcoming when we visit them”

*Suspenseful   “The office can be quite suspenseful when the boss arrives”

*Harmonious  “Things are quite harmonious in our office”

*Foreboding  “Travelling to other countries is quite foreboding”

*Trustful   “It’s best to be trustful when travelling to other countries”

*Threatening  “I can’t speak English there. The people seem threatening”

*Confident  “I want to be confident speaking to people in English”

*Terrifying “It’s terrifying when I fly in an airplane” 

*Joyous  “A marriage is a joyous occasion”

*Heartbroken “I feel heartbroken when I make many mistakes when speaking a foreign language”

*Empowered  “I feel empowered when I speak another language”

*Lonely   “It’s lonely being a language learning on my own

*Inclusive  “My club is inclusive, it welcomes all new members”

Hello everybody. A new idea is about "different vocabulary for language learning"

how many times do we see people say:

"I must study hard"

"I must study very hard"

What exactly does "study hard" mean?

Does it mean read a lot? speak a lot?

Does it mean get stressed and worry a lot?

To me the words "study hard" are a bit meaningless.The words "study hard" are meaningless, because it means different things to different students:

Some students love learning and nothing is "hard". Others study and study and learn little. Both types of students would perhaps say "I am studying hard", but it would not mean the same thing to each type of student. Many people say this without really thinking about what they are saying.

When I read or hear language students saying this, I get a bit worried, because the more they say "I must study hard", the more they can make themselves stressed or frustrated.

Instead of the word "study hard", what about saying:

 "intelligent enjoyment "

Also, another thing I have been thinking about is descriptions of language levels. Many academics, teachers and employers refer to language ability as different levels.

beginner or novice or "newbie"

intermediate

upper-intermediate

advanced

I have some new vocabulary:

Instead of: "beginner"

What about saying "enjoyment level 1"

"intermediate" could be "enjoyment level 2"

etc...

What do you think?

One of the problems with English is there are many different ways to say the same thing

and sometimes there are the "conventional phrases" that people say often but do not really think carefully about what it means.

"my English is poor"

"I want to speak like a native speaker"

"I cannot speak well"

"can you help me with my English, it is so bad?"

These phrases are not good phrases in my opinion

My English is poor , better to say

"I like learning English and I want to improve it"

"I cannot speak well" better to say more "I'd like to make my pronunication more like a native speaker and make my language flow better when I speak"

More words, but better words!

What do you think?

Bye for now

Alan

When we learn languages, it's often quite difficult to get the chance to actually hear someone speaking in a casual way.

It is interesting how words are created. Computer and Internet terms are springing up all the time and the two words "blog" for "weblog" or "web diary" and "podcast" from "I-pod (MP3 player) and the word "broadcast". These are recent words in English which are now well known to Internet users.

The English language is always expanding. It's interesting to think how many words have come into the language since I was a child. Also words become old-fashioned and disappear from use. This makes English one of the biggest languages in terms of vocabulary as well as number of people who speak it.

In Britain there are many accents. I speak with a Northern English accent, or more precisely with a Lancashire accent. But even in Lancashire there are quite a number of slightly different sounding accents. So I could say that I speak with an East Lancashire accent. Even then, I could say that some words and vowel sounds are a little different between the town where I live and the next town nearby.
These differences are very small and you would probably have to have been brought up in the region to hear these differences.

In fact accents are also changing quite a lot in my country. Most people used to speak with a pronounced (or very strong) regional or local accent, and many still do, but for a lot of people, their accents are not as strong as they used to be and this is because people move around the country more than they used to in the past. Also, TV and films have a big influence and people modify their speech to make themselves more understandable to others.

Some of the more noticeable differences are the short open vowels in the North such as "bath" (short "a")where in the South it would sound more like "barth" (long "a")

In the North of England people often shorten the word where the "th" in the word "the" sometimes is shortened to "t" - walking t"dog instead of "walking the dog". A recent Northern pronunciation which sounds quite funny is " t'Internet" instead of "the Internet". If you find that some of the words or phrases a little difficult to understand, then please leave me a comment and I"ll try to explain it.

I’ve started to use podcasts myself for learning languages. It’s great that we can listen to interesting presentations so easily these days. I remember when I was young, I used to have a small short-wave transistor radio and I used to try an listen to other languages but the quality was always poor and the radio stations I did find were very faint and the language and country seemed so far away.

Nowadays it is so easy to contact people on MSN, QQ, Skype and speak with them around the world. I think it is really fantastic that the technology exists that allows this to happen. It makes you wonder how this will develop in the future.

If you have any suggestions for my webcasts let me know. For the moment, I am just talking about things that interest me in the hope that you find it interesting too.

Fluency - setting up a conversation

Hello everybody. Today I want to talk about how to make your spoken English flow better and to help you with making it a little easier to talk to people, particularly native speakers.

To have a good conversation you need to start well, enjoy the conversation and make it a two way thing and to find a good way to finish. This is useful and has nothing to do with the length of time you speak for.

To start off a conversation, try to remember some good opening sentences: If you know somebody already… (informal)

"How are you today?”

 “Nice to see you, how's it going?”

“What"s new? How are things?”

 “It’s good to see you”

If you are meeting someone for the first time (formal)

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, my name is…..”

“Nice to meet you, my name is, how are you?”

“Let me introduce myself, I’m……(name)”

The next part is to let the other person do something similar and then you have names. If they use first names, then you can also use first names.

The next stage is to give yourself time to think. The small pauses seem to be a long time, but they will only be a few seconds.

“I’m learning English and…………. I’m finding it so interesting”

 “It’s great to be able to speak with you in English………………, I’m enjoying learning it”

“I would like to improve my English…..I do have a few problems now and then, so forgive me if I am a little slow at times….”

“What a pleasure it is to be able to speak some English…… I like learning it and I’m hoping to improve it”

Then you can follow my advice about keeping the conversation going by letting the other person speak more, asking questions, saying phrases like:

“ah really?”

“that’s interesting”

“I see”

“hmmm, well you make a good point there”

“I agree with you…” (if you do agree)

 “That’s right!”

 If you are uncertain, or you don’t understand so well

“Oh, I’m not sure what you mean there…”

“Could you repeat that please?”

“That’s interesting, but I’m not sure what you meant by……”

“Really? Well, it’s certainly something to think about”

Many of these sorts of sentences can be used to keep conversations going and also give you time to relax and enjoy the conversation because most of the work will be on the other person.

The more time you can give yourself in a conversation, the more time you have to think of the right words you want to say . If they ask you what you think about something and you are not sure what to say, then you can use these sorts of phrases:

 “Oh, I’m not sure about that, tell me what you think again please?”

“Well, I would think it is something to consider yes,”

“I think it’s not easy to answer that, what’s your opinion?”

All the time, these sentences and pauses give you more time without the other person realising that you are doing this because they are also answering your questions.

Enjoy your conversations!

Bye for now

Another way to make a text easier to read and understand, is to make gaps between words and phrases. We cannot do this with books, but we can do this with computer texts.

Bye for now!

Alan

Here is a text from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

May you live in interesting times

May you live in interesting times, often referred to euphemistically as the Chinese curse, is reputed to be the English translation of an ancient Chinese proverb and curse, although it may have originated among the English themselves (or Americans). No known user of the English phrase has supplied the purported Chinese language original, and the Chinese language origin of the phrase, if it exists, has not been found, making its authenticity doubtful. One theory is that it may be related to the Chinese proverb, "It's better to be a dog in a peaceful time than be a man in a chaotic period" (寧為太平犬，不做亂世人; pinyin: níng wéi tàipíng quǎn, bù zuò luànshì rén).

Here is the same text split up.  We can use the gaps to add explanations:

May you live in interesting times,        

often referred to

euphemistically>(subsituted name) 

as        

the Chinese curse,          

is reputed>(accepted without evidence)          

to be              

the English translation     

of an ancient      

Chinese proverb and curse,              

although           

it may have originated>(started)           

among     

the English themselves (or Americans).

Origins

No known user>(speaker)         

of the English phrase            

has supplied         

the purported> (same as reputed) 

Chinese language        

original,         

and the Chinese language origin             

of the phrase,                 

if it exists,>(if it is real)            

has not been found,            

making its authenticity>(truthfulness)    

doubtful.>(undecided)                

One theory             

is that      

it may be related         

to the Chinese proverb,          

"It's better            

to be a dog            

in a peaceful time         

than be a man          

in a chaotic> (disordered/completely confused)

period" (寧為太平犬，不做亂世人;

pinyin: níng wéi tàipíng quǎn, bù zuò luànshì rén).

Here is a good website with facts about different countries. This is the link to the United Kingdom.

Bye for now

Alan

http://www.nationmaster.com/country/uk-united-kingdom

Have you ever thought about keeping a "language learning scrapbook"?

Many children and teenagers keep a scrapbook for reminding them of nice holidays with postcards, friends' photos, special poems, hand-written texts, magazine articles.

We can make a language learning scrapbook (either a real scrapbook, or a computer folder with different files in it)

Here are some ideas for the scrapbook:

1.Photos/postcards with captions 

2. Diary entries

3. words you find difficult to remember

4. friends messages

5. grammar notes

6. special words of things that you are interested in

7. Internet addresses

8 Newspaper or magazine articles

9 Maps of the country of the language you are learning

10 Pictures of national or local costumes

11. local customs

12. Food and drink recipes

13. Word games

14. Crosswords or card games

15. Tongue twisters

Bye for now

Alan

Here is a good website: http://thecreativescrapbooker.wordpress.com/2007/04/29/scrapbook-materials-photos/

Hello everybody,

When we need to understand a complex text, what can we do to make it easier?

Here is a text.

Look at what you already know.. and highlight it

Charles John Huffam Dickens 7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print. A concern with what he saw as the pressing need for social reform is a theme that runs throughout his work

Now read again the words in simpler way...

*Charles John Huffam Dickens-  

*the most popular English novelist

*of the Victorian Era - 

*most popular of all time.

*He created memorable characters.

*His novels and short stories never gone out of print.

*Need for social reform,

*theme that runs throughout his work

Then look for words you do not know and then read the whole text again..

Charles John Huffam Dickens 7 February 1812 - 9 June 1870), pen-name "Boz", was the most popular English novelist of the Victorian era and one of the most popular of all time. He created some of literature's most memorable characters. His novels and short stories have never gone out of print. A concern with what he saw as the pressing need for social reform is a theme that runs throughout his work.

If you understand even 10% more now, you have made some progress!!

Bye for now

Alan

Here are some happy words and let's link them to language..

We need happy words to keep us learning. Lets make some sentences..

aglow -  I was aglow when I discovered I could speak some Spanish with a native speaker

amazed - I am still amazed that I can learn any Chinese

amused - I was amused when I read a joke book in German

anticipation - the anticipation about learning a language is almost as good as actually learning it.

beautiful - French is considered a beautiful language "la belle langue"

blessed - I feel blessed when people find my website articles interesting.

blissful  - a blissful way to learn, is by keeping relaxed

bright -  I think some of my friends who learn languages are very bright

 
celebrate - let's celebrate our language achievements!

cheerful -  a cheerful attitude goes a long way to helping us learn a language!

comedy - comedy helps us appreciate things and we can learn more when we laugh I think.

 
compassion - compassion is when we feel for others and wish to help them

content - I feel content when I think of a new language learning idea

delight  - it's a delight to help people with English

elated - I am elated when I get some nice feedback to my website articles.

So just make up some sentences and feel better about language learning

Then read them out loud a few times...

You can make you own sentences...

Here are some more words..

enjoy
enthusiastic
euphoric
exuberant

fortunate
fun
gay
give
glad
golden
gracious
gratitude
hallelujah
happy
heaven
hopeful
humor
inspiration
inspired
jolly
joyous
jubilant
light
lighthearted
love
merry
optimistic
overjoyed
play
pleased
pleasure 
relief
satisfaction
serendipity
smiles
spontaneous
surprise
sweet
thrill
upbeat
vivacious
whole

Be good BE HAPPY!

Alan

Here is a suggestion for speaking practice:

It may seem silly, but I believe it helps speaking.

1. Find a good text to read out loud. Maybe 200 words.

2. Before you read it, get a text in your own language, maybe 100 words.

3. Read out loud your native language text pretending to be English person with a foreign accent

4.Read slowly with accented speech like an actor

Then...after doing this

5. Read out the English text without stopping

It seems a bit silly, but it makes you think the English sounds in your mind, before you speak English.

I do this with French, German, Chinese and Spanish.

I read English with a "pretend" foreign accent before I try to speak the language I am learning.

You can try it....see if you like this idea

If it seems silly, don't worry

Just see if you can read the English more fluently after trying it!

It's worth a try!

Bye for now

Alan

When we are children, we spend many many hours learning new things. Our minds are well-prepared for this. As a child, we just learn new things by experience or from adults teaching us. We even learn from other children.

As adults learning a foreign language, we need to trust our brains also know how to learn.

As a child or as an adult, we need to find ways to get understandable written or spoken language to our ears and eyes, so we can build up our skills.

We also need to produce language: spoken and written.

I think our minds know when this information is useful and helpful and also when we are learning well.

I also think our minds know when we have tried too much and when we are tired. When we need to relax, when we need to work well.

So we can trust our minds to help us!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody.

When we learn a language, we need solid foundations:

1. Grammar (rules of language)

2. Syntax (word order & inflection) "inflection" means how words change for different reasons:  tense, mood, voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case

3. Semantics (meaning of language)

4. Phonology (pronunciation)

These are complex linguistics ideas. I am not a trained linguist. However, we can think in more simple terms.

1. How the language rules work.

2. Which order to put the words and how to change them in the correct way

3. The meaning of what we want to say

4. Pronunciation of words and phrases.

I use the photo of the Eiffel Tower in Paris to demonstrate these 4 important things.

The Eiffel Tower is very high and heavy. It is made from iron.

Its four tall "legs" rest on four strong pillars.

We can build our language "tower" on our four language pillars.

So, we should enjoy learning:

1. The structure of language we speak or write (our language output)

2. Do our best to put words in the right order for understanding.

3. Make sure that people understand the meaning of what we want to say or write.

4. Concentrate on pronunication of words and phrases.

We have 4 language pillars!

That is 4 BIG ways to develop our language skills!!

Bye for now

Alan

. 

We often want to speak and write in a complex way.

 But it is interesting what we can do with no more than 7 words!

