Thanksgiving

A slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I made this last Thanksgiving.

Today is Thanksgiving in the United States. It's possibly my favorite holiday (read more about holidays in general here), but most people here in Costa Rica don't know anything about it. So today let's explore what the holiday is about! Many of these words --especially about foods-- may be new or strange for you, so I'll include definitions or explanations for the bold words at the end of the post.

First of all, Thanksgiving is an old holiday. The history of Thanksgiving is a bit complicated, though, and there are different ideas about the "first Thanksgiving." You can watch this video or any of the others on History.com if you want more general information about the holiday's history. For today I just want to focus on the modern celebration.

Thanksgiving is celebrated in the US on the fourth Thursday of every November. Most people generally have Thursday and Friday off from work or school, so generally people try to get together with friends and family for a big meal (sometimes called "Thanksgiving dinner" or a "feast"). Different people eat different foods for Thanksgiving, but the most common food is definitely turkey. As sides, people often eat cranberry sauce together with the meat --it may sound weird, but it's delicious! Additionally, people often eat mashed potatoes with gravy, bread or rolls, stuffing, and save the most delicious thing for dessert: pumpkin pie! 

It's a special time of year, and I think one of the best things about the holiday is that it's not commercial, and that it's just about spending time with loved ones and being thankful for the good things in your life. Many times people take turns saying what they're thankful for in their lives.

At the old school where I used to teach, the students wrote what they were thankful for on a paper leaf. What are you thankful for in your life?

Let's go over some of the vocabulary for today. Before you read the definitions, though, can you explain what each of the words means?

Thanksgiving

holiday

have ____ off

get together (with)

meal

dinner

feast

cranberry (sauce)

mashed 

gravy

rolls

stuffing

pumpkin pie

spend time

loved ones

be thankful for

take turns

Now, let's look at some definitions or explanations for each of the vocabulary words:

Thanksgiving - a holiday at the end of November in the US
holiday - a special day; normally people don't have to work on holidays (see here)
have ____ off - if you have a day off, it means you don't have to work or go to school
get together (with) - to meet with someone
meal - a time when people eat food; the three meals are normally breakfast, lunch, and dinner
dinner - the name for the main meal at Thanksgiving (sometimes it's at lunch time, though)
feast - a very large, special, or elaborate meal
cranberry (sauce) - a cranberry is a tart fruit (see here)
mashed - "mash" is very similar to "smash" or "crush"
gravy - a thick sauce made from meat juices; often served with meat and/or potatoes
rolls - small, individual pieces of bread
stuffing - a mixture of bread cubes, celery, and other ingredients; often cooked inside the turkey
pumpkin pie - a dessert made from pumpkin, a type of gourd
spend time - we normally use the verb "spend" for time (not "pass")
loved ones - people who are important or special to us
be thankful for - to appreciate someone or something
take turns - when different people do something in order, one person at a time

So, what about you? What are you thankful for? I'm thankful for you, for reading this blog! If you have any comments or questions, please leave a comment. Thanks again for reading, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Back From Vacation, But Still Lazy

Hello! I got back from my trip on Monday night, but I've been enjoying my short break from blogging as I get everything on order here here in Costa Rica. However, I don't want to leave you completely without new Sitzman ABC posts, since I know I have so many passionate fans throughout the world! Haha! So, today and Friday I'll just put up short posts, and next week we'll get back into the habit of three posts per week.

For today, I thought I'd share a fast activity that I did with my class this evening. The song is by Incubus, and it's called "Love Hurts." 

For the activity, you need to read the lyrics below and try to find 11 errors. The errors can be related to spelling, vocabulary, or grammar. You don't actually have to listen to the song to find the errors, but it makes it all more interesting if you do!

Find 11 Mistakes in These Lyrics:

INCUBUS – LOVE HURTS


Tonight we drinks to youth
and holding fast too truth
don't want to loose what I had as a boy
My heart still has a beat
but love is now a feet
as common as a cold day in LA
Sometimes at nite alone I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seeing the real thing


Love hurts, but sometimes is a good hurt
And it feel like I'm alive
Love sings, when it transcends the bad things
have a heart and try me
'Cause without love I won't survive


I'm fettered and abused
Stand naked and accused
should I surfaced this one man submarine
I only want the truth
So tonight we drinked two youth
I'll never lose what I had as a boy
Sometimes at night alone I wonder
Is there a spell that I am under
Keeping me from seen the real thing
(Repeat chorus)

So, could you find all the errors? Hopefully so but if you couldn't, don't worry--some of them are pretty hard to find!

