(very) Useful English

every month - Issue 23 Feb

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Dear Reader ,

Did you have a good month? Well, you certainly kept us very busy with all your film reviews for the scholarship competition. We’ve now got a long list of films we want to rent! Thanks, you movie buf= fs! Watching films is a great way to practise your listening skills and a great way to pick up some new words. You also sent Tim a lot of your tricky English language questions. We know you want your questions answered quickly, and the questions you sen= d to our scholarship competition only get answered once a month, so if you want a quick answer to a question (or you want to meet some other English learners), then use our forum. You can find it here: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/forum

T he forum is part of our free learn English site - which I hope you are all using! You can take daily English lessons here: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com

Have a great month and keep up your English studies!

The EC Team

In this Newsletter… What I Mean Is… Foldable Phrases Win Amazon Vouchers! Why Do We Say? Word OriginPast EC Student EC Games Top English Learning Tips Top 5 lessonsWIN 2 week Scholarships ‘Short’ Idioms Manage My Subscription

What I mean is…

Danny has been teaching English with EC for over 9 years.

Sit down, put your seat-belt on, and join Danny as he takes you on a trip through time, space and the deepest reaches of his sui generis mind! Email Danny:

ecteam@ecenglish.com

Thre e Years Ago…

“I didn’t do it. I don’t like writing”, Sebastian muttered sullenly. Sebastian was a student from Switzerland, and the above was his answer to the question I’d just asked…namely, “Where’s the essay I gave you for homework last Friday?” “It’s boring”, he added. “I disagree”, I said. “If writing is boring, it’s only because the writer is boring. The kind of person who, given the opportunity to create entire new worlds, inhabited by a host of deliciously amazing characters who fin= d themselves in equally delicious and equally amazing situations, can only come up with some kind of lame scenario like ‘…and then I woke up becau= se it had all been a dream’. Or, in your case…nothing at all”. “I guess I must be a boring person then”, replied Sebastian. The look in his eyes said ‘ha!’ “That’s not for the writer to decide”, I said. “That’s the reader’s opinion. In other words, mine. Go home, write me the essay. Something inspirational. Something that will talk to the heart, the soul and the mind, and make people want to slay dragons and go on quests and do insane= ly brave things like listen to Paris Hiltons album. You never know you might change someone’s life or, at the very least, make their day”. The look in my eyes said ‘yah-boo, sucks to you!’Sebastian scowled. “And make sure it flows logically”, I added. “It’s incredibly annoying when you suddenly change the subject halfway through, and nobody can figu= re out what’s going on

Eighteen Years Ago…

When I was seventeen, and therefore knew everything there was to know about everything, the one thing that I wanted more than anything els= e in the world was a long, flowing, red raincoat. I had seen Nicolas Cage wearing one in a film, and it was the coolest thing since cucumbers. It draped over Nic’s shoulders like a mantle of absolute unflappability, and when a gust of wind caught it, it billowed and danced like an inferno of ultimate ‘with-it’-ness. I would have given my right arm to own a raincoa= t like that, but I couldn’t find anyone who actually wanted my right arm, s= o I decided to buy one instead. The only one I could find was about three sizes too big, and, rather than billow dramatically in the wind, it would inflate like a hot-air balloon at the slightest breeze and lift me off my feet, but it was a long, flowing, red raincoat, and it was mine. I was making a statement. It was only years later that I realised that the statement I was making was ‘Hello everyone. I look like an idiot’. At least it was warm. And waterproof.

Two Years Ago…

My best friend works in a bank. His is the kind of job where the stress levels run so high that they have snow on the top. Two years ago, = he had the unenviable task, over a weekend seminar, of explaining to a group of extremely disgruntled international bankers why his bank taking over t= he management of theirs was a good thing. He’d spent half the night before writing cue-cards designed to motivate and inspire teamwork and a bright future. Only to find, a few seconds after taking his place behind the podium in front of forty-five sceptical money-men, that he had left the cue-cards at home, on his bedside table. So he rammed his hands deep into his pockets, and took a deep breath…

Three Years Ago…

“Here you go”, said Sebastian, handing me a sheet a lined paper with his blue-penned scrawl covering both sides of it. He was in a considerably better mood than the previous day. “This is a work of art. I= ‘m not sure about the English, but it’s a tale of hope, and of overcoming obstacles, and of solidarity, and of evening the odds. It is definitely n= ot boring. It might make your day. It might even change your life”. He beame= d at me. I thanked him and took it from him. And then I lost it.

