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Sunday, 01 June 2008

Hello from Portsmouth!

Hello everyone! My name is Sophie and I’ll be blogging on this website throughout the month of June. I’m looking forward to getting to know you all and helping you as much as I can. I think this teacher-student blog is a terrific idea and I hope you’ll take as much advantage of it as possible.

I’ll begin by introducing myself a little: I was born in 197X in London, within shouting distance of Wembley Stadium. When I was 13 my family and I moved to France (my Mum is French), so I grew up bilingual. When I was 18 I went back to the UK to attend university, where I read Politics and International Relations. After I got my degree I decided I wanted to travel the world so I studied some more and became an EFL teacher. My first job was in Poland – it was pretty cold there. My next job was in Russia – even colder! I met my husband in Moscow and then we both moved to Egypt where it was much warmer! For the past six years we’ve been living in Japan but now I’ve decided to come back to the UK to study (again!) as a French and German teacher. The course will take a year but right now I’m on a three-month summer intensive refresher course at Portsmouth University to brush up on my German language skills as they’ve lain pretty dormant since I was last at school. It’s a lot of fun being back in the classroom as a student again, but it’s also quite hard work. I could do with a German teacher-blogger to help me! So there you are: my life so far in a nutshell.

I’d love to know where you’re all from so please, don’t be shy, write in and tell me a little bit about yourselves. It’s also very useful to be able to tell people about yourself when you meet them socially or in an interview setting. Plus, you never know what you might have in common!

Lukasz, I enjoyed reading your blog. Where are you from in Poland? (I lived in Bydgoszcz for a year.) It’s a pity you’ve never been in the UK for more than a week at a time, and in London too, which is quite cosmopolitan to say the least, so it doesn’t surprise me to learn that you’ve had trouble meeting people whose native language is English! You’ll probably need to do a homestay the next time you come to the UK for a week – it’s a brilliant way to immerse yourself, not only in the language but also in the culture. Did you study English at school in Poland? What was that like? Have you been studying English since? Some of your colloquialisms and vocabulary are of quite a high standard. Have you taken any EFL exams such as FCE or IELTS? This might be a good idea if you want to use English in a future job. I feel as though I know what you’re talking about: I have also decided to change career (albeit in the same type of profession). It’s certainly a tough decision to make but it’s good to dip into something new and challenge yourself. Do you have any ideas about what you’d like to do? Now that Poland is a member of the EU there are many Poles who’ve upped sticks and are living over here. There are now quite a few delis offering Polish pickles and sausages! Do you have any friends or relatives who’ve left Poland for the UK? Would you ever consider taking the plunge yourself? I look forward to reading more about you and your interests.

Here are a couple of corrections for your blog (not many!):
1) ...the IT career... You need to define the career you had with the definite article ‘the’ even though you made it clear it was yours;
2) ...attractive to me...

Vocabulary:
shouting distance Usually we say 'within throwing distance', so not very far. How far can you throw? In this case, I lived so close to the stadium, you could hear the crowds!

attend You can also say 'go to' university.

read Many people say 'study' these days, but the correct (and possibly old-fashioned) term is to read for a degree.

EFL English as a Foreign Language.

brush up on This is what you do when you want to refresh your knowledge of something. It’s almost as if you are brushing away a layer of dust on a book before you open it.

lain dormant Dormant comes from the French dormir which is to sleep and lain comes from the verb to lay, so my skills have been asleep for awhile!

in a nutshell A nutshell is quite small, so if what you say can be contained in a nutshell, you are being brief.

setting Another word for situation.

cosmopolitan There is a women’s magazine called Cosmopolitan, and even a cocktail, but the true sense of the word is a multi-ethnic, international mix of people and styles. The word derives from Greek cosmos (the universe) and polis (city).

to say the least This means “at a minimum” so I’m just going to say as little as possible about the topic and let you guess the rest. The British are fond of understatements.

immerse This means to submerge or throw yourself into something completely. It’s often used to describe the action of putting something into water.

colloquialisms A colloquialism is an informal or conversational way of saying something.

FCE First Certificate of English: an exam which tests your English skills.

