Comments

Hi Sarah! Good to hear that you had a safe trip. You should have written accidentally and as for sensationalise and prioritise, they are written in British English. Loo is a British slang word which stands for toilet. Enjoy your "holiday" and I hope you will post some pics. Have a great week!!

Hello Sarah, have a nice time in China! you are in my neighbouring country. The world is too small so you never know when you will cross paths with Chen Yi again. Your question is a bit tricky one but I'm just giving it a try. That can be due to the language of the computer which is mostly American English and it corrects 'ise' to 'ize'. I have a question to ask about the expression I have picked up from your post. You wrote " I keep seeing things out of the corner of my eye" I often come across this expression but I'm afraid I can't understand it very well. Have a great time, Naheed

Hi Mai Su Lan, Ciao Sarah, I think it's a beautiful experience for you, maybe diificult if it is the first time you're teaching abroad, being on your own, without family and friends but I believe that that new atmosphere and situationS will help you to overcome every difficulties and will give you the strength to make your job any better, in addition I think you should take information on local custom and ask to your colleagues how they managed their lives. In your last post you used an excellent metaphore to explain how is difficult to meet again (...we are all like bits of flotsam and jetsam ....), you make me think of a poetic style. Have you ever written a song in your life ? However, I tried to check those words into my microsoft word and I found them, maybe your spellchecker is not updated ? By for now

His Sarah! It sounds you had a good time during the flight and you had sheer luck to be seated next Chen Yi who is full of bubbling and good nature.- I guess ‘bubbling’ means laugh a lot. When you have to make a long journey on a plane you definitely need that sort of person in order to make the journey more interesting and kill the time. I guess Chen Yi made you more fascinated to learn about uncharted territory: China. she also did a good deed for you as she helped you to create a Chinese name for yourself. Personally, I am so glad you decided to keep Mai Su Lan as your Chinese name instead Salad because I won’t forgive myself for giggling about my teacher’s name. - It’s so rude! I am a bit surprised by the way of your oriental thinking which you said we are all like bits of flotsam and jetsam in the slipstream of life on this Earth. People in Korea tend to go with the philosophy and it is agreeable to me, too. To change to my homework, the reason why the spellchecker on your laptop doesn’t like the words is you made a typo, which is ‘ accidently-accidentally’, and the others are British spellings. Hope my answers are correct. I think that’s enough to make you bored and sleepy. One thing before I have signed it off I really hope to cross paths with you and love to thank you.xx

Hi guys, Yes, you're all quite correct: 'accidentally' was a typo, and '-ise' endings are usually spelt '-ize' in American English. What about 'centre/center'? Which ones do you use in your countries? Regarding my Chinese name: no-one here will tell me exactly what the 'Su' bit of 'Mai Su Lan' means, which makes me a tad suspicious... Reading between the lines, I think it means 'not so/not very', so the whole name comes out as 'Not so beautiful/not so strong-smelling orchid(beauty)'! Ha ha! Oh well. Some of my Chinese students have come over to the UK with some very funny-sounding English names (either from circa 1940, or very New Age) so I guess the choice of alternative name is rife with pitfalls for the uninitiated. Ciao Sergio, thanks for your message. Have you ever written a song? I've written 3 songs in my life, none of which are particularly 'pop' in style! That is to say, I'm not sure you'd pop them on the stereo when you got home from work. One of the songs is a scena from an operetta, based around Scene I, Act V of 'Macbeth', by Shakespeare. Have you read it? It's where Lady Macbeth starts sleepwalking: she is wringing her hands, trying to get rid of (imaginary) blood from the part she played in murdering the king. Have any of you ever read 'Macbeth'? It's fantastic, I'd give it a try! It's not too hard to read as the English is recognisably modern, but you can buy an edition with a commentary/glossary in modern-day English (just like the editions of Dante's 'Inferno' out there on the market). If you had to pick one book from your country/culture for me to read, what would it be? Vocab from the main blog entry: to spy something out of the corner of my eye = literally, to see an object using my peripheral vision, not by looking directly at that object Homework: what do you think the following words from this comment mean? Have a guess! Don't worry if you can't get them all, and good luck. Verbs - to read between the lines - to be rife with pitfalls - to pop something on the stereo - to wring one's hands Nouns - the uninitiated Adjectives - circa [+ year] - New Age

