Some people have a natural knack for learning languages, but for others learning a new language can be a daunting task. The best way to learn a new language varies depending on your particular learning style. Students are typically taught using a combination of the three learning styles, but they usually have a strong preference…
Guest Posts
The Pleasure of Reading in a Foreign Language
Apart from English fluency practice, the area most students want to concentrate on when they are with me on an intensive course is improving and expanding their English vocabulary. The activities we normally do together vary from collocations, idiomatic expressions, word formation, phrasal verbs, and identifying vocabulary in reading texts. Most students diligently record this…
Learning English
Learn Better English Through Storytelling
If you speak English, the world is your oyster, whether in business, academics, technology or on the internet. If you were born into an English speaking country, good for you. If not, you probably had to work hard to acquire the language, or are still working on it. Growing up in Germany, Sweden and Thailand…
Learning English
10 Fun Facts About The English Alphabet
Today we’d like to share with you 10 fun facts about the English alphabet to impress your friends, teachers and colleagues. Ready? Let’s go! 1.The English word alphabet comes (via Latin) from the names of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. These Greek words, however, are derivations of the Phoenician aleph and bet (see the similarity…
Learning English
Ten Modern Literary Classics You Probably Haven’t Read But Should
Note: This is a guest post by Alex Morris. Alex Morris works for Office Kitten in Manchester where he writes, researches and blogs about the business world. He can also be followed on Twitter. ~ The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck (1931) Depicting life in China at a time before mass political and social…
Learning English
American Culture: The Imperfect Hero
Movie Logic In American television and film culture, or put another way, movie logic, we encounter, with overwhelming frequency, the flawed, imperfect action hero. The flaws in this hero are usually obvious. They are easy to see, and easy to understand. The hero may be, in fact, a quite despicable person in many respects; the…
Meet detectives Baumgartner & Momsen and learn German effortlessly with special emphasis on idioms and natural language crammed with humor and suspense.
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English: Precedented vs. Unprecedented
With Precedent? Without Precedent? “Precedent” A precedent is an action that is used as a later example, or standard, by which future actions may be judged. Therefore, the precedent precedes (comes before, comes prior to) the action the precedent is used to judge. Indeed, the word comes from a Latin word for “to precede.” This…
Learning English
Famous Quotes and Where They Come From
History Influencing Modern Culture I want this to be the first article of several detailing the role that history plays in modern culture through the handing down of famous quotations. In this case, we will begin with “I have not yet begun to fight!” The Battle of Flamborough Head In September 1779, the American”Continental Navy”…
Learning English
American Culture: The American Civil War
Still Impacting American Culture Today It’s probably very difficult for non-Americans to appreciate how the American Civil War still has a great impact on American culture. I might even call this a defining impact that helps define Americans’ identity of themselves in various ways. I’m sure this all seems very strange to non-Americans. I myself…
Learning English
On Friendship, Benevolence… And Strategy
A More Modern Version Instead of quoting Sun Tzu or Nietzsche, let me start with a version actually coined by my own father, one Eric Bourque: You should make your friends not want to be your enemies, and you should make your enemies want to be your friends. – Eric Bourque Seriously, there’s a ton…
Learning English
Pride vs. Narcissism
I suddenly had a flash of inspiration and felt compelled to write – well, blog – about the issue of pride vs. narcissism. Both seem similar, yet they are different in a way that I find to be critically important. Individual Pride & Narcissism Pride X is important to me. X is indispensable to me. X has virtues that…
