MESSAGE FOR LILY
Hi Lily!
I hope you’re well. It’s great to read all your posts; I can barely keep up! I visited Peru in 2004 with my boyfriend (as he was at the time), so I occasionally feel quite nostalgic hearing about all the places you write about. I’ll try to dig out some photos from that time, as maybe you’ll recognise a few of the locations! It was such an amazing trip; everything in Peru is so striking when you come from grey old England.
Having said that, I’m sure it’s just a case of ‘the grass is always greener (on the other side of the fence)’. Or as Aesop said in his fable about a fox jumping up to bite some juicy looking grapes, you always covet what you can’t have.
Re. your post ‘Under Stress’:
Wind, nature, flowers, animals… it sounds like the perfect antidote to the frantic pace of modern life. I read something in a magazine today which particularly struck me, as it was written by a nun who had spent 50 years in a closed order before taking a one year sabbatical from the convent to do an art course in east London (‘The Abbess’s Tale’, intelligent life, Winter 2008). She bravely tackled the tube and the crowds to get to life drawing classes, but she said that she was surprised and saddened to see so many people dressed in black, talking into a mobile with tight, pained faces, clutching a coffee and rushing along the street as if time were their worst enemy.
OK, now for some grammar notes… I hope you find them useful!
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RELATIVE CLAUSES
When you think a sentence is made up of too many clauses, and you need a way of connecting them, try using a relative pronoun such as ‘which’.
For example, your sentence
‘This is another place to visit in Peru is Huaraz is 7 hours from Lima’
is incorrect, because it contains too many clauses without anything to join them together. Start with the thing you want to describe:
Another place to visit in Peru is Huaraz
Then add the extra information after a comma and the relative pronoun ‘which’:
Another place to visit in Peru is Huaraz, which is 7 hours from Peru.
And voilà: you’ve just created your first non-defining relative clause! Easy when you know how, huh?
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THE PRONOUN ‘IT’
You need to use this more often, as the verb ‘is’ nearly always takes a subject:
It is very interesting (not ‘Is very interesting’)
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EMBEDDED QUESTIONS
In questions where you don’t use a question mark, you don’t need to invert the verb & subject, nor use an auxiliary like ‘do’:
Please tell me how you celebrate carnivals in your country
(not ‘Please tell me how do you celebrate carnivals’)
These types of questions are usually introduced by a question frame:
I can’t remember…
I don’t know…
Please explain…
I wonder….
and are followed by a question word:
a) I can’t remember how…
b) I don’t know when…
c) Please explain what…
d) I wonder why….
TODAY’S CHALLENGE:
Complete sentences a) to d) above, taking care not to invert the subject and the verb after the question frame.
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FESTIVALS
Since you ask, the main one near me is the annual Notting Hill Carnival. This festival, which started in the 1960s as a celebration of Caribbean culture in London, takes the form of a massive street party, with different streets devoted to different types of music, beat out on steelpans or pumped out through sound systems. It’s fantastic - people parade down the streets and it feels like a proper holiday. In some areas, however, the streets are swarming with police: cops on trikes, cops on bikes, cops on spikes, cops on the rooftops, cops in the street…*
For the most part, however, the Notting Hill Carnival makes for a relaxing day, punctuated only by buttery barbequed corn-on-the-cob, jerk chicken and millions of people dancing in the streets.
OK, here’s some of the vocabulary I’ve used in this post. Please tell me, do you like any of the words? Which ones do you like, and why? Which ones don’t you like, if any?
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VOCABULARY
•Verbs
to covet = to want something that’s not yours
to tackle = to face something with great determination (e.g. to tackle a problem)
to clutch = to hold tightly
to parade = to walk down the middle of the street in a display
•Nouns
an antidote = a liquid you drink after a poisonous snake has bitten you
a closed order = a set of buildings where nuns live in strict
isolation from the outside world
steelpans = tuned drums made out of beaten oil barrels
corn-on-the-cob = sweetcorn cooked on the cob on which it grows
jerk chicken = Jamaican-style spicy chicken, cooked over hot coals
a swarm = a group of thousands of insects moving together as one organism
cops = informal/slang word for ‘police’
•Adjectives
nostalgic = affected by a bittersweet desire to return to the past
striking = having a strong, positive visual impact
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*I once heard the political activist and comedian Mark Thomas use a similar run of words in his show ‘Seriously Organised Criminal’. It sounded funnier when he said it, but you get the spirit!
