http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage Just another WordPress weblog Sun, 20 Dec 2009 00:20:21 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en In my perfect world, there would be little difference between desire and reality. When I had an idea, for a story or a film for example, I would be able to create that with only a minimum of effort. Then I could go on to the next wonderful idea. If ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=62 Not long after I took my seat on the train this afternoon, the guy sitting next to me said 'Excuse me, can you tell me what this means?' He was holding open a copy of mX – the free 'newspaper' available Monday to Friday from train stations in Sydney – ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=55 These days, as part of my work, I read a lot of essays written by people from a non-English speaking background. Some of it's very good, some of it's very bad, most of it's plain average to tell you the truth. Sometimes it can be entertaining. Spelling mistakes can always be ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=50 Here's an online film festival for films that are only one minute long! There are twenty-five films, a mixture of live-action and animation, and they are from all over the world. You can watch twenty-five films in less than half an hour and vote for your favourite one. A good break ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=45 In terms of vocabulary, different learners focus on different things. Some learners focus on translating words directly from their native language. Other learners enjoy learning slang. Some learners even think that the more complicated a word is, the better it is! Personally, I'm a big fan of phrasal verbs. Not only ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=41 Speaking generally, there are two types of language learner: the first type gets really worried about making errors or mistakes. They think about everything that they say carefully. Sometimes, if they start to say something, and then realise they have made a mistake, they will stop and correct that mistake, ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=39 This is one of my favourite errors that learners of English make. It's a very common error – I've heard learners from beginner all the way through to advanced make it. The error is commonly heard in situations like this: Q: Do you like everyone? A: No, I like almost people. ...or... Almost Australians ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=34 Students say this to me all the time. I always ask why? Sometimes, the students say that they are planning to take the IELTS test soon, to study at TAFE, or university, or to immigrate to Australia. But other times they say they only want to improve their reading and ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=30 How's it going? is an extremely common Australian saying. I use it at least half-a-dozen times a day, whenever I'm meeting someone for the first time. This is when the saying is most commonly used. If my phone rings and I look at it and see that it's my friend ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=25 [caption id="attachment_20" align="alignright" width="166" caption="Learning English - boring, right?"][/caption] There are a lot of students from many different countries studying English in Australia. If you walk down George Street in Sydney, you will see people from all over the world, and lots of them will be students who are studying at ... http://www.sansicarus.com/theenglishlanguage/?p=19