 A sentence needs a subject: candles

1."candles are lighting up the room"

2."the room is lit up by candles"

3."lighting up the room by candles"

4. "by candles, the room is lit up"

5. "the room; candles light it up"

6. The candles light the room up

7. The candles light up the room

8. Do the candles light the room?

9. The room is lit up by candles?

10. Is the room lit by candles?

Here is another: grass

1. The grass is green in the garden

2. In the garden, the grass is green

3. Garden grass is green

4. Green grass in the garden

5. The grass in the garden is green

6. Green garden grass

7. In the garden is green grass

8. Is the garden grass green?

9. Is the grass in the garden green?

Good exercise?

Bye for now

Alan

When it comes to speaking a foreign language, I have a system I call  "the Six Keys"

1. Speaking 5% slower than you normally feel you want to - to give yourself a little more time to think of what you want to say, how to say it, to work at great pronunication and grammar.

2. Remember that people listening to you speak will not notice that you are slowing down 5% or will not mind if you told them!

3. Speak to non-native speakers with as much enthusiasm and interest as native speakers. All conversations are useful. If a native speaker conversation gives you a "full meal", then a non-native speaker provides a "snack". Either way, we still have "language food".

4. End words carefully. The English language has important word endings:  Try this word for example: welcome/welcoming/welcomed, welcomer,welcomes,

5. Take careful note of word syllables: example word: meanderingly

me-an-der-ing-ly (5 syllables)

6. Take careful note of word intonation: example word: meanderingly

meANderingly

So, next time you try speaking, try the "six keys"

Bye for now

Alan

If we are reading a difficul text, we can mark up the text in a way to separate the words and phrases. I don't believe it matters exactly how this is done. I just think that adding some colour, or making the text different in some way, helps reading. I think this makes our eyes recognise phrases and identify difficult words. The small words: and, a,to,in, as, are can be left in the original style.

Here is a text that I think is quite difficult, I will show it before and then after "text". See which you find easiest to read and understand.  

Bye for now

Alan

http://www.self-confidence.co.uk/social_skills.html

Before highlighting

6 Key Social Skills

Social skills are arguably the most important set of abilities a person can have. Human beings are social animals and a lack of good social skills can lead to a lonely life, contributing to anxiety and depression. Great social skills help you meet interesting people, get that job you want, progress further in your career and relationships.

Happily, like any skill, social strategies and techniques can be learned…

The main social skills are as follows:

1) The ability to remain relaxed, or at a tolerable level of anxiety while in social situations

2) Listening skills, including letting others know you are listening

3) Empathy with and interest in others' situations

4) The ability to build rapport, whether natural or learned

5) Knowing how, when and how much to talk about yourself - 'self disclosure'

6) Appropriate eye contact

After highlighting

http://www.self-confidence.co.uk/social_skills.html

6 Key Social Skills

Social skills are arguably the most important set of abilities a person can have. Human beings are social animals and a lack of good social skills can lead to a lonely life, contributing to anxiety and depression. Great social skills help you meet interesting people, get that job you want, progress further in your career and relationships.

 Happily, like any skill, social strategies and techniques can be learned…

 The main social skills are as follows:

 1) The ability to remain relaxed, or at a tolerable level of anxiety while in social situations

 2) Listening skills, including letting others know you are listening

 3) Empathy with and interest in others' situations

 4) The ability to build rapport, whether natural or learned

 5) Knowing how, when and how much to talk about yourself - 'self disclosure'

 6) Appropriate eye contact

I want to keep talking about my idea for a language diary. I believe this idea is very useful.

As an extension to the diary idea, I think we can develop the diary to get even more learning and development from it.

Here are my original text blogs concerning the "language diary"

http://www.language-explorer.co.uk/index.php?post_id=490822

http://www.language-explorer.co.uk/index.php?post_id=500877

Hello. This time I want to show you examples of where we use alternative sentences to those that would normally be taught in English classes. I"m also trying to avoid (as much as I can) using examples of dialect because some dialects in England shorten words as a feature of the dialect. I'll give you an example: Do you have a pen I can borrow please - often becomes Have you got a pen please? and in my dialect, I could say "d"y'ave a pen please?” So I"m not trying to show you dialects in this podcast - I'm simply discussing how we choose different sentences sometimes - because they seem less formal, friendlier, easier to say - for quite a number of reasons. Often it may be simply because of habit. Do y"want a coffee? is much more common to ask as a question to a friend or member of the family than "would you like a cup of coffee?”This type of "everyday speech” is, I think, what can make it more difficult for English learners to understand when listening to spoken English - it is quite often not like the written standard forms.Some other examples:

Hello! it's very nice to see you, please come in - "Hi, come on in!”Well, I am really tired so I should go to bed - "I"m off to bed - I'm tired”Did you enjoy that TV programme that was shown yesterday evening? Did you like that programme on telly yesterday evening?Hopefully, you"ll be able to hear and read these differences and it may give you more understanding of why English may seem more complex - when in fact, it is often being made simpler to make it easier and quicker to have a onversation between friends and family. See you next time

Bye!

Today I'd like to talk about common mistakes which people make when they are learning English. These are often only small mistakes and really don"t matter to a native English speaker like me when we hear them - but I thought it might be interesting to discuss some of these small mistakes here,

Remember that part of my learning philosophy is to not worry about making mistakes - so with this podcast I'd like you to know that am not trying to make you worry about them – just to know a little more about my language.

The first common mistake people make is to use the word "since” when talking about things that are happening now that started in the past, for example when people say "I am learning English since 2 years” when this should be “ I have been learning English for 2 years”. We use the word “since” to describe things that started in the past, but not for talking about duration of time someone has been learning or doing something. Some examples of English using “since”

“Since I started learning English I find I enjoy writing letters more”

“Since you left I have been very sad”

“I"ve changed a lot since we last met”

Another common mistake is to use the phrase “of course” in the wrong context. If, for example someone offers you a cup of tea “would you like a cup of tea?” the correct answer would be “yes, please” or “no, thankyou”. Sometimes learners of English will say “ of course!” meaning to them “how kind of you, I would like a cup of tea, yes”

But if they say “of course” it could sound to the native English speaker something like “ yes I do, and you should already know that I do!” – in other words a little bit impolite. Of course, we do you the phrase “of course” – which I just used!

Some examples:

“Of course, when we go to the beach, we must not forget our towels”

“Of course I would like to go with you to the show – because we’d love seeing it together”

“I would, of course, need to bring my swim suit if we are going to the beach!”

These statements are used to agree with someone or affirm something needs or should be done.

Of course, there are many more uses for “of course” and of course, I would like to tell you more about it, but of course, I haven’t much time to do this today!

Common pronunciation difficulties:

The “th” sound as in think, thought, thanks as also the slightly different sound with the, these, though, there and those for example

The “r” sound for running, riding, rowing, rocking and rolling!

Learning a language is like making a long uphill footpath.

I use this "footpath analogy" because we can use the idea

to help us with language learning.

1."We need to see a destination".  In language learning, we need a destination, a direction

to go, so we keep going towards this.

 Some people just call  the destination "fluency".

 I think we can have many such "destinations"

able,capable, competent, proficient, adept, skilful, practiced, accomplished

2."We need to go towards our destination and not veer off the path".

In language learning, we need to keep our mind focused on the things that help us learn and enjoy language. This keeps us on the path.

3."We need a smooth surface to walk on"   We can keep our path smooth by being relaxed and moving carefully along our "path".

tranquil, calm, comfortable, restful,stress-free, hassle-free, unpeturbed, 

4. "Our path sometimes has little pot-holes and puddles". We can not avoid walking through them. This is like when we make mistakes when speaking, listening, reading or writing. We must remember that "we can get our feet wet in puddles, or trip in a pothole, but it does not stop us continuing to walk along the path." 

So, thinking of our "path" helps us to keep going and keep learning!

Bye for now

Alan

English can be a bit silly sometimes

Sometimes we need to challenge ourselves with language learning. I like to use the words "relaxing challenge"

I want to use the word "L.E.A.D.E.R" as a way to remember the technique: "Look- Enquire- Assess- Do- End Result"

*LOOK -  for a subject to talk or write about

*ENQUIRE - for information about the subject

*ASSESS -  what you think you can do well

*DO - what you can to the best of your ability

*END RESULT - see what you can do

Here is an example:

I LOOK for a subject:  "Facebook"

I ENQUIRE some information about "Facebook"

I ASSESS the information - I found some information

I then DO some writing (or speaking) practice

The END RESULT is this:

"Facebook is a social utility networking website that connects people with their friends and others who work, study and live around them. People use Facebook to keep up with friends and family;things they are doing and to share information and opinions.

Follow the LEADER!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

A good exercise for speaking is to write down some unusual situations and pretend they are true - and then speak about them or write about them. This will encourage you to think about and learn more vocabulary.

I will give you some examples of situations/ideas:

"I met the Queen in 2002"

" My brother likes to go mountaineering"

"I saw a UFO"

" I have visited Moscow"

All these statements are untrue, but can be useful for making an interesting presentation or written text...

Here is an example:

"I saw a UFO"

"One evening, when I was driving along in my car, I saw a big light in the sky. It was unusual as it was very big. The light was moving across the night sky. It caught my eye, because it was so big. Suddenly the light moved very quickly, much faster than an airplane could. I was amazed to see it speed away. I believe it was a UFO. Unfortunately, I had no video camera, so I could not show someone else."

Vocabulary:

UFO = Unidentified Flying Object.

It caught my eye = I noticed it

I just made this up. I have never seen a UFO.

So, just use your imagination. Write it, say it or both!

Bye for now

Alan

When we read difficult texts, I find that a technique of "fast/slow" reading can help

1. Read one short sentence or phrase fast, then immediately go back and read it again slowly.

2. Move to next short phrase or sentence and repeat.

3. See if you can understand it

4. Check the words you don't know

5. Keep moving on through the text.

I've added a diagram to show you

Bye for now

Alan

If we break down difficult texts by marking using a pen or the / key on a computer, we can make texts easier to understand:

It is only a simple / mark, but it helps us to understand sentences quicker and easier:

Here is a text from: http://news.bbc.co.uk

"China has been staging mass celebrations to mark 60 years since the Communist Party came to power."

Break it down:

"China/ has been staging/ mass celebrations/ to mark 60 years/ since the Communist Party/ came to power."

China

has been staging  (holding)

mass celebrations (very big celebrations)

to mark 60 years (to recognise 60 years)

since (from the time)

the Communist Party

came to power (became the government)

Breaking down sentences can help us understand and learn.

It would be a lot of work to do this with all our reading. But for complex texts I think it is a useful technique.

Bye for now

Alan

If any visitor wants to contribute to the next issue of

ExLoRErs LoRE magazine - please send me a message to

alan_r_palmer@hotmail.com

thanks and

Bye for now

Alan

I find it useful to think sometimes about what could be achieved, accomplished and attained. I call it "Triple A"

This is thinking about being where you would like to go with language learning and look back at what has been achieved, accomplished and attained.

This may be like looking for the "pot of gold at the end of the rainbow" (an impossible dream) or it maybe be that I can do everything I wish to in the future. I do not know.

But whichever it is, there is nothing wrong with thinking about the "Triple A" time. We can make a list and change the list anytime we feel like.

Here is mine for now (but I can change it anytime)

**I'd like to be able to always enjoy speaking, reading, writing and listening to different languages

**I want to be able to communicate with people  very easily in different languages

**I'd like to be able to always find more and more interesting things to do with languages

**I'd like to be able to make friends and develop friendships using my languages

**I'd like to learn more about different people and cultures around the world using my languages

**I'd like to be able to read any book, watch any film, listen to any speech in the languages I learn

**I'd like to be able to sing songs in the languages I learn

**I'd like to help other people learn my language

I'd like to always have a sense of achievement at any level

**I'd like to always discover something new about languages

**I'd like to never give up "exploring languages"!

Take care

Bye for now

Alan

In English, there are many verbs linked with other words

for example:

sign up, sign in, sign out

come in, go out,

There are others which are more difficult to understand because the two words making them mean different things:

take = to take

heart = heart

take heart = buck up, get courage, cheer up

butter up

butter =butter

up = up

butter up = excessively praise or flatter someone

fight = to fight

flab = unwanted fat

fight flab = to slim/to diet

So, when you read English, look for context so you know when you are reading a small saying

I went to my friend's house last week. I didn't try to butter him up. I just told him to take heart and fight some flab! He weighs too much!

So be careful to read looking for these types of verb phrases.

There are many of these in English and the difference can be very big:

example:

see through a window = look through a window (very litteral - easy)

see through somebody =to understand someone's hidden intentions without them knowing that you know (complex)

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

In English we sometimes say about a situation "getting all the chess pieces right". This means making the best of a situation and planning things well.

We often talk about "language learning", "language study", "language development"

I am suggesting we think about:

*language practice/activities

*language performance

*language action

*language use

*language achievement

*language accomplishment

So, to do this we need to move our "chess pieces" to get our language working well. We can do this at any level.

Chess is a game of tactics and strategy. I think for languages, we are playing a chess game with what life brings us.

So, to play our language chess well, we need to know what we can do with each of our "pieces"

So, to play a good "chess game" 

For practicing at home (or for studying)

*plan our speaking practice

*choose some interesting reading practice

*ask the right questions and get some good answers

*choose some interesting listening

*write about interesting things

and when we are actually given the chance to make contact with native speakers:

*keep a positive attitude

*keep friendly

*try to avoid feelings of frustration

*keep relaxed (as always! haha)

*try not to do too much (and get very tired)

*don't forget to ask questions

*listen carefully

*make short notes/write things down (if you can)

*look for visual clues as much as possible

Playing the "chess game" is to put all these things in the right position and time them well. Hopefully, your tactics and strategy will pay off and you will play a good game!

Lets go for a checkmate and win!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody! Have you ever thought about what "little treasures" of language come to us from other people. We learn new words from other people: family, teachers, friends, aquaintances, brief encounters...

This happens in our own language also. A new word appears and someone introduces it to us. For example, recent words into English. "blog", podcast" etc.

If we think about having a lot of little "pouches" that we can keep filling with interesting things about language, it can make even the smallest communication interesting and useful.

When we speak with someone, even only for a short time, see if  you can get any language "collectable" can keep for using again.

Each person has their own unique interests, hobbies, job and they often love to talk about them.

If you don't have the chance to meet or talk with native speakers, then see if you can get hold of magazines, radio shows, TV, film.

Then, see if you can glean interesting words, information, new phrases, expressions from peoples' language you see in print, listen to or when possible, directly from people themselves.

Puns are useful:  Witch Halloween costume is for you?

So, when you talk to somebody, write to somebody, listen to somebody or read someone's words, then think of the chance to put something in one of your little language pouches. It might be a jewel!

 http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Collectors+item

Why do we say 'um', 'er', or 'ah' when we hesitate in speaking?

