Comments

Hi Sarah, Not many Indian women are called lilly. You are right. But it is a common name. Both Christians and Hindus even Muslims women called Lilly. Thank you for the story behind the name of lily. surely it resembles purity. I also like the name. I should read interpretation of dream.

Hi Sarah, I appreciate that you replied my response of Taiwan. It happens all the time which is a normal phenomenon in the world. You are such a attentive lady who comfort people's mind. Thanks again. I usually read your every entries twice, now I should read them more than two times ( I don't know how to say three times in a word, so I use "more than two times") to understand and learn what you have said in your articles. Best wishes, James.

Hi Sarah! I am absolutely tickled pink and feel privileged to read your generous comment for me. It adds a great pleasure interactions with virtual teachers through this wonderful website and also encourages me to carry on studying English. First of all, I’ll finish my re-writings. 1.we had some wintry and arctic weather for a couple of days.2) the car had skipped down.3) It didn’t get damaged at all. Secondly. Today’s homework: 1. a) Vibrant, clunky, appropriate. B) drizzle, over-sensationalise c) a tad, toboggans. Lastly, Which of the words above can be used as an adjective and a noun without changing the spelling?-none can be found Which of them can be used as both a noun and a verb? drizzle, toboggan.Phew done and dusted! Before I started the homework I had thought I could do it in no time but it took me about 40 minutes. Thanks again and I wish you have a great trip to china, and not to suffer too much from jet lag.

Hi sarah Today is my first day to here. i like to work with very one. My writing and specking are so hopeless. If I talk to others, they could not understand what I was asking to them? So I not like to talk too much. I like talk and communicate with others. I prefer to discuss the idea. Most of times in my staff talk with me I could not understand what they are asking to me and I could not now what answer I needs tell them. Now I am so worried about. I like do more work also.

Hello Sarah, I'm one of the former bloggers. The one who wrote about the "Moqueca Capixaba" recipe. Your picture is romantic and bring peace to me. Here it's boiling. The days are longer than usual. Every day when I'm coming from work, the sea "follows me in my journey" and I think I could be there at the beach. Today, Friday, I decided to bring my bikini in a bag to celebrate one week of holidays (carnival). After work, we stopped at the beach and jumped into the water joyfully. It was refreshing and the water was so warm. I'll have a go on your homework: drizzle-verb vibrant-adjective clunky-adjective a tad- noun appropriate-adjective over-sensationalise events-verb toboggans-noun Best wishes Adriana

Hi Sarah! I´m doing licentiate in English-Portuguese at university. In Portuguese this course is called 'Letras'. I want to be an English teacher in the future and I hope I can be a good one :-). Apart from that, I´ve just passed my FCE exam and next month I´ll start my CAE preparation course. Anyway,I´ll have a goal at the challenge: a) vibrant, clunky, appropriate; b) drizzle, toboggans, over sensationalise events; c) drizzle, a tad, toboggans. 2a) I didn´t find any of the words given that could be used as adjective and noun without changing the spelling. 2b)Which of them can be used as both a noun and a verb? Re: drizzle and toboggan. Well, it´s time to bid you farewell Sarah. Have a lovely weekend, Ana Paula.

Hi Sarah! I´m doing licentiate in English-Portuguese at university. In Portuguese this course is called 'Letras'. I want to be an English teacher in the future and I hope I can be a good one :-). Apart from that, I´ve just passed my FCE exam and next month I´ll start my CAE preparation course. Anyway,I´ll have a goal at the challenge: a) vibrant, clunky, appropriate; b) drizzle, toboggans, over sensationalise events; c) drizzle, a tad, toboggans. 2a) I didn´t find any of the words given that could be used as adjective and noun without changing the spelling. 2b)Which of them can be used as both a noun and a verb? Re: drizzle and toboggan. Well, it´s time to bid you farewell Sarah. Have a lovely weekend, Ana Paula.

