It’s summer here in London. When the sun shines it shines brightly. Oxford street is heaving with tourists, which means it’s rising up, as if pushed. There are tourists from almost everywhere in the world here. London is particularly popular with Japanese and Korean tourists. A lot of single, young students come to London to shop, to have fun and to study English. They come to the UK for the summer because they believe in a concept called ‘language immersion.’
In language immersion, you don’t follow a traditional language course to learn. You do every-day activities in the target language. You live, breathe and eat in that language. In other words, you go to where it is spoken. This is why students come to the UK.
What do you do if you can’t afford to take time off work or your studies, or if your Daddy can’t send you to Oxford Street? The answer is that you download Second Life software for free, and you visit English cities in Seccond Life. It’s so much cheaper. And you can speak to real people in English. Go to Languagelab and ask for Grammar Girl. I’m there at least three days’ a week at 4am PDT.
I was working away on my island in Second Life and doing my best to make it easy for visitors to find their way round without getting lost. To do this I went to every location and ‘installed’ teleporter pads. If you are from my generation you’ll remember the old Star Trek episodes on the television, where Captain Kirk said ‘Beam me up, Scottie.’ Those beams looked and sounded like my teleporter.
So I ‘installed’ teleporter ‘pads,’ which means I placed objects round the island. These objects would ’send’ people from one object to another, without the person having to move on their own. All they would have to do would be to ‘right-click’ on the object and select ‘teleport. Thus, ‘teleport’ is a verb and ‘teleporter’ is a noun.
Once you have chosen a location (or as we might say ’selected a location from the menu’ or selected a location from the ‘list’) you click on the word that says ‘energise.’ This squeezes you into a little ball and sends you to another location.
These space age words have become common vocabulary in virtual words. Here they are again:
install
teleporter
pad
teleport
menu
energise.
If you haven’t been to Second Life before, you might want to visit this virtual world so that you can experience what these words mean. You can to do that by going to http://www.secondlife.com. But Captain Kirk would probably say that he’s been using these words for years.
The past simple describes a complete event that took place in the past. If a verb is irregular, the past simple is a different word with different spelling. Some examples of this include run (run becomes ran) and get (get becomes got). If a verb ends in ‘ed’ in the past simple then it is a regular verb.
Sometimes it may be a little difficult to pronounce regular, past simple verbs, which is quite understandable when you realise that there are three ways of pronouncing the ‘ed.’ You can pronounce it with ‘t,’ ‘d’ or ‘id.’
Here is a rule to help you along the way:
The only time you add a syllable is when the base form of the verb ends with a -t or -d:
start à started [star tid] fold à folded [fol did]
The final sound is changed to t Final sound is changed to d
when the last sound of verb is: when the last sound of verb is:
k, ck, ch, sh, s, x, p, f m, n, l, z, b, g, r, v
talk à talked [talkt] blame à blamed [blamd]
check à checked [chekt] plan à planned [pland]
search à searched [searcht] pull à pulled [puld]
Next week, we’ll be making our way back to vocabulary.
Observing the spelling of a word might help you improve your pronunciation of the word. For example, the endings -s and -es are pronounced as /s/– /z/, or as an extra syllable /iz/ at the end of third person singular verbs and plural nouns. The pronunciation depends on the final sound of the simple form of the verb or noun.
Here are some examples of verbs and their pronunciation:
slice —- slices (c = /s/)
lose —- loses (s = /z/)
wash —- washes
watch —- watches
judge —- judges
relax —- relaxes (x = /ks/ )
Here are some nouns:
price —- prices (c= /s/)
size —- sizes
dish —- dishes
garage —- garages (ge = /zh/
inch —- inches
language —- languages.
Next week we’ll look at a rule for the pronunciation of ‘ed.’
Last week’s conversation class about the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen was quite successful. We met at the Egdgware arms pub in Second Life and spent about an hour discussing the first chapter. We mostly spoke about social changes, particularly the role of women in society in the past 200 years. The discussion was based around the opening quote of the novel.
Conversational English at the Edgware Arms
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.