Check back on Friday for the solution to this activity.

Thanks for reading, and have a great night!

A Friday Video

Hello! It's very late on Thursday night, but technically it's Friday (very early Friday morning) so I'm going to post this video now since I'll be traveling later "today."

The video is for a song called "Tongue Tied" by Grouplove. The lyrics aren't very amazing, honestly, and the video is strange, but the song's title has "tongue" in it and for "Taste" week, that's good enough for me! Plus it has a good beat:

If you didn't know, "tongue tied" generally refers to a person who is not able to speak because he or she is nervous or has something else preventing him or her from speaking. Another common phrase for that is "the cat's got your tongue." Yeah, I know, it's weird, but that's English. And that's how Fun Friday works.

So, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Fun Friday: Two "Smell" Videos

Hi Everyone! It's Fun Friday, but only for 20 minutes more (I'm writing this at 11:40 pm). I thought this would be a good occasion to post two of my favorite videos for songs about smell. The first you've probably heard if you listened to any popular music in the last 20 years. It's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (and if you can understand the lyrics without looking at this site, then your English is better than mine!):

In any case, the video was very popular when I was in junior high school, but I still like the song even now. And since you've seen that video, now you can watch the Weird Al Yankovic parody of the song called "Smells Like Nirvana." Here are the lyrics, which basically joke about how hard it is to understand Nirvana's lyrics! Enjoy:

So, thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Sight: "I Can See Clearly Now"

For today's Fun Friday post I was looking for a song related to sight or vision and I found this classic song by Johnny Nash. It's been redone by a few different people, but this version is probably the best. I'll include the video, as well as the lyrics. I hope you like it, and I hope you have a great weekend!

Lyrics:

I Can See Clearly Now, by Johnny Nash

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

I think I can make it now, the pain is gone
All of the bad feelings have disappeared
Here is the rainbow I’ve been prayin' for
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Look all around, there’s nothin' but blue skies
Look straight ahead, nothin' but blue skies

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone,
I can see all obstacles in my way
Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind
It’s gonna be a bright (bright), bright (bright)
Sun-Shiny day.

Thanks for reading, and I'll see you again on Monday for the next sense in our series: hearing!

Sarcasm, Irony, and the Importance of Tone

Hello, and happy Fun Friday! The other day I was looking for English videos on the internet and I came across this video from the program The Kids in the Hall. Watch it and note how important tone can be in speaking a language (by the way, they use the word "mingle" a few times; "to mingle" means to go talk to different people informally in a social situation):

I think this video is great because it shows how important tone can be in a conversation. When we speak directly with someone, it's much easier to understand the tone of what he or she is saying (in other words, if we can't hear how a person says something, it's hard to know if he or she is being sincere, joking, or even sarcastic). On the other hand, if we read something, the tone is often unclear, which is why it can be difficult and problematic for beginning students to communicate with text messages, email, or instant messages.

I think this may be a problem in some of my classes, at least in lower levels, since I often like to joke around with my students and use sarcasm, but I'm not sure if they understand that I'm joking sometimes. I think the tone of what I say is often lost in translation.

Anyhow, it's something to think about over the weekend. I hope you have a great one, and we'll see you again on Monday! Thanks for reading!

Fun Friday: "Big Me"

Since we were talking about "big" words on Monday and Wednesday of this week, I thought I'd put up a video of a "big" song today for Fun Friday.

The song is called "Big Me," by the Foo Fighters. The lyrics aren't very complex, but I really like the video. The video is a parody that makes fun of a series of 1990s commercials for Mentos mints. You can see some examples of the original commercials here (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), but be careful! If you watch them more than one time, you may actually become stupider!

Anyhow, this Foo Fighters video captures the essence of the commercials. I hope you enjoy it!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

P.S. - Thanks to my brother Paul for the song suggestion!

Fun Friday: Stomachs and Bellies

As you may know, I'm taking a Chinese class here in Costa Rica, so I've been following a blog about Chinese culture and language. There was a funny and interesting article yesterday about men in China who expose their bellies (stomachs) when it's hot. The post included the picture to the right, which I'll include in case you don't understand what I'm talking about.

