Valentine's Day

Roses Are Red

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Carnations are sweet

And so are you.

And so is he

That sends you this

And when we meet

We'll have a kiss

When I was a kid, boys and girls used to send each other Valentine's cards, and write little poems in them, like the one above.

I was always jealous, because I never got any. My best friend, who was very handsome, got 18 one year. What a bore! On the outside of the envelope you would write S.W.A.L.K. - sealed with a loving kiss. But you never put your name. So, all the girls would run around screeching: "Who sent me this? Who sent me this?"

Actually, Saint Valentine had nothing to do with love, and like Christmas and Easter and other such holidays, Valentine's Day started with the Victorians, in 19th Century England. Card makers and flower sellers and shopkeepers found out you could make a lot of money from people celebrating holidays. They would attract people with beautiful displays in their shop windows and run promotions to get people spending.

The practice then spread to America, and eventually all around the world. Nowadays, not a lot of people send cards by mail anymore. It's all done by email. Will you be sending a special someone a Valentine's greeting this weekend?

Saying of the Week

Don't Put The Cart Before The Horse

A friend of mine was really determined to learn Thai. Every day he was going into shops and restaurants with his English/Thai dictionary and blurting out some phrase or other in his strong Ozzy accent.

Of course, nobody could understand a word he said. People would just smile at him and nod. And he would take that as a positive and keep talking and talking. His pronunciation was so bad, that he got louder and louder. "You have to exaggerate everything when you speak Thai," he was always saying. Funnily enough, I never hear Thais speak like that.

He was putting the cart before the horse.

When you learn a new language it's a good idea to do a lot of listening first. At AUA in Bangkok students learning Thai listen for up to 800 hours before speaking. You need to get your ear around the language. This can take some time. It's best to listen to native speakers as much as you can, before speaking. And it's the same with writing. All good writers do a lot of reading, before they become good writers. Kids know this instinctively. They listen naturally and don't try and talk too much in the new language. Eventually it all starts to flow.

The other cart, of course, is Grammar. Grammar is not language. Language is a naturally flowing and changing form of communication created by the people and culture it comes from. Then, somebody looks at that language and decides what the rules are, and calls the rules - Grammar. Therefore the grammar must follow the language, not the other way round. When I listen to second language learners with perfect grammar it sounds so unnatural, so robotic.

When you get up in the morning what do you do first? Do you put on your jacket, then your shirt, and your jeans, followed by your underwear, and go and take a shower? I hope not. Although it would be funny.

Don't put the cart before the horse.

New Moon English Project

"I Can't Live In A World Where You Don't Exist"

The 4 books of the Twilight Saga, by Stephanie Meyers - Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn - have become a huge hit around the world. Like Harry Potter, 2 movies have now been made of the first 2 books - Twilight and New Moon.

In the first book 17 year old Bella Swan leaves her mother in Phoenix, Arizona to stay with her father, a policeman in Forks, Washington. It's a small, boring town with nothing to do.

However, she soon meets the Cullens, who are both beautiful and rich. At first, Bella and Edward Cullen don't get on very well, but Edward saves her life, and soon they get drawn more and more together. Edward is a vampire, like all the Cullens, and this leads Bella into great danger. But with danger comes fascination and love.

Join us for our 3 week Diploma Summer Course: "New Moon English Project", discover the language of vampires and werewolves and teenage America in this wonderful fantasy about love and the choices of life.

Tel: 053 943764 to book your place from 22nd March to 9th April

Coming Soon