Have a good weekend
Hello Everyone
Hope you’re all looking forward to the weekend. What plans do you have? This Saturday is officially “Daddy Pamper Day” in our house. If you pamper someone, you look after them or spoil them, perhaps giving them treats or presents, or doing something nice for them. While I was in the UK for my sister’s wedding, Steve had a fun but tough week looking after the kids all on his own. He is more than used to this, as he works from home and takes care of Josh and Rachy while I go to the office to work, but I think he deserves a day off on Saturday. I am hoping that he can get a long lie-in in bed, while I whisk the children away (silently, of course) for a morning out. Here is an old shot of the kids.
So, what will I do with the children? Well, it’s getting really hot over here at the moment. I think it was around 38 degrees C which rules out a lot of activities that normally we could do outdoors, like going to the park or visiting the palace. Fortunately, Bangkok has lots of indoor options for small kids, so I think I’ll probably take them both to see the fish at the aquarium (Josh loves looking at the crabs) and then we’ll go to one of the many play centers around town. I love going out for coffee, so I might brave Starbucks or something like that. Then we’ll meet Steve for lunch and I’ll take the kids home while Steve has a mooch around town. He loves bookshops, and I bet he will make a beeline straight to his favourite book store (despite the fact that I have just bought him some new books from the UK….) before heading off to the pub for a quick pint.
In the evening I’m cooking! Not sure what yet, but inspiration will strike me sometime during the day on Saturday, I hope. Steve is a carnivore and loves meat. I like meat, but also love vegetarian food. I once tried to introduce Mondays as “vegetarian day” in our house. It lasted well for a couple of weeks, until on the 3rd week I came home to a very strange smell in the house. I thought I could smell mince cooking, but couldn’t work out why. I had made a very nice vegetarian chilli for us the night before and was really looking forward to it. Well what do you know – my meat eating husband and emptied a pound of minced beef into my beautiful chilli. I have never let him live that down! So tomorrow, I’ll probably do steak or duck. Cooking is one of my great passions and I have a large range of cookbooks, which I will flick through to choose a nice recipe.
Here are your corrections from last time.
Supriya To look forward TO something (not for); Xuan’s (with an apostrophe)
Merce Every day is 2 words. And I changed the position in the sentence
James Capital ‘s’ on See you
Vladimir Become ‘acquainted’ with (not become a bit common)See YOU later.
Kuldeep To give a gift (not gifting)
Antonio ‘Admitted’ should be ‘permitted’ or ‘allowed’
Pedro Warm welcome (not worm – a worm is a small animal that lives in soil); One of the mostDiligent (not dilligent)
Paulraj Software companies.... teachers (not soft ware teacher)
Miao I have graduated (not ‘now I graduated’); Effort TO learn English (not effort ON learning)
Yanko Supports (not support); Work for (not work)
Ernesto Thailand (not Tailand); Beautiful (beatifull) 100 times please
Ana Paula Best Wishes (not wihes)
Now then, here are some things to keep you busy over the weekend. I hope I have covered everyone – if I have missed you out I am very sorry. All comments refer to your responses to my blog dated 2 April.
Ok – who asked me about self-interest? Self-interest (noun) means doing something purely for yourself and not caring about anyone else. The expression ‘out of interest’ means ‘I would like to know’.
Leila – what is the missing preposition – ‘left off the plane due ___ overbooking’?
Vladimir – I want you to think about singular and plural (agreement) and reword a couple of phrases you wrote. (1) There isn’t any doubt / doubts; (2) who is / are the teacher blogger (choose the correct word for each sentence). Can you explain why?
Anwar – is it ‘i’ or ‘I’? Can you tell me why? I would also like to learn another language when I retire.
Jeronimo14 - Do you go to live ‘to’ another country? What is the correct preposition here?
Ernesto – I like your sentence which starts ‘From the hot and dry desert…’. Instead of saying ‘following to’ you could say ‘down to…”. As you are writing ‘beautiful’ 100 times, remember to put a ‘u’ in it :-)
Ana Paula – is key word transformation ‘a hard part’ or ‘the hardest part’? Don’t worry – ‘a hard part’ is grammatically correct, I’m just wondering if that is exactly what you meant? Can you explain the difference between the 2 phrases.
