>My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Movie+external subtitle)

>Title: My Big Fat Greek Wedding (with external subtitle)
Genre: Comedy – Romance
Director: Joel Zwick
Starring: Nia Vardalos, Michael Constantine, John Corbett and Lainie Kazan
Release Year: 2002
Runtime: 01:35:09
Size: 696 Mb
Format: .avi + .srt
Language: American English

This movie is a good start to learn English and with the external subtitle in English you’ll enjoy it like I do.

Plot Summary
Toula Portokalos is 30, Greek, and works in her family’s restaurant, Dancing Zorba’s, in Chicago. [+/-]

All her father Gus wants is for her to get married to a nice Greek boy. But Toula is looking for more in life. Her mother convinces Gus to let her take some computer classes at college (making him think it’s his idea). With those classes under her belt, she then takes over her aunt’s travel agency (again making her father think it’s his idea). She meets Ian Miller, a high school English teacher, WASP, and dreamboat she had made a fool of herself over at the restaurant; they date secretly for a while before her family finds out. Her father is livid over her dating a non-Greek. He has to learn to accept Ian; Ian has to learn to accept Toula’s huge family, and Toula has to learn to accept herself.

It’s probably even more amusing if you’re Greek (I’m not, but I found it hilarious).

The show started off as a one woman comedy act before crossing over to film and is funny with the occasional genuinely touching insight. I haven’t laughed so much in ages. I wonder when it comes out on video.

Video
Codec: Xvid
Width: 608
Height: 336
Bitrate: 870kbps
FPS: 23

Audio
Codec: MPEG Layer 3
Bitrate: 179kbps
Channels: 2 (stereo)
Samplerate: 48kHz

Watermarks: No!
Counters: No!
Black/White: No!

MyBigFatGreekWedding.part1.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part2.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part3.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part4.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part5.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part6.rar
MyBigFatGreekWedding.part7.rar

>Real American/Frankly Speaking (eBook+Audiobook)

>Title: Real American/Frankly Speaking
Author(s): МОСКВА
Publisher: Repetitor Multimedia
Date: 2004
Pages: 154/174
Size: 416 Kb/854 Kb/224 Mb
Format: PDF/MP3
Quality: 44kHz/160kbps
Language: American English

Real American/Frankly Speaking is a series of training programs for the American conversational English. [+/-]

“REAL American” is aimed at developing speaking, improved understanding of the language listening and learning interpretation. There are two versions of eBooks. The original eBook is in English together with Rusian and the other is in English only which I’ve cut off the Runsian translation. Just in case you can add your own language in the blank areas. That is my purpose.

Real American/Frankly Speaking features topics related to many different aspects of life in the United States such as:
• family
• friends
• identity
• nature
• pets
• sports
• traditions
• holidays and weekdays
• music
• hobbies
• etc.

eBook (English only)
Real_American_Frankly_Speaking.rar
eBook (English and Rusian)
Real_American_Frankly_Speaking_RU.rar
Audio CDs (224 Mb)
American_Frankly_Speaking_CD.part1.rar
American_Frankly_Speaking_CD.part2.rar

>Big Talk a Lot Spoken English Course Book 1 and 2 (Printable)

>Title: Talk a Lot Spoken English Course Book 1
Level: Elementary
Author(s): Matt Purland
Publisher: English Banana.com
Date: April 6, 2008
Pages: 169/177
Size: 810.21/837.33 Kb
Format: PDF in rar
Quality: Excellent, printable
Language: British English

• Complete 12-week spoken English course
• All materials, instructions and answers are included
• Brand new and unique learning method
• Learn and recall questions, answers and negatives using 8 common verb forms
• Learn 400+ essential vocabulary words
• 100% photocopiable [+/-]

Talk a Lot is a great new way to learn spoken English, and quite a departure from the standard ELT course book. Instead of spending hours reading and writing, students havethe opportunity to engage in challenging and fun speaking and listening activities with their friends.

On this course students learn how to think in English as well as Talk a Lot!

The Talk a Lot course objectives are very simple:

• Every student talking in English
• Every student listening to and understanding English
• Every student thinking in English, and
• Every student taking part in class

Talk a Lot is structured so that every student can practise and improve English grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, intonation, word and sentence stress, and interpersonal skills, by working in pairs, groups and one to one with the teacher.