IELTS International English Language Testing System: another exam which tests your level of English skills usually in order to get a job or into higher education.

albeit Another word for although.

dip into To dip into is to try or taste something but with caution, like dipping your toes into the sea to test the temperature of the water. You can also take a dip which means go for a swim.

upped sticks To up sticks is to leave a place and go elsewhere. Some people say that the 'sticks' are items of furniture (so you pick them up and move), and others say that it is to do with raising a mast before a ship sails.

delis Plural. A deli is short for delicatessen which is a place where you can buy delicacies or special food. It comes from the German Delikatessen, which in turn comes from an old French word which means "delicious things (to eat)". It’s not connected to the modern word delicate which now means fine or dainty. Delicate has its roots in Latin as delicatus, meaning "giving pleasure or delightful".

taking the plunge To take the plunge means to be brave and dive into something. Usually you would plunge into a swimming pool.

P.S: I’ve just realised that much of my first blog is connected to water in some way: immerse, dip into, take the plunge... Perhaps it has something to do with living by the sea in Portsmouth. It’s the first time that I’ve ever lived by the sea and I’m loving it! So here’s a picture of the little lane which leads to the sea round the back of my halls of residence. Does anyone else live by the sea?

The lane behind my halls which lead to the sea.

Comments

Hello Sophie, Welcome as a new teacher blogger. I am excited to read your writings. I am not old in the website but I love it and also permanent reader. This is a very nice choice, to meet the people from other cultures and to know cultures, countries and the like. This writings make me feel the cultural differences apart from personal differences. The web site is multi-etnic.Back to your writing about yourself. I have to confess I am a bit jelaus of you.I think you choose the place where you live by putting your finger on the map. The places you count are unbeliveable. They are not related to eachother. I think you should shock in terms of orentation of the culture, least at the beginning. Don't you? Different cultures, different habits, you should have your high capable of adaptive. How do you manage to adapt them. There is a big jump from one to another as well very exciting. Come to my indroduction. I am 50 years old, and retired science teacher...Maybe we will have chance to get know eachother closer. Last summer I was in Guildford to work with children at the summer camp organized by YMCA. We worked with the children the unspoilt pine forrest.This was interesting experince as well tiring. Portsmouth is near to Guilford. I love the area, very green. I wish I could go there again. While going to the forest every morning there were many small residential area. The houses, pubs with flowers are like the drawings in the childbook. I love London but especially countryside more than city. There are the same places: small church, green area to play traditional english games, pubs and houses with flower. I've travelled many countries I haven't seen any country which has many flowers like England.Every english people I met had some complaints about the rain. May be If London isn't very rainy the flowers wouldn't be."no pain no gain" is it correct place to use it? I've written many things. Welcome again.By for now. Best wishes.

hello Sophie..welcome..it is very interesting to hear that you also enjoy learning different languages..i am trying to learn German and Italian as well..One sentence in your blog made me confused.. "It’s a pity you’ve never been IN the UK for more than a week at a time, and in London..." Why not "It’s a pity you’ve never been TO the UK for more than a week at a time, and in London..."? i am looking forward to reading your postings..bye

Sophie, nice to meet you! I am Leila from Oulu, Finland. Oulu is placed in Northern Finland by the sea between Sweden and Russia. I am – in my own opinion – an active 58 years old working “lass.” I have been following BBC Learning English Blog for over a year now, I respond somewhat randomly, I often read the entries but my replies are unsystematic. My haphazardness is due mainly always having other more pressing things to do, not so that I see this blog unimportant mind you. Your life Sophie sounds very interesting. I also see myself being very fortunate person and I am thanking my lucky stars that my life so far has been so good. Yes, I have done many mistakes, been wrong hundreds of times and so many times I have done something very stupid, but all in all, mostly I have mainly lovely memories. I am happily married and I have one daughter, who has just moved to her first own home with her fiancé. I am looking forward to follow your daily writ.

Nice to meet you Sophie! I´m Ana Paula from São Paulo, Brazil. Currently I´m studying to take the FCE test in the end of this year. Therfore, this blog area is an excelent way to brush my English and meet interesting people :-). Well, I´m looking forward to reading more about you and about Portsmouth. Best wishes, Ana Paula.