Silwal – what word is missing here? (1) to work in ___ multicultural environment; (2) to work in ___ growing company. It’s the same word both times. Do you know why you need it?
Tanya – did you mean ‘exhaustive’ instead of ‘exhausted’? Can you explain the difference between these 2 words?
Cristina – when you talk about your friend in Ohio, did you mean ‘know’ or ‘meet’? What is the difference?
Mina – check your preposition in the phrase ‘keep on the good job’. What should it be?
Supriya – what is the difference between ‘write’ and ‘right’?
Miao – the UK is 6 hours behind Thailand. Do you really have a lot of furnitures? Or do you have a lot of furniture. Why have I corrected this? And 4 years is a long time to be leaving somewhere. Do you mean living? Can you explain what these 2 verbs mean?
Merce – ‘how is people’ or ‘how are the people’? Which is correct, and why?
Ryan – ‘funnily enough’ is correct.
Habooba – my secret is that to stay active, you have to be active. And drink coffee. Lots of it!
Maryam – I promise I will post some pics. They are all on my sister’s camera, so when she gets back from her honeymoon I will post them.
James – I will try to correct your work where possible. I am glad you like to be corrected. (Compare your post to mine and think about the words ‘correct’ and ‘corrected’. What do you notice?)
Paulraj – is it a ‘detail’ blog or a ‘detailed’ blog? What is the difference between ‘detail’ and ‘detailed’?
Hyoshil – I really like your expressions ‘full of beans’ and ‘fresh as a daisy’. I bet that not everyone knows what they mean – can you explain them for everyone using other words?
Hi Michelle – I have been to Beijing and loved it. I chose to learn French at university (compare this sentence to what you wrote in your blog – is it the same, or different?)
Alireza – You wrote ‘I’m employee’. What word is missing between ‘I’m’ and ‘employee’? Why do you need it?
Antonio (from Portugal) – tell me, do you ‘do’ mistakes, or ‘make’ mistakes? Can you think of 3 other nouns that we can use with ‘do’, and 3 others that we use with ‘make’? To answer your question, I prefer to work in the private sector for now, because it’s a change from the public sector.
Kuldeep – I want you to look up ‘less’ and ‘lessen’, and think about the word lesser (is this a word – is there a different irregular comparative that you can use instead?). Then go back to your blog and think about changes you need to make to ‘face lesser language problems’ and ‘to less homesickness’.
Hi Adek – thanks for post. Don’t feel you have to read fast – take your time and enjoy it.
Jura – that’s an interesting question about how to replace the word ‘read’. What ideas do you have? Tell me and then I’ll give you mine. Perhaps people leave the UK because it’s too cold, or perhaps they think ‘the grass is greener on the other side’. Do you know this expression – if you don’t mind, can you look it up and explain it to everyone?
That’s all folks! Just to manage your expectations, I won’t blog at the weekend (weekends are for relaxing and family, don’t you agree) so speak to you again on Monday.
Have a great weekend,
Anne.
PS – there might be a vocabulary test on Monday, so you can also revise all the new words I have given you :-)
To whisk someone away (vb – slightly poetic usage)– to carry someone off with a flourish
To rule out (Vb) – to prevent from doing
To brave doing something (vb, informal) – here means that Starbucks will be very busy and crowded, so it will be a challenge for me to go there with 2 kids
To mooch (vb, informal) – to wander round casually
To make a beeline (vb phrase, informal) – to go directly to a particular place
A quick pint (adj + noun, informal) – a pint is around 630ml and is the measurement used for drinks in English pub. I’ve called it a ‘quick pint’ to indicate that he will drink it quickly and not spend too long in the pub J. You could also say, for example, ‘do you fancy a quick coffee?’ or ‘would you like a quick bite to eat?’, meaning that you probably don’t have much time and don’t want to spend too long on either activity.