Anyhow, the Chinese phrase for this action is "bǎngyé," which means "exposing grandfathers." If you want to read more, the article really is interesting, so check it out. Also, it got me thinking, since lots of men here in Costa Rica also roll up their shirts and stick out their bellies when it's hot. I think it's pretty funny, since it's usually men with gigantic bellies who do this. So, all of this inspired me to talk about a few vocabulary words and phrases related to stomach and bellies.

IMPORTANT BELLY/STOMACH VOCABULARY

First of all, stomach is another general word for the area between your chest and your waist. "Stomach" can also refer to your main digestive organ. If you feel pain because of indigestion, you can say that you have a stomachache or that your stomach hurts.

The words "tummy" and "belly" often refer to the outside part of your stomach, but sometimes they can refer to the digestive organ (these words are especially common when talking about or with children). For example, a child may say, "Dad/Mom, my tummy/belly hurts."

Belly dancing is a type of dance that's popular in some parts of the world. (Image)

Another word to describe your stomach area is "gut" or "guts," but this can also be used to refer to the inner organs in general. If you remove the inner organs from a fish, for example, you "gut it." You can also use the word gut in some idiomatic expressions; for example, if someone has a suspicion about something, he or she can say she has a "gut feeling." Also, if someone is brave (courageous), you can say that he or she "has a lot of guts" or that they are "gutsy."

A diagram of a human's inner organs or "guts." (Image)

If you're talking about the muscles in that part of the body, they're generally called the abdominal muscles or simply the "abs." A common exercise to tone the abdominal muscles is called "sit-ups." When people do a lot of these exercises, they get very strong abs, and you can say that he or she "has a 6-pack," since the muscles look like a 6-pack of beer or pop cans.

A group of students doing sit-ups to tone their abs. (Image)

Pretty soon, the girls doing sit-ups will have 6-pack abs like this guy. (Image)

Finally, when a woman is pregnant, her baby has an umbilical cord, which is a cord that provides nutrients from the mother to the growing baby. After the baby is born, the umbilical cord is cut, and later a little "hole" is formed in a person's stomach. That's called a "belly button," although the more "scientific" term is a "navel."

A woman with a pierced belly button. (Image)

So, to review, can you explain what each of these words means? 

Can you use them in sentences?

SELECTED BODY PARTS:

-Stomach

-Chest

-Waist

-Tummy

-Belly

-Abs

-Belly Botton

OTHER VOCABULARY:

-Gut(s)

-Gut Feeling

-Have Guts

-Gutsy

-Sit-ups

-6-pack

-To Tone

-Umbilical Cord

-To Be Born

If you read this far, here is your "secret bonus":

I'm not sure if this video is supposed to be funny, but it definitely made me laugh!

Thanks for reading --have a great weekend, free of bellyaches!

Song and Exercise: "Summer of '69"

I was going to put up a video related to our "downtown" topic from Monday and Wednesday, but the only songs I could think of were Prince's "Uptown" and Billy Joel's "Uptown Girl." I like both songs (although Prince's is much better), but Prince's song doesn't seem to have a video, and the video for "Uptown Girl" is objectively one of the stupidest music videos ever. So I was stuck. What to do?

After much debate, I finally decided I'd put up Bryan Adam's song "Summer of '69." I'm doing this for two reasons:

-Celine Dion is my arch-nemesis, so if I put up a Bryan Adams video, it should prove I don't hate Celine Dion because she's Canadian (I hate her because her music is awful).

-The song is filled with verbs, both in the simple present and simple past tenses. I actually used this song in a class activity earlier last week, so it's also convenient for me!

Here's the video, followed by the lyrics with an activity.

Lyrics Activity:

Instructions: 
Circle (or at least identify) all the verbs you can find in the song. 
How many verbs are there? 
Are the verbs in the simple present or the simple past tense? 
Divide them into two columns.