Here is an article from Dr Stephen Juan

Umm ...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/06/the_odd_body_language_fillers/

By Dr Stephen Juan

Posted in Biology, 6th May 2006 22:23 GMT

(Asked by Tom Lanier of Austin, Texas)

Not everyone says "um", "er" or "ah" when they hesitate while speaking. It depends upon the language.

For example, speakers of Mandarin Chinese often say"zhege" which roughly translates as "this”. In English we say "um", "er", "ah", or other vocalisations for reasons that linguists are not entirely sure about. "Um", "er", and "ah” contain what linguists call "neutral vowel sounds" making them among the easiest sounds to make.

It may be that they can be said without a great deal of thought too. So that may be part of the answer. "Um", "er", and "ah" are what linguists call "fillers". "Fillers" help conversations continue smoothly.

Although we may not consciously realise it, in a two-person conversation, people speak by taking turns. When someone thinks it is their turn to talk, they do. Otherwise, they listen. A two-person conversation becomes like a tennis match. Inevitably there are short periods of silence as people pause to let the other person take over the speaking. But sometimes a speaker doesn't want to give up their turn and instead wants a little extra time to think about what they"re going to say next. They use a "filler” to signal this.

When a listener hears the “filler”, they continue listening rather than start talking. “Um”, “er”, and “ah” are examples of phonemes. In linguistics, phonemes are the smallest meaningless speech sounds humans make. The smallest meaningful speech sounds humans make are called “morphemes”. Everything we humans say is either meaningless or meaningful. A lot of people never learn the difference. ®

When we speak, listen, write or read, we want to do our best. We want to understand and be understood.

We want to hit the target!

When an archer shoots an arrow, they take aim, pull back on the string and release it to send the arrow to the target.

How do we hit the target?

We can keep our eye on what we want to say, or write

We can take our aim at what we want to achieve

We can "fire our arrow" and see where it lands

We can practice more if we do not hit the centre spot on the target

What sort of things can we do to get the accuracy?

* Search for the right words> think of the most accurate and useful words for what we want to say

* Understand the context > understand what we need to say and why

* Concentrate the effort > keep concentrating on what we need to do

* "Give it our best shot" >speak, read, write or listen the best way we can (without worrying)

Let us imagine we are wanting to catch a train:

Make sure that you search for the right words:

"where is the train to London?" with a little bit more searching could become

"could you tell me which platform the train to London leaves from?

(more accurate words)

If you cannot remember the word for "platform", then you could say

"could you tell me which place the train leaves from?"

"when is the next train to London?" could become:

"at what time does the next train to London leave this station please?"

(more accurate words)

"thank you" could  become:

"Thank you, I appreciate your help"

(add accuracy)

We need to keep our eye on the target, keep our concentration and then go for it. We can hit the target more often when we do this.

Bye for now

Alan

http://www.pdictionary.com/search.php

A very nice website.

Bye

Alan

Hello everybody,

When we learn a language we often say to people: "I would like to speak this language well in the future". This type of statement is fine, but doesn't help us plan.

As a different idea for language learning, we could try "mini-project planning". This means breaking up our ambitions into small "mini-projects"

We can imagine ourselves at a point in time in the future where we are doing something we want to do:

Chatting with friends

Ordering a meal 

Visiting a doctor

By breaking down our ambitions into small ideas and thinking of us doing these things in the future, we will be able to understand better what we need to do. We can then concentrate our efforts on each "mini-project".

Chatting with friends: we need casual language and plenty of friendly phrases: "nice to see you!" "how's it going?" > lots of happy words, sport, leisure, music, holidays...

Ordering a meal:  words for different dishes, drinks, how to ask for the bill.

Visiting the doctor: names for parts of the body, how to explain what is wrong, how to ask the right questions. 

This way, we can concentrate our efforts by thinking of smaller projects.

In English we called this "pigeon-holing" which makes us think of a very large project "learning a language" as a series of smaller projects all linked together.

1. Keep motivated even when you are frustrated with your progress - which will sometimes happen. Don't expect to become fluent very quickly, learning a language well takes many years. But always remember that any level allows communication. I think that very often learners expect to become fluent much more quickly than is possible. This can lead to a lot of frustration and it can also make learners feel they aren't progressing when they are!

2. Keep interested in new words - they are the key to any progress. What I mean here is that language is mostly about words - a person who knows a lot of words would communicate without much grammar. I"ve read somewhere that to speak a language in a basic way needs a vocabulary of 2000 words. This sounds a lot – but isn’t so difficult to learn with a bit of patience and time.

3. Enjoy using the language you already have - many people often say that they are "not yet good enough" - but forget what they have already achieved and what opportunities it brings. I realised a long time ago that "a little goes a long way” and I have found that it is surprising just how much communication can take place at any level.

4. Use the Internet as and when you can. There is a fantastic amount of useful material, not to mention interesting and useful blogs and chatrooms. I remember the first time I went on line which is 10 years ago this year. I thought, what a great opportunity for me, I can learn now from my own living room. These days, there is so much there for you to get for free. It’s a brilliant resource if used intelligently.

5. Read in the target language as much as you can. But don't try to read at a level too high - or you will get frustrated. Try reading for enjoyment sometimes at the level you are at - or just a little higher. You will find this encouraging. I read a book many years ago on second language learning that placed a big emphasis on reading a lot – but was careful to point out that the level should not be too high or it would not be beneficial. Too many courses in my opinion expect learners to read texts that are set at too high a level.

6. Make as many friends as you can that speak the target language - maybe you could join a language club where people learn together. I am a member of 3 French language clubs and 2 German language club. If you find it difficult to find a club, you could try to make some "virtual friends" online. This is something that takes some effort, but is really worth it. It means looking to see what is out there and where you can find the right club. I know people who form their own club for exchanging ideas and tips. I do realise also, that finding clubs and native speakers is sometimes impossible depending on where you live.

7. Don't think of mistakes as failure - this is negative. Think of mistakes as "feedback" and then you learn to find ways to reduce them by keeping a positive attitude. When did you see a young child worry about making mistakes? This is my point. When did a child think that they make mistakes? They only know it if an adult corrects them – and very often this is a parent who corrects in a nice way – so they child never thinks of mistakes – and gets on with learning. As a result – they learn quickly. We can do this as adults if we try.

8. Take every opportunity to speak the language and engage with people. If you can't find anyone to talk with, then talk about things with yourself (out of earshot or people will start to wonder...) I have some interesting conversations with myself whilst driving...! And other places too. If this is your only means to express yourself – then don’t forget to do it! Listening to yourself speak is similar to learning to play and instrument “by ear”. I’ve been learning guitar this way for 39 years and I play for myself more often than I play for other people – I’m not a professional musician. So take every opportunity to speak as much as possible.

9. Learn about the culture of the country or countries where the language is spoken when you have some spare time. For example: English culture is somewhat different to the USA but we have many similarities and we do speak the same language - or do we? In reality there are quite a few differences between American English and British English. However these variations in accent and dialect happen with other languages too. I read that one of the most important things in developing language learning is to also learn about the culture of the countries where the language is spoken. This helps make the language “real”, because it helps put the language in context.

10. Finally don't be too hard on yourself if you don't progress as fast as you would like to. Learning a language isn't a smooth process - you can learn a lot quickly sometimes - then sometimes the progress is slow. Always think of language learning as a long-term project not a short-term project and you'll enjoy it more.

I can’t think of any more to say on this apart from

"Be grateful for what has gone, look forward to the future and be pleased with the present!"

Bye for now

Alan

I found a website today that you might like:

http://www.cuebon.com/ewriters/English.html

I found this poem on the website. See if you can understand it.

So you know what to do, I will show you the first verse:

Spell Checker Poem

I have a spelling checker -   (I have a spelling checker)
It came with my pee cee     (it came with my PC)
It plane lee marks four my revue (it plainly marks for my review)
Miss steaks aye can knot sea  (mistakes I cannot see)

Eye ran this poem threw it,  (I ran this poem through it)
Your sure reel glad two no.   (You're sure real glad to know)
Its vary polished in it's weigh - (It's very polished in its way)
My checker tolled me sew. (My checker told me so)

A checker is a bless sing.     (A checker is a blessing)
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.  (It frees you loads of time)
It helps me awl stiles two reed, (It helps me all styles to read)
And aides me when aye rime. (And aids me when I rhyme)

To rite with care is quite a feet  (To write with care is quite a feat)
Of witch won should be proud. (Of which one should be proud)
And wee mussed dew the best wee can, (And we must do the best we can)
Sew flaws are knot aloud. (So flaws are not allowed)

And now bee cause my spelling (And now because of my spelling)
Is checked with such grate flare, (Is checked with such great flair)
Their are know faults with in my cite; (Their are now faults within my sight)
Of non eye am a wear. (Of none I am aware)

Each frays come posed up on my screen (Each phrase composed upon my screen)
Eye trussed to be a joule. (I trust to be a jewel)
The checker poured o'er every word (The checker poured over every word)
To cheque sum spelling rule. (To check some spelling rule)

That's why aye brake in two averse (That's why I break into a verse)
By righting wants too pleas. (By writing wants to please)
Sow now ewe sea why aye dew prays (So now you see why I do praise)
Such soft wear for pea seas! (Such software for PCs)

-- Author Unknown

Bye for now

Alan

anybody want to send me an article for ExpLORErs LORE please send me over the next week. I will make issue two next Sunday.

Thanks in advance!

alan_r_palmer@hotmail.com

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

When we go to language classes and we have a teacher teaching us, I think this gives us a fantastic chance to build a "language house".

From language classes we can build our "house" brick by brick with an expert (the teacher)

When we have built the house, we need to make it into a "home"

This means getting furniture, pictures for the walls, ornaments etc.

All this that is needed for the house we can get ourselves by "language exploring"

We can explore the shops for good things we need for the house

Where else can we explore to make ourselves a wondeful home?

Maybe you have some great exploring ideas?

Bye for now

Alan

When we speak or write, we often make statements. Here are some examples:

1. My dog is ill
2. I called to see you yesterday
3. I just bought a new mobile phone
4. I am going to New York for my holidays

Something we can practice are supporting statements:

1. My dog is ill. He is very old
2. I called to see you yesterday. You were not at home.
3. I just bought a new mobile phone. It has a lot of modern features.
4. I am going to New York for my holidays. I have never been there before.

The second statement supports or clarifies the first statement.

This is like a house roof, one side supports the other side.

Don’t forget to use link words:

1. My dog is ill because he is very old
2. I called to see you yesterday but you were not at home.
3. I just bought a new mobile phone and it has a lot of modern features.
4. I am going to New York for my holidays, as I have never been there before.

This idea can also be spread over several linked statements:

"I’d been wanting a new mobile phone for some time. I just bought a new mobile phone today at a local shop and it's great; it has a lot of modern features. I really like it."

((I’ve been wanting)) (( a new mobile phone)) ((for some time)). ((I just bought)) ((a new mobile phone today)) ((at a local shop)) and ((it's great;)) ((it has a lot of modern features)). ((I really like it))

So, thinking about statements and supporting statements can help us develop better speaking and writing skills.

Bye for now

Alan

English has some very "cute" words which people use especially to talk with children:

small children =kiddies

very small children=toddlers

baby shoes = bootees

small laugh = chuckle

animals: dog becomes doggie, cat becomes pussy, frog becomes froggy

sometimes we add a sound: "moo cow" 

I'll build up this list when I think of more

Bye for now

Alan

When we learn languages, we always need to learn words.

I have to admit that I do not find this easy. I am always looking for new ideas to help me learn more words.

I sometimes think of speaking a language as being like being on a train loaded with goods to go to important places. A goods train is loaded up and then it travels to different destinations. In the same way, we need to load up our “language train” with goods called “words”.  But, how to we load up all the words we need into our “language train”?

I don’t know the best way yet.

But here are some ideas that I try.

1. We can categorise words:

Words that we use most often (common words)

Words about doing things (verbs)

Words that we need for special occasions (specialised words)

Words that we need when we are in trouble or need help (situational words)

Words that tell us about things and situations (adjectives)

Words that make us smile (happy and pleasant words)

Words that make us afraid, sad or unhappy (negative words)

Words that give us hope (inspiring words)

Words that make us think about the past (historical words)

Words that make us think about the future (future planning words)

Words that help us understand things better (comparison words)

How many more categories can you think of?

2. We can have a place to keep the words we don’t yet know well. I call this the “words waiting room”. We want to know them well, and often we cannot remember them well, but they must be put in the waiting room waiting for us.

3. We can put words into context. Make sentences with them to help remember

“my red car has a nice new roof rack”  (new word = roof rack)

4.We can find a good online dictionary www.dictionary.com is very good

5. We can practice making sentences with many different words in it and expanding it:

“my car is not running, it is too old and untrustworthy”

becomes….

“My big old rusty red car is no longer running, especially because it is now too old, and has been left in the garage far too long and is therefore now very untrustworthy.”

6. We can collect favourites words:

I know for instance that I like using these words a lot:

Super

Great

Nice

Be good

Look after yourself

Nice to meet you

All the best

Take care

How’s it going?

Etc

Words are our language workforce!

Treat them well, and they will treat us well!

Bye for now

Hello everybody,

When we learn languages, we always need to be trying new things; learning new words, grammar points, practicing pronunication. Doing new things keeps us interested and we improve our language skills.

I think that something else is very important. I call this my "cosy corner". This is a place which is very familar, we know it well, it makes us feel good about language. This is where we practice some things that we know well, and we come back to this point when we just want to practice without any stress or new challenge,

Personally, I have certain things that I like to do in my "cosy corner".

In French, it is to recite a piece of French text I have known for 19 years. I just speak it out loud when I am driving. This is called "the family".

In Chinese, I count to 100 out loud to practice words and tones.

In German I recite a Christmas carol called "Stille Nacht"

Because I know these well now, it allows me to still practice languages, but in a very relaxed way.

What is your "cosy corner"?

Bye

Alan

Hello everybody,

I've talked before about enjoying language we have learned each time we speak, read, listen or write.

This means that the only time language really matters, is the present time that we experience each moment.

Having this thought is quite intimidating, because we normally spend time thinking about things we have or haven't learned, or our plans about things we will learn and do in the future.

The more we think about the present, sometimes the less we want to think about it when we consider using language.

For me personally, the reasons about preferring not to think much about the present time was the worry about:

*Embarrassment

*Frustration

*Annoyance

*Fear

*Fatigue

and then making mistakes and not enjoying language.