Hello Sarah (or Mai Su Lan), I beg your pardon not to say thank you for your re-comments in the previous blog but I’m short of time very often so now I say thanks and thank you. I'd like to answer your last question (Why does the spellchecker on my laptop...): the best way is to change the language on your laptop from American English to British English and type 'accidentally' instead of 'accidently'. In American English the spellchecker accepts 'sensationalize' and 'prioritize' variant of spelling and 'loo' isn't accepted at all. According to my dictionary 'loo' is an informal word for lavatory used only in GB. Once again thanks for you comments, which I found very useful. Best wishes.

Hi Mai Su Lan, Hope you slept well after a long journey. Your funny travel experience with Chen yi was interesting. Have you ever missed the train or plane in the past? I had such experience once reaching home before Christmas from Chennai. I started early to take a train. But I was caught in a traffic jam. Actually I hired a taxi to reach a railway station. It is around 30 Kms from the place where I started. Normally it would take 45 minutes to reach the place. My train timing was 7.45pm. If every thing had been fine I would have reached the station at least 45 minutes earlier the train departs. The driver could not move the car even for few inches for more than an hour. The vehicles were queued up for miles on both sides of the road. I decided to return since I was in the middle of the road unable to open the door of the car at the time my train journey supposed to start. Then I had to take bus late night and reached home before Christmas with lots of discomfort. Some times unwanted situation forced us to take uncomfortable positions. Some people make ourselves to lead these kinds of circumstances. Have you enquired Chen Yi why she boarded the flight in a last minute in a hurried manner? Some people may not think about the comfort of the fellow passengers. You adjusted with her and more over name after Chinese name. You must meet her again and enjoy your trip.

Hello Sarah, it is nice to konw that you are in china now. I am looking forward to hear more about your trip around the city, it would be nice if you could share some photos so we go for virtual tour on the place that you have visited there.

Hi Sarah, sorry for my clumsy post in the previous comment. you know what, actually I had a paragraph breaks at the appropriate place but it seems we cannot post it like that as this comments column club the paragraphs. Even I have noticed none of the comments have paragraph breaks except the teacher and student blogging main area. There may be some way to do it which I am not aware, let me try the possible way to get it done if I can. ciao.. take care

Hi Sarah,its nice to read your blog.what is the difference between using a simple past and past perfect.for example.I said or i had said.Tecnically I know the meaning but if you could just eloborate it,because its difficult to use the correct tense of the verb when I am given a paragraph to use the correct form of the verb.especially when the material in the paragraph is in past tense.please help...take care.

Hello Mai Su Lan this's your chinese name innit ? <- this is a word my computer likes the most too. i've just visited this site and i find it very interesting as you can learn english from your posts and comments from peoeple around the world. i was wondenring if you could tell us about your career. how long have you been teaching english ? was it hard for you to write the way you do or to use all the vocabulary you know now, which is amazing, ?i wish i could write like you do but i always get stuck in grammar topics and sometimes it's difficult for me to understand them. for example : yesterday i was reading a self-study reference grammar book and the topic was " the present countinuous and " state verbs " i could understand some things but there were others i didn't .i cannot tell the difference bewteen a state verb and a dynamic verb. why are verbs of thinking like know , forget , mean,think , state verbs ? even the verb " have " i think i cannot say " i having a car " why not ? could i say " i'm having a car for 2 days my friend lent me his ? . As you can see this topics are difficult to get trough .. was it hard for you ? i hope to hear from you

i bumped into Your blog while doing a small research for my project paper. i am now pursuing TESL in Malaysia. well, i think your blog is very useful for me in the sense that i can expand my knowledge and learn things from you regarding teaching. "JIA YOU". take care.

i bumped into Your blog while doing a small research for my project paper. i am now pursuing TESL in Malaysia. well, i think your blog is very useful for me in the sense that i can expand my knowledge and learn things from you regarding teaching. "JIA YOU". take care.