SUMMER OF '69 - BRYAN ADAMS

I got my first real six-string

Bought it at the five-and-dime

Played it 'til my fingers bled

It was the summer of ‘69

Me and some guys from school

Had a band and we tried real hard

Jimmy quit and Joey got married

Should have known we'd never get far

Oh when I look back now

That summer seemed to last forever

And if I had the choice

Yeah - I'd always want to be there

Those were the best days of my life

Ain't no use in complainin'

When you’ve got a job to do

Spent my evenings down at the drive-in

And that's when I met you yeah

Standin' on your Mama's porch

You told me that you'd wait forever

Oh and when you held my hand

I knew that it was now or never

Those were the best days of my life

Back in the summer of ‘69

Man we were killin' time

We were young and restless

We needed to unwind

I guess nothin' can last forever - forever 

And now the times are changin'

Look at everything that's come and gone

Sometimes when I play that old six-string

I think about you, wonder what went wrong

(repeat chorus)

So, when you've identified the verbs, you're done --you can go home and enjoy the weekend! Next week we'll look at this song and its verbs again, and we'll do a few activities with them. Until then, have a great weekend, and thanks for reading!

Pronunciation Poems

These chinchillas' favorite day of the week is "Fun Friday" and they're ready to PARTY! (Image)

Good afternoon, and welcome to "Fun Friday"! As usual, I'd like to offer the disclaimer that "Fun Friday" is indeed fun for me, but maybe I'm a bit of a language nerd. If you don't think Fun Friday posts are actually fun, then I'm always open for suggestions!

So, today's post is about pronunciation. My mom recently sent me a poem that she found on the internet, and the basic premise is that English pronunciation is difficult. And that's true. These pronunciation poems are actually fairly common. You can find printed examples here, here, and here. And here's an example (with subtitles) of one of these pronunciation poems:

The one my mom sent me is a bit different, but it's got the same idea. The point is that in English, it's crucial to remember that spelling and pronunciation are two different --sometimes frustratingly different-- things. If you look at the words tough, though, thought, through, and thorough, all have the letters "ough" together, but each word is pronounced differently.

These are sometimes very "advanced" language points, but you can still use this advice even if you're a beginning English learner:

4 TIPS FOR IMPROVING PRONUNCIATION

1. When you learn a word, always try to learn how the word is spelled and pronounced at the same time. It will make things a lot less difficult in the future.

2. To learn pronunciation, it can help to group rhyming words together, especially if their spelling is different. For example, if you make a "Rhyming Words List," you could include groups of words like heard, word, bird, slurred, and herd --yes, they all rhyme, and they're all spelled completely differently! If you make lists of rhyming words, they're easier to remember than trying to learn them all individually.

3. It's often useful to learn some phonetic symbols (here's a complete list). Most online dictionaries now let you click on a word to hear it pronounced, but if you only have a paper dictionary, most of them use phonetic symbols for pronunciation. It's good to know basic, common symbols like:

- /I/ as in hit, sit, and fit

- /i/ as in heat, seat, and feet 
- /æ/ as in cat, fat, and Matt

- /ʃ/ (often spelled with the letters "sh") as in shock, shoe, and push
- /ʧ/ (often spelled with the letters "ch") as in check, chew, and Charlie
- /ʤ/ (often spelled with the letters "j" or "g") as in jelly, gin, and John
- /s/ (the basic "s" sound) as in silly, say, and Samantha
- /z/ as in zero, fuzz, and please (remember that the letter "s" is often pronounced like a "z" in English)
- /θ/ (a "th" sound with no vibration) as in think, thanks, and bath
- /ð / (a "th" sound with vibration) as in the, brother, and this
That may seem like a lot of symbols to learn, but if you learn at least these basic ones, they'll help you a lot in your pronunciation studies.

4. Actively try to practice pronunciation. You can do this by speaking with native speakers and asking them to comment if you say things incorrectly. You can also read books out loud, even if you're alone. You may not have feedback that way, but it will help you get used to speaking and pronouncing words in English.

What other ways can you think of to improve pronunciation? If you have any ideas or questions, I'd love to hear from you in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend!

Fun Friday: Two Ideas

Today I wanted to share two interesting things you can do to have a good time while practicing English:

1. Play Scramble

(Image from game's iTunes page)

If you have an iPhone or an iPod Touch, this is a fun little game that you can play with friends (or even with me... look up my name or send me an email if you want to start a game with me). It's very similar to a game called Boggle, where have two minutes to find words by connecting letters. I've been playing it with some friends, and it's pretty fun (and a little addictive). You can find it on iOS/iTunes here, and a similar game on Android phones here.