But, in my experience, this is in reality outweighed by:

*Relaxation

*Fun

*Enjoyment

*Excitement

*Satisfaction

*Exhilaration

*Surprise

*Laughter

*Happiness

*Contentment

If we think about our experiences with language, we will find that one or more of these feelings occur both from the negative list and the positive list. 

We will have all these emotions and feelings when we use language. 

My advice (based on my experience) is always concentrate our thoughts and memories on the positive list (in blue) and we can then keep going and be successful with language. Success for me means accepting that things never go 100% perfect, but by considering and experiencing the negatives in comparison with the positives, we can enjoy the moments we use language to communicate with people.

Bye for now

Alan

Hello Explorers!

I found this talking dictionary on the Internet. It uses standard British English. You just choose a word, hold your mouse pointer over the word (shown in pink colour) and the computer will play the sound of a man speaking the word.

It is also useful for hearing if there are different pronunictions for a word (as "wind" and "wind" - see my last text blog on hetronyms)

Bye

Alan

http://www.howjsay.com/notes.html

(howjsay = short way of saying "how do you say")

Heteronyms are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings and pronunications:

Close (he came close and whispered to me...)

The s is pronounced "ss"

Close ("Close the door, it's cold!" he said)

The s is pronounced "z"

Present (he gave me a nice present)

Present is pronounced "PREsent"

Present (to present a series of photos in an exhibition)

Present is pronounced "preSENT"

wind (moving air)

Pronounced as short i sound

wind (to wrap something)

Pronounced as long i sound (as the i in like and bike)

tear (liquid from eyes when crying)

Pronounced ee

tear (a rip in a cloth)

Pronounced ayr 

desert (abandon) 

Pronounced deSERT

desert (arid region)

Pronounced DEsert

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cellis/heteronym.html

Homonyms

Here are some words that sound the same, spelled the same, but have different meanings.

bank, crop, bear, peer, sink, pants, slip, slide, dry, fit, class, shine, creep, divide, page, trip, ship, fall, hedge, needle, scrape, riddle, throw, train,

One way to check these words, is to see if they can be a verb (doing word) as well as a noun 

e.g. ship (a vessel that sails) (noun)

      to ship (to transport)

      trip (an outing, excursion) (noun)

    to trip (to fall over something)

http://www.cooper.com/alan/homonym_list.html

Hello everybody. You know, English people love using the word "nice". I think it suits the character of English people generally speaking. It is a way of saying things are "good"(that's nice!) "interesting"(it's a nice book), "friendly" or "kind" (she is a nice person) "enjoyable" (that was a nice train journey)

I found a poem by the famous write DH Lawrence, which I think is a nice (!) poem and we can study it a bit here at "Language Explorer"

Bye for now

Alan

The English are so nice
so awfully* nice

they're the nicest people in the world.

And what's more, they're nice about being nice
about your being nice as well!
If you're not nice, they soon make you feel it.

Americans and French and Germans and so on
they're all very well
but they're not really nice, you know.
They're not nice in our sense of the word, are they now?

That's why one doesn't have to take them seriously,
We must be nice to them, of course,
of course, naturally.
But it doesn't really matter what you say to them,
they don't really understand -
you can say anything to them:
be nice, you know, just nice -
but you must never take them seriously, they wouldn't understand,
just be nice, you know! Oh, fairly nice,
not too nice of course, they take advantage -
but nice enough, just nice enough
to let them feel they're not quite as nice as they might be.

(D.H. Lawrence)

(*"awfully" here means "very" it is quite old-fashioned word now, but not when DH Lawrence wrote this)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence

This is an old English class "study" on English grammar. To understand it, we need to think of a situation in a classroom. A school test of past tense grammar.

Two boys are in the class; one called James and one called John.

John had chosen "had " in the grammar test and James had chosen "had had"

Let's use a hypothetical example: John chose to write:

"I had a nice cup of tea yesterday when someone offered me a cake"

However, James chose to write:

"I had had a nice cup of tea yesterday when someone offered me a cake"

so, John chose "had" and James had chosen "had had"

The teacher preferred James' choice of "had had"

So, with punctuation: "Where John had "had", James had had  "had had". "Had had" had won the teacher's praise"

So, using English past tense, adding the other "had" will make it a correct English sentence grammatically speaking.

However, it is just a classroom game. We would never explain this idea in this way in reality.

I hope you can understand it now

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everbody. Glad you liked "ExpLoREr LoRE"

Here are some English expressions for comparion of meaning:

Laugh at me (I will be upset of you do) /laugh with me (I'm very funny aren't I?)

look down on my work colleagues from a higher point /look down at my work colleagues (treat them with disdain)

go straight (do not commit crimes anymore)/go straight ahead (move ahead)

sit down (sit on a chair etc)/sit in (eat in a cafe etc) a sit-in (protest inside a building be refusing to move)

run down (look ill) run down a cyclist (crash into) run out of petrol (no petrol in the tank)

take away my driving licence/take up fishing/ a takeaway (fast foot cafe)

walk over to meet somebody/walk away from somebody

point up to the roof/point down to the floor/point out someone’s faults

beware of the fierce dog/be aware of the risk of fire

see it (look at it) see to it! (make sure you do it!)

stretch out (to reach a book off the shelf) stretch yourself (to afford to pay for something)

read it (a book) read into it (discover something from a situation)

drag away (pull something away) drag down (make someone feel worse because of negative actions)

kick over (the pile of sand) kick out against the government (actively disagree)

stand aside (move to one side) stand out (the colours really stand out)

turn over the bucket to empty it/turned out nice weather today (the weather became good)

pull up the trousers/pull over the car I want to get out (stop the car) pullover (wollen sweater)

Have fun!

Alan

Can you understand this sentence:

"Where John had had, had, James had had, had had. Had had, had won the teacher's praise"

I'll explain it later...

bye for now

Alan

The small phrase "of course" is something many people learning English have a problem with sometimes.

dictionary.com gives us:

of course,

But, dictionaries do not say that the way "of course" is said, makes it sometimes sound a little agressive, condescending, patronising or disdainful.

Some examples of where this could happen:

Example 1

English native speaker: "Do you know the English word "decipher"?

English learner "Of course, I know it!" (meaning, "I am happy to inform you that I already have learned this word "decipher")

To the native speaker, because it was said with emphasis "!" it could sound like "I know this word, do you not realise that I know it?"

Better here to say "yes, I know this word already, but thanks for asking"

Example 2

Would you like a cup of tea?

Of course! (meaning "I am happy you are offering a cup of tea and I am very glad to say yes)

To the English native speaker, they may hear "did you not realise I wanted some tea, how silly of you to ask me"

Better here to say "yes, I would love a cup of tea thanks!"

The reason for this confusion comes from native speakers often using "of course!" in small arguments

example

"do you not know how to use a brush? you are getting the dust everywhere!"

"of course I know how to use a brush, I'm not stupid you know!!"

So, be careful with "of course" as a small two word answer to a question.

Of course, you can use "of course" as part of a general statement

"Of course, many people like to visit the seaside when it is sunny and hot"

By for now

Alan

The word “quite”

In English, the word “quite”  can be difficult to use accurately.

Here is the definition from “dictionary.com”

quite

–adverb

1. completely, wholly, or entirely: quite the reverse; not quite finished. 

2. actually, really, or truly: quite a sudden change. 

3. to a considerable extent or degree: quite small; quite objectionable.

It is difficult for someone learning English to know when it means the same as (1)  which means “completely” or when it means the same as (3) meaning “to  considerable extent”

In usual everyday “standard” English, the word “quite” is mostly used for (3)

Quite a lot of people went to the cinema yesterday (a considerable number of people)

Quite a happy bunch of friends (my friends are happy in general, but not everyone is happy 100% of the time)

My house is quite big (big, but not very big)

For some expressions it means (1)

Quite right! (completely right)

Quite mad !(completely insane)

Quite a catch! (your girlfriend/boyfriend is really good looking – a good choice!)

So, be careful to learn the meaning of quite.

 It is quite something to have quite a good understanding of quite, because quite a lot of people haven't quite got the hang of quite and quite a lot of people quite often make quite a mess of "quite"!

Bye

Alan

If you would like to hear some genuine English accents, you can click on the link below:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/index.shtml

Bye for now

Alan

When we speak, we have to think of words fast. One way to help ourselves is to add on words to the basic speech.

It is difficult to do it when we speak a different language, but it does get easier.

We can practice this on our own and I have written one sentence to show you how we can think about it in our minds.

Sometimes in English, we need to add words like "and" "so" "with" etc

So, to start

Say the first sentence

Say the second sentence

Say the third sentence

You will start to feel where words can be added to the simple sentence

I  went out

       to the cinema

             I enjoyed the film.

                      It was

                            a very interesting story

I went out

             (yesterday)

              To the cinema

                        I  (really)                                               

                           enjoyed the film

                                  It was (fantastic and)

                                       a very interesting story

 Bye for now

Alan

Reading complex sentences can be difficult. Complexity can come from

1. grammar and subject

2. the amount of different information in the sentence.

3. Slang

4. a mixture of 1, 2 and 3

example:

(example 1) the student couldn't have been able to study environmental science, because he wouldn't have been able to keep up, due to his recurring health problems.  (GRAMMAR AND SUBJECT)

(example 2) She was looking down the deep dark corridor, saw a small chair at the end of the corridoor and nearby was a small black ornament that shimmered in the hazy light. (different information)

(example 3) "the silly old slag threw up after a long binge-drinking session, like the slapper she is!" said the girl. (slang)

So, to read it more easily:

1. Read it through quickly and look for "key" words

the student couldn't have been able to study environmental science, because he wouldn't have been able to keep up, due to his recurring health problems

the student couldn't study environmental science because keep up due health problems>>

Read it again slowly two times.

If you are studying a text carefully, then you need to read it a few times more until you understand 90%-100%

With sentences with a lot of information, try to link the ideas with important words.

Read quickly, then two times slowly:

She was looking down the deep dark corridor, saw a small chair at the end of the corridoor and nearby was a small black ornament that shimmered in the hazy light.

she looking down /the deep dark corridor /chair  nearby/ was a small black ornament /hazy light

With slang, separate out the slang from non-slang. If you are unsure, then choose the word as slang

the silly old slag threw up after a long binge-drinking session, like the slapper she is!" said the girl.

Look up the slang words in a slang dictionary and then read quickly and two times slowly

bye for now

Alan

When we learn languages (especially on our own) it can get very boring and tedious sometimes. Also it can be frustrating to know if we are making progress with writing and speaking or not.

One way to see how we are progressing is to do some language learning "sports" and this can make us more aware of things we enjoy and things we find hard.

Here are some "gymnastics" ideas for you:

1. Try writing some interesting sentences with big words and speaking them:

"these parasols were perfectly positioned for presenting a particularly practical photo print previously prepared." 

Try to say this slow then fast

2. Make a complex grammatical sentence as best as you can:

"I would have thought that he could have done it more quickly, but he wasn't able to complete the project he had started, maybe he will be able to finish it next week"

3. Try related sound words:

a springy spring sprung,

a lucky plucky duck,

nine nice nieces from Nice,

peppercorns were peppered over a pizza

trying to tie a tight tie on a tightrope in Thailand

running a right royal run on the right side of a roundabout right around the perimeter

4. Count 1-100 out loud as fast as you can. 1,2,3,4,5 etc  Then say some random numbers: 7251, 8725, 1867 out loud.

5. Say "he didn't do it, didn't he? No I don't think he did" 5 times for pronunication practice.

6. Make a list of interesting words (nouns or verbs):

stretch

cuddle

flick-through

hob-knob

rumble

flabbergast

chuckle

slapdashly

gurgle

grimace

grapple

yomp

7. Go for a "20 second sprint" and see how much you can write in 20 seconds: Here is mine:

Start: "I am now writing to see how much I can write in 20 seconds, it is interesting to see that when we do this it can be fascinating" Finish.(28 words)

8. Go for a "marathon" and see if you can read out loud without stopping (apart from to take a breath!) for 5 minutes from a book.

9. Make a big number and say it:

999,999,999

which is: "nine hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine"

817,926,345

which is: "eight hundren and seventeen million, nine hundred and twenty-six thousand, three hundred and forty-five"

1.923678 is "one point nine two three six seven eight"

1/200  is "one over two-hundred" or "one two-hundreths"

78 x 91 is "seventy-eight times ninety-one"

865-718 is "eight hundred and sixty-five minus seven hundred and eighteen"

99+2 = "ninety-nine plus two"

10/10 = "ten out of ten"

10. Sing a nursery-rhyme:

Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John,
Went to bed with his trousers on;
One shoe off, and one shoe on,
Diddle, diddle, dumpling, my son John!

Have fun!

Bye for now

Alan

In business and economics, the so-called "Pareto's 80/20 rule" is often used. You can read about it here if you like: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle

Simply put, the 80/20 rule is a general idea that things often follow an 80% / 20% link. This is a "rule of thumb" which is a principle that is not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable for every situation, but can be useful.

For example. we might guess approximately that we wear our 20% most favoured clothes about 80% of the time, or perhaps we spend 80% of the time with 20% of our friends or family, etc.

In language we can use this idea.

learning 20% of the most often used words and phrases would help us speak about 80% of subjects

When we speak, it is probably around 20% of the time that we find it difficult to remember words.

Speak without stress and worry, because you will probably be 80% correct.

Out of 100 words you learn, probably 20 will be difficult to pronounce, or remember or give you some difficulty, where 80 will not.

What can you think of that might follow this 80/20 rule?

Bye for now

Alan

One of the difficulties of English is to raise another question at the end of a statement in the correct way. For example:

He likes ice cream doesn't he?

He likes ice cream (statement)

doesn't he? (add-on question)

French just has "n'est-ce pas?" (is this not?) which can be shortened to "hein?" sometimes.

German just has "nicht wahr?" (not true?) which can be shortened to "ne?" sometimes.

English has many such ending questions...e.g. isn't it? doesn't it? couldn't he? wouldn't she? didn't he, haven't they? can't we? etc etc etc...

To make it easier for you English learners, rather than trying to learn all these different combinations, you can learn, for example:

He likes ice cream. Is that right? or, "correct?"

This saves a lot of time and means the same thing as He likes ice cream doesn't he?

For more complex questions from statements..e.g.

You would have thought that he would like ice cream considering his father is an ice cream seller wouldn't you?

You can say: "You would have thought that he would like ice cream considering his father is an ice cream seller would you not agree?

This way, you can use the words you used before in the same sentence "would" and "you" and then add a "not agree?" at the end.

