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Hi Everybody!
I am trying to reorganize my website a bit and have put some of my humor pages together on one page. I call it “Laugh and Learn English“. Besides my jokes (with audio), you can read some funny stories I wrote a long time ago about my experiences while travelling. I’ve also included a variety of funny things I’ve found in newspapers or magazines. Let me know what you think…
A week ago, China suffered a devastating earthquake. The generosity of the Chinese people towards the people in Sichuan Province has been amazing. In the first week after the quake, more than a billion U.S. dollars were donated to the relief effort. I have been very impressed by the hard work, caring, and concern of everyone from the top leaders to the average person, including my students. Seeing this has made me think of the topic ”giving”, and the role that giving plays in our lives. Here is today’s quote:
“We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”
~ Winston Churchill ~
[Language Note: “a living” means what we get from a job to help us buy food, clothing, etc. Notice that “living” and “a living” are NOT the same!]
I think that giving, in this quote, does not just mean money or physical gifts. It is referring more to giving time, giving our friendship and love, giving of ourselves in a personal way. I give my time and effort to my students, to help them prepare for their futures. I’m not sure that most of them care about their own futures, but some do, and I think they are grateful for what I give. What are some ways that you give to the people around you? What “gifts” do you receive from others? (Not physical gifts, of course!)
As always, I am looking forward to my students’ comments!
Hello Students!
I want to repeat some great information that Nafis left in a comment:
You can go to http://www.freerice.com and play a game that helps you learn vocabulary. Each time you are able to answer a question, you “get” some rice as a prize. That rice will be given to poor people around the world! The more you play and the more you learn, the more rice will be sent. Everyone please give it a try!
Also, go the the Free Rice sister site at http://www.Poverty.com to learn more about world hunger, related problems, and solutions to those problems. Be sure to watch the map on Poverty.com for a few minutes and think about what this really means. (Then go back to Free Rice and improve your vocabulary!)
Congratulations to Nafis and Chichi who had the courage to post their views on the ONN report from the Department of Transportation! I hope others at least tried to watch the video. Double congratulations to Chichi for correctly identifying the real meaning of the video. Yes, this is a joke. ONN stands for Onion News Network. “The Onion” is quite a famous newspaper in the U.S. (see http://www.theonion.com) in which 100% of the news is fake.
This news story (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxgkHQp8Pds if you missed it before) is, as Chichi pointed out, making fun of people who think they can drive faster by honking a lot in traffic. It is also making fun of many Americans who easily get angry at other drivers. Two of my sisters are like this! They often use “swearing and fist shaking” as a preferred method of getting through traffic. (I hate being in the car when they drive!) The word “fist”, by the way, is what you make with your hand when you want to punch somebody. The announcer did not say “fish shaking”, although that would be a pretty funny idea, wouldn’t it?
In my opinion, this video is also making fun of both CNN and some government workers. The graphics on this video are so simple. Do we really need to see a dummy pushing its hand against the car horn? Sometimes it seems TV stations think viewers are stupid and so use very simple stories with simple graphics. The Onion takes this attitude to an extreme. As for the government worker, the great line that Chichi mentioned - “Honk! Honk! Honk! It’s that simple”, is totally ridiculous! For me, the funny thing is looking at the people standing around him, with serious looks on their faces. I think politicians often DO make ridiculouse statements, but many people take them seriously.
Go back now and watch the video again. Even if you don’t think it is so funny, see if you can at least understand the intention of the video. And again, leave your comments here!
Hello English Learners!
I have a challenging task for you today. I hope all of you will check out this news report from my favorite news network in the U.S. The language used may be more idiomatic than non-native English speakers are used to and some sentences are quite complex. Please do not worry about every word. Instead, focus on getting the main message from this video.
To prepare you a little, I will tell you that you will see a news announcer at the beginning, then parts of news conference (an announcement is made outdoors so you can hear the wind a bit), with some “high tech” graphics to aid understanding. I found the final bit of advice at the end to be especially interesting, but maybe that is because I like statistics. (Language Note: “DOT” refers to the “Department of Transportation” which is the top government office in Washington dealing with all transport issues.)
Watch here: ONN Special Report.
As usual, I am looking forward to your comments and opinions. I will give you my own point of view in my next post. Happy viewing!
Hi Students!
Here is a difficult topic for students to discuss. Good luck!
I think human beings always prefer to be right, to be sure that what we are doing is the best way to move forward. But can we ever be 100% sure about everything? Isn’t there always some doubt? The great French writer and philosopher Voltaire said:
“Doubt is not pleasant, but certainty is absurd.”
[Language notes: “doubt” has basically the same meaning as “uncertain”; “absurd” basically means “very strange”.]
What could Voltaire have meant by this? Is certainty absurd only because it is impossible? Or is there a deeper meaning here? Aren’t there many examples of people being “sure” of something, but later they find out they were not quite right? Has that ever happened to you? Human beings do make mistakes, and we often do misunderstand things.
What do you think? How do you feel about doubt? Is there any way we can be certain about any topic? (I’m not even sure about what I will eat for lunch today!) If we can’t be more certain of things, how can we live better with doubt? And finally, are there any reasons why this is important? I mean, why did Voltaire feel the need to say this in the first place?
I’m looking forward to reading your philosophical thoughts!
Hi Everybody!
I just made my first “video joke”. Although it was a fast production, it should be useful to some learners. I am STILL trying to find better video editing software, so the quality is low. And I KNOW I should have shaved first but it was a holiday in China and my face needed a rest!
Click here to watch the video. As always, let me know what you think.
When I first started to study French, my goal was to learn to speak as well as a native speaker of French. However, I was not sure how to study. I thought of words as the basic building-block of language, so it made sense for me to learn as many words as possible. A funny thing happened, though, as I studied lots of words. It seemed the more words I learned, the more I forgot! Then I went to France for one university semester and found, to my shock, that I did not know how to use the words that I did remember. I realized then that I needed to learn words in combinations. As a beginner, it seemed useful to learn phrases (groups of words) because they were useful to me in my everyday life. Only after a couple of months in Paris did I finally realize that, to reach my goal of speaking like a native French speaker, I would have to do what they do, which is to speak in sentences. It was difficult to master full-length sentences. At first, I made lots of mistakes. Pronouncing single words was difficult enough. Trying to clearly and smoothly pronounce many words together was extra hard. After a long time of studying, I realized that my decision to study sentences was the right one. It became easier and easier to speak French and to understand other people when they spoke. And guess what? I also found it easier to remember new words when I saw them.
Sometimes, I think my students don’t understand this. They seem so focused on words that they fail to learn sentences well. That means they often get stuck when they have to answer a question. And their writing, even a simple email, is full of mistakes. They also have trouble understanding English when they hear many sentences at one time - it seems they have to spend so much time to understand the first sentence that they cannot listen to the second and third sentences!
That is why, on my website, I have a lot of things that help students learn sentences. There are dictations which students can listen to over and over again until they master them completely. When they go beyond single sentences they can listen to my jokes. Now I’m trying to make videos and hope to focus on sentences and stories. Unfortunately, it seems as though the popular videos are the ones that focus on words. Will students ever be able to make real progress as English speakers if they do not start learning more and more sentences? I would like to hear your opinion on this subject - just leave a comment below!