Hi,sophie.Portsmouth University ,wow!I knew some about it.Beside the sea,and very beautiful seashore scene.It's 8 or 9 years before,when I was in Shanghai,China.My collegemate came over to stay at my flat for a while and got a CD of Portsmouth University script for application. It's so good of back in the classroom as a student again,isn't?Wish u a good time. And I am always miss those times,plus I am 197X old,lol~

Dear Sophie, Warm welcome to this blog as a teacher blogger! I am Silwal Kishor from Landlocked country and new republic country of the world Nepal. I am married with two kids –a boy and a girl. The boy is 11 years and the girl is 6 years. I am working in the oldest casino of Nepal-Casino Nepal at night shift. I did master degree in Management 14 years ago and I started writing comments in this blog from last August whenever time allowed.

Welcome Sophie ; I have lived in France for 2 years in Lille in the north .My wife met difficulties to adaptate with the weather . Her first day it was Minus 5 degrees . After 2 years , we prfered to return to morocco . I am working in Texile and cloths . I had in the past the possibility to work in differents countries but my english is very poor . I have discovred BBC Learning and now i try to improve it . Here in morroco we don't have the opportunity to practice english daily because all people speak only frensh . In my compagny we export a lot of cloths to england specialy for Toshop . It's a big brand . Kate Moose make advertising for him .There is my first post in BBC Learning i hope it is not too catastrophic . Kind Regards Redouane

Hi Sophie, Sometimes I‘m a bit jealous for English people that they can travel around the world and earn the living just by teaching their native language everywhere they want as there are so many people who want to be taught English by a native speaker:) I‘m taking my final school exams and next year I‘d also like to read Politics and International relations and then travel a bit.By the way,for me it‘s so strange that a half English half French person speaks so many languages. These nations usually think that everybody must know English or French:) Once I was in France and as I don‘t speak French I asked somebody ‘do you speak English?’ that person answered ‘I won’t speak English’:) See you

Hi Sophie, Wie geht's? Quite interesting and informative blog. I am a student, just finished my college. I have learnt German also and got ZD certificate few months back. In august i will go to germany to carry on with my next levels. Its good to learn different languages. It feels like you are using some encrypted words that only few people can understand and all others are trying to decipher it.

Hi, Sophie!!! Nice to meet you! I’m novice here and my English isn’t brilliant at all, but I think that this blog is a great idea and I really hope that this new experience will help both of us: me to improve my English and you to develop your skills in teaching. And of course it will help us to meet many new people from all over the world. For me it sounds exciting =) Wow! You have traveled a lot! That’s so interesting and that is my cherished dream. I hope you will have fun while being our teacher blogger and good luck with your studies (you are a student again now so it will be easy for you to understand us =))!

Hello Sophie, how do you say the first time you meet someone in the blog? nice to meet you ?, never mind my name is Sergio and I live in Milan - Italy - I'm a little bit older than you (196X). As I'm very bad at english, last year I decided to attend a course in my city and 2 weeks ago I passed the final examination. I know, as you said, it's quite hard work learning a language but I hope that in the next month you'll be able to give me a little help to keep my english up to date. Last question: why did you choose to study as a french and german teacher? bye and see you soon All the bests, Sergio

Hi Sophie, Nice to meet you. Wow!!! You really have an itchy feet! It's amazing to know that you lived and worked in different countries. I'm an admirer of both England and France and I hope one day can visit them. Let me introduce myself to you: I was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 196x and I've lived here all my life. I was the student blogger in April and since then I can't live without reading and writing comments on this website. I'm married. I'm an accountant and work in an office with 2 other colleagues. I started studying English and French when I was a teenager. Then I learnt German while I was working in a German Company (10 years ago). Afterwards I decided to improve my English and sat for the FCE in 2001. Luckily I passed it successfully. In order to practice I attended "Conversation Club" at International House (Argentinean Branch). Finally, now I try to improve it by reading books, trying all BBC Language resources and taking part in these blogs which are very useful. Looking forward to your next blog. Fondly, Cris

Hi Sophie!!! Yes, we are very lucky having the opportunity to learn and practice our english here. I enjoyed very much your first post with a lot of new expressions for me, so I think that I will have a great month in this blog. I am sure that you will have a great time here. Take care...

Welcome. It seems that you are fond of changing countries to live. I hope that we will learn a lot about all the places you visited. I dont understand what happens with the student blog. You are answering to the new student, but I couln`t read his first post yet!?