The main benefits of Talk a Lot are:

• Students have to think in English during lessons in a controlled and focused way
• Students learn how to memorise correct English structures naturally, without abstract and unrelated grammar lessons
• Students learn how to construct eight different common verb forms, using positive, negative and question forms, as well as embedded grammar appropriate to their level. The verb forms studied are: Present Simple, Present Continuous, Past Simple, Past Continuous, Present Perfect, Modal Verbs, Future Forms, and First Conditional
• Students learn 400+ essential vocabulary words by heart
• Students enjoy following a simple and effective method that produces results quickly

The ten lesson topics studied in Talk a Lot Elementary Book 1 are: Town, Food, Shopping, Health, Transport, Clothes, Work, Family, Home, and Free Time.

The ten lesson topics studies in Talk a Lot Elementary Book 2 are: Crime, Sport, Music, Weather, Animals, Cars, The Human Body, Colours and Numbers, Life Events and Nature.

Big_Spoken_English_1.rar
Big_Spoken_English_2.rar

>Speak English Like an American (eBook+Audio)

>Title: Speak English Like an American
Author(s): Amy Gillett
Publisher: Language Success Press; 1st Edition
Date: April 2004
Pages: 175
Size: 18.30 Mb
Format: PDF + MP3
Quality: Very good for a scanned eBook
Language: American English

If you already speak English, but now would like to start speaking even better, then the bestselling book & audio CD set Speak English Like an American is for you. [+/-]

This set is designed to help native speakers of any language speak better English. Over 300 of the most-used American English idioms and phrases are presented in engaging dialogue, with plenty of usage examples, illustrations, and lots of exercises — with convenient answer key — to help you learn the material.

The audio CD includes all of the dialogues. Ideal for self-study as well as for ESL classroom use. A fun and effective way to improve your conversational English!

>Chatting to Strangers

>I was always told never to talk to strangers, but if you are careful, chatting to strangers online can be a good way to practice your English.

First, things you should never tell someone online are:

• Your address
• Your telephone number
• Never agree to meet with someone you have met online

When using an online chat site to practice your English, it might be better to invent a fictional personality to use. The chat site that we are going to use for today’s activity is called Omegle and it allows you to chat anonymously in English with a total stranger.

Task:

• Before you go to the chat site, decide what information you would like to share and what you would like to know. It is good to think of a few things before you start as it can sometimes be difficult to get conversations started.
• Things you could discuss are;
  Sport
  The culture of the country
  The weather
  A good film you have seen recently
  Taste in music or art
  Jobs or studies
• It’s good idea to have a few questions prepared on any of the topics you want to talk about.
• The information you share doesn’t have to be true, but if you use your own experiences, you are more likely to have things to say.
• When you have 6 or 7 questions ready got to: http://omegle.com/ and click the ‘Start a chat‘ button.

• One of the first things you may be asked is; “asl?” which means age, sex (Are you male or female?), and location.
• Remember: You don’t have to be honest about these and never give anyone your exact location, a country or town should be enough to get conversation started.

• If at any time you feel uncomfortable with the person you are chatting with or if they ask questions you don’t like, simply click on ‘Disconnect’ and you can start a new conversation with someone else.
• It might take a few attempts to get a conversation going, but don’t be discouraged. It’s all good practice.

Well I hope you have a good chat and find somethings out about other countries and cultures.

Related links for teachers:

• AI and Chat Bots for EFL ESL
• Sending Bubble Joy to your EFL / ESL Students
  
• Video conferencing for EFL
• A Virtual World for Facebook Users
• Make your own chat room

Best

Nik Peachey

>My Funny Story: I have unzipped my trousers.

>I’m assigned a task by my best friend Yusa. The task is telling about my funny story that I’ve ever experienced. Indeed I’ve got a lot of such stories. Below is one of them.
The story or I prefer to say incident, happened several days ago …about three days ago.
There goes the story…

Since I often sit down in front of my PC from morning till midnight even till dawn, never do sports, my body becomes so fat, huh, my stomach is like a pregnant woman. I’ve got a bay window.

The problem comes! My trousers don’t fit again, they becomes too tight on my waist. As a result, my breath’s bated. It makes me uncomfortable to sit. To buy new ones, I still can’t afford or not at all, just lazy to go to Mall.