Mince (noun) - minced meat (could be any kind of meat, but in the Uk usually beef or pork)
To manage expectations (vb) – to make sure you know what I will do and when, what you can expect from me
Comments
I think it's a good idea the Pamper day, I'll propose that to my family and for instance, once day a monty could be a Pamper day for each member, I don't know if the idea will be successfully, I'll tell you.
Dear Anne, In both sentences determiner “a” is missing. It is already known that single countable noun without determiner is always wrong. I noticed this mistake when my comment was on the board. Thank you to remind me this fact. You have put a lot of efforts to correct mistakes made by commentators. Certainly your efforts drive us in proper direction of learning English language. To look after children in nucleus family system is always a challenge for parents. Your yesterday’s post was able to give a good comparison between Delhi and Bangkok in many aspects. The way of living certainly can determine one’s choice where to live. As your comparison highlighted infrastructure of city and public services can play a major role in public life. Did you notice any difference in educational and public health sectors in those two cities?
Hi Anne, Thank you for your long post. It is very useful for me to read your correction to our comments. How sad I am to know that BBC's team changed the student blogger today. Because I am also from Vietnam like Xuan, you know. In your last post, you said to have so many chances for travelling around South East Asia. I bet that you have been to Vietnam in general and to Ho Chi Minh City in particular at least once, haven't you ? It is not far from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh city, even that it is closer than from HCMC to Ha Noi, Vietnam's capital. I haven't been to Thailand or India either. But I had been to UK last April. It is such an unforgetable memory. Have a nice weekend to you and all other readers. KT
Hi Anne, It's good to be corrected by you, thanks. And it takes lots of time and energy to do the correction things. Because of your correction, I got more motivation to write and double check my comment.
Hi Anne, I don't understand the meaning of the word " Not sure what yet" which you write on this entry. Would you mind telling me, please? It is very difficult to rectify one learner's error by short words, not to mention a bunch of learners. You have the gift to do so ,that is to say your boss got the right one. See you around, James.
Hi Anne, First of all. thanks a lot about your correction; the preposition is "in"; instead "to". Your work has been very, very hard. I agree with you about having a big rest at the weekend... so I wish you and your family a great weekend.
Hi Anne. I’m really thankful for patience you pay to each blogger. As for my mistakes (02 Apr coment): 1) According to OxDic word doubt in different cases may be either countable or uncountable. I made a mistake by writing “there isn’t any doubts”, correct form would be “there isn’t any doubt” because phrase means there is not even one doubt. 2) I made a mistake by writing “who are the teacher”. Correct form would be “who is the teacher” because actually there is one person. The second mistake affected by my native habit. Russian speakers usually use polite plural form referring to any person who is neither your descendant nor close friend. 3) I noticed one more mistake. Instead of writing “I’ve prompted” , it should be written either “I was prompted” or “I’d been prompted”. See you later.
Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful...and hundred times beautiful (the rest I wrote it in other place) Hello Anne, Thank you very much for your corrections. I have to admit that "...down to..." sounds better, but I have a question. It's down to because I'm describing the country from north to south? What if I do it from south to north. Should I use "...up to..." instead? Have a great weekend.
Hi Anne, You are working a lot for this blog and I really appreciate it and I admire you as well. I would like to ask you something....I like learning new idioms but sometimes the Newzealanders don't understand some of those. Are they diverse among different English speaking countries? I look forward to reding about you and the new student blogger Cristina!!! Kisses.
Hi Anne! Thank you for your feedback :-). In fact, the FCE is a hard exam. However, I think the key word transformation is the hardest part of this test. This is because you have to rewrite a sentence using a single word given. Sometimes I get totally stuck and I just think 'Oh my gosh... Oh my gosh...' Well, I still believe that practise makes you perfect so I ask to my teacher to give me some extra key word transformation exercises, which I intend to do this weekend. Oh yes, I´m going to have lots of fun :-). Best wishes, Ana Paula.