My dog would be more cute with a hair trim wouldn't he?

can be:

My dog would be more cute with a hair trim right?

You could also say: My dog would be more cute with a hair trim. What do you think?

So, think about the statement, then add a simpler ending.

My friend should come to my house tonight shouldn't he?

My friend should come to my house tonight? (agreed?) or (right?) or (don't you think?)

Or, just change it to a new question.

My friend should come to my house tonight. Would you agree with that?

Of course, you can still listen to English native speakers using all these different combinations and copy them if you feel confident.

But just look at this list....

Don't you?

Can't you?

Won't you?

Couldn't you?

Didn't you?

Shouldn't you?

Wouldn't you?

Haven't you?

Hadn't you?

Will you?

(and that is just for the word "you"...)

So, make things a bit easier for yourself with simpler (but very effective alternative question words)

Bye for now

Alan

Maybe you would like to try a sentence like (1) and then change it around for practicing: 2,3,4 and 5.

All 5 sentences give the same information in a different way.

1. A very rich young man went by car to London to buy a nice new suit

2. A very rich young man, who went to London by car to buy it, bought a nice new suit.

3. London was where a very rich young man went to by car, in order to buy a nice new suit.

4. A nice new suit was bought by a very rich young man, who went to London by car to buy it.

5. A very rich young man, in order to buy a nice new suit, went to London by car to buy it.

Bye!

Alan

Here is my Top 10...

stand more about a country, its culture and its people generally

1. I can understand more about a country, its culture, history and its people generally.
2. I find it is easier to make friends in that country.
3. It opens up a better understanding between people about how we live.
4. It makes me appreciate and understand my own country better, its history, traditions and culture.
5. It makes me understand my own language better and why we say some of the things we say.
6. It makes it easier to start learning another language.
7. It allows me to develop my writing skills as well as listening, reading and speaking.
8. It helps me to discover new interests: culture, history, traditions that hitherto I wasn’t so interested in or I knew little about.
9. It brings out feelings of achievement, which can be further applied to other hobbies or at work.
10. It shows me how to be a better Language Explorer!

What is your "Top 10"?

Bye for now

Alan

When we learn languages and speak them, we also need to listen to what is said by native speakers; whether in person, or on a CD, podcast, TV, radio or film.

This listening ability is something we must learn to do as well as we are able. Listening skills do improve over time, but we must learn to be very, very patient.

It reminds me of the old radio receivers, where to get a station, we need to tune into a station. Sometimes these stations are very faint sounding and difficult to hear, other times they are clearer.

Of course, new digital radio stations are very clear sounding nowadays.

With listening, I think we need to "tune" our hearing until we get the best "reception" we can and then just do our best to listen and understand.

Listening skills can be increased by doing the following things (in my experience)

* Listening for the important words. For example: "my mother's birthday is in July" (important words: mother/birthday/July)

* Listen for word endings. For example "the number nineteen bus is to the town centre" could sound "the number ninety bus is to the town centre"

* Try to avoid noisy places when listening

* If you are talking face to face, always be prepared to ask again

* If you are listening to something you can listen to again, play it through first, then play it in segments of maybe 30 seconds length.

We need to accept that our mental tuner will need to be used often, to keep our ears hearing the language as clearly as we can.

Bye for now

Alan

I have a new idea for the website.

I will create a monthly "online magazine" called:

"LANGUAGE EXPLORERS LORE"

I chose the word "LORE", because it means: (from dictionary.com)

("the body of knowledge, esp. of a traditional, anecdotal, or popular nature, on a particular subject: e.g. the lore of herbs")

and also because the word "lore" is also part of the word "Explorer"!

I am inviting you to contribute to the magazine.

This is my idea. You can write and send a text of upto 75 words, either to this message box or to alan_r_palmer@hotmail.com

You can write about anything you like related to language that you are happy for other people to read.

If you choose to write something, please tell us a little about who you are, where you come from and also why you are a "Language Explorer" :)

If you are studying English and you want me to correct the text you write for "Language Explorers' Lore", just let me know. I will then put the corrected text in the magazine.

The rest of "Language Explorers' Lore" I will write and then put on this website for downloading.

Bye for now!

Alan

Levels of language

When we meet up and speak with native speakers, the level of language can vary quickly. Sometimes we are not quite prepared for it and it may take us by surprise.

When I talk about “levels”, I am not talking about the normal idea of language level, for example, the level of complexity of vocabulary and grammar. I am talking about the type or conversation we may need to have.

To explain more clearly, when people talk together the subject often changes very quickly. This can happen more often if there are more than two people in a conversation. In my experience, the subject of a conversation can change in an instant if someone says something that makes it change.

For example, one person may be talking about a nice holiday they had at the seaside, and then this perhaps reminds the other person that they used to have nice holidays with their mother and father at the seaside. Suddenly, the other person says “it was nice to have a holiday with my mother and father at the seaside, my mother died 5 years ago”. This immediately changes the subject and the way the conversation must develop. You need then to say words like “sorry to hear that.” For perhaps a few minutes, the level of language will change. As a language explorer, you need to be ready for this type of change.

I used rather a strong example just before. More often, it can be just a very sudden change of happy subject. One minute, it could be talking about favourite food, but then this changes to perhaps questions about food in different countries and comparisons between them. This is often instigated by the native speaker, and so we need to be ready to change our level of language.

Here are some tips:

When a subject changes quickly, just give yourself a 30 seconds or so to get used to the change. At this point, useful expressions become very important:

“I used to go to the seaside with my parents. My mother died 5 years ago”

You can say:

“oh, sorry to hear that.”

“oh that is sad, how old was she?”

Adding a question gives you time to think which new words you need to use.

In more formal situations, such as business meetings, the subject may change quickly, but not so big a change as with very informal meetings. Even so, the speed of change may take you by surprise. The trick is to give yourself time to think by using some standard well-known phrases.

“could you say that again please?”

“what exactly do you mean to say?”

“it is interesting what you are saying there, could you elaborate please?”

So, be prepared for sudden changes of subject in conversations. But don’t worry about it. 

Hello everybody!

When we communicate with people in their own language, we obviously want to be successful and get our thoughts and messages across to them. In my experience, good communication depends as much on the way we use words as the words themselves.

To put this more simply, I believe good communication depends on:

• The situation we are in when we communicate
• The style of speaking to suit that situation
• The mood we are in and how we feel
• How tired we feel (maybe after travelling a long time)

So, for instance, meeting someone in a noisy train station, airport or hotel lobby is not a place that makes it easy to speak in a different language.

Also, if we know people well already it make it easier to talk because we don’t worry about making mistakes as much.

So, some advice that may help you:

*Always keep relaxed as much as you can

*Try to keep a quite happy mood even if you feel tired or stressed from travelling

* Only use quite short sentences and simple language at first meeting “hello, nice to see you!” “Welcome, how was your journey?” These sort of sentences allow a nice friendly greeting in an airport for example. Wait until later, if you can, when you have a quiet drink or meal together for more complex discussions.

At first, try to keep the subjects about things you can talk about more easily: family, food, travel for example. Then later, when the situation is calmer you can enjoy a more complex conversation: in a house, a restaurant, a hotel room, a café, travelling in a car, bus or train.

Me and my wife will be busy next week. We have some friends staying with us.

I will put some articles on again in a week

Take care everybody!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

For those of you learning English, maybe it is a good idea to learn the main points on a compass:

North (N) North-West (NW) North-East (NE)

South (S)  South-West (SW) South-East (SE)

East (E)

West (W)

You might notice the smaller letters

NNW = North North West

WNW = West North West

NNE = North North West

ENE = East North East

WSW= West South West

SSW= South South West

SSE = South South East

ESE = East South East

Bye for now

Alan

Word endings are very important in English. English speakers listen quite carefully ("tune into") the word endings to gather facts about:

when something was done:

wash

washing

washed

Also, some word endings change the meaning:

kill

kiln

kilt

So I believe a very useful exercise for non-native English speakers/explorers would be to concentrate on word endings.

I've written these texts as exercises:

1.When I went walking in a wild, wet wood I got weary of wandering

2.I tried to tie up my tent.

3. A dirty dirt track

4. A thief had left a theft

5. A trainer decided to make a train into a trailer for a tram

6. We shut up a sheep in a shed and shopped around for a sharp scythe

So have a try at reading these out so you can hear yourself saying the word endings well and also in a nice and clear way.

This idea can be used for other languages too:

les francais Francois et Francoise vendent les fleurs

Bye for now

Alan

With English learning, I want to keep you thinking about the use of intonation, sometimes called "stress" on words and phrases.

To show this difference, I will show this extra little "push" in the word as a bold italic text.

Try saying this:

1. My friend has a red coat  (my friend, not anyone else's friend perhaps)

2. My friend has a red coat  (my friend, not my brother, mother, sister...)

3. My friend has a red coat (a red coat not a blue, brown, black....)

4. My friend has a red coat ( a coat, not a hat, shirt, umbrella, ....)

So, all the sentences say the same information, but English speakers listen naturally for a slightly louder sound on some words to make the meaning more clear. 

Bye for now

Alan 

Hello everybody,

When we speak another language, we always want to have a good, understandable accent and speak clearly so we are understood.

This is all great and very commendable.

But, when do we think about how we are seen by others. When we speak another language, our body language, mannerisms, habits and manner of speaking tells people as much about us as our spoken words.

I'm not saying this is a bad thing.

Showing other people our personality and talking about our likes and dislikes is something we do in our own language every day, but we don't really think about it much.

With a foreign language, then we must realise that we will always be a "foreigner" speaking the language we have chosen. However, if we decide what should be best put on our "sandwich board", then we can use this to our advantage.

What we need to guard against is things that would put people off speaking with us: rudeness, not being polite, impatience, bragging, moods and many other "traits" can be off-putting - even if we have a perfect accent.

So let's be careful what we put on our "sandwich board" when we go out to speak with native speakers.

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody

When tiles are fitted well on a roof, when it rains, the water runs off the roof. The water does not go through the tiles.

With language learning, we can build up our skill so that we don’t have a “leaky roof”

As with roof tiles, language is built up from a good, solid first stage. Let’s call this “the basics”

You can make sure that your “basic language” is in place. This is like the first row of tiles

Polite phrases: “please” and “thank you”

Good phrases for understanding a situation: “where exactly am I?” “Could you help me please? “ I wonder if you know where I could find…?”

We can build the next row of tiles on top: Good fill-in words: “I understand, thanks” ,“oh yes”, “ok”, “fine” “right”

We can then fit the next row….Additional words that keep a conversation “watertight” 

“Really?”  “that is so kind of you”  “I’m very grateful”, “so glad that you could do this for me”.

What I am trying to say is that just as each row of tiles produces a weather resistant  roof, so can each “language layer” add strength to conversations and enable much progress in how we communicate with native speakers.

1. The first row is basic
2. The second row fills-in the gaps
3. The third row add colour and style to your conversation

And so we go on, adding to our language vocabulary and language structure.

The important thing is simply to make sure each row of “language tiles” are securely fixed in place, before adding more to our “roof”

How many different rows can you think of?

See you later

Alan

I am visiting Cornwall in the south-west of England for a week. So I will make a new podcast or text blog next weekend.

Bye for now

Take care all

Alan

Hello everybody

Today I want to talk about a new idea I have had to do some language practice on our own with no more than a piece of paper and a pen.

I call this idea “word web”. With this idea, you can practice:

Thinking in a language

Writing

Reading and grammar

Speaking/Listening

You can do this anywhere, whilst travelling, at home, with friends. I had the idea when I was flying to Germany and I wanted to practice German but I had nothing with me except a pen and paper. The idea is simple and you can do this in any language.

I will demonstrate it here using English. You start with a simple sentence:

“My friend has a car” – you write it down

Next, you quickly think of extra words to make the sentence bigger.

For example: “My good friend has bought a new car”

– you write this down under the first sentence. Now, you make another sentence from your head – don’t worry about making mistakes

“My good friend from London has bought himself a new red car which he likes very much.”

You write this down also Then you make a bigger sentence.

“My very good friend from London, with whom I spoke with last week, told me he has bought himself a new red car which he likes very much.”

4 sentences are probably enough although you could write more.

"My very good friend from London, with whom I spoke with last week, told me that he had recently bought himself a new read sports car which he really likes very much indeed."

You can then check the sentences as well as you can for grammar and spelling and then read each sentence out loud and listen to how you say it. So, from four sentences, you have a lot of chance to practice many different language skills. I believe that this will help also improve fluency

If you wanted to, you can say the sentences the other way round:

"The new red car that my very good friend from London bought is something he likes very much, as he told me last week when I spoke with him."

(Same idea, just a more complicated way to say it)

The important thing is to think of it like a game and enjoy it, getting the words from your head as you can. This will make you think more clearly in the language and help you to think of the words you need when you have conversations with people.

Enjoy your word webs, you can keep them and look at them again a few weeks later and try the same sentences again to see if you can think of words more quickly than before. You can even make other sentences from the same sentence:

the roses are red -> the roses in my garden are red -> the beautiful roses in my small garden are red and in full bloom.

 red roses look nice -> red roses look nice in my garden -> the red roses that I bought last week look very nice in my garden.

Bye for now

Language driving!

For those of you who drive a car, you will perhaps understand this idea a bit more.

I’ve been thinking about another comparison with language use.

When we go out for a drive, we:

1. Plan the journey/route
2. Check the car; fuel, oil
3. Put things in the car we need to take
4. Set off
5. Follow the route
6. Follow the rules of the road
7. Check the signposts/roadsigns
8. Stop for a rest and "stretch our legs"
9. Arrive at the destination

During the journey, we drive slowly in risky areas (near schools, on busy roads) and we drive faster on motorways (freeways)

The car journey can be pleasant, if the weather is kind and traffic is calm

Sometimes the journey can be difficult: wet weather, fog, snow and ice, angry drivers

With language, we can plan our “language trip”

• plan the language trip: what will I need to talk about? Who will I be speaking with? Where will this take place? What type of language? Written or spoken?
• Get ready: Put some things in our “pocket”…small dictionary, revise some useful vocabulary, research a subject
• Follow the rules: be polite, courteous, interested, happy. Reply honestly to questions, ask questions.
• Stop for a rest . Don’t forget to rest sometimes. Maybe even relax and do something completely different.
• Check the signposts.  Look for signs, verbal or physical signs that you are being understood, people nodding in agreement, feedback, smiles, frowns, yawning, laughing etc
• Arrive at the destination: check how things are progressing and don't forget to pat yourself on the back for a good journey.