Hi Sarah, It’s so exciting to read your another blog entry. We’re eager to learn new words and to attempt your posted challenges. Let’s skidded down the tasks. You first asked to identify adj, noun and verb. I think Drizzle, Toboggans are nouns and the remaining are adjectives. However, the word ‘a tad’ can be used as a noun and an adjective without changing the spellings. The word ‘toboggans’ is used as a noun and a verb both. I was not sure about the meaning of toboggans, so I checked the meaning in the dictionary and I found that it could be used as a noun and as a verb both.

Hi Sarah, It’s so exciting to read your another blog entry. We’re eager to learn new words and to attempt your posted challenges. Let’s skidded down the tasks. You first asked to identify adj, noun and verb. I think Drizzle, Toboggans are nouns and the remaining are adjectives. However, the word ‘a tad’ can be used as a noun and an adjective without changing the spellings. The word ‘toboggans’ is used as a noun and a verb both. I was not sure about the meaning of toboggans, so I’ve checked the meaning in the dictionary and I found that it could be used as a noun and as a verb both.

could you please tell me whether the below given sentence is correct. 'special emphasis is given to proper english and good etiquette'

Ciao Sarah, I've always read your interesting posts, but since I'm very busy in this period, I can't write comments as often as I would like. I'm a primary school teacher and at the moment, at school, we are organizing a meeting with a group of European teachers who come from UK, Poland, Spain, France and Turquie. They collaborate on an intercultural project with us and they will be our guests in the first week of March. This is an interesting opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences, to increase our European identity and furthemore to practise English, isn't it? Challenge: drizzle= noun-verb; vibrant=adjective; clunky=adjective; a tad=noun; appropriate=adjective-verb; over-sensationalise events=verb; toboggan=noun best wishes

Hi there. James Wu - it's once, twice, THRICE! But 'thrice' is quite old-fashioned, so people just use 'three times'. Hyoshil - I LOVE the expression 'tickled pink'! It's so funny! Your homework: 1.a) Correct b) Correct c) 1/2 correct ('a tad' means the same as 'a little', so it isn't a noun) Well done on the homework. I know, it always takes longer than the teacher says it will - I remember this from learning French & Italian! The lecturer used to give us a photocopy, say "It shouldn't take you too long", then it would take me 4 hours in the library. But doing homework, actually taking the time to work things out for yourself, to focus on the language and stretch your brain - it's the best way to improve. Don't worry about how long it takes, just keep going. Yarlini – I’m sorry to hear that you’re having difficulties with English at work. Maybe you need to talk more slowly? This will help people understand you if they’re not used to how you speak. Where are you from? Have you been working in the UK for long?

Hi Sarah, how are you? I want to say my appologgies because this month I’ve been a tad switched off. Last Christmas I received some books that I can’t give up. They are addictive. Its quality literary aren’t the most but they catch you deeply. I’ve read the first Stieg Larsson’s book and now I’m with the second. Both of them and the last Zafon’s book “Angel’s game” are the guilty of my absence. By the way, do you recommend some reading in English? Well I hope arrive at time. Here you are my solutions to your challenge. 1. Can you identify which of the words above are a) Adjectives vibrant, clunky, a tad, appropriate, sensationalist b) Verbs drizzle, appropiatte, over sensationalise c) Nouns? Drizzle, vibran (cy), sensationalism, toboggan 2. Which of the words above can be used as an adjective and a noun without changing the spelling? Which of them can be used as both a noun and a verb? Adjectives – noun (without changing) There are no adjectives/ nouns that remain with the same spelling. We have sensationalist vs. sensationalism and vibrant vs. vibrancy, but both of them change their spelling. Noun – verbs. Drizzle, sensationailse / sensationalism See you, Toni.

