Friday, December 08, 2006

Show 219 Friday 8 December


Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

CleverDjembe - I think that’s how you say it - wrote a really useful list of common mistakes.

These are common mistakes that native English speakers make. If you are an English student I think it’s really useful to remember that native English speakers make mistakes too.
If you want proof just well, watch just my videos, or if you want thousands of examples then you could read the comments under the featured videos on YouTube

I think it’s interesting that the common mistakes people make are quite different depending on the country. For example the common English mistakes that Japanese speakers make are quite different than, say, French speakers.
And different again to the mistakes that Native English speakers make.

So here’s that list of common mistakes:

Common mistakes: using 's for plural * confusing it's and its * confusing there, their, they're *misspellings of definitely * should of (should have)* misspellings of "no one" * to instead of too* alot * looser (loser)* embarass (embarrass)* fourty (forty)* hygeine (hygiene) * lieing (lying)* wierd (weird)* similiar (similar).



STICK NEWS

Kia ora this is Stick News. In one of CNN’s top stories this week, American actress Gwyneth Paltrow says she is proud to be an American.

Gwyneth Paltrow is an American actress.
In 1996 she was engaged to Brad Pitt.
She won a best actress Oscar in 1998.
Five years later she married an English singer. They now have two children.
Recently Gwyneth spoke in Spanish at a news conference.
Later a Portugese paper quoted Paltrow as saying: "The British are much more intelligent and civilized than the Americans."
But Paltrow says she never said that and she was “deeply upset” about the quotes.
"I feel so lucky to be American," she said. "I feel so proud to be American."


The internet movie database has this quote by Gwyneth Paltrow: “Brits are far more intelligent and civilised than Americans”.
And that was Stick News for Friday the 8th of December.
Kia Ora.



the snow report

This is me having fun breaking icicles.



conversations with sarah
#131 What are funerals in New Zealand like?

Step 1: Repeat Taka’s lines.
Step 2: Read Taka’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Taka What are funerals in New Zealand like?

Sarah Well, they’re pretty different than Japanese funerals ...

Taka In what way?

Sarah In many ways ... people don’t always wear black for a start. I was surprised to see people walking into a funeral in Japan and everyone dressed entirely in black.

Taka Really? But in movies people wear black.

Sarah Yeah, I don’t if that’s normal in America of if that’s just Hollywood ... but it’s not really like that in NZ. I’ve never been to a funeral where people are standing around a grave wearing black suits.

Taka So what do people wear?

Sarah Whatever they like. I wore a stripey dress with a big split up the middle to my grandfather’s funeral.

Taka Really?!

Sarah Yeah. I was only 15 and I asked my grandmother what I should wear and she said something like, wear something that you like ... so I decided to wear that dress because that’s what I wore when we went out to dinner to celebrate his birthday a couple of weeks before he died.