One day my office was not busy and only me in the office. Then I thought that I should unzip my trousers and open its button. “Oh my God, thanks, I can breathe again”.
(ha ha ha , stop! The story is still going, don’t laugh now)

A disaster came to me!

A guest came. “Wow the money comes” said me. I supposed he would buy a ticket from my office. You know that I work in a Tour and Travel Agency.

Guest : “Excuse me, Sir!”

Me : “Yes please sit down, is there anything I can help you? Do you need a ticket for your journey?”

Guest : “Thank you but I am afraid that I come here to meet Mr. Aris, I need to talk to him for something urgent. Would you please take me to his room?”

Me :”I am sorry but there’s no one by that name here, this is PT. Gemilang Travel, Tour and Travel Agency.”

Guest :”Oh I am sorry then, Mr. Aris works in Primagama, education institution”

Me :”Oh I see, it’s besides my office, let me show you!”

I stood up to escort the man.

But….can you imagine what was happening?

My trousers would be dropping down…

How shameful! Quickly I sat down again and said:

“I am really sorry, Sir, I can’t take you there now as suddenly my Boss sends me an sms to do some works. But Primagama is exactly besides this office, besides here!” while pointing towards the Primagama Office and my other hand held my hand phone as if an sms was in.

Hey You! Stop laughing! It’s not funny you know! It may be funny for you but not for me. Ha ha ha

That’s the story. Now I would reassign this task to my best friends below. Tell us your funny experiences on your blog like mine above.

Seno

3 Musketeers

Ocim

Septian

Click here to see other articles»

Or find in the related posts below!

>English Conversation

>As we know that English Conversation is very important to learn. There are many kinds of English conversation, depends on the topic, place, situation, purpose, and our need. For examples, telephone conversation.
Almost everyday, everyone does conversation via phone. We must know how to talk to other by phone. Let’s read and learn the conversation below.

1. If getting through to a right person
Lucy is calling Anton, but he isn’t so sure if that is him.

Lucy : Hello, could I speak to Anton, please?
Anton : Yes, speaking
Lucy : Hi, this is Lucy, Do you remember me?..
Anton : Oh..Hello, Lucy, how are you?

2. If not getting through to the right person
Lucy intends to call Anton, her friend, then she call his house-phone number. But Mrs. Merry, Anton’s mother who receives the phone.

Lucy : Hello, could I speak to Anton, please?
Mrs. Merry : I’m sorry, he’s not at home at this moment. Who’s speaking?
Lucy : This is Lucy speaking, Ma’am, When do you expect him back?
Mrs. Merry : I think he’ll be back in about thirty minutes, at the latest.
Lucy : Well, may I leave a message?
Mrs. Merry : Yes, of course.
Lucy : Would you please ask him to call me when he gets back.
Mrs. Merry : Ok. Does he know your number?
Lucy : I’m afraid he doesn’t know. My mobile number is 812660721
Mrs. Merry : 812660721. All right. Thanks for calling.

3. If wrong number
Now Lucy has dialed the wrong number

Lucy : Could I speak to Anton, please?
Someone : Oh, sorry? Anton? But I think there’s no one by that name here. I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong number.
Lucy : Wrong? This is Mrs. Merry’s house, isn’t it?
Someone : No, this is Mrs. Melly’s house.
Lucy : Oh I am sorry to have bothered you

OK everyone thanks for reading. Leave your comments below.

Click here to see other articles»

>Filling column inches

>No, not another spam email about “manhood enhancement”, but a quick piece about fillers. You know, like…err fillers yeah? Ha ha, can you see what I did there? Sorry…

Anyway, The Daily Telegraph (which is normally really good on language stories) has this terrible non-story about how English language speakers use loads of fillers and how this reflects a lack of care for our language. According to Phillip Hodson, speech expert and Fellow for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (who may have been selectively quoted, it has to be said):

It seems to me that the Anglo Saxon countries – Britain and America – are the worst for using these filler words to pad out our conversations. I think it is because unlike other countries like France we do not protect our language. There is little teaching of best practice. Some say that fillers are a sign of intellect, used to consider what to say next. However, research shows that if your speech is full of padding, you’re harder to understand, which makes listeners tend to tune out.

