Happy Birthday!!!

I have a few belated happy birthday greetings today for
Yuki and Chiho.
They were both probably hoping that I had forgot to put them on the blog but I'm an elephant and (sometimes) never forget!! :D

A very Happy Birthday to both of you from everyone here at RLE.
We hope you had terrific birthday celebrations.

Yuki

Chiho

Fun words to say

Here are some English words that are fun to say.

Cacophony

Baba Ganoush

Swashbuckler

Zucchini

Bunyip

Hegemony

Flapjacks

Ubiquitous

Worcestershire

Gooey

Eponyms

(General Burnside)

Eponyms are words that come from peoples names.
Sandwich (From the Earl of Sandwich)
Boycott (From Charles C Boycott)
Cardigan (From James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan)
Sadism (From Count Donatien A.F. de Sade)
Sideburns (From U.S Army Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside)
Leotard (From acrobat Jules Léotard)
Can you think of any others?

ALL NEW!

Every year a few new words are

added to the English dictionary.

Some of them are slang words that

have been in use for a long time.

Others are totally new words related to technology etc.

Here are some of the words that were added in 2010

Catastrophizing: view or present a situation as considerably worse than it actually is.
Overthink: think about (something) too much or for too long.
Matchy-matchy: excessively color coordinated.
LBD: little black dress
Frenemy: a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry.
Cool hunter: a person whose job it is to make observations or predictions about new styles and trends.
Bromance: a close but nonsexual relationship between two men.
Exit strategy: a preplanned means of extricating oneself from a situation.
Defriend: another term for unfriend (remove someone from a list of friends or contacts on a social networking site).
Soft skills: personal attributes that enable someone to interact effectively and harmoniously with other people.

Drum roll please...

Last week’s poll question was a TOEIC style question,

“The guests were amazed

by the ______ statues in the garden.”

1. Colour (Noun)

2. Colourful (Adjective)

3. Colours (Plural Noun)

4. Colourfully (Adverb)

It was a 50/50 split between

Colourful & Colourfully

And the correct answer was 2. Colourful.

As the word “statues” is a noun

it should be preceded by an adjective.

Thanks to everyone who voted

& good luck with this week's poll.

A link

Here is an interesting article from

BBC news about the word "OK"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12503686

Parlez vous francais?

English borrows lot of words from French.

For example

Ballet

Cafe

Decor

Deja Vu

Facade

Menu

Sabotage

Faux

Silhouette

and lots lots more.

Can you think of any others?

These boys are from New Zealand,

not France, but they are funny!

What....?

Have you seen this blog?

http://www.engrish.com/

It is full of funny English mistakes.

Some of them have a second meaning,

(which are often a little rude.)

and some of them are just crazy.

Hello!

English is changing all the time,
and with new technology we need to create new words.
One good example of this is the word "Hello".
Originally it became popular in the 1860's as way
of greeting people on the telephone,
(Much the same as Moshi-moshi is used in Japanese).
The man famous for creating the telephone,
Alexander Graham Bell initially used
the term "Ahoy-hoy" when answering the telephone,
but fellow inventor Thomas Edison later convinced him
that "Hello" was better as it is very easy to hear.
Now the word "Hello" is used as a casual greeting
in place of the more formal "Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening."

Funny Business :)

Who's there?

To.

To who?

NO, to whom.

Yum

Have you had some SUSHI CANDY yet ?

Valentine's Day is less than a week away!

Happy early Valentines from your RLE teachers!
Don't forget to show someone special you care :)

And the winner is...

Last week's poll question was ...

"Which is the most grammatically correct sentence?"

And the most popular choice
with 100% of the votes was

"I am going to the store"

Which is also the correct answer!
Well done to everyone who voted.

The other answers

I'm go the store.
I am go to the store.
I going to the store.
I am to the store go.

Were all grammatically challenged.

("I go to store."* Is correct if you use "store" as a verb,
but it's and odd sounding sentence,
and doesn't really fit with the other options)

Bowl-A-Rama

Don't forget about bowling this Friday (Feb 11th)

At TT Bowl (Near Hankyu Ibaraki) from 3pm.

Please come along if you can,

and bring your friends!

More people will mean more fun.

What Phil did last weekend

On Sunday I went to see an art exhibition

by Aso Saburo at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto.

It was my girlfriend's idea and I wasn't so

excited about the idea because this picture

was the on on the poster and I thought it looked

a bit too European for a Japanese artist.

But fortunately when we got there,

most of the paintings looked like this.

I really enjoyed it.

Check it out if you are into art,

it is rather dark though.

Follow the link below for a flyer.

http://www.momak.go.jp/img/2010/384/flyer384.pdf

Happy Birthday !!!

We have five, yes that's right, FIVE Happy Birthday greetings !!! One for Yui, and one for Tomomi, and one for Takuto, and one for Kentaro, and one for Takeshi!!

Happy Birthday to Yui, Tomomi, Takuto, Kentaro, and Takeshi from everyone here at RLE!!

Yui

Tomomi

Takuto

Kentaro
Takeshi

Follow this link...

This is a VERY funny blog I found the other day.
You must check it out.
The linked post is about a common English mistake
that native speakers often make.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Happy Happy Happy

Better late than never....

Happy Groundhog day!

&

Happy Setsubun!

That means it should be spring now right?

Well the afternoons are warming up,

but the evenings are still rather chilly.

Nursery Rhyme of the Week!

This ones for Yuko ;)

Baa, baa, black sheep,
Have you any wool?
Yes sir, yes sir,
Three bags full.

One for my master,
One for my dame,
And one for the little boy
Who lives down the lane.

The Poll

Last week's poll question was I or Me?
''The class activities were difficult for Greg and ____.''

I don't know.
Me (2 votes)
I (3 votes)
Both answers are ok. (1 vote)

The correct answer was ME!

''The class activities were difficult for Greg and me.''

Let's try the tip I presented last week on the blog and pretend that the other person in the sentence was not there.
''The class activities were difficult for me.''
Now we can clearly see that I could not be the correct answer.
Good job everyone!!

GOAL!!!

CONGRATULATIONS JAPAN!

For those of you living under a rock,

Japan defeated Australia in the Asia Cup final!

With a goal in extra time.

And a very nice goal it was too.

I'm glad the game didn't go to a P.K

(Feel free to tease and humiliate me next time you see me)

:Phil

Pronunciation practice

L and R pronunciations are always a big concern for many students. Here is a helpful tip to get the best possible L you can get.

The tip of your tongue should touch just behind your front teeth where your on your gum ridge.

The tip of your tongue should NOT touch the back of your teeth or stick our of your mouth.


Here are some words to practice with:

clap, deal, film, flight, look, luck, sail, slight, violin.

Here is this week's tongue twister to practice with!

Lots of little London lamp-lighters lit London's little lamps.