2. Check out Costa Rica Outsider

I recently started this website about Costa Rica. It's not a tourism website, but it does talk about strange and interesting aspects of Costa Rican life. Since many of Sitzman ABC's readers either live in Costa Rica or have visited (or would like to visit), the site may be interesting for you. I've written about local customs, the president's visit, Easter week, and even Juan Santamaría. If you have any comments or suggestions for posts, or if you'd even like to write a guest post yourself, please tell me. You can find the site by clicking here, or you can also follow or "like" it on Facebook or Twitter if you prefer.

So, that should keep you busy for the rest of the weekend! Have a good one, and thanks for reading!

Confusing Capitals

Get ready to use your brain.

POP QUIZ!

Answer the following questions-- you have 3 minutes, and you can't use the internet.

1. What is the capital of The United States of America?

2. How many capitals does South Africa have, and why?

3. What's the capital of Canada?

4. How many states are there in the USA?

5. What's the largest city in New Zealand?

6. How many provinces and territories are there in Canada?

7. What's the capital of California?

8. Fill in the blank: Toronto is the capital of ______ . 

9. Fill in the blank: Sydney is the capital of ______ .

10. What's the largest city in British Columbia?

OK, time's up! Pencils down! You can read this post to find the answers to the quiz.

Today we're obviously going to talk about capitals. I know that this topic is technically geography, not language, but geography is related to culture, and culture is related to language. Plus, I really like capitals, for some reason. I guess I'm just a nerd.

I wanted to talk about this because many English-speaking places have "strange" or unexpected capitals. This isn't the case in many countries. In lots of places, the largest city is also the capital: think of Berlin, Germany; Paris, France; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Bangkok, Thailand; San José, Costa Rica; and many other examples. Today we'll look at a capitals in English-speaking areas, including many places where the largest city isn't the capital. Next Friday we'll continue this topic and look at the British Isles, since they're a lot more complicated than the countries we'll look at today. 

I'm from the U.S.A., so we'll start there.

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The largest city in the U.S. is New York City, New York, followed by Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois; Houston, Texas; and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, none of these cities is the capital of the country, and none of them is the capital of their state, either! In fact, the capital of the U.S. is only the 24th largest city in the country.

Washington, D.C., with the Washington Monument and the White House. (Image)

If you've been studying English for a while, then you probably know that the capital of the U.S. is Washington, D.C. ("District of Columbia"). Washington, D.C. is a city, not a state, but people often confuse it with Washington state. Washington, D.C. is on the east coast between the states of Virginia and Maryland, and Washington state is on the west coast, between Oregon and Canada. Washington, D.C. is home to the federal government, and it's where there executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the government have their main offices.

STATE CAPITALS

Casa Bonita restaurant in Denver, Colorado. This isn't the official capitol building, but it should be.

In addition to having a national capital, each of the United States' 50 states also has a state capital. For example, I used to live in the state of Colorado, and the capital of Colorado is Denver. Denver is also the largest city in Colorado, but in many states (33 to be exact), the largest city isn't the capital. You can look at the lists in the links above to find more information about each state. By the way, I mentioned the country's five largest cities above, and said that they weren't state capitals. The capitals of each of those states are Albany, New York; Sacramento, California; Springfield, Illinois; Austin, Texas; and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. 

A panoramic view of Sacramento, the capital of California (Image)

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND

These two countries are often grouped together because they are close geographically, but don't forget that they're two separate countries!

Australia's national capital is also commonly mistaken. Many people think it's Sydney or Melbourne (Australia's two biggest cities), but it's actually Canberra. Australia is made up of 6 states and two territories, and each state and territory also has a capital. The biggest difference here is that in each of the states and territories, the capital city is also the largest city in that area.

New Zealand's capital is Wellington, but its largest city is Auckland.

A view of Wellington, New Zealand. (Image)

SOUTH AFRICA

South Africa is a very interesting case, since it technically has three capitals. The largest city in the country is Johannesburg, but it's not one of the capitals. Instead, each of the three capital cities houses a specific branch of the government. Cape Town is the home of the South African parliament, and is therefore the legislative capital. The judicial capital is a city called Bloemfontein. Finally, the executive branch is in Pretoria, which also makes the city the de facto national capital.

CANADA

Oh, there's Ottawa! It's even got the little star and everything!

Canada, the world's second-biggest country in terms of area, is made up of ten provinces and three territories. The three largest cities in the country are Toronto, Ontario; Montreal, Quebec; and Vancouver, British Columbia; but the national capital is actually Ottawa, the fourth-largest city in the country. Of these four cities, only one is a provincial capital: Toronto. The capitals of Quebec and British Columbia are Quebec City and Victoria, respectively. You can check out the list of other provincial capitals and the largest cities. In most other provinces and territories, the largest city is also the capital.

