Learning English/Inglés solamente (Intermediate / Advanced)
In English Only (Intermediate / Advanced)
Hello! Welcome to In English Only! This thread is for native speakers, intermediate and advanced students or anyone who would like to take a shot at posting here.
There are only two rules:
Only write in English.
Keep the language family-friendly.
You can share stories, frustrations or simply stop by to say “hello”.
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If you are a native English speaker, don’t hesitate to help out the members who are still learning. =)
58 Answers
First, I want to wish luck to Annie with this thread, I think it will be very useful and interesting, too.
Well, I will write something to "break the ice" :- )
It is almost dark here. I was sitting outside listening to the birds, there are a lot of birds here. Among others, I heard one called Nightingale. People say that this bird sings only by night.
It is also said that once someone asked a Nightingale: "Why you are singing only by night?"
And, the Nightingale answered: "It is because I want people to listen to me. During the day people work, they are busy with their tasks, nobody pays attention to me. That's why I sing by night."
- Keep in mind that this is just a legend, I'm not sure it is true that this bird sings only by night.
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Interesting Facts About English
in no particular order...
1.The most common letter in English is "e".
2.The most common vowel in English is "e", followed by "a".
3.The most common consonant in English is "r", followed by "t".
4.Every syllable in English must have a vowel (sound). Not all syllables have consonants.
5.Only two English words in current use end in "-gry". They are "angry" and "hungry".
6.The word "bookkeeper" (along with its associate "bookkeeping") is the only unhyphenated English word with three consecutive double letters. Other such words, like "sweet-toothed", require a hyphen to be readily readable.
7.The word "triskaidekaphobia" means "extreme fear of the number 13". This superstition is related to "paraskevidekatriaphobia", which means "fear of Friday the 13th".
8.More English words begin with the letter "s" than with any other letter.
9.A preposition is always followed by a noun (ie noun, proper noun, pronoun, noun group, gerund).
10.The word "uncopyrightable" is the longest English word in normal use that contains no letter more than once.
11.A sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet is called a "pangram".
12.The following sentence contains all 26 letters of the alphabet: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." This sentence is often used to test typewriters or keyboards.
13.The only word in English that ends with the letters "-mt" is "dreamt" (which is a variant spelling of "dreamed") - as well of course as "undreamt" 
14.A word formed by joining together parts of existing words is called a "blend" (or, less commonly, a "portmanteau word"). Many new words enter the English language in this way. Examples are "brunch" (breakfast + lunch); "motel" (motorcar + hotel); and "guesstimate" (guess + estimate). Note that blends are not the same as compounds or compound nouns, which form when two whole words join together, for example: website, blackboard, darkroom.
15.The word "alphabet" comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, b?ta.
16.The dot over the letter "i" and the letter "j" is called a "superscript dot".
17.In normal usage, the # symbol has several names, for example: hash, pound sign, number sign.
18.In English, the @ symbol is usually called "the at sign" or "the at symbol".
19.If we place a comma before the word "and" at the end of a list, this is known as an "Oxford comma" or a "serial comma". For example: "I drink coffee, tea, and wine."
20.Some words exist only in plural form, for example: glasses (spectacles), binoculars, scissors, shears, tongs, gallows, trousers, jeans, pants, pyjamas (but note that clothing words often become singular when we use them as modifiers, as in "trouser pocket").
21.The shortest complete sentence in English is the following. "I am."
22.The word "Checkmate" in chess comes from the Persian phrase "Shah Mat" meaning "the king is helpless".
23.We pronounce the combination "ough" in 9 different ways, as in the following sentence which contains them all: "A rough-coated, dough-faced, thoughtful ploughman strode through the streets of Scarborough; after falling into a slough, he coughed and hiccoughed."
24.The longest English word without a true vowel (a, e, i, o or u) is "rhythm".
25.The only planet not named after a god is our own, Earth. The others are, in order from the Sun, Mercury, Venus, [Earth,] Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune.
26.There are only 4 English words in common use ending in "-dous": hazardous, horrendous, stupendous, and tremendous.
27.We can find 10 words in the 7-letter word "therein" without rearranging any of its letters: the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.
28.The following sentence contains 7 identical words in a row and still makes sense. "It is true for all that that that that that that that refers to is not the same that that that that refers to." (= It is true for all that, that that "that" which that "that" refers to is not the same "that" which that "that" refers to.)
29.The "QWERTY keyboard" gains its name from the fact that its first 6 letter keys are Q, W, E, R, T and Y. On early typewriters the keys were arranged in such a way as to minimize the clashing of the mechanical rods that carried the letters.