Comments
Hi Sarah! How's it? Nice to e-meet you. At first, your name sounded very familiar because it had occured to me Sarah McLachlan, but then I realized that you are not related to her because she is American and you are English. Plus, your surname is different. I am happy to read that you can speak Italian. Have you ever been to Italy? As for the weather, the light makes the cold weather bearable. Here are my answers: to pop out = exit briefly to nip across = move quickly to set off = start to head towards = travel toward to stroll along = wander to drop off = leave to turn up = arrive I guess to pop out and to nip across. I do not rightly know though. To be honest, I would have said " to turn up" too. I think we have to be very careful when use a phrasal verb. 2. I think it is "to drop off". 3. He just popped out the office to buy his lunch and he will back in a few minutes. For lunch, I nip across to a fast food I set off for work at eight. We head towards economic crisis I stroll along the river during my lunch break I drop off the kids at school An unexpected visitor turned up yesterday night. I like clutch. I like the sound of the word. I do not like nostalgic because I am not a nostalgic person. I cannot wait to read your answers and your next posts. Have a good day!!
Hi Sarah! The Notting Hill Carnival sounds fantastic. It must be great fun to see the parade eating corn-on-the-cob :-). Oh, I really like the word swarm. I guess it´s because this word makes me remember of the word swamp, a place where is usually infested with swarms of flies. See you soon, Ana Paula.
Dear Sarah, This is the first time to read this blog. It sounds woulderful for me, as I like visiting places in different parts of the world. But I have tremendous restrain myself to be free enough to so. Perhaps, it is the best way to share your trevalogues and precious experiences that you would like to tell further. Keep it up to chat us like this. Best regards Paul 18.2.2009
Dear Sarah, "Notting Hill Carnival" sounds really amazing, which should not be missed. I love observing the happy faces of the people and it is during festivals when you will see so many people laughing, smiling, dancing, singing together. Now it's time to complete the sentences. a) I can’t remember how I prepared the meal. b) I don’t know when he entered the room. c) Please explain what you meant by the last paragraph. d) I wonder why he is late. That's all:). Bye
Thank you, Sarah, very much for your infromative and emotion-provoking (if I can say so) posts. It's a great pleasure to read about the place where you have never been and twice more pleasant about the places that you have visited! It is also very kind of you to give us grammar challenges. In relation to one of the current ones, I have a question. This time you wrote, among other things, about embedded questions. But then I came across a sentence of yours that runs: Please tell me, do you like any of the words? I wonder if it is the comma here that allows to put the question word order or anything else. Keep helping us. Best regards, Irina 19.02.09
Hi Sarah I can’t remember how to tell him. I can’t remember how to open the door. I wonder why above all happened.
HiSarah! This is my homework and hope it won't too bad. I can’t remember how old I am because I lost the count of my age (a) I don’t know how the nun’s life had been like before she entered the new world. Does she have a mobile phone and has she learnt how to send text messages?(b) Please explain why the language of English is so dominant?(c) I wonder what kind of music Sarah listens when she feels quite nostalgic or misses her beloved ones.(d)
Hi Sarah, Its realy nice to see you this month.I really enjoy reading it.I wish i was your student for this month.However i can still learn a lot just by reading your tips on learning english.Looking for a piece of advice,if you could help me.I face difficulty in speaking correct english,however i can corect myself.Many a times,when i speak i end up making mistake,however, i know my mistake and accordingly i would correct myself because i know grammer very well.so if you could help how i can get rid of this so as to become a fluent speaker.
Hi Khanz, hello everyone, SPEAKING ADVICE When we correct ourselves whilst we are speaking, it shows the listener that we have a good command of the language, which is undoubtedly a positive thing. 'Self-correction' (as it is commonly termed) is a good strategy for clearing up misunderstandings in conversation, and is known in this context as 'conversation repair'. Well done for adopting this strategy: it will help you on the road to becoming a fluent speaker! However, correcting yourself while you are speaking does have one potential drawback: you might have to interrupt the natural flow of conversation to make the 'repair'. Before you correct yourself, check the other person's face: have they understood correctly? You can usually tell by looking at their expression*. If they have understood, it might be best just to carry on talking to keep the conversation flowing as naturally as possible. This is a valid strategy because it is not only grammatical correctness which gives the illusion of fluency, but also the smoothness of dialogue achieved. You can always make a mental note of your errors for next time, and practice saying the corrected version to yourself so that you remember it. ___________________ * nb: Watch out: I've found that Japanese people are terribly polite, and will usually nod even if they haven't understood something so as not to be rude to the speaker! I find it's often difficult to tell if the message has been understood or not. It would be particularly interesting to hear a Japanese point of view on this topic. In the name of fostering cross-cultural understanding, are there any Japanese people out there who can give us some advice on this point? ____________________ Vocab from this comment: - a drawback = a disadvantage (I’m guessing from the days when we travelled by horse & carriage, and to slow the horses down you had to 'draw' the reins back. I’ll check in a library when I get back to the UK) - to foster = to encourage something to grow
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