Hello, Anne! Hope, you are enjoying your weekend. My Saturday and Sunday are similar to an everyday rut: I am sitting with my textbook and computer learning English. Yesterday I found some time to install new program into my computer and now I can use my photo camera which I bought last year. I newer worked with digital camera before so it would be my first experience. Two days ago my teacher from my computer course had helped me to install one more program, a web-camera. These two cameras, as it is seemed, do not get on with one other into my computer, so today I have nothing but problems. I was needed a lot of time to make my computer working properly. Phew! Thank you for correcting my mistake. Sorry, I do not use the word “exhausted” before so I simply put a verb “exhaust” in the past tense. I did not have an idea about the word “exhaustive”. Of course, I know what are meaning these words by now. An exhausted person is one who worn out. The word “exhaustive” is meant what I wanted to tell when had written a sentence about your explanation concerning of your work. You were able to add a very small amount of information to the explanation which you had made about your work. Sorry, I cannot find any synonym for the word “exhaustive”.
hello anne Ho chi Minh city is a big city of Viet NAm. But if you want to have a rest i think Da Nang (DN) is the better choice. i don't say anything with specific evident.:) ,The firstly there are not vihencles in DN so this city is quite quiet.The secondly DN is center of Viet Nam , from here you can go to famous places other such as HOI An that is an old town or HUE an old captain of VN in the past. In the summer i think that nothing is exciting more than go to the beautiful beach in Dn. have nice weekend!:)
Hi Anne, Thank you for the correction but please tell me what difference does it make if I wrote "looking forward for" instead of "looking forward to".Please tell me whether the meaning of the sentence change? Now its time for the homework. You asked me the difference between right and write.Right means correct.For eg.She gave the right answer. To write means to write on the paper.For eg.Yesterday he wrote an article on poverty. You are really a strict teacher as I had one in school.You always give homework.Now I think I have to study the vocabulary,which is very difficult task for me.Anyways bye.Have a nice weekend.
hello ,anne i also agree to take a Pamper day. however ,i 've found a questiobe about your sentence , Steve had a fun but tough week looking after the kids all on his own, i wanna know "looking after the kids all on his own , is gerund or present participle pharse ? and sometimes it's very diffiuclt for anyway thank you
Hi Ann and every one , This is my first comment on your entry and I 'm sorry that I have lost the chance of chatting with you as I had gone to holiday with my family when you started to Blog . I love to see your angles face but unfortunately there was an error and I couldn't see the photo . Hope to see more photo of you and your family . Today I enjoyed a lot with reading dear Trudi 's last Blogs and your fruitful firsts Blog without Student Bloger . I know that readers has enjoyed a lot from this opportunity . And as you are a very accurate teacher from know I have to write my comment ,first in word processor as I used to before . For not to waffle I have to stop until tomorrow .Please kiss the kids for me and have fun , byeeeee
Hello Anne! It's been a pleasure reading your post. I think it's a good idea to do a vocabulary test and I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Have a great weekend to you as well! Naheed
Thanks Anne the pronoun I was a typing mistake because it's acapetal. Also you ask me why i'm learnining English when i became retired? there are many factors encourage me to do :1-I don't bleive that the retiring is de end of person's activity and the learning hasn't a limit as long as persone alive.2-I like languages ,my mother tangue is amazegh (Language of native moroccoain and northafrica and Canares islang too)And i'm arabic teacher(arabic is the official language in Morocco.I learnt Frach too.3-After my retiring i used to learn Spanaish for tree years because i need it to communicat with our neighbours who have a great economecal activities over.4-As i like traveling i need to learn English because it's a universal language.5-The last important factor in my opinion is the necessity to keep my brain working and exercisng all the time as my body .that are the causes although i'm sixty seven old .Have a good wekeend good bye
Hi Anne! First of all, as I'm writing for the first time, I'd like to say very warm wellcome to you. I've been reading the blog regularly since last year. I like it a lot. Your posts are very intersting too, well done. But in your yesterday post there must be a picture of your children, but I can't see it. Just a little window with a red cross in it. It's a shame, cause I'm very interested in reading about your family and it would be good to see your kids. I hope next time I will be able to see your shots. So, till your next post, goodbye!
