Folks

Folks is an informal way of saying people. This is a common word in the American south, and in the west, especially in places like Texas. Many public speakers use this word to try to get close to their listeners. Here are some examples:
"Most folks in this town prefer to have the shops open on Sunday."
"Folks, I'm going to talk to you today about education..."
A lot of local folks didn't know about the new plan for the city center.

P.S. If you listen to President Obama's State of the Union Address below, you will hear him use this word.

Howdy!

Howdy is an old-fashioned, informal way of saying hello, usually associated with the American old west. Some people still say it, and many people believe that it originally came from shortening and informalizing the expression "how do you do."

2012 State of the Union Address

What is studying?

What is studying?

Is it the same as doing homework?

Did you study when you were in school?

Are you studying now?

Is it the same as practicing something, like a musical instrument, a sport, or an art form?

What is it and why should I do it?

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

I've watched this TED talk a couple of times now, and I really like some of the things Elizabeth Gilbert has to say about creativity, what ancient cultures believed about it, and how those ideas might be relevant today.
I hope you find it interesting, and remember that you can turn on subtitles in English or other languages, and that there's also an interactive transcript you can use.
Enjoy!



P.S. This is post 300. Thank you for reading this blog and encouraging me to keep going!

The more you practice, the more you learn

The concept of this expression is to repeat "the more" with different verbs, to show a direct relationship between them. You could also use "the less". Here are a few examples:
The more you speak English, the more you understand.
The less you work, the less you improve.
The more you save, the more you have for the future.

More or less are used when we want to compare. So you could use another comparative with the same structure, for example:
The longer I live here, the more I like the city.
The more I practice, the better I become.
The greater the investment, the greater the return.

You could also change the comparative to show an inverse relationship:
The more I learn, the less I feel I know!
The more you sleep, the less tired you'll be.
The longer I live, the fewer fears I have.

The Year of the Dragon

Tonight at midnight, the Chinese New Year begins. This is a Year of the Dragon.
If you'd like to read more about the traits associated with Dragon Years in the Chinese Zodiac, click here.

Word of the day: Outsmart

To outsmart someone is to be smarter, or more intelligent, than they are. If you've seen any of the cartoons with Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, you may remember that Roadrunner always outsmarted Coyote.

There are a number of other verbs with this prefix, and in general they mean to exceed your opponent, or your own expectations, in the activity. Some examples: outrun, outperform, outspend. A few sentences:

My opponent outsmarted me and won the game.

Outspending the competition dosen't guarantee success.

The new product sales outperformed our expectations by 5%.

He chased her for three blocks, but she outran him and disappeared.

Nibble and sip

To nibble is to take very small bites.
To sip is to take very small drinks.

The puppy nibbled on my fingers, but he didn't hurt me.
The guests nibbled on cheese and olives, and sipped wine.
When I first saw her, she was sipping tea in the corner of the café.
He didn't have much of an appetite, so he nibbled on her salad.

Squander

Squander is a verb which means to waste. We usually use it with money, opportunity or other resources, and the concept is to waste these things with a bad result. Here are some examples:
He quickly squandered all the money he had received from his father.
This meeting is important for us and we don't want to squander the chance to get this client.
If she hadn't squandered the opportunity she had to learn new skills, maybe she would have a better job today.
"This is a great opportunity for you... Don't squander it!"

Word of the day: Potluck

A potluck is when people get together and everyone brings a dish that they make themselves. People usually try to organize it so that there will be salads, appetizers, main dishes and desserts, instead of 20 plates of brownies. What's fun about it is getting to try different things, and also to talk about the recipes, and this is a popular way to serve food at a party. So, if I invited you to a potluck, what would you bring?

Whether or not to take an official English exam

There are many exams that you can take to measure your fluency in English. Some are from the University of Cambridge, and others, like the TOEFL and the TOEIC, are from an American organization called ETS.
Should you take one of these exams?
In my opinion, it's important to know why you want or need to take one.
If you want to go to an educational program that requires an exam, then it's necessary. Some jobs require you to demonstrate your level with an official certification. In these cases, it makes sense to take an exam because you need it to do something you want to do.
On the other hand, if you're learning English, you may start to feel that you want to take an exam to have a concrete measure of your progress. If this is your case, it's important to research the different exams and see which one is right for you.
Here are a few questions to consider:

• Do you prefer general English, or something focused on business?