Let's go for a drive! Take a passenger!

Bye

Alan

32 most important email etiquette tips: (http://www.emailreplies.com/)

I have added comments to help you understand it.

1. Be concise and to the point (do not write too much and keep to the subject)

2. Answer all questions, and pre-empt further questions (pre-empt = predict)

3. Use proper spelling, grammar & punctuation

4. Make it personal  (use the word "I", "me" "we")

5. Use templates for frequently used responses (pre-write some things you say a lot on e-mail and have these ready to copy and paste in to the e-mail when you need to do that)

6. Answer swiftly (swiftly = quickly/promptly)

7. Do not attach unnecessary files (don't attach things to the e-mail that people would not find useful or interesting)

8. Use proper structure & layout (make the e-mail read easily by writing it well)

9. Do not overuse the high priority option (only use high-priority when is really is a high priority e-mail message)

10. Do not write in CAPITALS ( because this looks like you are "shouting")

11. Don't leave out the message thread  (add all the relevant previous messages on to your message - if there are any)

12. Add disclaimers to your emails  (very necessary if you are part of a company or run a business)  Example:"Privileged and confidential information and/or copyright material may be contained in this e-mail. The information and material is intended for the use of the intended addressee only. If you are not the intended addressee you may not copy or deliver it to anyone else or use it in any unauthorised manner. To do so is prohibited and may be unlawful. If you receive this e-mail by mistake, please advise the sender immediately by return e-mail and destroy all copies. Thank you."

13. Read the email before you send it (good advice! I would say read it 2 times!)

14. Do not overuse Reply to All 

15. Mailings > use the bcc: field or do a mail merge  In the context of e-mail, blind carbon copy (abbreviated Bcc:) refers to the practice of sending a message to multiple recipients in such a way that conceals individual email addresses from the complete list of recipients.

16. Take care with abbreviations and emoticons  (emoticons = smiley faces, sad faces :)  ;) ;(

17. Be careful with formatting

18. Take care with rich text and HTML messages  (Rich Text = RTF)

19. Do not forward chain letters (chain letters are letters people send and expect them to be sent to others)

20. Do not request delivery and read receipts

21. Do not ask to recall a message.

22. Do not copy a message or attachment without permission

23. Do not use email to discuss confidential information

24. Use a meaningful subject

25. Use active instead of passive

26. Avoid using URGENT and IMPORTANT

27. Avoid long sentences

28. Don't send or forward emails containing libelous, defamatory, offensive, racist or obscene remarks

29. Don't forward virus hoaxes and chain letters

30. Keep your language gender neutral

31. Don't reply to spam (Spam is unwanted e-mails)

32. Use cc: field sparingly

English has the so-called "progressive tense"

For those of you learning English, it's worth having a bit of fun with this exercise:

Did he come? No he didn't come

This is a fairly easy one. What about these?

**she went/she did not go

**She went to the shops, but she did not go to the pub

**he came/ he did not come

**He came to our house, but he did not come to see me, but my mother

**I saw/I did not see

**I saw my ball in the garden, but I did not see my son pick it up

**I see/ I do not see

** I see my car, but I do not see you in it

** do you like my hairstyle? I do like it yes?

**did you see my dog yesterday? No, I did not see it but I do see it now over the road!

**I did not enjoy the film, did you enjoy it? I did not enjoy it but I do need to watch it again.

**Do you like to drink beer? I do not know because I do not drink alcoholic drinks

**Do you know this person? No I do not know this person

**Does this hat look big on me? No, it doesn't look big

**Don't worry, be happy

**Did you know that I could fly a plane? No I did not know that!

Bye

Alan

Alan

When we learn languages. we are used to either spending time in class, or at home reading, studying videos etc.

When we actually speak with native speakers, it can be very difficult to know how best to learn from them and yet not expect the native speaker to be like a teacher.

For example, if we meet a native speaker on holiday, or on a train, in the street, our need is to speak with them, not to expect them to be a teacher. Even if they are happy to help, the situation may not be good for discussing language points: noisy place, distractions etc.

Even if we are lucky enough to visit the native speaker's house, many things are on our mind (and theirs) 

So, I have found the best approach is to be:

Friendly

Interested

Polite

Confident

The first three are easy to be. Most people meeting for the first time are usually friendly, interested and polite.

Confidence is another thing...

I believe we can be confident without being over-confident.

It just needs a little careful thought.

Being confident means speaking in a confident way, listening in a confident way.  Mistakes will be made, but confidence helps us overcome our shyness and fear of failure.

It may start off as a difficult thing to do, and even be an "act" to look confident. But the more we try to be confident, the more confident we become.

As with all my other ideas, I only say they are what I believe and I offer as guidance. You must decide if you agree or not.

One thing I think is that shyness is self-defeating. The more shy we are, the harder it becomes to use language in a real situation. Better to communicate 90% of the time with mistakes and be 10% correct than to be 90% perfect in our mind but only communicate 10%!

Bye for now

FIPC, that is the way to be!

Alan

When we look at the night sky we see a the wonderful twinkling of millions of stars. To us, they all look to be shining at the same time, but of course we are seeing light that travelled so far and each star sends its light at different times.

So, it is with language. When we look at the many different words in our language, we see some words that come from a long time ago and other words and phrases that are very modern. For example the word "goodbye" in English is an old word which comes from god be with ye(you) and on the other hand, the word "podcast" is only a few years old.

So why the comparison with stars in the sky? Well, I think when we see the stars, unless we think about it carefully, we don't think about all the stars being at different distances...we just enjoy looking at the different patterns made by the stars.

In the same way, unless we study etymology (history of words) we don't really think about the past history of language. But this history is what makes the language what it has become. Many English words are from French, Latin and German. More recently, some English words come from India; "bungalow" for instance. The word "karaoke" comes from Japanese.

So, because language is such a mixture of old words, modern words and new words, we maybe should realise that, like the stars always moving and changing, so does language.

Some words that were said a lot when I was young are very rarely said these days and new words appear all the time.

So, don't get downhearted when we think about how big and complex languages are. Like the night sky, we can just look and appreciate that all this complexity turns into a beautiful scene which we can enjoy for its own sake.

Bye for now

Alan

When we learn languages, we sometimes think about the future. How much will we learn, how fluent could we become. Will we even keep learning? What will we do with our language study? Looking into the future is always difficult. We don't know what will happen.

However, we can make plans in the present that may change, but at least we have thought about our desires and hopes for language, and we may achieve or surpass them.

Even if we don't achieve everything we want to, by making plans, we may discover things we never thought about.

Speaking.

Maybe we will find many more opportunities to speak.

Travel, Internet, presentations, making friends, lectures...

Writing

Maybe we will find some forms of writing really inspire us: translation, poems, letter writing, short stories...

Listening

Maybe we can find some fantastic listening opportunities: visiting friends, travelling, new radio stations, lectures, theatre, film..

Reading

Fantastic books, online libraries, travelling, e-mails, brochures, newspapers and magazines...

So, let's try to look over the horizon a little.

Bye for now

Alan

Scales of language.

When we speak to people, we sometimes speak in a formal way; other times in an informal way.

The level of importance varies.

I think we can think of this as a scale, going up from the lowest level to the highest.

Here is an example: Scale 1-5

Formal Apology

Pardon                   1

I beg your pardon   1

Sorry                     2

I’m sorry                2

I am sorry              2

I am really sorry     3

I am really very sorry 4

Please forgive me  5

Informal

Oops!                 1

Sorry about that  2

My apologies      2

So sorry             3

I really am sorry  4

Oh my god! (or goodness!) how sorry I am 5

Hello everyone,

A few months ago my son came home with a DVD of him skydiving. He hadn't told me he was planning it - so as not to worry me and his mother.

I watched the DVD with some relief that everything had gone well, or he would not be showing me the DVD! His dive was with an experienced skydiver - like the one in the photo here. So although very thrilling, it was also done with an experienced person.

What I also realised, is that language learning is sometimes about taking huge leaps into the unknown.

Just like skydiving, we can dive into language sometimes, when we are feeling energetic and daring!

Here are some suggestions:

Try to read a very difficult text, magazine or book

Try phoning someone to speak with them in the language you are learning

Try listening to a fast speaking announcement on the radio

Try watching a film in the original language without subtitles

Try speaking something as fast as possible

Try shouting some words you have just learned as loud as you can.

Try singing a song in the language you are learning

Try some unusual food from the country or countries where the language you are learning is spoken.

Try learning the rules of a card game that you don’t know using the instructions in the language you are learning.

Try saying something you wouldn’t say usually and make up an unusual sentence. For example “I will go to London next week to buy a magnificent, jewel-encrusted golden ring worth £100,000,000 for my beautiful girlfriend. And then I will buy myself a new Porche!”

Try to speak about a subject you know nothing about but can guess a bit about it. For example:  caving, hang-gliding, wine-growing, train driving etc 

If you get the chance to meet with native speakers, be daring with your vocabulary and try speaking with as much confidence as you can – even if you are not confident – just dare to pretend you are confident.

Be good and be happy

Be daring and take risks

Be careful, but carefree

Bye

Alan

Comparing aspects of my job to language learning,,.

Making mistakes with language is like making products with problems.

We don’t want to do this, but it happens sometimes.

In quality control, to put quality problems right, we need to make what is called “PDCA” approach.

Plan

Do

Check

Act

We plan to reduce the mistakes

We do the plan

We check that the plan is working

We act to change the plan if it doesn’t work well

Then we start the PDCA again if necessary. This is called the “PDCA cycle”

So, when we find we make a lot of mistakes in speaking, writing, listening or reading, we can make some suggestions to ourselves for a good PDCA:

Speaking: Look at the part of speaking that give us the most problems: pronunciation? Vowel sounds? Remembering words?

Reading – have we got a good dictionary? Are the texts interesting enough? Are we expecting too much at the level we have achieved?

Writing: Do we know how to start well, how to punctuate properly? Have we got a good dictionary?

Listening: Are we finding enough time to listen? Do we listen in a place which helps us, or is it too noisy, are we too tired?

We decide what we will do, then have a go at doing it.

Then we can check our plan and see if it works

Finally we act if we need to change the plan to make it work better.

Bye for now

Alan

I am a quality manager by profession. In quality management we use control charts to help us. Quality management involves controlling and checking.

There are three points on a control chart:

Upper level - highest acceptable point

Middle level  - average point

Lower level - lowest acceptable point

So, for measuring product quality, we can check how many products are correct by measuring them: are they correct or not?

In language, we can try to keep our language in the right part of the language control chart. This means:

**choosing good  and correct words to say when we write or speak

**giving ourselves a little more time to think out what we want to say or write , not to rush! People make more mistakes when they rush things in my experience.

**check that we say it well, our pronunciation ability

**check we have heard what the person speaking with us is saying, especially if they have asked a question.

** check our written word a few times before we give it to someone else. This is important for business letters or e-mails, and especially for language exams.

** keep things moving so we don't have to stop - we can keep our language going...

So, let us be our own language quality controller! Each check can be a point on the "chart".

Next time I will talk about using quality control to put things right when they go wrong..

Bye

Alan

Hello everybody,

Learning a language reminds me of doing a huge jigsaw puzzle. We need to make up the picture, but when we start learning we have all the "language pieces" all mixed up. We listen to the language, look at the words; it makes no sense at all.

So, how do we make the "language jigsaw"?

Like doing a real jigsaw, we need to look for the corner pieces so we can start to put the picture together.

We can then find the side pieces and then eventually put the middle pieces in place to make the full picture.

So how is this analogy useful for language learning?

I think it helps us think about how language develops.

1. Finding "corners" is the way to start a jigsaw, so in language this would be basic vocabulary and basic grammar
2. Finding "side pieces" is how we put a framework to the language: more grammar, more vocabulary, understanding how big the task is. We know that we need to make the picture but we have only got the frame around the picture.
3. We can then start to make the picture. This gets more exciting the more of the picture we begin to see.
4. Seeing how the picture develops is like seeing how well our language develops.
5. Later, even if we do not or cannot put all the pieces in place. we can see the picture so well, and we can appreciate how much of the jigsaw we have been able to complete. In the same way we can see how much of our language ability is there for us to see and appreciate.

I believe that if we think language learning is like a jigsaw puzzle, it will help us to know that the slow start is about building up knowledge and skill to build from only a few pieces to making the whole picture.

Bye for now

Alan

When we explore languages, we feel we are climbing a "language mountain". We want to reach the top. It is our desired goal. We often think about our view from the top and how nice it will feel to be at this highest point in our language learning climb.

But, when we have the chance, like a mountaineer, we can take a few moments to have a rest, and look around and below at the "views".

We might find that we see a very nice view from where we are on the mountain at any point we are at. The "views" change as we "climb", but this doesn't make them any less interesting.

So, at a beginners level - think about what you can understand now. Think about how many words you might know, what you can read and what you can say. You might remember words you didn't know, but know now, things you can say now easily, that you couldn't say before.

At intermediate level - think about what you can do with language: book in a hotel, travel around on transport, buy things in shops, have quite high level conversations. It might surprise you "how high you have climbed"

At advanced level, you can take stock of what level you have reached in every way. The views will be quite magnificent and you can see how far you need to climb and behind you is a great height!

Taking stock of the views from the "language mountain", it gives us a rest that we need and then we can carry out climbing to the top!

Bye for now

Alan

Here is a recipe for fish and chips by a famous English "TV Chef" Antony Worall Thompson.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/fishandchips_70937.shtml

(for originality it must be any white meat fish: cod, haddock, monkfish etc)

Bye

Alan

Hello everybody.

This is a way to practice speaking on your own. You can do this just with speaking, or you can speak and write it down if you like.

The idea is to bring important words quickly to your mind, and also, for those words that don't come into your mind quickly, this idea will help you get at least a similar word into your speaking.

1. Think of a subject. For example: "music"

2. Make a statement about it. "I don't know much about Chinese music"

3. Then ask yourself a question: "why do I not know much about Chinese music?"

4. Answer the question using as many good words as you can, for instance:

"because...I have not had the chance to hear any Chinese music"

"because... we never hear Chinese music on TV or radio in England"

This way, we can have a genuine conversation, but with ourselves.

We can vary the question:

"When would it be possible for me to hear some Chinese music?"

or

"How could I find some Chinese music?"

Then you could answer yourself:

"maybe I could...(find some on the Internet)

"I wonder if....( I could ask a friend in China to send me some?)

"I think...."

"I know that..."

"My guess is..."

So, from a small statement and a question, you can bring into your head different words and expressions...so that you can practice words associated with questions and answers.