Hello Anne, Its really great to have a teacher who can manage and mention the mistakes of so many students at the same time. Wow im impressed:).I dont get why u have chosen the word' and' for the sentence "and emptied a pound...." i cant find any sense in the senstence. Can u help?. Tc and bye
Hello,Anne.Thanks for your reply,I mean I chose to learn Franch as my third language.(Is this sentence correct?)I went for shopping today and had a fulfilling returns.Yesterday(Friday) was "Qing Ming" festival in China.Everyone should worship their ancestors on that day.So yesterday was a public holiday in China.Moreover,I loved cooking as well,but I only know how to cook Chinese food. And i like steak very much.Could you write a blog about how to cook steak? I really appreciate it.
Hello, Anne. I like music of composers like Tchaikovsky and others. I even went to the school of arts where I played the fiddle for 7 ears and graduated it. But it was long time ago - more than 15 years have passed. Till then I had't continued my studies, so now I've forgotten how to touch the strings. But I like also electronic music of "Depeche Mode", "De/Vision" etc. Usually the kind of music you'll be listening to depends on the mood you're being in. By the way, did you try to find the inspiration for cooking in music? Or did it help you (the music) whenever in your life?That's all about the music for tonight. Have a nice weekend! Bye-bye.
I couldn't write to you before. My computer doesn't work. I am really surprised about how BBC finds teachers living in so many different countries. Of course your life in Bankog is very diferent of what we do here in South America. I am writing in a cybercafe and the keyboard is awfull.
Hi Anne: Thank you very much for your corrections. Correct is "How are the people"? Usually I make this mistake, but I Know that people is a plural noum. Is it correct? Have a nice weekend. See you soon!!!!!
In this weeken I´ll be at home studing and doing my works for my college.
Hi Anne, It's the weekend indeed but I wanted to say that I appreciate very much your teaching style and I'm impressed by your respect to other cultures. You seem to be a positive and optimistic person. I think it will be an outstanding learning for me this month. Have a nice weekend too Adriana
Dear Anne, It was really nice of you to correct our posts, I have learned a lot from your modifications, not only your corrections for me, but also your corrections for other students. Now, about the "furniture mistake" I have made, I found out that "furniture" is one of those uncountable nouns, they have only one form, they don't have a plural form, and they are not used with "a", or with numbers. Here are some examples of uncountable nouns: equipment, information, homework, advice, traffic, knowledge and much more. Moreover, about the meanings of "leave" and "live". leave: to go away from a person or a place. live: to have your home in a particular place. I knew the difference between these two, but it was careless of me to made a mistake like that, I guess I need to check my post carefully. Ok, I hope my mistakes could set good examples for other students, and help all of you to avoid similar mistakes to what I have made. In addition, Anne, I really enjoyed your blog on the 03 April -"From Pizza to Green Curry". After reading, I felt like I just came back from Bangkok, and I also could tell that you really enjoy your life there, you are a lucky girl! I wish that one day in the future I could explore this magical world together with my family, and live wherever we'd love to. If this dream comes ture, I hope I could still get the chance to talk to you like this, and tell you more about our lives.
Hi Anne! I like cooking too. Although my favorite dishes are beet soupe and a kind of apple pie whose preparing could take a good bit of time, I prefer to prepare something not taking a lot of time. This is my present cooking chalenge. Before moving overseas I had had a few cooking books. But after throwing its over I decided it wasn't worth that. Thus, I use Internet insteed of cooking books.By the way, what do you think about recipes fished out from Internet? I was impressed your hasband manage working at home and caring of kids. Like you, we have one-year-old baby;however, I could hardly work with something other than home activities while our babygirl is awake. As neither my wife nor I couldn't stay at home all day, our girl goes into a daycare. Where she could hear other languiges then speaking one at home. Have you been thinking about primary school for your kids if you stay outside of the British islands for extra few years? How have other expats dealt with. All the best, Vlad.