Hello Anne, welcome to the blog. It's nice to know a little about you. I'm from Brazil where I live in a small town by the name of Porciúncula, which means small portion. I teach math at a local school. I like English very much and I paticipated in this blog before, but I've been away for sometime. I hope I can follow your entries regularly. I'll do my best. It's very nice to go back to studying as you're about to do. I'd like to do that myself, but I live far away from the schools, but I hope I can do that sometime in the future. Well, at least I can go on studying English with you and our fellow from here. See you in your next entry. Bye Bye.

Dear Sophie, I'm sorry for my mistake. I adressed you as Anne. It's just that Anne's picture and name was showing over your blog.

Hello Sophie, nice to meet you. Oh! with such a background, I'm sure we're going to learn a lot from you in the course of the following weeks. All the best, Habooba from the already +40 Ahwaz in Iran...

DearSophie, Firt of all welcome,and I wish you could help all members to improve their English, My Name is Naweed living in Afghanistan ( have you travel to AFghanistan ) which is a mountainouis country in center of Asia, I have graduated from intermedait medical callege, and mow I am working with a provaite bank, I want to improve my English, will you help? Best regards

Hi Sophie: Nice to meet you!!! I visite this blog every day so I hope we'll know more things about our lifes. Really, I admire people as you that have been living in many places around the world. Please tell us lots of things about your experience. You said in your blog that you studied Politics and International Relations. Have you worked sometime in these areas? Changing the subject: What about Porstmouth? As you can see there are lots of questions in the air that I hope you'll answer next days in your teacher blog. Thats all for now. I repeat: Welcome to the best website for learning English and making friends around all the world. Mercè

Hi Sophia, Welcome, happy to know that you saw many parts of world. I came into being in 7X and make this world more populated. Eight year ago I upped my sticks for Jammu (cosmopolitan city), a place not within shouting distance of Seashore. I neither lived by the Sea nor yet seen the Sea. My desire to have immersion into sea is still dormant. I am hopeful, within next 2 years; I shall be able to put my foot on seashore. Habit of Learning pays big dividends besides refining one’s personality. It reflects your positive attitude towards life. No doubt, bloggers will learn many new things from you. You posted exotic photo. Have a nice day. Good bye for now.

Hi Sophie, I say sorry as inadvertently, I mis-spelt your name while addressing you. I just saw your gorgeous photo. You look younger than your age. It means that you are very health conscious, is it not. Your hair is jet black. Have you got black hair or you colour them black. I am under the impression that only few British have natural black hair. Thank you.

Sophie, After reading your blog,I have to say we have some similiar experience and ideas,although we have big differences.As for the similiar experience,we lived in many different places,but the differenc was you lived in different countries and I lived in different cities in one country.I come from China.I was born in Shanghai,which is located in the east of China,is both big and fashionable.I lived with my grandmother and I could speak Shanghainess.(There are many dialects in China).When I went to the middle school,I moved to Shenyang,northeast city of China,where lived with my parents.When I was 18,I went to Xi'an,northwest city in China,to read my bachelor degree and master degree,at meanwhile my family moved here.After graduated from university,I worked in Shanghai for two years.I met my husband in XI'AN and now I moved back and worked here.I also like to travel everywhere.To be admired by you,you chosed the language as your career and could have more opportunities to travel,unfortunately,I worked in IT field,which was very busy,but I always managed to take a trip around as possible as I could.I went abroad just for two countries,Vietnam and Cambodia.Next country I would like to go is Turkey,but I don't know when I can.It is my dream.The most important reason I want to brush up on my English skill is to help others to get to know me as I would like to meet different people and make friends with them. I admire you have such a good language skill,just English is not fluent for me.It's glad to see your blog.See you.

