Link contest counting down

By my watch, it's 2:14 (or 14:14, depending on how you look at it), which means that you still have nine hours and forty-six minutes to send an email to coultonv@yahoo.com with a link that you think other readers would find useful. Here are the details, one last time: The link should be primarily in English. The winner will be announced tomorrow, September 1st. The new link will be featured in a post and added to the links list. The person who wins will receive a personlized gift and my gratitude forever!

Patient/impatient

I don't know about you, but I tend to be a little impatient. Impatient with myself, with having to wait in line, with any process that seems slow.

I would like to be more patient, and I think the path to this is connected with other feelings. For example, I'm patient with small children, with people I love, with an elderly man walking slowly. I'm patient when I feel compassion for another person, or when I know that something is difficult for him or her.

Probably the most difficult one to be patient with is one's self. Why do we have so little compassion for this person?

Patient and impatient are adjectives, and you can use them to describe a person generally, or in a moment. The noun forms are patience and impatience.

Sensitive vs. sensible

Sensitive and sensible are both adjectives, but they have very different meanings.
A sensitive person is susceptible to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of others. He or she may also be quick to take offense.
On the other hand, a sensible person is one who has, uses, or shows good common sense or sound judgment.
Here are some examples:
Sensitive:
"The ideal candidate for this position will be communicative and sensitive, able to accurately assess situations and react effectively."
"Don't be so sensitive! You shouldn't take everything so personally!"
Sensible:
"We liked her at the interview, but we wondered whether she was really sensible and mature enough for the job."
"Be sensible! If you quit your job now, will you be able to find abother one?"
It's very nice if a person is both sensitive and sensible, because he or she will often balance compassion and good judgment, making him or her a good friend, partner or colleague.

Set a task

Here's some good advice from Yearlyglot, about setting one task every day to help you learn a new language:

"...find something to do and determine that you’ll do it right away. In the beginning, your tasks might be simple: learn the numbers, learn the colors, etc. Later they might grow in complexity to things such as describe your home, or tell how your day went.
Set at least one task for yourself every day. Determine that you will do one new thing in your target language every single day. And as your language skill grows, so should the complexity of your tasks.
Eventually, you should be able complete tasks such as look up the weather, buy a train ticket, find an apartment, read a news article, follow a recipe, read a book, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you get there when you’re not allowing yourself too much time."

I like this idea because it's daily, and because you can make the task fit your level and the amount of time you have. Keeping the time limited is probably also a good idea.
Today I will translate some emails from English to Spanish. A colleague will help me check them over, but my goal is to write them as well as possible. What about you? What task could you choose for today, to help yourself move forward with English?

Day off

A day off is a day when you don't go to work or school. We usually use it with the verbs take or have.

We use have for planned or regular days off: We have Christmas Eve off/I have Mondays off. You could also say, Sunday and Monday are my days off, if these are your regular days of rest. People who work Monday through Friday generally only talk about days off which are unusual (not Saturday and Sunday).

We usually use take for days that we choose, outside of the normal timetable: I'm taking tomorrow off.

Some companies give their employees special days off, so people can make longer weekends from national holidays. Some companies also give people their birthdays off.

Please note: A day off is different from a day when you're ill. We call this a sick day, and you can see more vocabulary for this here.

Question words in non-questions

Often, we use question words like how or why in sentences that are not questions. When we do this, it's easy to make a mistake and maintain the same word order we use for questions. Here are some examples of the difference:

How did we do it?

They want to know how we did it.

Why am I here?

I don't know why I'm here.

Where are you?

I'm asking where you are.

What is it?

I want to know what it is.

You can see that in these sentences, we have to change the word order.

Another example of this is How I Met Your Mother. The question form would be: how did I meet your mother? We often use this structure for titles, like Why You Should Eat More Ice Cream, or Where I Found The Nicest People in the World, or Why Cats Paint.

Link contest: three days left!

Yes, there are still 3 days to submit your link to the link contest!

Your link could be for any site or blog, primarily in English, that you think might be interesting for people who want to read and improve.

You can email your idea to me at coultonv@yahoo.com by August 31st. The winning link will be featured here and added to the links list. The winner will receive a personalized prize.

Many thanks again to everyone who has sent in a link so far!

When the cat's away....

...the mice will play!