Last Year…

…. my brother had his backpack stolen by some anonymous ne’er-do-well. This would not have been too big a deal had he not been approaching the check-in desk at Moss Airport, sixty kilometers from Oslo in Norway at the time, and had the contents of his backpack not included his passport and his wallet containing every last Euro and Norwegian Kron= e he owned. But he was, and it did. And so it was a big deal. There’s nothing quite like being stuck helpless and broke in a foreign country to induce feelings of despair and loneliness, and, despit= e the beautifully romantic name, the Land Of The Midnight Sun is no exception.

Last Week…

I was in a foul mood last week. To cut a long story short, I had surrendered my car to a panel-beater two weeks earlier so that he could raise the dent in my bumper, put there courtesy of a moronic road-hog who should never have been allowed within a five-mile radius of a car, let alone behind the wheel of one. Ill have it done for you in a couple of days, promised the panelbeater, sucking thoughtfully on a pencil as he mentally calculate= d how much the repair would cost, before doubling it and adding seventy percent to the total. I phoned him two weeks later, enquiring whether my car was ready yet. “You may remember it”, I added dryly. “You said it would take a couple of days to fix. I was just wondering which couple of days you meant”. “Tell ya what”, said he. “Call me in a couple of days”. “And it will be ready?” I growled. “If you call me in a couple of days, I’ll let you know when it’ll be ready’. So…I was in a foul mood. I had to walk to work. Again. And it was raining heavily. Again. So I wore my red raincoat, because it is the warmest and most waterproof piece of clothing I own. It still fits me, because it was thre= e sizes too big when I bought it, and it’s still in good condition, despite being eighteen years old, because I hardly ever wear it. In fact, my brother had worn it last, when he was in Norway on holiday, because Norwa= y is a cold country and he wanted something warm. And before that…my best friend had borrowed it because his coat was at the dry-cleaners and he needed a coat to wear over his suit in order to look simultaneously smart and dynamic at a weekend seminar where he was supposed to be giving a tal= k. The last time that I had actually worn it was about three years ago. In fact, I was wearing it when some Swiss student of mine had given me an essay to correct and I had taken it from him and put it in my pocket without thinking and so, now, I reached into my pocket and felt a folded piece of paper and pulled it out and there it was…a sheet of lined pape= r covered in blue scrawl, with the name ‘Sebastian’ printed right at the to= p, and I stopped under the shelter of a shop canopy and read it, and… It was a work of art. Inspirational. It spoke to my heart, my soul and my mind. It made me want to slay dragons, go on a quest and buy Paris Hilton’s latest album. It lifted my black mood, and made my day. Underneath Sebastian’s spidery handwriting was a short message, in different handwriting… ‘D - I have no idea who this Sebastian guy is, but I owe him one…’ It turned out that my friend Chris, the banker, having looked for his cue-cards and drawn a blank, had discovered the essay in my coat pock= et and, in a moment of sheer desperation, paraphrased it to a group of resentful bank managers, and, by the end, had had them on their feet, applauding, cheering and calling out expressions such as ‘hear hear’ and ‘yes, by jingo!’

My brother too had left a little note, first telling me off because he was sure that ‘you should have corrected and handed back this essay ages ago, you lazy bugger’, and then going on to rave about how brilliant the essay’s message was and how it had given him hope and helpe= d him get through numerous annoyances and language barriers with the Norwegian authorities, and finally back to Malta. It was definitely not boring.

