Many of Hollywood’s finest non-native speaking actors have had to learn English fast after realising that they were destined for movie stardom stateside. With this need to master fluent English to seize the opportunities of fame and fortune that Hollywood offers, it is no surprise that they have the inside scoop on some of the most efficient tricks to mastering English quickly.
There are some phrases we hear often in English that just don’t mean what they say. For example, my daughter comes into the kitchen. ‘There’s nothing on the telly. I’m bored to death.’ She obviously isn’t dead.
She is walking talking, making tea, eating a biscuit – she never gets bored of chocolate biscuits. Her words though serve to emphasise just how very bored she is. She could have said ‘Bored stiff’ – dead bodies stiffen after all.
I like to think it's spring in February when the very first snow drop pushes through the snow. But by the time you read this it will be May, the snowdrops have long retreated back into the soil and the garden is full of blossom, late tulips, primroses and all the rest. It is a time of new beginnings, of fresh hopes.
I suppose I've done over half my studies remotely by distance learning. For some people, it's the ideal way to go, but there are a lot of pros and cons. It depends to a large extent on each individual whether it works best for them.
I used to learn French by leaving lists all over the place, even on the bathroom tiles. I tried making lists on particular topics – sport, names of plants, adverbs, the weather. Some of it worked and some of it didn’t. Then my sister moved to Belgium and invited me for an extended stay. We didn’t do many ‘touristy’ things, but ordinary family things – the supermarket, buying children’s shoes, going to the dry cleaners and making a complaint and all the rest. How my French flourished! The fact is, I was learning in context.