I think the meaning of this expression is pretty clear, and people say this for any occasion when a person's absence might allow the others to relax or do things they might not do normally. For example, in my department, our supervisor is on vacation, and if my colleagues and I decided to sit around chatting, go out for long coffee breaks, and generally play instead of working, we could say, when the cat's away, the mice will play! Sometimes people shorten this expression to just when the cat's away, because everyone knows the rest of the sentence.

P.S. Don't worry, JP, we're working! Really!

Image from Vangobot Paintings and Artwork

Food and drink

There is a huge amount of vocabulary associated with food, drink, and restaurants, and if you travel a lot or are learning English in an English speaking country, you need a lot of words! Fortunately, these words can be fun to learn if you enjoy food and drink.

If you are beginning to learn vocabulary for food and drink, here are some sites where you can learn and practice: Vocabulary List, Food and Drink Video, and Ordering Food in a Restaurant.

Do you work in a restaurant or bar? If so, you might find this link for professionals helpful.

Finally, here are three of my favorite sites related to food and drink: Food and Wine, Saveur, and 101 Cookbooks. These are great if you like to cook, or just want to read about cooking and travel!

Demise

Demise is a formal word for death. This can be the death of a person, or the "death" of a thing or situation. For example: "The actor's unexpected demise was reported this morning." Demise is often used in the news, especially in headlines, to talk about the end of something. A typical example would be "Is This The Demise of the PC?" as a headline for an article about the decline in PC (personal computer) sales, or the increasing use of mobile phones or tablets instead of PCs. You could paraphrase it as "Is This The Death of the PC?"

Take for granted

To take something (or someone) for granted is to give the thing or the person less value than they deserve, or to assume something about them. For example, I take it for granted that water will come out of my shower when I turn it on; I assume that this will happen.

When we talk about taking a person for granted, this is usually very negative. For example: He finally got tired of being taken for granted and decided to look for a new job. The idea here is that his boss, and maybe his workmates, didn't really pay attention to him or appreciate his value.

It's easy to take things for granted in your own culture. You're accustomed to everything, so it seems quite "normal"! This is one reason that traveling is so valuable: it gives you the chance to see other ways of life, and to question the things you take for granted.

I imagine that some of you have traveled this summer. Was there anything that you saw or experienced which made you reflect on your own culture, and the things we take for granted?

Link contest update

Thank you to everyone who has submitted a link to the contest. Your ideas are great and much appreciated!

If you have a link you'd like to submit, there's still time. Simply email your idea to me at coultonv@yahoo.com by August 31st. The site should be primarily in English, and of potential interest to the readers of Thinking in English. The winning entry will be featured in a post and added to the links list. The winner will receive a personalized gift to help improve his or her English fluency.

Take it with a grain of salt

The expression take it with a grain of salt means that you should be a little skeptical about something, especially a piece of advice, or that you shouldn't take it too seriously. Here are a few examples:

We took her warning about the weather with a grain of salt.

It's only my opinion, so you should take it with a grain of salt.

Bob has always disliked Jim, so you should take whatever he says about him with a grain of salt.

University of Cambridge: Test your English

Are you thinking about taking a Cambridge exam? You can use Test your English as a free online resource to find out which Cambridge exam is closest to your current level.
After you've done this test, you can buy books with "past papers" (previous exams) to further check how you would score and what areas you need to work on. Of course, it's always good to consult with a reliable English instructor to find out which exam is right for you.

P.S. If you read this blog with regularity, you know that although I support taking exams if you feel you need to or want to, I believe that the most important thing in English is always communication!

Sustainable cities

Before I moved to Barcelona in 2004, I'd never lived in a real city. Since moving here, I've become very interested in the issues related to cities and climate change. The TED talk below is excellent in its treament of these.




Your thoughts?

Transforming adjectives into nouns with -ness

Many adjectives can be made into nouns with the addition of the suffix -ness. Here are some examples:

good.......goodness

happy......happiness

friendly.......friendliness

sad........sadness

silly.....silliness

As you can see, if the adjective ends in y, you change it to i when you add -ness.

Not every adjective can be made into a noun this way. But when you see a noun that you don't know which ends in -ness, you can look at the first part of the word, remember the adjective, and understand the word.

Link contest update

Great links are coming in from everywhere!