Finally, Today…

I suppose the point of this whole story is this… Whatever we do, no matter how small or inconsequential it may seem at the time, can affect someone else. The right word at the right time, a= nd to the right person, can change everything. A reluctantly-written essay, = a foolishly-purchased raincoat, a dry-cleaners’, a bank takeover bid, a Norwegian airport thief and a Swiss student - you wouldn’t think there wa= s a connection there, but everything is connected sooner or later. Sometime= s we never see the connections between one thing and another. If we could - if a red thread, for example, linked one person to the other - then I’m fairly confident that each and every one of us would be part of a huge re= d living web. Which means that we have a responsibility. We need to choose our words carefully, think our actions through, and realise that, to someone, somewhere, we make a difference. When we give someone hope, or inspiratio= n, or simply a smile, we make the world a better place. And that’s my inspirational piece. Whether it’s a true story or not is up to you to decide. And Sebastian, if you happen to be reading this…well done. You get a ten out of ten. One last thing. Don’t buy Paris Hilton’s album. It sucks.

Do you have any messages for Danny? He’d love to hear from you:

ecteam@ecenglish.com

Scholarship competition: http://www.ecenglish.com/newsletter/09feb/scholars hipcompreview.html

Scholarship Competition Winners! We asked you to write about your favourite film. We had a great response from you film-lovers. Thanks to everyone who entered and congratulations = to Fausto , Chiara and Aniket - they all win 2-week scholarships!

Not a winner? Read the best of the rest here: http://www.ecenglish.com/node/1759

Fausto, Italy One of the movies that inspired me the most is “Novecento” (1900) by Bernardo Bertolucci, a movie from 1977 featuring a number of wonderful actors: Robert De Niro, Gerard Depardieu, Donald Sutherland, Burt Lancast= er. I grew up and still live in the very places where the movie was shot and I believe it is one of the most effective representations of modern Italian history. The movie helps you understand the way Italians were in the past and the way they are nowadays, it shows the rise and fall of Fascism, an= d the growth of the resistance movement. This is the background of a friendship between two men belonging to different social groups and standing on opposite political sides who nonetheless never forget their solidarity link. The director intertwines the complex history of the last century with the vicissitudes of common people. Besides the historical reconstruction its the friendship between the two protagonists that emerges most poignantly: Olmo (Depardieu), the brave son of a farmer who risks his life fighting the fascists and Alfredo (De Niro) the upright son of a rich landowner who despite his social standing and some compromises fights to protect the victim of fascist persecution. Alfredos wife serves as a link between the two social worlds, that of the landowners and that of the servants; she refuses to get involved into the conflicts of the age but in order to do so her only way out is disappearing forever. Finally there is the Italian countryside, with its fields, trees, cowsheds, all reinforcing the feeling of a naturalist masterpiece. Sometimes the director unveils his partiality painting with excessive brutality the bad character of the movie, the fascist Attila (Sutherland) and falling into the trap of political propaganda.

Chiara Solazzo, Italy Usually my favourite film is the last one that I have seen. This was the case with the last one that I see: so I would like to introduce you “The Visitor” directed by Tom McCarthy. This movie has been awarded with = the “Grand Prix” in the “34th Deauville American Film Festival” in September 2008. I think this movie combines social problems (illegal immigration an= d the strict consequences of American paranoia after 11th September 2001 on immigration politics) with feelings (like friendship, passion for music a= nd love). The movie tells the story of the encounter between Walter, a professor of Economics at the end of his career, with Tarek, an illegal immigrant of Syrian origin that lived in the professor’s apartment becaus= e of an estate scam. It’s perceptible from the beginning of the movie that the professor is looking for a new sense in his dull life and even if at first he asked Tarek to leave his apartment, it only took him a few minutes to get attracted by Tareks passion for music. So they could establish a friendship band thanks to the African drums or djembe and the learning of music. Tarek has been able to give Walter the zest for life with his musi= c! But after a while Tarek got arrested and he was menaced to be deported to Syria and Walter made everything possible to help his new friend. I think that this movie is blinking at Obama’s landslide victory and shows the general will of changing. To be an illegal immigrant doesnt mean to be a criminal, unless it’s criminal to desire a better life.