HI Shopi and my other cyber friends , Please accept my warm welcome to this month Blog and what a start did you have ! . I can guess from your start and from what you said about your life in a nutshell that we are going to have a hard challenge over June . Please speak a bit about your next plan for your job , I'm got a bit confused about your new plan to be a French and German teacher ?So I guess now you live some where in UK . I love to be near to sea and I liked our photo with lots of boats seen in far distance in the see . By the way speaking about myself in a nutshell : I 'm Pary , a gal from Persia ( Iran ) , I 'm living in Ardebil , a city in northwest of Iran which has some special characters as being in a mountain area as it 's located in the large field areas near to an old volcanic mountain , Sabalan mountain , and there is a beautiful lake in it's top and lots of hot springs in the area . However , my province is about half and hour motorway drive to the Caspian sea , Best of both worlds ! . My major is physic and I have been working in Iran telecommunication company since I have graduated . I 'm married and I have a five years cheeky monkey . Form my high school time I was interested to learn English more efficient by my father encouragement and it 's about two years that I have studied English more seriously with attending private English school in my city and with my self study here and there specially by Bloging here and taking the advantage of BBC ( very thanks to BBC staff ) learning English site . I think , my first comment on your Blog was too long and you might be get bored .But please don't blame me as you suggested to every one to introducing her / his to you . I 'm waiting to hear from you again as soon as possible . Have a nice week and bye

Hi Miss Sophie Handy, Nice to meet you here, Warmly welcome to be our teacher blog. see you around. James

Hi Sophie, I think I am missing something. You wrote your blog on the 1st of June and are correcting two small mistakes from a blog that seems invisible to us, at least to me. In the other hand what seems to be the very first blog from Lucasz was written on the 2nd of June, apparently after yours. I have tried to spot the two mistakes without success. Do not misunderstand me, it is just perplexity. I am looking forward to learning new interesting ways of living, cultures and anything that both of you and the readers could write. Bye for now. This will be probably my last comment from Romania. Next one will be from Belgium again. Antonio

Welcome, Sophie Handy! As Pary, I wondered how is it possible you´ve seen the student´s blog and I didn´t. But now is everything OK. As you are a student now, too, you are going to sit on two chairs at the same time which, I think, suit well to all of learning-hungry audience here. But, in a comparison to my humble ability to manage this one language you´ve made an overwhelming entry with such a broad language knowledge. I am sure, the month with so capable lerner as Lukasz will be a pleasure for all of us!

Hi Sophie, Nice to meet you. Hope we all enjoyed and will get benefited from your blogs. Its great to know that you know three languages

Hi Sophie! Nice to meet you. Hope we all brush up our english from your future blogs. Its wounderful to know that you can speak more than one language. What is the secret of it?. Now let me introduce myself my name is Mahjabeen im from Pakistan. Im a computer engineer by profession my major is computer networks and i've been teaching in the university since past five years. I've been to uk twice and would love to see again:). I dont live near the sea but i would love to live near it. Again i welcome you to this wounderful site for the learners and teachers:). Bye for now.

Hi Sophie,I am a student of this blog because of amazing sites. Besides reading interesting articles, I have written and posed comments that encourage me to think in English. Now, I live in Bangkok and take time to learn the course work of master degree in environmental management. If I am free, I will talk with you more in order to exchange experience. See you around. Wisarut.Thank you.

Hi Sophie and a warm welcome to the BBC Learning English Blog! I hope you'll enjoy chatting with us,give some insights into ( your) life in the Uk and point out our mistakes. This blog is a great opportunity to share opinions, experiences with people all around the world. First of all, lucky you!! Grewing up bilingual would have always been my dream. In fact, I'm reading for a degree in translation and interpretation. My major subjects are English and German.How do you find German? To me learning it has been pretty difficult.I reckon your decision to come back to the Uk and to resume studying (can I say get back to studying?) has been really brave. But sometimes it is good to make a fresh start in life. As for me, My name is Manuela, I'm 20 years old and I'm living in Rimini ( In Italy) with my parents. Today it's the Republic day in Italy and it's a public holiday for everyone.In the last days it's been really hot here but thanks goodness It's has now cooled down. It 's pretty cloudy today. Do you have in the Uk a day to celebrate the monarchy? It's time to sign off know Speak to you soon

Yes,there's something wrong?Where is the student's blog that we obviously can not see.The teacher told you to take the plunge to show you some.

Hello Sophie. It's amazing to read in how many places have you lived in, and also how many languages you speak, beacuse I supposse you should speack some japanese too. As you I live by the sea and you are right, with the time it becames and adiction. Bye and best wishes.

Hello Sophie. You’ve started with pretty sense of humor, especially I like expression within shouting distance. I’ve been blogging since March and there is no doubt it’s very useful for improving writing skills. That’s why I’m looking forward for your support in blogging. So you’re welcome and I’m really glad to meet such educated and experienced person as you are. To speak two foreign languages, as you do, is unbelievable for me. As far as I’m Ukrainian I do speak fluent both Russian and Ukrainian languages but they are my mother languages. Have you ever visited Ukraine?

