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English metaphors and idioms about life on the farm Posted by Gabriele on Dec 4, 2014
Nowadays, most Americans don’t live on farms. Even though most Americans don’t live or work on farms anymore, farm life and idioms about this life are still part of our everyday vocabulary in English. So, today I am going to present a number of metaphors, idioms, and expression that have to do with life on…
Wild: From Lost to Found in the Pacific Crest Trail Posted by Gabriele on Dec 2, 2014
If you are looking for a good book to read in English, let me recommend to you a personal adventure story that I really like. The book I am thinking of is called Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. One reason I am recommending this book to you…
Happy Thanksgiving: Let’s give thanks for the American Cranberry Posted by Gabriele on Nov 27, 2014
Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Today is Thanksgiving Day in the United States. Instead of writing specifically about this holiday, I am going to write about a very American fruit that is customarily eaten on this day. I’m talking about the cranberry. If you don’t know what a cranberry is, you need to read this post; if…
November Numbers: What are ‘empty numbers’ in English? Posted by Gabriele on Nov 25, 2014
This is the last post in a series of four posts that have looked at numbers in English. So far we have looked at some special numbers (i.e. the number 7), different names for certain numbers, and tips for remembering how to use ordinal numbers and spell some tricky numbers. Now, we are going to…
Let’s go ‘down under’ and learn some Kiwi-English slang Posted by Gabriele on Nov 20, 2014
Many English language learners travel to countries like Australia or New Zealand to learn English rather than traveling to England or America and so I thought it was time we looked at some slang from one of these countries from “down under.” First of all let me tell you about the term ‘down under’, this…
November Numbers: English numbers know-how and tips Posted by Gabriele on Nov 18, 2014
Today I have some tips for you for tricky aspects of numbers in English. I want to start by looking at English ordinal numbers. Ordinal numbers are the numbers we use to talk about something’s position, such as first place, second place or third place, in a competition. You might have noticed that ordinal numbers…
Check out some advice on how to learn a new language from trained translators Posted by Gabriele on Nov 13, 2014
The slogan for the Technology Education and Design (TED) organization is, “Ideas worth spreading.” Well, I have some great ideas for you about language learning from TED – and these ideas are definitely worth spreading! First let me tell you a little bit about the TED organization, which is really a great resource for you…