Aniket Sengupta, India

Bhagini Nivedita(Sister Nivedita) was once declared the best film of the year and its producer was awarded the President’s Gold Medal. I reach= ed the cinema house just in time. The hall was air-conditioned. Soon after I had taken my seat, the show began. The picture was based on the life history of an Irish lady Miss Margaret Noble. The show opened when Margar= et was a mere child. She had a terrible shock in her early youth. She loved = a young man and he also loved her so dearly. But before they could be unite= d in marriage, death - a most unexpected event brought a separation between them. This was a turning point in her life. She met Swami Vivekananda in London and found answers to the spiritual questions that had been troubli= ng her mind. she came to India and was initiated by Swamiji who gave her the new name of Nivedita. She started a girls’ school at Baghbazar, took up relief work during a plague epidemic, and took part in the Swadeshi movement in India. Her last meeting with Swamiji was a great episode in h= er life. Bhagini Nivedita was the maiden picture of director Bijoy Bose. Wit= h great skill he filmed a sacred life. Outdoor shots were taken in London a= nd the English countryside and this has made the scenes and characters seem real and vivid. Bhagini Nivedita is an inspiring picture and it has left = a lasting impression on my mind. Undoubtedly it is a well-executed film wit= h noble purpose.

EC Word Game - 7 Letters: http://www.ecenglish.com/games

This is a word challenge game where you have to find the 7 letter word from the jumbled letters. To score more points you can also try and find as many smaller words as possible before finding the 7 letter word.

Your Questions This months STAR Question! Congratulations to J.M. Jisan who has won worth of Amazon vouchers!

Dear EC team, I would like to ask questions about every and each. Sir, these two words seem like plural words but while I was reading a newspaper I s= aw “every student” and as well “each fruit” in the newspaper. So, are these words singular? Can you explain the differences of these words and could you please state some examples? J.M. Jisan, Malaysia

Every, and each are quantifiers that are used in a singular sense, with a singular verb. They have very similar meanings and uses. However, every implies many single things as a mass, whereas each implies a quantity of individual things considered separatel= y. E.g. “England expects every man to do his duty.” (i.e. all men) “England expects each man to do his duty.” (i.e. every separate individua= l) Confused? Probably! The only thing to remember is that they are more similar than not, and they both take a singular verb. All the best, Tim

Read more of your ‘Questions and Answers’: http://www.ecenglish.com/newsletter/09feb/amazon-a sk-a-question.html

Foldable Phrases Each month we will add a new card to the foldable phrases booklet. All you need to do is print it, fold it and pop it in your wallet. Card = 23 in our foldable phrases is: English used when seeing a doctor: http://www.ecenglish.com/newsletter/Foldable-phras es/foldable-phrases.htm

Why do we say..? This month we take a look at two common English expressions which will make your English sound more natural. Find out what they mean, why we say them and how to use them.

Worth One’s Salt? If someone is described as ‘worth their salt’, it means that they are effective and efficient, and, more specifically, deserving of their pay. Salt is essential for human life and was instrumental in preserving food long before canning and refrigeration were invented. Needless to say= , salt has always been considered valuable. In fact, the word ’salary’ come= s from the word ’sal’ - the Latin word for salt. The word ’salarium’ used t= o refer to the money given to Roman soldiers for the purchase of salt. Therefore, if you are ‘worth your salt’, you are worth your pay! Example: “Every company worth its salt has a good website.”

Make My Day? A slightly more modern saying than the one above, the line ‘make my day’ was made famous by Clint Eastwood in the film Dirty Harry. It is basically a request for the person it’s aimed at to carry on doing whatev= er he is doing, as it will give the speaker an excuse to behave badly. In th= e film, Eastwood’s character would ask criminals to break the law so that h= e would have reason to shoot them! Example: “Keep pushing me. Go on, make my day!”