Hello Sophie. Welcome! How are you? I'd love to live by the sea like you but now i'm living in a city with lots of cars and few peace and so far away from the beach more or less 1500 km. Well let me tell you a little about me. I'm 37 years old and started to study English when i was 13. I always loved to study but when i was 18 i married, had a son and all my life changed so i stoped my English course but in 2005 i went to Australia with my husband and i had to used a lot that few words i remembered and decided to study again. In 2006 i studied Italian 'cause i traveled to Europe on April/2007. This year i want to learn French, which i'm going to start next month and improve my English by myself. I understand when i read and listen but it's still difficult to write and talk..."my skills have lain pretty dormant since I was last at school"...using your words :). This blog is very good. It's a pleasure to me read and meet you all discouvering jewels from every places and people. Bye bye...take care!

Hello Sophie. It is very good language practice to participate in bloging. The best thing for me is to find my comment and to enjoy how much I can. The only thing I am afraid of- my mistakes, sometimes they are so silly. You are very lucky living by the sea. The sea is full of energy and is never the same, sometimes calm, sometimes not. I prefer sea with waves and storms. But it is good to have sunbath in beach in hot day,too. When I was in the UK I was astonished of clifs and that there are very few places where you can reach the sea. This is because in Latvia all the seacoast is in sand and you can reach the sea everywhere. But the warm time of summer is shorter than it is in South. And it is windy there. So I miss wind everywhere I go. Have fun in bloging!

Hi Sophie - nice to meet you. I'm Concetta, I live in a town near Torino, in Piemonte, an Italian region very close to France where I often went on holiday. I studied French at school, I like it very much and I find it easier than English because many words are similar to Piemontese dialect ones. I started studing English some years ago in evening courses. Then I had the chance to attend a course in order to teach English in the primary school. At the end I passed the PET and I went to Newcastle for two weeks to improve linguistic skills and learn methodology. Learning English for me is a passion, although it isn't easy it's interesting and amusing. Bye bye

Hello Sophie. It's so interesting to hear from somebody who's really into foreign languages. I think we definitely have got something in common. I love foreign languages too. I'm 26 years old and everything began back in 1995 when my late grandma gave me a collection of books which included books on a wide range of subjects. At the beginning I didn't give much attention to the English book as I was much more into Geography and stuff. Time went by and one hot summer morning, roughly five years later, I came across the English book I'd been given by grandma and I, on a whim, began studying English on my own. My story is a bit long, so I'll try to tell it in a nutshell: then I fell in love with a girl and, as I was interested in music at that time too, I composed her a song_ in English_ I showed that song to an English teacher who said it had been written, taking into account that I had been studying English on my own for a year, fairly accurately; and he got me a scholarship at a language school. I studied there all through the year 2003 and at the beginning of 2004 they offered me a job to teach little children there. That language school, unfortunately, was closed down in the end of that year 2004 due to financial problems and I've been teaching private English lessons ever since. But the best thing of all was that, while I was teaching at that school, my former boss hired an English teacher to teach his employees and that guy was an expert at the language. He's from my town but lived in London for over 12 years and he speaks English with perfect accuracy and quite perfect British accent. He taught me loads of useful things: teaching techniques, self-studying techniques and so on. I improved my English amazingly after I met my former teacher. We eventually made friends with each other and we would meet each other on a regular basis and he would never talk in our mother tongue with me. He adopted the policy of English-Only with me and that really paid off. He now lives in São Paulo which isn't withing a shouting distance from my town lol and I've been struggling ever since he moved there to keep the quality of my English skills as I, unfortunately,don't have people around who can speak English as accurately as he does. So I try to get hold of every possible source that I find, that can cause an improvement on my English skills. I do enjoy watching videos of American as well as British talk shows, as we can feel a bit, by doing that, what real English sounds like; however I do feel the lack of native speakers to talk to. Well, I hope I haven't annoyed you by writing such a long posting. My best regards P.S: I've never been abroad but I'm willing to...