Thanks to everyone who's sent a link so far. I've discovered a lot of new things and it will be very difficult to choose the winner of this contest.

Just a reminder: you can email your link idea to me at coultonv@yahoo.com. Please put "link contest" in the title. The website or blog should be primarily in English and the deadline to submit is August 31st.

The winner will see his or her suggestion profiled in a post, the link will be added to Thinking in English, and the winner will receive a personalized gift.

Thanks again for your collaboration!

Dwell

My word for today is dwell.

To dwell is to live in a place.

This word is strange and beautiful, and it feels rooted deep in the earth.

Dwell is also the name of a magazine dedicated to homes and lifestyle.

A dweller is a person who lives in a place, and you usually see this word modified by a place word, for example: desert dwellers are people who live in the desert.

A dwelling is a home.

The photo here is of the Fisher House, designed by Louis Kahn.

New link contest

Do you have a favorite website or blog that you think would be interesting for the readers of Thinking in English?

Thinking in English currently has about 400 page views per month, from readers all over the world. Your link could be related to learning English, or just a website that you want to share with others. The only rule is that the content of the site must be primarily in English.

You can send your link to me at coultonv@yahoo.com. Please put "link contest" in the title of your email. The winner will receive a personalized gift to help you become more fluent in English, and your link will be recommended here and added to the list.

The deadline for this contest is August 31st, 2011.

Welcome vs. you're welcome

When someone arrives, we say "Welcome!" This means we're happy to see the person and we want him or her to feel comfortable.

When someone says "Thank you" the best response is "You're welcome." This is very polite and you can always say it, whether the situation is formal or informal.

The confidence paradox

"The reality is that the universal language is English. It doesn't have to be perfect English! My English is broken but I can still communicate!" --The Dalai Lama, in Japan Times online.


Paradox is defined as "a statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth."
Confidence, in this usage, is the feeling that you can do something.
The confidence paradox when you're learning a new language is that the less confident you are in speaking, the less you will learn. I think this is because when your confidence is low, you feel bad when you make mistakes, and you start to lose your trust that you know what to say. Then you make more mistakes and this seems to support your low confidence! You may think, "I can't speak correctly and I will never be able to." You lose your ability to take risks, and finally, you become so worried about making mistakes that you forget the real objective of speaking, which is to communicate.
I'm very familiar with this feeling. Sometimes when I speak Spanish, I have problems and my confidence starts to decline. Then I have to remind myself that my objective is to communicate.
Communication is more than speaking a language properly, and we understand this easily when we speak our native language. Sometimes we communicate with others well, and sometimes not. If you have an unsuccessful communication with other people in your native language, do you lose confidence in your ability to speak properly? Probably not. You may focus on your listening skills, body language, your feeling during the conversation, the topic you were discussing, etc. This shows that many elements form part of communication.
So I want to encourage you to focus on communication when you speak in English. Here are some ways to do this:

• Look at the other person and listen to what he or she is saying.



• Smile.



• Ask questions if you don't understand.



• Try to put your attention on understanding the other, not on whether you might make a mistake.

Trust me, when you focus on understanding another person, you won't be so worried about your own mistakes. If you make a mistake, smile, correct your mistake if necessary, and go on. I promise you that you will learn more this way!

Deal with

The first definition of deal with is to take action on something. Here are some expamples of this meaning:
1. I can't talk right now; I'm dealing with a small emergency.
2. In this job, you have to deal with a lot of paperwork.
3. I don't have time right now to solve this, could you deal with it?
You can read this verb in use in a nice post on zenhabits about dealing with things only one time in order to be more productive. Do you use this method?

Vacation vs. holiday

As is sometimes the case, the British and the Americans have different words for vacation, the time a person takes off from work (often in the summer) to relax or travel. The British call this time holidays, and sometimes they shorten it to hols. We Americans call this vacation. When you work for a company, you have a certain number of vacation days. Generally this number increases with the time you work for the company. We often use the verb take, for example: When are you taking your vacation this year? We can also use go on for both the British and American usage: I'm going on vacation in August/I'm going on holiday in August.

In American English, holidays are days like Christmas and the Fourth of July. They might be national holidays celebrated across the country, or simply special days to give a gift. Depending on your job, you might have the day off, or not. In the UK, these days are called bank holidays. When this kind of holiday occurs on a Monday or Friday, we call it a long weekend.