And from the example here, we have practiced some good opening words and also kept to one subject for simplicity:

Because...

When would it be possible...

How could I find....

Maybe I could...

I wonder if....

I think....

I know that...

my guess is....

It is also good practice for real conversations later with native speakers. A good conversation is a good balance of statements, questions and answers, so you would be more confident at times when you do have the opportunity to talk with a native speaker. And you can do this in any language of course....

So how about trying out an SSQA for a way of practicing?

TTFN (ta-ta for now) ta-ta=bye bye

Alan

PS: Acronymns are another subject we can talk about ...so CU L8R (see you later)

Hello everybody,

Present Progressive Tense

The present progressive tense takes the form be + V ing.

The form of be is determined by the subject of the sentence.

He is singing.

She is listening.

They are sleeping.

I am going home.

In English, the present progressive is used to indicate actions happening at the time of speaking, or right now.

John is speaking to his mother right now.

Please keep quiet. The baby is sleeping now.

The present progressive can also be used to indicate actions occurring over a period of time, which includes the present.

I'm taking (or “I am taking”) five classes at the university.

Anna is working at a chemical factory.

What are you doing these days?

The present progressive is sometimes used to indicate ongoing, developing, imminent or future actions.

Ongoing work 

Don't bother Mr. Grumpy while he is watching the football game.

You are developing your language skills very well 

I'm beginning to like this place!  (same as "I am starting to like this place!")

A: Hello, where are you?

B: I'm coming. Just let me put on my shoes.  (This is the same as “I will come now”)

Future (Note the presence of future time words.)

A: Are you going to the concert this weekend?

B: I wish I could, but I'm meeting an important client from Oklahoma next week. 

A very recent way of speaking using this tense is the popular way to say (In England)

I like it

by saying "I'm liking it" or "I'm liking that"

Some people (especially young people) for example “Your hat, I’m liking it!”

It is not correct English grammar, but very modern and trendy with some people.

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

When we learn languages, there are always gaps in our knowledge; in our vocabulary, or understanding of expressions, culture.

This means that when we communicate with native speakers, we often search for some words, or phrases that we know well in our own language, but not well perhaps in the language(s) we are learning.

I think this is like crossing a river using stepping stones. We don't want to fall in the water, but we must keep walking forward  because it is too difficult to turn round.

So, as we walk between stones with gaps, then can the gaps in our knowledge be crossed. When we walk across stepping stones we must look at the next stone, then the next one, then the next....until we reach the other side....with dry clothes!

So, with language, let's keep our mind concentrating on what we know, not what we do not know.

We can use other words for example:

If we do not know the word for "this pineapple" we can say "this fruit"

If we do not know the words for "do you have our hotel reservation?" we can say "are our names here?"

If we can't remember the word for "mountain" we can say "very high hill"

If we can't remember the word for "hill" but can remember "mountain" we can say "small mountain"

The important thing is to walk onto the next stepping stone!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

As you can see, I call myself "language explorer". This is because I prefer to think of learning language as exploring, rather than just use a word like "learner" or "student".

One of the reasons I chose this name, is because I have a theory about how our minds learn.  I think when we "explore" language, it is like leading an expedition. When people go on expeditions, they look at maps to see where they can best go. They also bring along other people to carry things and help them find their way.

I think our conscious mind is the "Expedition Leader" deciding what way we should go, when we do things, what we should learn.

However, I think our learning mind (subconscious) is also the great supporter of our expedition, carrying all our things and will follow us wherever we decide to go.

So, even if we find a path that isn't a good one, our "porter and guides" (i.e. our subconscious mind and our memory) will always try their utmost to help us discover new things and also help us get to our "destination".

I know this sounds perhaps very different, but I do believe that although we think our conscious mind is leading our decisions and also doing the learning, I think we know that it is a combination of conscious mind, willpower, subconscious mind and our developing memory that ultimately gets us to the goal of "fluency".

I think it works well to think of language learning as a Great Expedition to find the level of language we are looking for.

So, to all the language explorers out there, lets keep going!

Bye for now

Alan

As I drive to work, I like to sometimes practice speaking. Today I thought of an idea for helping us develop our vocabulary.

As I was driving, I naturally thought of the word “road”. Now my idea of developing vocabulary is to focus in on that one simple word and expand it in our minds.

So for example:

Road

Wide road

Narrow road

Long road

Short road

Road surface

Road markings

Side of the road

Direction of the road

And also we can expand out to sentences:

Driving along the road

Crossing the road

Parking on the road

Also expressions

Road to nowhere

Roadhog

Road Rage

On the road

So from any one word, we can expand out our vocabulary like the branches of a tree.

So just think of a word, any word!

Take care

When we write a letter, we have starting words "dear Mr..."

and ending words "yours faithfully" (formal), "best regards"/"kind regards" (less formal - especially for e-mails), "bye for now"/"see you soon" (informal for SMS messages, postcards etc)

We can do the same thing with speaking. Have some phrases ready as "openers"

"Hello! nice to see you"

" Good morning, how are you?"

"How's it going?"

We can practice this in our minds before we meet people. We need to:

*decide the level of language we need when we meet people to speak with

* decide how polite and respectful we need to be, especially with older people, important people, law enforcement people, police etc.

* choose the right words along with a handshake and a smile.

For closing words

We can use

"I was nice to have met you"

"Thank you for your welcome"

"I look forward to meeting you again"

"Be seeing you/see you later/take care" (informal)

People often say "bye" as a quick way to say "goodbye"

People often say "see ya" for "see you"

This start up/close out language is a way to "oil the wheels" of a conversation.

You can see some of my other podcasts on talking to native speakers here:

http://alanlancs1.podomatic.com/entry/2008-04-24T10_17_00-07_00

http://alanlancs1.podomatic.com/entry/2008-02-15T13_18_43-08_00

http://alanlancs1.podomatic.com/entry/2008-07-14T14_54_05-07_00

http://alanlancs1.podomatic.com/entry/2008-07-30T23_40_26-07_00

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

I've thought of a regular routine of speaking practice which I can do any time.

It involves simply counting numbers out loud.

This may seem a bit simple, but I have found it useful for:

* speeding up remembering words

* pronunciation practice

* putting words together in a sequence.

For example, I have been doing this with Chinese

一 二 三 四 五 (1,2,3,4,5 etc)

but then I count up to 99

九 十 九 (99)

I then decide on a random series of numbers in English:

1-7-3-9

6-3-1-7

then I translate into Chinese from my head as quickly as I can:

一 七 三 九 (1,7.3,9)

六 三 一 七 (6,3,1,7)

or

I say a number in English, then try to translate it quickly.

86 。 。 。  八十 六

We can try this idea for any language. I think it helps get used to numbers and also becomes an interesting way of developing faster thought and better pronunciation using simple numbers.

French can be interesting, because 80 (eighty) is 4 x 20s (quatre-vingts) in French. So we need to think a bit different to the English way when thinking of numbers.

German can be interesting, because 25 (twenty-five) is 5 and 20 (fünf und zwanzig) So we need to put the numbers over 20 the other way round to English.

Bye for now

Alan

A friend gave me a good idea to start a forum here. I can only create one here as a message list, but it may work.

**PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LEAVE DISCUSSION MESSAGES ON THIS ARTICLE IN THE LIST - CLICK ON "FORUM" AT THE SIDE OF THE PAGE TO FIND IT QUICKLY**

You can write about anything you like here: questions about language, ideas you have, what you would like to see on the website, other useful websites, compare languages etc.

Common language in the forum: English

Other languages welcome - but if possible please also put English translation with it.

Many thanks

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO COMMENT ABOUT THE FORUM

Bye

Alan

Hello everybody, 

Many people want to learn a language, but often we are too busy to spend a lot of time on language learning. This is especially true if we are not students and have to work most days in a job, or we are busy with family matters.

I have a new idea for you to try if you like. I believe everybody would have time to do this, no matter how busy we are.

Hello everybody!

In the same vein as "language wardrobe" we need a language "travel bag" sometimes:

When we learn languages, our idea is to become fluent in time. But, from when we start learning (at school, at home, evening classes etc) to when we are fluent (in whatever years it takes…) we will at some time meet and speak with native speakers.

Maybe most learners first experience of speaking with native speakers will nowadays be online: chat room, MSN etc.

When I was young, the first contact was as a penfriend.  The first person I ever spoke with from another country was when I had an Italian girl penfriend when I was 14 years old.

More and more people can travel these days and I think this is wonderful when people can meet up to speak together.

In my experience, when we meet native speakers to make friends, we need to have enough words and phrases to help this to happen, or we will get very frustrated perhaps.

Speaking personally, I realise we need phrases and words to cover:

Greetings and please/thanks: “hello” “nice to meet you” “please could I?” “thanks”

Asking for something: for a drink, for directions

Words about family: “how is your mother?” “what is the name of your daughter?” etc

Words about pets “I like your dog, what’s his name?”

Words about work “what is your job?” “what sort of work do you do?”

Words about language study "how long have you been learning Chinese?" "what courses have you done?"  "do you find learning English difficult?"

Words about the place where you are “ Tell me more about your city please” "what are the famous places here?"

Words about what we will do: “I want to go to visit the city” “I need to telephone my friend”

Words about communication: “telephone”, internet, fax, e-mail

Time:  How to tell the time, how to ask the time

Saying what you like or not like: “I love tea”  “I don’t like beer”

Polite refusals: “sorry, I would really prefer not to do that” “Please would it be ok if we did something else”

Cultural words: “what is this festival about?” How do people celebrate?

Transport: Do you know which bus to the town centre? Where can I find a taxi

Food: I am hungry, I don’t eat this, I love eating that. what is a local speciality?

Shopping:  “where is the supermarket please?” “Where can I buy a camera battery?” "do they sell English newspapers here?  “Do you sell bread here?”

So, you can make your own travel bag, ready for travelling!

Enjoy language enjoy life!

 Alan

Hello everybody!

I haven't had enough time to make any voice recordings recently - I'll make some more soon. In the meantime, here's another text blog. I'd also like to thank everybody who has given me nice comments on the blogs and podcasts.

I know that many people want to learn a language well and I also feel this way. However, some people are always thinking about some time in the future when they will be "very fluent" "very competent" "near-native" and all these terms people use for high-level language skills.

This is a great ambition. I also have similar ambitions. I do feel that we could have this great "goal" of achievement, and at the same time have a completely different attitude to what has gone before and what is happening now.

So, I think it helps to think about the PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE of our language learning. 

PAST

We should thank ourselves for the language we have learned before; that we started learning, we spent many hours at the beginning, trying a few words and phrases and maybe thinking we would never learn anything. Then maybe quite slowly, we started to learn and we kept going...

FUTURE

We should of course, be very excited about the future and what we will be able to learn, how well we will be able to speak, read, write, and listen. We will be able to achieve things we cannot do now. It will be an exciting time. We can think of the future level of our language skills with interest and enthusiasm...

PRESENT

This is the most important of the three:

1. We can only ever speak, read, write and listen (and learn) in the present

2. We can enjoy all the language we have learned before and not worry about what we don't know, because we will learn it in the future.

3. We can also plan the future in the present; deciding what we would like to do with language, what ways to study, what we would do with language, and many other things

So, enjoy the present, appreciate the past and be excited for the future!

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

We usually keep clothes in a wardrobe.

Clothes we have for special occasions: weddings for example

Clothes for relaxing on a summer's day

Winter clothes

Swimwear etc.

Well, as I was looking for a clean shirt this morning in my wardrobe, I began to think that we could have a sort of "language wardrobe"

"Best clothes" = formal language: some well known polite phrases, "I would like to order a meal from the menu please" "would you mind if we met up next week?"

"Informal clothes for relaxing" = relaxed phrases "what would you like to do today?" "let's have a drink?" "what do you do in the evenings?" "I'll tell you about my holidays" "wouldn't it be nice to buy a bicycle and ride it in the countryside?"

"Special clothes for special occasions" = unusual words and phrases, expressions: "rural development" "intrested parties" "performance characteristics" etc

"Warm clothes for keeping us warm" hats and scarves.. = helpful and useful words and phrases when the language "weather" is cold and perhaps we are on our own: " can you help me?" "would you mind if?"  "I didn't want to do that.." "stop that please!" " I didn't ask you to" "Oh not again!" "what a nice idea!"

"swimwear and towels" simple clothes = simple statements "like some tea?""wanna drink?" "take care" "see you soon" "cheers!" "go for it!" "do you smoke?"

What's in your wardrobe?

Bye for now

Alan

Language highs and lows

I like to discover things about language learning. Everyone who learns languages has their own ideas and preferred methods. 

Sometimes we think about some parts of learning more than others, sometimes we get frustrated, angry, sad about learning. Sometimes we are happy, excited, enthusiastic and hopeful.

 I’ve written my own “highs and lows” list – see if your list compares with mine:

 Lows:

 1.Sometimes I feel I will never learn a language well

2.Sometimes I don’t feel I can learn quickly enough

3.Sometimes I feel I need a much bigger vocabulary

4.Sometimes I feel I can’t pronounce the words well

5.I sometimes feel that I have not got enough free time to learn

6.I sometimes wonder how long it takes to become fluent

7.I sometimes think everybody else can speak better than I can

8.I sometimes feel I don’t listen well

9.I sometimes feel I don’t write well

10.I wonder sometimes why I don’t just concentrate on learning one language

 Highs:

1. I find that when I speak, native speakers can understand me
2. I find that I can say words and phrases that I didn’t think I would ever be able to say
3. Conversations can be fun and enjoyable even with a smaller vocabulary than I would like to have
4. It’s nice to be able to read something and understand it
5. When I think about how much I have learned I don’t worry about how much I haven’t learned.
6. It’s nice to make friends with people who speak the language
7. It’s nice to know more about culture of the country or countries where the language is spoken
8. I find that I can learn more than one language even if it is sometimes very slow
9. I find that being older doesn’t stop me learning.
10. I get great enjoyment from sharing my ideas on language learning

Bye for now

Alan

Here are some greetings. For those of us learning languages other than English, it may be a good exercise in translation:

Formal:

"Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening" (usual formal opening greeting)

"How do you do?" (quite old-fashioned now unless a very formal occasion)

Add on these phrases :

"Pleased to meet you"

"Hello, how are you?"

"Nice to meet you"

Less formal:

"Hi, how are you?"

"How's it going?"

"How are things?"

"Nice to see you"

"Great to see you!"

"Good to see you"

Informal:

"Hi, there!"

"Hello there!"

"Alright?"

"Hiya"

"Hello"  (is also informal)

"Yo!" (young people)

"Wotcha!" (British English slang)

Bye for now!