This is a picture of me in Vancouver. It's the largest city in British Columbia,

but not the capital. That would be Victoria.

So, that's it for now. I hope this post was interesting for you. I'm personally a big geography fan so if you ever want to talk about capitals and countries, send me an email!

Thanks for reading, and have a great weekend! 

Two Recommended Websites For General English Practice

As I mentioned a while ago, I often have my students complete practice logs. It's a good way to encourage them to practice, and it's also a good way for me to find new language-learning resources that I can pass on to other students. 

This week my student Henry included two good websites in his practice log, and I wanted to mention them here. 

The first is apparently called Randall's ESL Cyber Listening Lab (although the URL is simply "esl-lab.com," which seems much easier). As the name indicates, it's got a lot of listening exercises with audio, partial scripts, quizzes, and vocabulary highlights. It's even got cultural tips in some of the sections, so the site is pretty great. The topics are very diverse, from pizza delivery to how to behave in a Japanese public bath. There seem to be between 200 and 300 different pages with different topics, and they're conveniently arranged according to difficulty. Check it out!

The second link my student visited was engvid.com. It's also got a self-explanatory name, as it's mainly focused on videos. If you scroll down on the home page, you'll see different topics like business English, grammar, pronunciation, and even my favorite, idioms. The grammar section alone has 105 videos, so there's plenty of material to keep you busy for a while! Check it out, and enjoy!

Thanks for reading, and if you have any additional suggestions for online practice, please leave a comment. Have a great day!

Recommended Podcast: This American Life

A while ago I did a blog post about Podcasts (click here to see it), but I wanted to highlight a few of them in a bit more detail. Today I'll talk about one and in the next few weeks I'll try to mention a few others I've enjoyed and recommend for language learners.

One of the most popular podcasts in The United States is This American Life. Since it's for native speakers, it's not necessarily made for English learners, but it still can be a great resource if you're trying to learn English. 

The program comes out once a week, and each episode is an hour long. Every week they focus on a different topic and talk about normal people who have experience with the topic. For example, a few weeks ago the show talked about some people who thought they had discovered the original recipe for Coca-Cola. 

One of the best things about this podcast is that it often comes with a transcript of the whole episode (Here's one from a recent episode about people in a drug-prevention program). For an English learner, these transcripts can be an incredible resource if you read along while listening to the podcast. However, doing that could also become tiring, so it might be best to break it into smaller parts.

This American Life's website is very extensive and has past episodes in its archive, but if you go through there, you can generally only listen to old episodes for free by using streaming audio. But if you get the show through itunes, it's free and you can keep older episodes for as long as you want. So that's the way I do it.

That's it for today. I'll try to highlight more recommended podcasts in the future. If you've listened to This American Life and have comments about it, or if you want to recommend other podcasts you enjoy, then please feel free to leave a comment. Thanks for reading, and have a great day! 

Language-Learning Site of the Week: VOA Learning English

In a previous post related to podcasts I mentioned that one of my favorite online resources was the BBC Learning English site. I still highly recommend that site, since it's almost like a little world of English-learning resources. However, just this week a student recommended the VOA Learning English site to me, and it seems like a good site if you're looking for additional English resources, without necessarily having to deal with the British accent that comes with the BBC's site (that may sound like I'm joking or being catty, but that has actually been one of the most common complaints or comments I've heard from my students who've checked out the BBC site).

VOA stands for "Voice of America," and although it's based out of the United States, it's meant for audiences in other countries. Their Learning English site has a lot of current news, cultural reports, and other information relevant to English learners. I'm still checking it out myself, but I'll post anything interesting I find on the site to Sitzman ABC's Twitter feed.

In the meantime, if you have any comments or other suggestions related to the VOA site or any other sites that you've come across, I'd be happy to hear your thoughts. Either comment in the section below, or contact us through email.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

VOA Logo Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:VOA_Logo.jpg

German Corner: "The Dumb Fish Song"

So far, I've mainly stuck to talking about English on this blog, but I've been meaning to add more content about other languages, as well. I actually studied German and struggled for nearly a decade to learn it, so often it's actually more interesting for me to talk or think about the German language than it is for me to write about English.