Years ago, my sister Camilla and I came to England. We had started on a rail-journey through Europe, known in those bygone days as ' tåg luffa'. We went to Paris, where my sister turned out to speak amazingly good French but the waiters nevertheless ignored us totally. We carried on to Spain ( it was cheaper to travel throughout the night and sleep in the passageways of the trains than to stay in hotels).
Spain proved a mistake. We were young, blonde and possessed swimsuits ( not even bikinis, as far as I can remember). We attracted more admirers than we could handle on the packed city beach of Barcelona. In those days the Spanish girls of the admirers' own age had chaperones and there was no chance that their admirers would exchange even a passionate look with these well guarded girls, let alone a kiss.
Camilla and I fled to Scotland via Amsterdam ( there was an overnight train). We stopped off for a day in Newcastle. There was a cheap youth hostel there.
After studying English for years we couldn't even understand a single word . It was the blow a of a lifetime, I thought I spoke English, I had gained tip-top marks at school.
It was worse than being in Paris, it was worse than being in Barcelona ( actually, it's more pleasing to have too many admirers than none at all!). The rain fell steadily all day and all night.
To be continued..
Some women apply elaborate, albeit garish makeup to their faces in order to celebrate 'The Day of the Dead'.
If there are any James Bond/Ian Fleming fans learning English, here is an audio book with written transcript pages so that you can follow along while listening to the narrator. It's extremely well done. There are other audio books, short stories (classics and modern) and poetry etc. available from the same website. There is a 'slow listening' option as well if you need it. It's well worth a look and listen.
Goldfinger - A James Bond 007 Story by Ian Fleming
There are a few references to Mexico City and a few spanish words with definitions. It seemed to be the appropriate one to post first. Enjoy
I'll be back like a fly on a maggot ! I've only just hit the deck I had a quick butchers at SD
and saw this bonzer post , good one rac. I'll return in half a mo and give it a burl.
This also is English with a different accent than you may be used to but none the less
it comes from the same language of Shelley ,Wordsworth and Emily Bronte.
I hope that you may enjoy it as much as I do.
I'm just stopping in to say hello to all of you English learners. It's nice to see others in the same boat, so to speak, with taking on a new language. I have always admired others who could speak more than one language. Happy St. Patrick's Day!
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend, that you comb through annals of history but not a single annal?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't a preacher praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
If you wrote a letter, perhaps you bote your tongue?
Some anomalies of the English language:
We'll begin with a box, and the plural is boxes; but the plural of ox became oxen not oxes.
One fowl is a goose, but two are called geese, yet the plural of moose should never be meese.
You may find a lone mouse or a nest full of mice; yet the plural of house is houses, not hice.
If the plural of man is always called men, why shouldn't the plural of pan be called pen?
If I spoke of my foot and show you my feet, and I give you a boot, would a pair be called beet?
If one is a tooth and a whole set are teeth, why shouldn't the plural of booth be called beeth?
We speak of a brother and also of brethren, but though we say mother, we never say methren.
Then the masculine pronouns are he, his and him, but imagine the feminine, she, shis and shim.
I am dropping by to say "hello"... =)
I am happy we finally have both of the threads up and running! Thank you, Annie!
Happy Tuesday!
I just wanted to share a few articles about language learning:
How to learn any language in six months (This is what I am trying now.)
I Learned to Speak Four Languages in a Few Years: Here's How
The only way to get far quickly is to get out of your comfort zone
Happy learning!
Audio ,English as you may know it .
Listen to both audios and try to hear the main difference in structure and cadence .
We would love to hear what you think of them both.
I love all languages !
I grew up in a two language household with a father who
introduced me to the classics whilst still at primary school , I adore the English
language from Chaucer through to Shakespeare, Dickens , P. C Wren ,Maugham ,
Milton ,Byron, and then the great American writers Mark Twain , Scot Fitzgerald ,
Hemingway, and my all time favourite O Henry( William Sidney Porter), he had the ability to
introduce amazing new phrases like , "A perambulated sarcophagus " his wit
word play and clever twist endings were incredible. How could one forget the
"Cisco Kid" or the "Gift of the Magi" "Cabbages and Kings" "the last leaf"
" Inject a few raisins of conversation into the tasteless dough of existence" O'Henry.
The descriptive power of English fascinates me , as does its ability to absorb
other languages into its lexicon without watering down the central element
that makes English the pre-eminent language in the world . But I am not saying
that there is not great beauty in French or Italian and Spanish , they will always
share a warm place in my heart , but when I read words like those below , the tears flow.
William Shakespeare
“The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest. It becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
I'm off up the apples and pears soon but come the morrow I will give this thread my best shot as soon as I 'ave 'ad some brekky.
I would say "good on ya Annie" but that is strine so I won't.