Hello Sarah, first of all I should thank you for the efforts and time that you spent for writing each one of us. I was literally over the moon seeing your reply to my post as even I get the correction from the teacher because I never expected interacting with a native English teacher ever. On the other day I was sharing my blogging experience here with my colleague in the office and I told them that teachers would reply to our comments for which they were pulling my leg as I narrating them as if I know the teacher (you) personally. Indeed I feel it is a great idea which BBC learning English team had come up to create the platform for sharing the views and interacting with the people around the world. My self-confidence has improved in not only for communicating but also confronting the challenges in exams as I was preparing for GMAT, CAT and other competitive exams for MBA and civil service, though I had an attempt earlier but ended up with pathetic score, however, still confident enough to crack one of these exam this year. I definitely say BBC learning English site has paved a way and confidence to achieve my goal. For my vocabulary improvement, I just keep a notepad wherein I add my vocabulary now and then, at least 5 words a day. I do not have the habit of categorize the words as I find a tad languorous to switch between the documents. As we have the word search utility in the document, whenever I get to know about the words that I came across I will just search in my document which reduce the time consumption and find it very handy, if I don’t find it in the document I go for online dictionary as well in case of new words. However, I do keep separate documents for vocabulary and grammar usage esp. for idioms and phrasal verb and other grammatical notes. It was a great news for us to hear that music composer AR Rahman whose from Chennai, southern region of India, has won the Academy award for his scores in the movie ‘slumdog millionaire,’ as he brought the Indian music to the world arena. Personally I feel his music in other films such as Roja and Bombay are superb than the one which brought him this award. I hope this recognition would bring the world audience to listen to Indian music. Though I am happy about the Rahman’s achievements, I am still feel pity about the most of the fantabulous composition by another music director ‘IllayaRaja’, whose also from Chennai , has not reached the audience though it has been well received in south India. If I would rule the world, I have made a constitution to listen to his music every day. There won’t be any second thought for the music has all its power to bring everything in life, even I have perception that it would bring down the crime if one expose to good music. As being a die-hard fan of Illayaraja, I feel bad that his stupendous scores have not been made enough publicity to reach out the audience around the world. I am saying this not because of fan of him but due to the fact to reach the power in his music to the rest of the audience, however, I agree everyone has their own cup of tea. Most of the time in the history the great people never been noticed that easily, so the case may be with IllayaRaja. If I am not mistaken, I believe he is the first Indian composer to score Symphony. I could not pick one or two from his composition to mention here as each and every score of his is highly appreciable. It is not only his songs have the magic, but his back ground scores for many of the films are always being an evergreen. I always feel blessed that I get the chance to listen his music. Just go through more about him in the Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilayaraaja , if curious to know more. There are songs which bring tears, laugh, feel the love and feel the god as being in the heaven. As most of his songs in Tamil [one of south India language], it is not catchy at first time listening, though music has no language barrier. There are couple of symphony and instrumental work in his composition if language being a barrier to listen, it has

I do not what happened to my previous post as I could see the complete post.. (continue)... it has typical blend with western music and carnatic classical notes. That’s all my mourning about the music. I always pine for listening music that touch the soul and I am sure that everybody has their favorite score at least one though they do not listen much, so if you could share some of the songs that you like would get me a chance to listen and it will remember for ever whenever listen to those songs.

I do not what happened to my previous post as I could see the complete post.. (continue)... it has typical blend with western music and carnatic classical notes. That’s all my mourning about the music. I always pine for listening music that touch the soul and I am sure that everybody has their favorite score at least one though they do not listen much, so if you could share some of the songs that you like would get me a chance to listen and it will remember for ever whenever listen to those songs.

Wow, Vijay - it's lovely to hear from you, but your post is too dense for these tired eyes! You need to try and break up your writing with paragraph breaks. Here's a piece of advice: just press 'enter' on your keyboard every time you think you're starting a new topic (for instance, when you switch from talking about grammar to talking about 'Slumdog Millionaire'). Thank you for telling me all about your English notes though, it is useful to know your preferred method of study! Take care.