Sybil Manley
2014-09-21
It’s strange how the social psychology of the world has changed so that the internet dominates the world of friendship. Online is the new world where friends are met and made, but sometimes the internet isn’t enough. Perhaps we should take some pointers from how senior people meet by chatting offline.
The internet is a virtual world where the rules are strange and everyone hides behind a mask of anonymity. The only way to make friends, “real” friends, is to unplug the internet and start chatting offline, by going into the real world. Senior people meet in the real world and seem to see the value in this instantly. The start talking and they take their time, yet too often those of the younger generation seem to be so much in a hurry to get back to our computers that we don’t see the value in this.
You can meet people everywhere, and knowing how to make friends isn’t hard. If you want to learn how to make friends, then the first thing for you to do is just to tr...
Catherine Haywood
2014-08-25
Ok, the tools are everywhere and come in all different forms—YouTube videos, vocabulary lists, and quizzes are at your fingertips thanks to the Internet. Learning English is more accessible than it ever has been before, allowing anyone with Internet access countless resources that promise to provide materials for quick and easy language acquisition.
This is nothing short of awesome, but there’s a catch. Learning English online gives you many opportunities to memorize vocabulary and understand basic sentence structure, but it does not expand into the complex realm of practice required to achieve fluency.
Not even the best instructional video has the power of human feedback to tell you that you aren’t saying that word correctly and to what degree, even though, in your ear, your enunciation sounds just like the instructor’s.
I’m a native English speaker, but during my time in France I found that the way I said water (l’eau) was incomprehen...
Taylor Nawrocki
2015-02-24
Do you still use a phonebook? Don't be embarrassed. If you'd like to make life a bit easier, you can look up people's names online instead of in a physical book. You can usually find everything you need to know and more about a person online. There are hundreds of sites out there that provide people search functions, some to a more or less extensive degree. With a quick search on a major search engine, you will be able to find many of these sites.
There is an online version of the White Pages that you may want to check out first. This service can be found at WhitePages.com. Here, you can look up somebody's name by typing in their phone number. You can also search by business category or name of business. When searching for a person by their phone number, you will need to pay a fee to this site. It will show you the type of phone it is, whether mobile or landline, and the city and county it is located in. However, the actual name of the perso...
Carrie Hunter
2014-08-19
The English language is filled with idioms. An idiom is an expression with a meaning that cannot be guessed from the words that comprise it. Idioms are phrases that should not be taken literally since they are just expressions to say something differently. Idioms range from language to language so it may take some time to learn the different meanings of these idioms when learning a new language. Here are my top 10 favorite English idioms, their meanings, and examples of how they can be used in everyday conversation.
- Bite off more than you can chew
This saying means that you are trying to accomplish a task that may be too much for you to handle.
Example:
“You are taking seven classes this semester? I think you are biting off more than you can chew.”
- Cut to the chase or Make a long story short
Both of these sayings simply mean to get to the details or the main point of the story you are telling. If you are sayi...
Natalie Jacobs
2015-02-23
For many a relocating family, choosing your new home based primarily on where the best school districts are in your state is not at all unusual.
After all, the best school districts generally turn out the highest number of graduates, and high numbers of happy graduates generally make for high numbers of contented parents.
But for every concerned parent, regardless of your specific hopes for your children’s future, seeing top quality performance from both the school and your student in mathematics, language, social studies, the sciences and more, is certainly among your priorities.
So, how do you choose the best location for your move? How do you find out where the best school districts are located? Some school districts turn out higher ratios in math, some others in language, yet others in social studies, etc. So it is by no means a simple task to judge which school districts are the best school districts.
However, you can generally get a ...
Emily Patterson
2015-03-05
Are you a prospective college student, wondering where to further your education? You may want to consider universities and colleges in New York City. If you don't love living in a big city, and aren't willing to try it out, you probably would not have a very good experience. However, if you like living with a lot of people and enjoy a rich social and cultural life, you might not want to miss out on getting a higher education in a big city.
People with experience living in big cities generally agree that you either love it or you hate it. Attending universities and colleges in New York City will be very different from attending school in a more rural area, so make your choice wisely. Life in a big city school is usually more competitive and stressful. Students in a city college must live in the real world, and will not have the sheltered college life that many students enjoy. They will be forced to act like adults and manage their own lives and educations...
Shyamal Avninder
2014-08-12
Malayalam is the official language of Kerala, a state located on the southwest tip of India. Nicknamed “God’s Own Country,” Kerala is known for its geographic scenery. With its lush greenery, sandy beaches, and serene waters, Kerala is ranked to be a popular destination in India among tourists. National Geographic Traveler’s magazine even named Kerala as one of the “Ten Paradises of the World.” If you are looking to visit Kerala, learning Malayalam would be in your best interest.
Malayalam is part of the Dravidian language family, languages spoken mainly in southern India and parts of eastern and central India. Malayalam has over 38 million speakers around the globe. In addition to Kerala, Malayalam is spoken in neighboring Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Malayalam speaking communities can also be found in Malaysia, the Laccadive Islands, Bahrain, Fiji, Israel, Qatar, Singapore, the UAE, and the UK. Whether you are looking to travel to Kerala, Malaysia, or anoth...
Terry Harrell
2014-08-12
Whether you’re a native English speaker who’s looking for ways to improve English reading, or a beginner whose focus is learning the basics, there are plenty of ways to improve your English reading skills. Even if you don’t use some of my ideas, hopefully they will inspire you to come up with some of your own. That’s the beauty of reading; there are so many different directions you can go on your search to find something.
One way to improve English reading is, of course, to read books; but not just any old books. After you get beyond a basic level, what you want are books with ample vocabulary and unusually challenging grammatical structures. What usually fits this bill are foreign books that have been translated into English, like Crime and Punishment, or Don Quixote. The advantage you gain from reading books like these, is that as a result of originally having been written in a foreign language, they open up new possibilities and windows for your learning ne...