Past EC Student This month, Shuhei Naka from Japan writes to us about his experience volunteering at a Malta hospital while learning English at EC Malta. I have obtained precious experience throughthe voluntary service in the Maltese hospital. So I introduce mypractice simply. First of all, we received some lectures by a professionalcounsellor befor= e we started to work with the patients. Itwas really helpful not only worki= ng there, because it includedcommunicating with people and how to contact patients, butabove all, at that moment I met many people who are Maltesea= nd other students. And I still have relationship after I finish thevoluntary service. It is pleasure to meet them. After the training, I started to work once a week for 3 hour. My main tas= k was to play with children andto cooperate with the staff. For example, I read some books for them, made decorations for Christmas,and just talked about something with their parents while we were drinking and eating. Tha= t time wasabsolutely valuable for me. In particular, I have spent a lot of time with my friends because of the voluntary service and we haveunderstood each other more than before. We were 3 students from EC, South Korea and Chinese. One ofthem had already left Malta, but Ive carried on keeping in touch.I think that voluntary service is a unique great experience andIm so glad I joined this activity. Naka Shuhei

Have you won an EC scholarship or have you been to an EC school? We’d love to hear about your experience. Please email us about your trip, including a picture and we’ll print it next month: ecteam@ecenglish.com?

Top English Learning Tips

Learning New Words

It’s no use learning a list of new words. Instead, when you find a new word, you should learn the whole sentence it appears in. Don’t learn the word in isolation, learn the word in context. You’ll find it easier to remember the word and how to use it by remembering an example sentence. Write the phrase down in a notebook. Make your own mini-dictionary of new words and refer to it whenever possible. Try to use the new word in conversation or when speaking.

Top 5 lessons on learnenglish.ecenglish.com

EC has a free site where you can take daily English lessons. Here’s a list of the most popular lessons of the month.

Here are January’s five most popular lessons on http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/] http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com Check them out. See what youve been missing!

1 - Test your Prepositions knowledge (Lesson added: 12 January, 2009) Complete the sentences with the correct preposition: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/lessons/test-you r-prepositions-knowledg= e

2 - ‘-ed’ and ‘-ing’ adjectives: describing feelings and things: (Lesson added: 11 July, 2008) Lesson on using adjectives finishing with -ed for feelings and ing for describing things: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/ed-and-ing-adjec tives-describing-feelin= gs-and-things

3 - Can you guess the tenses? (Lesson added: 29 December, 2008) A quick & simple review and test of 8 tenses: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/lessons/can-you- guess-tenses

4 - British English Slang! (Lesson added: 5 January, 2009) Learn some casual British English to make your English more natural: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/lessons/british- english-slang

5 - Personality Adjectives - What is she like? (Lesson added: 7 July, 2008) Still a popular lesson after 6 months, learn useful adjectives that describe character: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com/lessons/personal ity-adjectives-what-she

Introducing…’Short’ Idioms

As February is the shortest month of the year we thought we’d give you some idioms that use the word ’short’: (For more lessons please visit: http://learnenglish.ecenglish.com

to be caught short To have a sudden need to go to the toilet: ‘I went to the toilet before we left because I didn’t want to be caught short on the journey.’

to be a bit short To not have enough money:’Could you lend me some money? I’m a bit short until payday.’

to cut a long story short Something that you say when you are about to stop telling someone all the details of something that happened and tell them only the main facts: ‘I spoke to my boss about a pay rise and, to cut a long story short, he said that he’s going to think about it and get back to me.’

to be a day late and a dollar short Too little, too late; not enough to be useful: ‘The government’s decision to act now is a day late and a dollar short.’

to have a short fuse When someone has a short fuse they become angry quickly: ‘Be careful how you speak to her. You know she has a short fuse!’

In 2008, 97% of students said they would recommend EC to a friend. All ou= r schools promote a culturally diverse environment that is friendly and educational. EC has English language centres located in the UK, Malta, South Africa and the USA. If you would like to know more about the courses we offer then contact: study@ecenglish.com study@ecenglish.com. We’ll be very happy to talk to you. This message was sent by: EC - Language Centres, EC Central, ‘Paolo Court’, Giuseppe Cali Street, Ta’ Xbiex, Ta’ Xbiex XBX 1423, Malta