On the rare occasions that people ask about German, they often ask, "Is it hard?" 

Short answer: Yes. 

Long answer: Yes, it is.

German pronunciation is easier than English, since it's phonetic and English isn't, but that's about it. The main killer of students who are trying to learn German is grammar. I remembered I'd heard the following song about 10 years ago, and believe it or not, it's actually a song specifically written to illustrate German adjective endings. You can feel free to watch the video, although only the song is original; the video was made by some junior-high schoolers as an extra-credit project, apparently, and the video quality seems to verify that fact:

Now, if you don't understand German, then it'll likely seem like a bunch of gibberish. If you do speak German, it'll probably still sound like a bunch of gibberish, because it basically is. I guess that's what you get when you write a song based on grammar. For example, the first line* is:

"Eins, zwei, drei / der gute Mann / ein guter Mann / der gute Mann / ein guter Mann / schlag den guten Mann nicht / schlag einen guten Mann nicht / schlag den guten Mann nicht... gib dem guten Mann einen Fisch / gib einem guten Mann einen Fisch"

That means:

"One, two, three / the good man / a good man / the good man / a good man / don't hit the good man / don't hit a good man / don't hit the good man... give the good man a fish / give a good man a fish"

Look at the English, and compare it to the German version. If you notice, there's a lot going on here. In the German, the definite article the appears to be either der, den, or dem, and the indefinite article a comes out as ein, einen, or einem. And it's true! The words "the" and "a" really can have that many variations (or a few more, if you count plurals and genitive/possessive words). And what about "good"? That comes out as gute, guter, and guten. The reason for these linguistic shenanigans? In German, articles and adjectives change depending on whether the noun they're referring to is the subject, object, or direct object of a sentence.

And the worst part of it is this: "Mann" (meaning "man," pretty obviously) is a masculine noun... and German has three genders: masculine, "neuter," and feminine. Plus, you also have to change the articles, the adjectives, and the nouns themselves when you make them plural. And in fact, that's what progressively happens in the following three verses of the song.

English does have quite a few similarities to German due to the two languages' partially-shared history and development, but luckily for today's English learners --and much to the frustration of today's German learners-- English didn't retain a lot of this grammatical complication, while German did.

So, whenever you're having difficulties learning a language, it's sometimes nice to realize that it could always be worse. And if you're struggling with German, remember this: at least it's not Finnish!

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

*This Turkish site has a kind of half-baked version of the lyrics (For example, it doesn't capitalize nouns, as is necessary in German), but I only direct you there for quick reference. For a better alternative, I suggest checking out Brad Yoder's website. I just realized two days ago that he wrote the song, and in a strange twist of fate, I actually met him in Pittsburgh in 2001. He's a good guy and deserves your patronage. Plus, he looks quite a bit like me, and he might even be my long-lost, evil-twin brother (or vice versa)!

Two Useful English Links

Good afternoon, everyone!

I want to share two more English-language links with you. The first one is called "China 232." Despite the name, it's actually a site with English-learning podcasts. The site has two areas: "normal" and "VIP." The VIP part costs money and has more resources, but free normal section is also quite good. The site is done by two Canadian brothers living in China, and their English is very clear. Typically, they pick a topic, present a short dialogue, and explain some of the important vocabulary in the dialogue. Their latest topic was Facebook, actually.

My coworker Lidio showed me another site a few days ago. It's called "Qwiki," and it's a sort of interactive Wikipedia with videos, pictures, and spoken text. The voice you hear definitely sounds robotic, but it's still interesting to check out, and a good place to start if you're looking for information or just curious about new things. Here's an article about Niagara Falls to get you started. Check it out!

So, good luck with these links. If you have comments, questions, or other good links you want to suggest, please tell us!

Linguistic Curiosity

When I was at the NCTE recently, one presenter talked about recent technological resources available to teachers and students. One site she mentioned was "Wordle." Here's an example of a wordle based on Sitzman ABC:

As you can see, it takes the most-frequently used words in a site, article, or any other printed selection, and then arranges the words in an interesting graphic. 

The presenter did point out that the big comment about Wordle is, "Oh, that's nice. But how can we use it in a class?" That's a good point. At the very least, it's aesthetically pleasing, but can you think of any way you could use a wordle, either as a student or a teacher? Tell us in the comments section, or make your own here.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!