Expression: Under the weather

Under the weather is a great expression. It means that you don't feel well, but it's not really serious. Also, the expression isn't very specific; you could have a little cold, or a little stomach problem.

If you're not feeling very well, you can have a version of the following conversation:

Your coworker: "How are you?"

You: "A bit under the weather."

Now, if your coworker wants to know more, they can ask, but if not, they get the general idea.

It's important to notice that under the weather describes your physical state, not your emotional one. For more about what to say when you don't feel well, click here.

Word of the day: Typo

A typo is a typographical error, which means a mistake in typed or typeset material. Often, a typo is a misspelling, made by reversing two letters, or hitting the wrong key when typing. Typo is a noun, and we generally use it with the verb make.
I make about 50,000 or so typos a day, depending on how much I have to write. Okay, maybe that's a slightly high estimate, but if you've ever received an email or SMS from me, you know it's pretty close to accurate. I'm not a very good typist, and although I like to think that I catch most of my mistakes, it's not true. Nonetheless, I keep trying!
Typos are common in blogs, newspapers, on signs, menus, and anyplace where text appears. Of course, soemtimes the mistakes are not typos, meaning that the writer didn't know that the word was incorrect. This happens a lot with "its". People put "it's" when it should be "its", and they don't recognize the mistake. An example of a real typo would be one that I read this morning: "curmbling" instead of "crumbling".
What about you? Do you make a lot of typos? Do you catch them before others have a chance to see them? Have you seen any memorable typos on the internet, on sign or in print?

P.S. There is at least one typo in this post. Can you find it?

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Learning English: The power of repetition

Recently, a friend and highly proficient speaker of English posted a video of herself and her two sons, reading and responding to Where the Wild Things Are. There were many things to appreciate about the video, but the thing that I found most significant was the effect of repetition. Clearly, the two boys had heard the story many, many times, and their mom had repeated the phrases in certain ways to help them remember. So finally, they were able to say the story themselves.
It's easy to forget that this is the way we learned a huge amount of language when we were growing up: simple repetition. I'm not talking about just memorization, but the kind of creative repetition that you really learn from, sometimes with pictures or songs to help you. You see kids doing this all the time, like repeating the announcements on the metro, or singing the theme song of the TV show they've just watched.
As adults, the same process can be very useful to us. For example, we hear many expressions over and over again, and we internalize them well, like "How are you?"
I think it's possible to extend the concept of repetition to reading, listening, or watching a film, video, or TV series, because the writer or speaker will repeat words, expressions, and other structures, and you will learn from these. For example, a blog can be a great source of creative repetition, because the writing style is usually consistent, but the topic is always changing. This way, by regularly reading the blog posts, you have both the value of repetition and the opportunity to learn new words.
Sometimes I think that adults feel like they should learn a language quickly, without having to practice. If we reflect on the way children learn their native language(s), however, I think it's clear that repetition is important, and if we take the time to do it, we'll learn better.

Expression: After your own heart

When you know a person that you particularly like, because they have the same interests and/or opinions as you, you can say that he or she is a person after your own heart. For example: "You love Miró too? You're a man after my own heart."

The image here is Miró's painting Ballarina, painted in 1925.

Expression: Face the music

Here's a nice definition of the expression face the music: to accept the difficulties, criticism and unpleasant results that your words or actions may cause. For example: He's been cheating us out of our money for years and now it's time for him to face the music.

In 1936, Irving Berlin wrote a song called Let's Face the Music and Dance. This song is pretty famous, and it plays with the concept of the expression above. Here's a mashup of dancing clips, with Nat King Cole singing the song. The lyrics appear below. Enjoy!



There may be trouble ahead
But while there's moonlight and music
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill
And while we still
Have the chance
Let's face the music and dance
Soon
We'll be without the moon
Humming a different tune
And then
There may be teardrops to shed
So while there's moonlight and music
And love and romance
Let's face the music and dance
Dance
Let's face the music and dance

Happy Valentine's Day

Okay, I realize that a lot of people don't like Valentine's Day. I accept that a lot of people HATE Valentine's Day, for many reasons: they think it's commercial, they feel sad, lonely, or angry about the day, etc. I can certainly understand those views. In Los Angeles, for example, there is a big Anti-Valentine's Day party.
However, I imagine that there are also some romantic people out there who enjoy celebrating this lovers' day. If you are one of these people, I recommend the Merriam Webster Top 10 Words for Valentine's Day. And of course, a little chocolate, a flower or two, a sip of champagne, etc...

Two expressions with bark

In English, dogs bark. Sometimes they bark a lot. Does the sound of barking bother you? It drives me pretty crazy. Especially when someone ties the dog up outside in front of my building, and leaves the dog barking. Not appreciated! But on to the expressions...
We have two key expressions with bark. The first one is: to bark up the wrong tree. This means to be mistaken about something, to have the wrong idea. For example: the police were barking up the wrong tree investigating Mary; she was out of the country when the crime was committed.
The second expression is: his/her bark is worse than her bite. This means that the person seems angrier or meaner than he or she really is. For example: "Don't be afraid of Jimmy! His bark is worse than his bite."

Happy February! (Silent letters in English)

Welcome to February! Did January go by fast, or what??? It seems like just a couple of days ago that we were eating our traditional lucky grapes.
February is one of those English words which has a silent letter. These are letters which we write but don't pronounce. If your native language has a similar feature, this will probably be intuitive for you; if not, please accept my apologies, because it does make some words a bit difficult! In February, the first r isn't usually pronounced, so the word sounds more like "Febuary." The way to work we these words is to omit the silent letter and pronounce the word as if it wasn't there. Here's a list of some other common silent letters with example words:

p: psychic, receipt, psychology
b: comb, dumb, numb, climb, doubt, subtle, debt
l: could, should, calm, half, talk
h: honor, honest, hour
t: whistle, castle, listen
k: knee, know, knife, knowledge

It's interesting to note that for speakers of British English, r is often silent, usually when it comes at the end of a word, like mother, or when it comes before a consonant, like park. American and Irish speakers of English, on the other hand, usually pronounce these r's, unless they come from a place like the American south, where the British pronunciation of some sounds continues.
Here's a video featuring silent words. The narrator has a British accent.

P.S. For a more humorous video on silent letters, I recommend "Suicidal silent letters."