Hi Sophie.It's so nice to meet you as new teacher blog. It's interesting to read your first blog. You must be like living in cold weather? Why don't you have a go living in a country which has tropical climate. ^.^ Really splendid as you soak in the sea water every day in the summer now. Could you share with us about your children and your hobby? I hope to read more interesting blog tomorrow and know how you are?

Hi Sophie; welcome to the learning English blog. I was too anxious about reading your blog as i have just recently joined this blog and i am so pleased that I can not tell you. Because this is such unique forum which help me to improve my English. I am basically a teacher and you know that it has become a criterion for a good teacher that s/he must be good at speaking and writing English. And I think it has become the demand of any profession that a person with good English can be a good professional especially in my country. it was my longing that I can speak and write very good English and I hope this blog will do it. plz guid me that how can i increase my vocabulary and make its best use bye till now

Alough blog is so popular today, this is my first time to read blog written by english. it looks very friendly, i like it

Hi everybody, I like this blog very much! It is the first time I see it. I am studying English here in Spain and it is very difficult for me to improve it. Best regards, Joaquina

My name is Mariusz I have 27 years old, I am from Poland and I live in Bialystok. It is a great oportunity to get to know eachother on this blog. It is nice to meet so interesting person as you are. I admire your brave to travelling all over the world and living in a different society. I have been travelling a lot but I have been in a diffrent countries up to 1 month, not more. I had a oportunity to get an interesting job as a IT desktop helper in Ireland but I was frighten of the rainy weather there and the worst was homesickness and that's way a gave up. In the same breath I would like to travel all the world, live in a diffrent countries and be at tha same time in my family home. This is impossible. One solution exclude another. I admire you - Sophie again, and grudge your abbility to move from country to country for longer time. Currently I am learning english and I am trying to learn French too but it is more difficult. Best wishes. Mariusz

Hello Sophie, nice to meet you and glad to see you as our teacher blogger of this month. Looking forward to hear from you and learn from your blog in the coming days.

Morning shows the day.By confirming me from within, Your style also showed that a regular reader of your posting here will certainly take advantage a lot. I am Madhav Paudel, a 27 old, leaving in Kathmandu for both living and reading. But, I belong to a hilly area of mid western region. How can I characterize the place is difficult but one thing is for sure that if you or your family member come to the place of my village i can pledge that you can enjoy a scenery of long stretch of Himalayan region. But it is not enough for detail I should have to ask those foreigner who made visits. My family is a very simple farmer. We grow coffee, process it and sell it by businessmen to USA and Japan and Netherland. I want to pack up form Kathmandu, as is it cent percent not for me. More than this,I hope we can share, where I take more, more thing in the days to come.xxxxx

Hello Sophie, nice to meet you. it is my first experience in blog. i had never tried it before coz i used to think that my english is not good and people will lough to me. Anyway, i am from Nepal. i am studying in a college in Intermediate level. i have also a job. i have faced lots of problems only because of my poor english. Once, there was a froustration in my life when i missed a job opportunity because my english was not good. These days i have different kind of feeling. i realized that without english i can't do better in my life and i am very committed to improve my english. i request you to suggest me, how should i go and if you have any tips to me, pls let me know.

Hi,Sophie,it is a very interesting job.

Hi,Sophie,good see you,thank you for read the beautiful words from your blogs.

hello Sophie, nice to read your blog!!its amazing to see people from all around the world leaving comments here! i am quite admire you that you have lived in different places and expereince a lot. Would u mind telling me more about your live in japan? for example japanese culture, living and are they really courteous? have you even been to hong kong before? keep it up. bye byeZ!

Help Sophie! I have to take my English oral exam in two days and I am panicked! When I sit in front of the teachers I get nervous! Cheers, Joaquina

Hello Sophie, nice to meet you. I lived in korea. I want improving english. I is feeling that english is very dificulty. How can nice english? Thank you~~~ Sophie.

Hi, Sophie!I feel glad to know you and know your blog. I love English and like to make friends. I think your life is really very colourful and you experienced so many places, wow, I envy you:) . I am looking for ways to improve english, I enjoy reading your blog, and I will keep doing that.

glad to know you,although it is late ,ad mire your multi -language and this was my dream.I hope learn a lot from you!Best regards to you.

I am also having my PSLE oral tomorrow. i also admire how you treat tis oral exams anyway. Wish you all the best

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