• Do you feel more comfortable with British or American usage?


• How much time and money do you want to dedicate to preparing for and taking the exam?


• What will you do if you don't pass?

In my experience, these questions can be helpful in focusing your efforts and giving you the best chance to achieve your real goals If you're taking classes, your teacher can also help you to find a tests that's right for you. Also, you may discover that you don't need or want to take an exam, and that's great too, because it frees you to spend your time pursuing English fluency in your own way!

Do the trick

The noun trick is often associated with magic; a magic trick is an action which transforms something or someone, or makes someone or something disappear. The phrasal verb do the trick means to solve a problem or to change something, generally for the better. We usually use it with things, actions or processes, for example: I had a terrible headache but a couple of aspirin did the trick. Here are a few more examples:
Are you trying to lose weight? A few small changes may do the trick!
My car wouldn't start, but charging the battery did the trick.
If this doesn't do the trick, don't worry, we'll try something else.

People

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou

Dwell on

To dwell on something is to focus on it obsessively. This could be in thought, but also in words, either written or spoken. If you dwell on something, it means that you keep thinking, writing, or talking about it for a long time. Usually, the feeling of this phrasal verb is not entirely positive, although I suppose that many problems are solved because people dwell on them! Maybe the sense is negative because other people are sometimes bored by repetition, so if you dwell on something long enough, they'll become irritated. Here's an example conversation:

Him: "That happened years ago! Why do you keep dwelling on it?"

Her: "Well, I guess I'm still upset about it!"
Him: "I don't see that dwelling on it is going to make you feel any better!"

The image here is Automat, by Edward Hopper.

Call it a day

To call it a day means to stop working on something or doing something, at least for right now. Here are some examples:
After working for hours on the project, they decided to call it a day.
"I'm tired... Let's call it a day!"
"Bob thinks we should call it a day, but I think we should keep working until we're finished."

The straw that breaks the camel's back

I expect that almost every culture has an expression like this one. A camel is an animal sometimes used to carry people and also big loads of things across the desert. Camels have long, skinny legs but are able to carry a surprising amount of weight. A straw is a piece of dry grass, something which has almost no weight. The idea is that this tiny thing, when placed on top of everything else, will finally break the camel's back. So this expression can describe any situation in which a seemingly small thing causes a big negative reaction, sometimes the end of a relationship. The idea is that you feel overloaded and finally you can't support the load anymore. What usually happens next is an argument, a loss of temper, a separation, etc. Here are a couple of examples:
When his boss criticized his project in the board meeting, it was the straw that broke the camel's back.
If he forgets her birthday again this year, it will be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
If anyone has a similar expression to share, from any language, it would be great to hear about it! Meanwhile, I hope that you don't encounter any situations like the ones described here!

A method to my madness

When we say, "There's a method to my madness" we mean that although what I'm doing may look chaotic or nonsensical, there is really a methodology there.

For some reason this expression came to me at about 4am this morning, and with it an image from Gary Larson's wonderful cartoon series, The Far Side.

Maybe this is on my mind because language learning and teaching, if done really well, is, in my opinion, a messy process. I mean that really using a language to communicate is quite different from learning to do equations, or simply memorizing data. In part, this is because there are a lot of options in communication. Although it certainly makes sense to learn the structures of the language, and have some responses ready for common situations, when you really want to express yourself in speaking or in writing, the options are many! And your possible objectives are also numerous. You might want to give clear instructions, or talk about some complicated feelings, or persuade someone to adopt your opinion, etc. And the more you learn, the more options you'll have! Things will get messier!

So what is the method to my madness? To try to engage people in conversations that will be interesting. To give some tools to communicate, and then to let go and see where the conversation takes us. To give something to read that will capture the attention and allow the mind to learn in a pleasurable way. To try to convice you that the best way to start speaking is to start speaking.

Many people seem to believe that fluency in a language is a place that you arrive to, like an airport. It's easy to feel this way when we hear other people speaking, and they speak really well. But in my experience, when you arrive, you realize that your trip has just started. In fact, it usually seems like you have more to learn than you did before!

Here's a translated quotation from the poet Antonio Machado that relates to this learning process: Wanderer, there is no road, the road is made by walking.