Expand your vocabulary

It’s well documented that people with better vocabularies are more intelligent. So, why not give yourself a chance to expand your vocabulary. Here are the links to some fantastic online places that can help you integrate more words into your English:

Dictionary.com: A leading online dictionary, this site gets top spots for not only its word, but the audio pronunciation, quotes, and more.

SAT Tutor’s Blog: Click on “Word of the Day” to get advanced words for SAT test takers. There are also a ton of other vocabulary and language tools.

Word of the Day Website: Get a word of the day with a more personal touch here. There are also quizzes, weekly review, and more.

Today’s WORD on Journalism: A journalist takes words from publications and analyzes them in his posts.

What Does It Mean?: Infoplease gives several definitions on their word of the day. There are also tons of other tools including dictionary, thesaurus, Fact Monster, and more.

free rice

Give free rice to hungry people by playing a simple game that increases your knowledge.

You can even install the freerice toolbar and donate 5000 grains of rice every day while you simply surf the net.

English Flashcards

ESL flashcards
eslHQ provides free ESL flashcards

ESL/EFL/TEFL Flashcards
Print and use free flashcard sets

Flashcard machine
Create, study, and share online flash cards

Free ESL flashcards
Download 100's of free flash cards

English Raven's flashcards
An impressive assortment of more than 1300 downloadable flashcards/game cards

Flashcard exchange
Create, study, print, share and download millions of flashcards

As easy as ABC

Here are some expressions which I have collected over a few days. All of the are somehow related to the notion of easiness in the English language.Of course, finding these phrases was not a doddle.

---As easy as ABC
---Like a duck to water
---Like a knife through butter
---Be a pushover
---Be child's play
---Anyone can do it
---As easy as pie
---Be a breeze
---Can do something blindfolded
---Be like falling off a log
---Can do something with one's eyes shut
---It's a piece of cake

common writing mistakes

My English writing is a good online place to learn from the mistakes of ESL/EFL writers.

Common mistakes is a free resource to better English. It provides a collection of some of the most frequently misspelled, commonly confused and easily misused words.

visual dictionaries

Hi my pals. You know what, I am a true fond of learning via illustrations. I do love heavily-illustrated books. My studies mostly center around books and essays on visual analysis and image-based research.



To be frank with you, I am a visual learner. Visual learners learn effectively when they see the information in the written and pictorial forms. If you are a visual learner, click on the links below to three different sites on visual dictionaries. The third one is something quite interesting and fantabulous.You can even contribute your own visuals to that web site.

http://visual.merriam-webster.com

http://www.infovisual.info

http://thevisualdictionary.net

hear something on/through the grapevine

If you hear some news or information on or through the grapevine, someone else tells it to you unofficially, often in conversation.

EXAMPLES:

"Who told you I was moving house?" "Oh, I just heard it on the grapevine."

Freddie was distressed when, through the grapevine, he heard of Liza's marriage.

I heard through the grapevine that she was pregnant, but I don't know anything more.

According to the high-school grapevine, Kelly wants me to ask her out on a date.

brother quotes

I have a brother whose name is Alireza. He is helpful, intelligent, and goal-directed. He is a real friend of mine as well. This new post is just for him.

Alireza -- thanks for being a good brother and devoted pal for me.

Sometimes being a brother is even better than being a superhero. ~Marc Brown

A brother shares childhood memories and grown-up dreams. ~Author Unknown

A brother is a friend given by Nature. ~Jean Baptiste Legouve

Never make a companion equal to a brother. ~Hesiod

some new links for YOU

Language Acquisition News

Literature Classic Glossary

OneLook Reverse Dictionary

Translation and Interpreting Terminology

MONEY MATTERS

The following expressions are three figurative expressions for "money":

to have deep pockets: For investors with deep pockets (= a lot of money), the Berlin property market is attractive.

to line one's own pocket: They are interested in lining their pockets first and serving the people second. You can't blame them for wanting to line their own pockets (= making money in greedy and dishonest way).

to cost a pretty penny: Mary's dress is real silk. It must have cost a pretty penny (= cost an arm and a leg = cost the earth = cost a lot of money).

TRUISM

Hello my dear pals. Do you know the meaning of truism? Truism is a statement that is clearly true, so that there is no need to say it. Here are some of my favorite truisms. On the plus side, I like to hear about your favorite truisms. So share them with me.

--Forgive but do not forget.
--Good, high fences make good neighbors.
--Don't make a mountain out of a molehill.
--There's no time like the present.
--You never learn anything from talking.
--When you don't know what to do -Don't do anything.
--Don't tell anyone your goals. None of their business.
--If you don't have something nice to say, keep quiet or change the subject.
--Don't discuss politics or religion - unless you want to lose friends.

AMBITION

Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great. ~ Mark Twain

wowio

WOWIO is for those of you who devour books.

Enjoy reading your favorite books there for free.

to write something carelessly and quickly

JOT DOWN: to quickly write down ideas, notes, or facts.

Let me jot down the name of that restaurant.

SCRAWL: to write something carelessly and untidily.

Three students were excluded for scrawling graffiti on a school wall.

SCRIBBLE: to write something quickly and untidily.

Andrew scribbled a quick note and handed it to the chairman.

DASH OFF: to write a letter, note, story etc quickly and without thinking carefully about it.

The publishers wanted a summary that afternoon, so I dashed it off in an hour or so.

wordcount.org

The owner of wordcount laid out the words in a straight line, from the most frequently used to the least frequently used. The only thing you have to do is to look for specific English words you have in your mind to see their rankings.