Alan

For writing and speaking practice, we could concentrate also on link words. Link words make sentences fit together and sometimes change the meaning: 

Example:  I go shopping EACH week AND I like to buy general groceries BUT I don't take long TO do it.

Example:  I go swimming often, ALTHOUGH I can't really swim very well HOWEVER, I think it keeps me fit AND healthy.

Example: I like being a bus driver AND I drive many miles a week BECAUSE we have many bus routes AND many passengers need to travel.

Link words help us keep our "train of thoughts" for speaking and make sentences clearer when writing.

and, but, however, now, with, by, after, of, that, for, will(be), although,because, or.....etc

take sentences and link them up

1.my dog is friendly

2.he likes to run

3.he is old

4.I take him on short walks

**My dog is friendly, he likes to run, he is old, I take him on short walks

But, with link words, much more meaningful English sentences emerge...

*** My dog is friendly AND he likes to run BUT he is old SO I  take him on short walks

Get a liking for "link words" AND you'll keep interested in learning ALTHOUGH you might find THAT you will do well AND find them useful.

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody,

I am just back from Germany. I stayed with friends for a week. During my stay, I noticed just how much we need casual, "everyday" language when we speak another language.

I think we need to practice some of these everyday casual phrases when we are practicing speaking ourselves, either on our own, or with other students.

People collect stamps, toys, books,ornaments, photos.....many things..

Let's be a phrase collector!......................

Some of the phrases I am thinking of are:

"What would you like to do today?"

"It's very kind of you"

"Let's visit .....together"

"what do you think? it is a good idea?"

"Maybe we would like to do that?"

"do you like to eat fruit?"

"what is the weather going to be like today?"

"should we take a picnic with us?"

"that T-shirt looks nice"

"what sort of meal would you like to have later?"

"do you know where I can buy presents?"

"perhaps we should wait until later to do that?"

"do you know what time we should be there?"

"it's so interesting to see all the different food you eat"

"is it worth a visit to the park if the weather is fine?"

"could you call me early tomorrow, I need to catch a train"

"I'm very grateful for your help"

"it's so nice to be able to spend some time doing this together"

Also, some filler question words:

"it's nice isn't it?"

"we could go there couldn't we?"

"he's very clever isn't he?"

"you don't need that do you?"

"I couldn't tell you, sorry"

"it's really nice to know isn't it?"

Kind words:

"so nice to be here"

"so sorry to have to leave"

"looking forward to seeing you again"

"I'm so grateful"

"It's been such a nice visit"

"I really appreciate your welcome"

"you'd be very welcome to visit us"

"until next time"

"it's been fantastic"

"I'm really happy to have been here"

I think we should practice these types of sentences often and also write down as many as we can think of....in the language we are learning. It doesn't matter if they are not 100% correct - they main thing is they should be on the tip of our tongue - ready to use at times when we have an opportunity to speak with native speakers - especially those who we want to make friends with.

Bye for now

Alan

We don't always go the the doctors if we are ill. Sometimes we visit the doctor or go to a health centre for a "check up" to see if we are well. Weight, Blood pressure checks etc.

We can do this with our language skills; give the skills a "check" every so often. I am suggesting we look at the language we started learning: simpler language, easy listening, straightforward speech.

* Read a childrens' book

*  Create some very simple phrases in your mind and say them:

How are you?

Nice to see you

Happy Birthday!

Would you like a cup of tea?

I have a dog and its name is....

I don't like spicy food

* Listen to a beginners' language CD or Tape

* Write 50 words of simple language to describe something:

"I like visiting the park. I take my dog to the park. He likes to run. My dog is called Fred. Maybe I will go to the park again today. I think that tommorow I will also go swimming.

By going back to basics, we can check if we can still do the simple language well. When I try this with my French for example, I am always surprised what I have forgotten - even though I am thinking about quite simple language.

It pays to have a check up sometimes!

Bye for now

Alan

PS I will be in Germany for a week from tomorrow so I will post on the 1st June

For you English learners, remember to learn where the slight stress is made when speaking words with more than one syllable.

The English language uses a small "push" on certain syllables.

Unfortunately, this is not easy to guess - really you just have to learn it.

However the most often stressed syllable in a 2 syllable word is the first syllable and the most often stressed syllable in a 3 or 4 syllable word in the second syllable) 

Here are some examples I have thought of just now (at random)

incredible (inCREDible) *4 syllable in cred i ble

language (LANGuage) * 2 syllable lan guage

MOUNtain * 2 syllable mount ain

VIsa *2 syllable vi sa

ENGland * 2 syllable eng land

VietNAM * 3 syllable vi et nam

INDia (3 syllable - in di a)

aMErica * 4 syllable a me ri ca

beLIEVable * 3 syllable

But of course, not all 3 or 4 syllable words are stressed on the second syllable:

FORTunate * 3 syllable for tu nate

PENdulum * 3 syllable pen du lum

MOmentary * 4 syllable mo men ta ry

Bye for now

Alan

So, my advice is if you guess the first or second syllables, you are quite likely to be correct.

Here are some small phrases that we use in English.

Do the ironing

Do the washing/wash clothes 

Do the washing up/wash the dishes

Drive the car/take the car

Sweep the carpet/sweep the floor

Clean the floors/scrub the floor

Clean the windows

Open a window

Close a window/shut a window

Do the dusting

Fix the car/mend the car/repair the car

Hang out the washing

Cook a meal/make a meal

Dig the garden/dig the soil

Cut the grass/mow the lawn/mow the grass

Boil the water/boil a kettle

Plant the flowers/plants

Water the flowers/feed the plants

Feed to dog/cat/bird etc

Play the guitar, piano,clarinet etc

Watch TV

Play a video game

Play a DVD/play a video cassette

Send an E-mail/ send a text (SMS)

Ring someone up/call someone on the phone

Pay someone a call/ visit someone

Go shopping/go to the shops(stores)

Pick someone up (with a car)

Drop someone off (with a car)

Take someone to the cinema, theatre etc

Have a meal/eat a meal

Lay the table/set the table

Wipe the table

Add salt/ add seasoning

Climb the stairs/go up the stairs

Come down the stairs/go down the stairs

Pour the wine/water/tea/coffee

Take a shower/take a bath

Have a shower/have a bath

Polish the furniture

Listen to the radio

Surf the Internet/go online/go on the web

Make a bed/prepare the bed

bye

Alan

When people learn English, it isn't often that certain explanatory phrases are listed/explained in standard text books. Here are some common small phrases.

inside out = "my T-shirt was folded inside out (inside of the T-shirt is folded to the outside)to avoid ironing the motif"

around and about = when I visit new places, I like to go around and about" (look around to see what is there)

up and down =  "when I went for an interview, the manager looked me up and down (looked at me very carefully) and then said ...'you look an intelligent person'!"

back to front = " I saw that his sweater was back to front (wrong way round)

in and out = "you've been in and out (coming in and going out) of the office all day long!"

here and there = "I looked here and there (different places), but I could not find my dog"

now then = "'now then!' (same as "alright!") he said, "Why are you here, do you need some help?"

to and fro = "I went to and fro (same as here and there)to see what I needed to do"

upside down = "I turned my glass upside down to see what was printed on the bottom of the glass, the water spilled on me!"

over and over = "I went over and over (looked at many times) the songwords to see if I could remember them better"

stranger and stranger = "the mystery developed, I thought things were getting stranger and stranger (more mysterious)

from and to  = "I went from London to Manchester"

simply put = "simply put,(in a straightforward way) I don't want to do it!"

Bye

Alan

Happy words. The word "Happy" mostly implies elation of spirit with good feelings, sometimes with laughter or even with tears.

"Happy to see you!" (I'm happy to see you)

"Happy to be here!"

"I'm happy about that"

"It makes me happy to do that"

"Happily, the weather stayed good during all our holidays"

"Happy Easter"

"Happy Christmas"

"Happy New Year"

"Happy Holidays!"

"Happy Birthday"

"Tears of happiness"

"Happy Holidays"

"Happy-go-lucky"

Bye

Alan

It is said we each have three ways of using language:

1. The language we speak everyday with family

2. The language we speak with people we don't know well

3. The language we use for special occasions: job interviews, business meetings etc.

So, when we learn a different language, we sometimes have difficulty to know which language style, which vocabulary, for each occasion that we have to speak it.

In some languages, there are informal words for "you": such as French "tu" and German "du". English used to have "thee" but this is not used now in England, except in certain local dialects. So modern English means we can use the same "you" with anybody in any occasion. This is useful.

But, I believe that more important is how we use our personality to put into a language that would help us overcome difficulties.

A friendly, polite approach would work well for most occasions when we meet people for the first time

"very nice to meet you" "I am happy to meet you"

A polite sensible approach would work well for formal occasions

"I have my passport here ready for you"

"Would it be possible to talk to the doctor please?"

For people we know already, then a friendly smile, relaxed approach would work well:

"great to see you!" "how are things? " "how about a drink?"

So, how do we practice?

We need to forget about self-conscious speaking and think practically about real situations and try to simulate them. So, have a look in a mirror and say the different sentences here in different ways. Smiling, serious, worried, happy...

The mirror will help us see how other people would see us.

Another important thing to remember for non-native English speakers is that most native speakers of English would always be prepared to help when people have problems in formal situations: in the supermarket, in a hotel, in a hospital, at a police station.

Of course, in a friendly situation, they will be helpful even more, So we can practice to try our best to look relaxed and interested before we even say a word!

Bye for now

Alan 

Another idea for oral or written practice is to think of a subject and extend the sentences with linked information: facts, intentions, feelings, predictions

An example:

1.“I like learning English”

This is a statement:

“ I like”  (it pleases me )

“learning” (to learn at the moment)

“English” (English language)

  Now we can extend this:

2.“I learn English for 10 years, I like learning English because it is good to know more about this language”

We can extend it more:

3. “I have been learning English for 10 years and I like learning it because it is good to know more about this language which is spoken in many places around the world”

A LONG sentence!

The idea is to keep our mind focussed on one subject and the information that goes together with this subject.

Here’s one more example:

1.“The weather is fine today”

2.“The weather is fine today, so I can go out and play football in the park”

3.“It rains a lot in England, but the weather is fine today, so I am happy because I can go out and play football in the park. I think it will stay fine.

(the subject is “weather in England” )

No.1  Statement of fact

No.2 Statement of fact and intention to do something (play football)

No 3 Two statements of fact “rains a lot in England” and “”weather is fine today” , state of mind “I am happy” and intention “go out and play football in the park”  prediction “I think it will stay fine”

Bye for now

Be good be happy

Alan

Hello everybody,

Let's think of how many words there are for laughing... you can do this in any language:

to laugh (verb) laughter (noun)

to chuckle (verb)  = to laugh in a small manner without making a lot of sound "I chuckled at the silly picture my friend showed me"

to snigger (verb) = to laugh secretly, usually laugh at somebody's misfortune  " I sniggered when my teacher slipped on the floor"

to snicker (verb) = same as snigger

to titter (verb) to laugh in a restrained, self-conscious, or affected way, as from nervousness or in ill-suppressed amusement. "The women tittered when the handsome life-guard walked past"

to chortle = laugh gleefully "we chortled at the funny stories when we had drunk a lot of beer"

to giggle = to laugh in a stifled way (not laugh loudly) "my young sister giggled when I put on a silly wig"

to cackle = to laugh gleefully (same as chortle)

to grin = to laugh in a small way finding something quite funny. "When I read the newspaper critic's report on the politician's mistake, I giggled, because I agreed with him"

to guffaw - a burst of laughter "My uncle always guffaws at my silly jokes, even when they are not so funny, I really don't know why".

common expressions:

to howl with laugher = laugh very loudly

to roar with laughter = laugh very loudly

to roll in the aisles = to laugh after finding something very funny

to split one's sides = to laugh after finding something extremely funny

to be in stitches = to laugh after finding something extremely funny 

belly-laugh = to laugh at a very funny joke or funny story 

Bye for now

Alan

Hello everybody.

When we want to practice speaking to increase fluency, try talking around a subject. This allows our mind to concentrate on one thing and allows us also to bring in past tense, future tense and also new vocabulary.

Here is an example of what I mean:

"we have no milk"

"we have no milk, so I need to buy some"

"I can go to the shop to buy milk"

"I have bought some milk"

"now we have enough milk again"

Easy sentences. Now with practice we can make them more complex

"It's frustrating to run out of mik. We don't have any milk now. So I have just been to the shop to buy some. Now we will have enough milk to last us until tomorrow."

Expand it

So, we can use a simple subject to expand our speaking practice until we can speak  about the subject...

GOOD LUCK!

Expanding sentences for speaking practice is always a useful exercise. It helps us add new words to our speech and also change tenses. ("I have just been"  "we will have")

Take care

Bye for now

Alan

It's frustrating to run out of mik. We now don't have any milk at home.  So I have now just been to the shop to buy some more milk. Now we have enough to last us until tomorrow."

$$

It's interesting how English uses words about "seeing"

I'll see you soon   (I will meet with you soon)

Nice to see you  (nice to have contact with you)

seeing that you are going to the cinema already, I will come with you

(knowing that you are going....)

I see what you mean ( I understand what you mean)

I see that you are wearing new clothes

(your clothes look new)

See! I told you it would rain today!

(now you understand that I predicted rain...)

I will see if I can do it (I will try to do it)

I will try to see you on Thursday (I will try to meet with you on Thursday)

I went to the shop to see if they had any milk (I went to the shop to know if the shop had any milk for sale)

Sing and dance on stage? Can you really see me doing that??? (do you imagine that I can do that?)

So, let's see how many of these phrases you can learn and see if you can remember them. It's worth seeing if you can do this!

Take care

Bye for now

I'll be seeing you!

see you!

Alan

Do you like trying tongue twisters?

I think we can use tongue twisters to help us with pronunciation practice, especially for those of you learning English. This is because to say them correctly, we need to speak in a clear precise way. The fun is then to try and say them fast without making a mistake.

Here is an excellent one to practice the English "th" sound:

1. There those thousand thinkers were thinking how did the other three thieves go through

This one helps the English "w" sound

2. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish.

This one helps with English "r" sound

3. Round the rugged rock, the ragged rascal ran.

Here is a good website where I got them from. There are hundreds more:

What did we do before the Internet?? haha

http://www.uebersetzung.at/twister/en.htm

Bye for now

Alan

I found a nice website made by some schoolchildren. I think you'll find it interesting and another way to learn about British culture.

Bye for now

Here is the link:

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/questions/mayday.htm

be good be happy

Alan