Speak English? Eat English!

Do you want to speak English? Or do you want to eat English?!! Here's a tip so you can finally you can learn how to make the most typical English food, without having to go to England. You can still do that later, of course - there's nothing better than fish'n'chips from the chippy! (= from the fish and chips shop)

British:
How To Make English Fish And Chips With Beer Batter

A.A.A.D.D. [tenses and time]

Here is one of those e-mails that friends circulate around to each other. It's quite funny and as I get older I notice that I seem to be suffering from this, too!

But for learning English, once you stop laughing, here is your task. There are lots of actions and lots of verbs. The verbs are used in different tenses because some actions are done before others or after others. Find the special tenses (e.g. I will be looking) used to make the order clear. [I put some in red to start you off.]

AAADD- KNOW THE SYMPTOMS.....

Thank goodness there's a name for this disorder. Somehow I feel better, even though I have it!!

Recently, I was diagnosed with A.A.A.D.D. - Age Activated Attention Deficit Disorder.

This is how it manifests itself:

I decide to water my garden.

As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I head towards the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I picked up from the post man earlier.

I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car. [no future tense after conjunctions such as 'before']

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the recycling box under the table, and notice that the recycling box is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the recycling first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the postbox when I take out the recycling paper anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my cheque book off the table, And notice that there is only one cheque left.

My extra cheques are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the cup of coffee I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my cheques, but first I need to push the coffee aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The coffee is getting cold, and I decide to make another cup.

As I head toward the kitchen with the cold coffee, a vase of flowers on the worktop catches my eye - the flowers need water.

I put the coffee on the worktop and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning.

I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I put the glasses back down on the worktop, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote control. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realise that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I put the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:

The car isn't washed.

The bills aren't paid.

There is a cold cup of coffee sitting on the counter.

The flowers don't have enough water.

There is still only 1 cheque in my cheque book.

I can't find the remote.

I can't find my glasses.

And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day, and I'm really tired.

I realise this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favour. Forward this message to everyone you know, Because I don't remember who the hell I've sent it to.

Don't laugh - if this isn't you yet, your day is coming!!

A variety of world maps

In the English teachers' office where I worked in India we had a world map on the wall, but it looked different. Why? Because India was in the centre of the map.

It's funny how just looking at a differently-drawn map can give you a different view of the world. My link for you to practice your English today is Worldmapper. There you can find a lot of maps which change the size and shape of the countries to show things like population, number of children, disease and hunger. Very interesting.

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. There are now nearly 700 maps. Maps 1-366 are also available as PDF posters.

Present Perfect - practical example

So here is a perfectly formed question in the 'present perfect':

Has the Large Hadron Collider Destroyed the World Yet?

What is that? Well, it is the biggest physics experiment in the world. Look up 'CERN' in Wikipedia (link to 'Simple English') or your favourite search machine (mine is 'Clusty') and you will find lots of information about the centre in Switzerland.

There are a lot of people who are worried about this new experiment - they believe that it will create little 'black holes'. These black holes could then grow and ... swallow the world!

Here's the link to the question (and the answer).

http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

Your homework :-)
Q) How many possible answers are there to the question above? Please write them in full using the 'present perfect'!!

Gardening Leave and other articles

The 'Business English' articles in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) are a very valuable resource for students at intermediate level and above. The topics are all very relevant and interesting, and new items of vocabulary are highlighted - just use your mouse to hold the cursor over the word and the German translation will appear.

The latest article has an interesting title - you've heard of maternity leave, and today it is very popular for men to take paternity leave, if you are ill you can take sick leave, but I'm sure you've never heard of 'gardening leave'!!

http://www.ftd.de/karriere_management/business_english/index.html