Erm, not exactly true though is it? Fillers are just normal parts of our spoken language; we use them as a form of punctuation for the most part, and it’s not really true that we associate fillers with padding and a lack of clarity. In fact, this piece of research suggests that fillers, hedges and indirect constructions actually make us more convincing in some situations, more human and likeable even.

Useful for:
ENA3 – Interacting Through Language

>I don’t want to talk about it…

>There’s an interesting article in today’s Times about the ways in which men and women supposedly use language differently in arguments. Following on from Deborah Cameron’s Myth of Mars and Venus work, I feel dubious of any claim that men do x and women do y, because as Cameron has persuasively put it, most of these claims are exaggerated and tend to generalise people’s behaviour, without showing much awareness of context.

But one point that does emerge from this article is that even though it’s daft to generalise, maybe there are some patterns of socialisation that influence some women’s behaviour and some men’s when it comes to arguments. As Christine Northam, a counsellor for Relate the marriage-guidance service says:

I do talk with men who find it very, very difficult to engage with their feelings. Women say: ‘He won’t respond to me, he won’t listen, he thinks he’s right all the time.’ Men have been socialised to think that they know what they are talking about. I know it’s changing, it’s really changing a lot. But that’s still around: ‘Men are powerful and what I say goes.’ Women internalise that too. It’s not just the blokes. Women get very frustrated, hysterical, when trying to get their point across because it seems that it just falls on the dead ground all the time. What they are saying is not being picked up and acknowledged and dealt with.

Certainly the younger men that I see tend to be much more willing to engage with their feelings, keen to understand them and talk about them. Older men find it slightly trickier or more than slightly trickier.

So how important are expectations of what’s appropriate “masculine” or “feminine” behaviour to the way we argue? Are we influenced in different ways by our own parents and their arguments, by the way we want to appear to other men or other women?

The article makes interesting reading, even if it does quote a little too heavily from the John Gray book Men are from Mars, Women from Venus…

Useful for:
ENA3 – male/female conversation

>Say goodbye to the female brain. Say hi to the female mouth

>If you’re an avid blog-reader, you’ll remember last year’s Myths of Mars and Venus story in which top linguist Deborah Cameron tore into the American bestseller The Female Brain. To summarise it, the writer of The Female Brain, Louann Brizendine made a claim that women use some 6000 more words a day than men, while Cameron (who is writing her own Myths of Mars and Venus) makes the point that there can be no “average” man or woman, least of all an average number of words we speak, because we use language differently depending on who we are, what we do, where we go and why we’re doing it, and while gender may have some part to play in our language, it’s one of many many factors.

The latest take on this comes in last week’s news stories on a piece of research in Science magazine, reported here and here. According to The Guardian’s story on this, “Men and women talk as much as each other, suggests a study which says that, on average, both genders speak around 16,000 words a day – a fact challenging the traditional notion that girls are considerably more chatty than boys“.

The research is covered in more detail in The Times article here:

The first rigorous study exploring the verbosity of men and women has found both sexes equally capable of irritating jabber. The typical woman speaks an average of 16,215 words a day, while an average of 15,669 words pass the lips of men, a difference so small it is not statistically significant.

The most loquacious people of all, indeed, tend to be men, but men are also the most taciturn. All three of the biggest talkers who took part in the research were male, the most prolific of whom yakked his way through 47,000 words in a day. The most effusive woman managed a mere 40,000.

At the other end of the spectrum, one man spoke an average of just over 500 words each day. There were nine men who spoke fewer than 2,000 a day, compared with only four women.

As an average of 16,000 words are spoken each day, people who talk at 120 words per minute — the speed at which the BBC’s Huw Edwards reads the news — would end up speaking for a little more than two hours of the 17 they typically spend awake.
The Little Britain character Vicky Pollard, by contrast, speaks at 330 words per minute, and would get through the average daily word allocation in just 49 minutes.

The findings, from a team at the University of Arizona, overturn a notion that is not only popular with the public, but which has also found its way into scientific research.

The debate about male and female talk is continued here in a Times editorial, here on the BBC website and here in an article from today’s Guardian. But as many commentators point out, the stereotype of women being chatterboxes is such a deeply ingrained social myth, that whatever the research presented to counter it, many refuse to accept it.

Useful for:
ENA3 – Male female conversation