Do you like travelling? Are you interested in cars or motorbikes? I’m not at all, and maybe neither are you. In spite of that, discussing some vocabulary connected with means of transport won’t do any harm to anybody, will it?
Did you know that the most frequently used English word is the definite article ‘the’? No kidding – this small word, having no meaning on its own, can be found more often than any other word in both spoken and written English (take any book or film and count).
V posledných dvoch dieloch relácie TV Markíza „Ste chytrejší ako piatak?“ som si zgustol na otázkach z angličtiny.
One of the oral school-leaving exam topics, besides other things, deals with holidays and festivals. It is not easy for us Slovaks to name all our holidays in English.
Our home is the thing which we are in contact with virtually every day. Any average learner of English is able to name the most common types of dwellings and the main parts of a house and its surroundings, and yet there are quite a few difficulties hidden in the housing vocabulary.
Between you and me, I’m a sporty sort of guy, and athletics is a particular favourite of mine. I used to compete in long-distance races, and I don’t miss any athletic television broadcasts. I’d like to make a few comments about this sport in this month’s issue.
In this month’s issue we are going to take a close look at some clothes and sports vocabulary as students tend to make a lot of funny mistakes when talking or writing about these topics.
It is sometimes pretty funny to read students’ written papers such as projects, essays, stories, or letters. They often use incorrect English equivalents for our words, which they have looked up in a bilingual dictionary.
I was about to start my lesson the other morning when a student walked into the classroom. ‘Sorry I’m late. I’ve fallen asleep,’ he apologized. ‘So how is it possible that you’re awake?’ I replied with a smile. Some students took the point and laughed. The latecomer wanted to say that he had overslept, i.e. he had slept longer and got up later than he had intended. Instead, he claimed that he had begun to sleep and was still sleeping, which is virtually impossible unless somebody is sleepwalking and talking while asleep.
While I was giving a beginner’s class a lesson, somebody violently sneezed. One of the brightest students reacted promptly, ‘Cheers!’ trying to impress the others. He felt a bit embarrassed after I explained that people say cheers when they raise their glasses to drink, especially alcohol, in order to wish somebody or each other good health, success, happiness, etc. People say ‘Bless you!’ after somebody has sneezed.
I was about to start one of my first lessons as an English teacher a few years ago when I noticed that the blackboard hadn’t been cleaned. So I wanted to ask the pupils, in English, who the týždenník was, but I realized that I didn’t know any English equivalent. ‘Perhaps a weekly, identical to a weekly magazine, or possibly a weeker, since the suffix –er is the most commonly used to form words naming jobs and functions,’ I speculated, trying to avoid using Slovak.
‘What’s up?’ ‘I don’t know. I’ve never been there.’ You can use a witty answer to the question ‘What’s up?’ like this too, but the young in the US mostly use colloquial expressions such as ‘Not much’, ‘Not bad’, ‘Cool’, ‘Kicking’, or ‘Chilling’.
A few years have passed since I experienced a funny ‘what’s up’ situation. As a student and later as an English teacher, I have discovered many times that the English language is full of various snags, which often lead to similar misunderstandings and curiosities.
Prečo sa hovorí „swim underwater“ (plávať pod vodou), keď je to nemožné? Nemali by sme skôr hovoriť „swim in water“ (plávať vo vode), resp. „swim below the surface of water“ (plávať pod vodnou hladinou)?
Prečo sa čerstvo pripravenej káve hovorí „hot cup of coffee“ (horúca šálka kávy)? Koho zaujíma, či je šálka horúca? V skutočnosti je to „cup of hot coffee“ (šálka horúcej kávy).
Pre skalných, ale aj pre prípadných nových čitateľov seriálu o úskaliach a kuriozitách angličtiny som pripravil jeho jubilejnú desiatu časť. You are warmly welcome to read it.
Prečo sa televízor nazýva „TV set“, keď je iba jeden? (set = súprava, sada) Prečo sa izby v niektorých domoch (napr. vo vilách) nazývajú „apartments“, keď sú všetky pohromade? (apart = oddelený)
Jazyk je ako vzduch, ktorý dýchame. Je neviditeľný, ale nevyhnutný a berieme ho ako samozrejmosť. Keď sa však započúvame sa do zvukov vychádzajúcich z úst, môžeme si všimnúť, koľko rôznych zvláštností v sebe ukrýva.
„Is there a holy mess here?“ spýtala sa slovenská študentka kňaza pred kostolom v Belgicku. Kňaz na ňu zagánil: „Holy mess?“ (Svätý neporiadok?)
O výhode dobre ovládať angličtinu dnes snáď už nikto nepochybuje. Učia sa ju malé deti v materských školách, žiaci na základných školách, študenti na stredných školách i dospelí v najrôznejších jazykových kurzoch.