Interestingly, the line is an 88,000-word-long sentence. If you have time to kill, try to explore the site more and more. Look for obscure words and find their rankings. You may be touched by how fun it is to know the rankings of the words you are interested in.

However, do not expect to find the rankings of new words such as "blog", "webmaster" and "google" there (in this case, my effort had not results). This is the only part of that long unusual sentence that may disappoint you a little. I wish you good luck exploring wordcount.

confusing words

Confusing Words is a collection of 3210 words that are troublesome to readers and writers. Words are grouped according to the way they are most often confused or misused.

book quotes

Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time. ~E.P. Whipple

Books support us in our solitude and keep us from being a burden to ourselves. ~Jeremy Collier

Books can be dangerous. The best ones should be labeled "This could change your life." ~Helen Exley

From my point of view, a book is a literary prescription put up for the benefit of someone who needs it. ~S.M. Crothers

Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house. ~Henry Ward Beecher

God be thanked for books! they are the voices of the distant and the dead, and make us heirs of the spiritual life of past ages. ~W.E. Channing

Books are delightful society. If you go into a room and find it full of books - even without taking them from the shelves they seem to speak to you, to bid you welcome. ~William Ewart Gladstone

Pass the Hat

Pass the hat means to attempt to collect money for some project(usually said about money that is given to help pay for something or to reward someone).

--He is always passing the hat for something.
--Ann is passing the hat to collect money to buy a gift for Luke.
--My pal and I decided to pass the hat around to collect money for the janitor but no one gave us a heed in the dorm.

To Sleep Immediately Since You are Tired

The Following three expressions all mean to go to sleep very deeply and quickly since you are very tired.

FLAKE OUT
I feel fine in the mornings, but in the afternoons I just flake out at my desk.

GO OUT LIKE A LIGHT
Anita was so tired that she went out like a light as soon as she went to bed.

AS SOON AS YOUR HEAD HITS THE PILLOW
As soon as Jack's head hit the pillow, he fell into a deep sleep.

ESP

Hello my pals. Please do accept my apology for updating my blog with delay. I was up to my head in my projects and books. Moreover, this blogger was danged difficult to sign in.

Here are some links to ESP (English for Specific Purposes) pages available online and for free on the net:


Science Daily
A place where you can read the latest science news.

Food Dictionary
Search the dictionary of more than 4,000 food terms.

English for Work
Very good free online English learning materials for nurses, police, tour guides, food staff, hotel staff, and airline staff.

English for Pharmacists
Exercises designed to improve pharmacists' English.

take/win/collect the wooden spoon

Have you ever heard this expression before? It is an unusual expression, isn't it? I was looking for a wooden-something word in my dictionary till I came to this term. Taking/wining/collecting the wooden spoon. The expression means coming last in a competition.

There are not enough pages on the web talking about this phrase and its origin. Perhaps, it is an old phrase. My attempt to find a page on its possible origins was not vain, though. Here is the origin.

I hope none of us win the wooden spoon in our personal and academic life.

etymologic

etymologic
the toughest word game on the web

ETYMOLOGIC is a web site that I have learned about recently. There, ten questions on word origin will be given to you randomly. You have to choose the right answer. It is called the toughest language game since it is totally difficult and mind-boggling to find the right answer as all the choices may seem plausible.

Grading the final examination

Department of Statistics: All grades are plotted along the normal bell curve.

Department of Psychology: Students are asked to blot ink in their exam books, close them and turn them in. The professor opens the books and assigns the first grade that comes to mind.

Department of History: All students get the same grade they got last year.

Department of Religion: Grade is determined by God.

Department of Philosophy: What is a grade?

Law School: Students are asked to defend their position of why they should receive an A.

Department of Logic: If and only if the student is present for the final and the student has accumulated a passing grade then the student will receive an A, else the student will not receive an A.

Department of Computer Science: Random number generator determines grade.

Department of Physical Education: Everybody gets an A.

Applied Linguistics websites

Here are some websites on Applied Linguistics. You may find valuable information or even articles on these websites. Just click on the links.

http://iteslj.org
http://www.baal.org.uk
http://devoted.to/corpora
http://www.aila.info
http://www.thelinguist.org
http://www.cal.org
http://www.aaal.org
http://www.tesol.org
http://www.lingforum.com/forum
http://www.iraal.ie
http://www.appliedlinguistics.org
http://www.linguistics-journal.com

distemper, dis-temper, or this temper

I love translation, but I seldom immerse myself in it. But when I decide to translate an article, I translate it with vim and vigor.To be honest, our translation classes at university were awful. Let me tell you a real story about our oral translation class.

One day our instructor brought a tape with herself and asked us to transcribe and then translate it. I listened to the tape and put down everything on my notebook. Something was wrong with a line in that text. The line, which knocked me for a loop, was this:

Her cat had been given its distemper shot.

Unaware of the real meaning of "distemper" and being lazy enough to look the word up in a dictionary, my instructor and classmates translated the word incorrectly. They thought the word meant "behaving badly". Do you get what I mean?

No one in the class paid heed to this mistranslation. During listening to the tape again and reviewing my notes for the exam, a question came to my head. Was it distemper, dis-temper, or this temper? The first one, of course, seemed to be the answer. And my trusty dictionary approved that.

Distemper: a serious infectious disease that affects animals.

Oscar Wilde once said it is always a very dangerous thing to tell a story with a moral. I cannot give the moral of this story a miss, however. Some translators, no matter where they come from or what their native language is, do not take translation very seriously. They do not want to thrash the problems of translation out. Please add the number of some students of translation and their teachers to the list.

Regards,

Zahra