Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Show 314 Tuesday 13 March


Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.
The song I recommend to study today is Moon River.
I like the video of davidchoimusic singing it.

I like his voice and his guitar playing and his vlogs ... he’s pretty funny.
Moon River was written for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
By the way I did a conversation from that movie in Show 152 if you’re interested in studying that.
I think Moon River is a nice simple song to study.
One line is: Two drifters off to see the world.
A drifter is: a person who moves from one job or place to another with no real purpose.
The main two characters Holly and Paul are drifters.
The second to last line is: my huckleberry friend.
In the move Holly and Paul steal two plastic masks. And the first mask that Holly picks up in the shop is a Huckleberry Hound mask.
Huckleberry Hound is a cartoon character from an old animation show called: The Huckleberry Hound Show. And according to Wikipedia the Huckleberry friend line could also be seen as a reference to Huckleberry Finn, the Mark Twain character who drifts down the Mississippi River on a raft, heading to a better place.

Today in questionanswer, questions from another quiz from the a4esl.org site. Charles Kelly kindly gave me his permission to use questions from the quizzes he wrote ... so there’s a link to the actual quiz in the video description and on the blog – so if you think you need more practice with those kinds of questions then follow the link.



STICK NEWS

Kia ora, this is Stick News. In the latest crusade against the evil Internet, an engineering school in India has restricted access to the net in its hostels.

Back in the day, parents used to worry that television would rot their children’s brains.
The latest threat to society is the Internet.
Yesterday Reuters reported that there were 2.3 million Internet addicts in China.
The Chinese government has responded by banning new internet cafes in 2007. It has also opened an Internet Addiction Treatment Center (IATC) which uses a combination of therapy and military drills to treat internet addicts.
In India, authorities at an engineering school said because of the internet many students had stopped socializing and were late for morning classes or slept through them.
So, they’ve decided to ban Internet access between 11 p.m. and 12.30 p.m. to encourage students to sleep early and to try and force them out of their "shells".
Students don’t seem too impressed by the move. One student said: “now they will say we need to listen to a lullaby to go to sleep”.


And that was Stick News for Tuesday 13th of March.
Kia Ora.



the snow report

Last night it snowed a lot. This morning when I opened the door there was snow piled up against the door. Wow.



conversations with sarah
#192 When did you start university?

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

Matt When did you start university?

Sarah Um, 1996.

Matt Did you use the internet?

Sarah No, never. Not when I was an undergrad anyway. I remember a girl in my class saying that she was going to the computer room to check her email and I thought what’s email?

Matt So you didn’t have any problem getting to class then?

Sarah Ahh, no. I think surfing the Internet is probably a lot safer than what I did when I was at university.

Matt Sounds like you had a good time.

Sarah Yeah, definitely. I did actually go to some lectures though.



Moon River

Moon River, wider than a mile,
I'm crossing you in style some day.
Oh, dream maker, you heart breaker,
wherever you're going I'm going your way.
Two drifters off to see the world.
There's such a lot of world to see.
We're after the same rainbow's end--
waiting 'round the bend,
my huckleberry friend,
Moon River and me.



Links

Today's news - about India.
Today's news - about China.
Moon River