We talked about what the statement might have meant to the characters in the novel, to the narrator, to Jane Austen and to people living in the 21st Century in general. At times the debate got quite heated and I was pleased to find that the students who attended had strong opinions and really wanted to express them.
I’m not sure how we will manage to read the entire book, especially seeing that at the rate of a chapter a week it will take about three years! But people were really keen to continue the discussion this week, so we will keep going with this book until we tire of it.
This week we will talk about chapter two of the novel. Read chapter two here.
When? On Sunday the 3rd of May at 11 pm PST - Convert this time and date to your timezone here
Where? The Edgware arms pub. Click here to see the schedule and location
This class can be attended from anywhere in the world. All you need is a good internet connection and headphones with a microphone. If you would like to join us then be sure to do the following things:
“What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;”
What does this mean? He is trying to say even if a rose was called a daisy or a sunflower it would srill smell beautiful.
So what about ’swine flu’ ? There was a story today in the news talking about some people wanting to change the name of the disease to ‘Mexcian Flu’ or its medical name of H1N1 flu. Do you think that names and labels are important? What do you think it should be called? Have you been affected by this illness?
Last week I promised to follow up on the discussion of ‘at’ and ‘in’ with some interesting expressions that you may find them in. By learning the whole expression you’ll also learn the grammar girls. As I’ve mentioned before, you can use vocabulary to learn about grammar and grammar to learn about vocabulary. Intermediate and Upper-Intermediate students shouldn’t really be separating the two. They should be escaping grammar rules and I should really be Grammar/Vocabulary Girl.
Here is an expression that use ‘at:’
If things are AT SEA, or ALL AT SEA, they are disorganized and chaotic. So, if you don’t organise your understanding of grammar into rules you might find yourself all at sea.
Here is an expression with ‘in:’
If something vanishes or disappears without trace, IT VANISHES INTO THIN AIR; no-one knows where it has gone. So Grammar Girl’s glasses have finished into thin air. You won’t see them in her picture any more.
I’ll finish this week with the answer to the question in the subject line, which is that Grammar Girl lives in the English City and not ‘at.
Last week I went to two really cool gigs, one of them was in a basement bar that used to be a public toilet in West London! The band I went to see is called ‘Empire of Lights‘ and they are a very cool Indie band that has a single coming out. The word Indie means independent and not so commercial sounding. Other famous Indie bands include The Smiths, Nirvana and the Klaxons. For more information about Indie music click here.
The other band that I went to see are a soul band with 12 people in it ! They had great energy and fantastic voices. My friends and I danced all night and had a wonderful time as one of the singers is my friend! The band is called Hula Groove - check our their video.
Make some sentences about you favourite kinds of music:
This is flight 372 on SWA the flight attendants on board serving you today
Theresa in the middle
David in the back
My name is David and I’m here to tell you that
Shortly after take off
First things first
There’s soft drinks and coffee to quench your thirst
But if you want another kind of drink then just holler
Alcohol and beverages ‘ll be four dollars
If a monster energy drink is your plan
That’ll be three dollars and you get the whole can
We won’t take your cash
You’ve gotta pay with plastic
If you have a coupon
Then that’s fantastic
We know your ready to get to new places
Open up the bags put away your suitcases
Carry on items go under the seat
In front of you so none of you have things by your feet
If you have a seat on the row with the exit
We’re gonna talk to you so you might as well accept it
You gotta help us evacuate in case we need you
If you don’t wanna then we’re gonna reseat you
Before we leave
Our advice is
Put away your electronic devices
Fasten your seat belt
Then put your trays up
Press the button to make the seat back raise up
Sit back relax
Have a good time
It’s almost time to go so I’m done with the rhyme
Thank you for the fact that I wasn’t ignored
This is South West airlines
Welcome aboard
It’s summer here in London. When the sun shines it shines brightly. Oxford street is heaving with tourists, which means it’s rising up, as if pushed. There are tourists from almost everywhere in the world here. London is particularly popular with Japanese and Korean tourists. A lot of single, young students come to London to shop, to have fun and to study English. They come to the UK for the summer because they believe in a concept called ‘language immersion.’