Hello Anna Bell, it´s very interesting for me to read your blog and the student´s. I think I´m going next year in both countries. To Bangkok and Tailand in february and to Argenina in april. So I can learn a lot before I arrive my destinations. Thanks
Hi Anne, Like you, I'm a devoted friend of eating. Cooking also is among my favorite passtimes. I was a big meat-eater before but through time I leant more toward all kinds of fruits and vegetable. I'm so fond of Fs & Vegs that practically I cannot survive a day without any of them. I prepare different kinds of fruit and veg salads everyday and eat for my lunch ... Try this: 1. slice one banana, one apple, one orange or tangerine, one big kiwi, a few strawberries;2. put the above in a bowl and add one glass of sweet yoghurt to that; 3. Preserve in freezer for 5 minutes and 15 minutes in a fridge; bonne pettit
Hello Anne, this " Daddy Pamper Day" sounds so creative and new. How often does it go in your family? Is it completely your idea or is it borrowed? Liked it very much, very good to start rituals like these in every family...
Hello Anne,you know,I admire people who like and can cooking so much because my speciality dish is a sandwich :D and as i'm a vegetarian everybody says "you should stop eating grass"...anyway,so to continue the theme of reading I didn't find any word to replace "to read",and my only suggestion is in one sentence to write "to read" and in another maybe "to do it" ,to use references or something like this...so i'd love to hear your opinion:) Thanks
Hi Anne Bell, your name sounds so beautifully! I’m writing only today but with a warm welcome to you and your blog. It’s so lively and actually has made me think how you manage to keep the words flowing so smoothly. Are there any rules or is it just a matter of the way you are thinking and feeling, or both? What I find particularly useful as an English learner is the way you describe a variety of different situations. It seems as if you knew how often I’d encountered hurdles when trying to retell something that at first seemed quite easy but eventually occurred beyond my English skills, I mean those chain phrases, words that make your story sound natural. I like the way you portrayed Delhi and Bangkok not to say about a guidelines how to penetrate Bangok. It seems that we share the similar opinions that it’s good to be cautious of making sweeping generalisations and it’s important to learn (speak) the language of the country we live in. And last but not least: I love the idea of Daddy Pamper Day and I’m going to introduce similar Day in my family! Good night, Julia
Hi, Anne How did your weekend’s plan go? Did you manage to have a quick coffee in Starbucks? I love eating and cooking like you and I also like to invent new dishes. Whenever I introduce new fare my husband doesn’t mind being a guinea pig as long as the food has meat in it. Anyway, I must stop waffling on food and I should knuckle down to your homework. I am so glad that some of my words drew your attention and your wish is my command. Here you go, my son is full of beans and as fresh as a daisy means he’s lively, full of energy and he’s a vigorous and tireless child. Anne, am I spot-on? If so, I hope my answer can help some of my virtual cyber friends to improve their English as I’ve always improved my English and learnt many things from their letters. Thank you for your generous attention and see you soon!xx PS: I am afraid I can’t see your kids’ picture. if you don’t mind would you attach another one,please?
Hello Anne, now I’m all right. I had done a new system and I released a new version. You know what I’m talking about, this is the life who works with IT. About food, my passion is to eat not to cook. I know some receipts, but, I can cook only simple dishes like barbecue, omelet and pasta. To celebrate the delivery the new system, I ate on Friday a typical dishes in Brazil called “Feijoada”. This is done with black beans and pork and you can eat with rice, cabbage and orange. This dishes have a big problem, it is so fat and it has a lot of cholesterol.
Hi Anna! i like your blog so much.your comparison between Thailand and India was wonderful.I'm working in Bangladesh for telecommunication company, it seems that Bangladesh has the same culture as like as India.sometimes me and my friends enjoy riding rickshaw to make a tour around the city, Dhaka. at first learning how to cook was a must because we don't like eating in local restaurants and food delivery service is not available, but now i like cooking so much, specially new and strange recipes.can you please tell us more about Bangkok skyscrapers and memorials? wish to hear from you soon. Thanks
Hi Anne: Thousands of thanks for your teaching!!!! I like very much how you are working this blog. Have a nice day!!! Mercè
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