Fabrice

The lights are on but nobody’s home – used to describe a stupid person Everything but the kitchen sink – almost everything has been included

I would like to add the idiom taken from other thread on this forum: "Kick the bucket" The most likely explanation refers to a now-obsolete method of slaughtering animals for food. A "bucket" consisted of a wooden frame, from which the pigs or sheep or other livestock were hung, and the "kicking" element comes in when the expected neurological struggles ensue after death. Kinda creepy:)

GeorgeUK made a good point about this topic. I used to be quite good in German, but then I stopped using it for like 9 years and know it's extremly hard to talk with a german person. I still rememeber grammar rules and vocabulary, but I'm not thinking in that language, when I speak it.

Omg yes Daniel. Sometimes I'm having imaginary conversations in English in my thoughts. I'm glad I'm not alone.

Oh yeah, good point. I have a friend in USA and I can hear how she pronounce "water", "can't" or "data".

-ersatz (a replacement or substitute of something) and also -automat

Matsushita Electric was promoting a Japanese PC for internet users. It came with a Japanese Web browser courtesy of Panasonic. Panasonic had licensed the cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet guide." The day before a huge marketing campaign was to begin, Panasonic stopped the product launch. The reason: the ads featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet Pecker." An American at the internal product launch explained to the stunned and embarrassed Japanese what "touch woody" and "pecker" meant in American slang.

I'm using both Google translate and Urban Dictionary (for slang words) and I think it works pretty well for me. Like someone mentioned before, I can't imagine using it for to translate the whole text. It is interesting that we got supercomputers which can predict weather on the world or do nuclear test simulations, but we still don't have a universal translator. It only proves how complicated the problem is:)

I will definitely check it out. Thanks for sharing:)

I've heard that reading books is super helpful in learning english grammar. That's why I decided to read my favourie books in original versions. I will start from Joseph Hellers Catch 22. I wonder how many jokes I missed because of a poor translation to polish!

I can feel your pain OP. That is why you have to learn both a word and a gender when you're lerning new vocabulary in german. I'm from Poland and it makes it extra difficult for me, because some geneders of the words are swapped in our languages:)

Thats so interesting. In polish we say "kick the calendar". Ok, talking about buckets, here is mine: "Like collecting frogs in a bucket" - describing a task that is difficult to control

As in the topic. My personal no.1 is "manhole"

In Poland sadly it is not. I really regret this because in my opinion knowing English in the age of the Internet is a must. We have some English courses in colleges, related to what you're studing, but many students who attend to those courses have really little knowledge about the language, so it ends up with a classic "learn->pass the exam->forget" formula.

Ok, here comes my favourite one: A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects. -Robert A. Heinlein

I think that they are effective. Not only online tutorials, but speaking with natives in general. I have internet friend from USA and we sometimes talk on Skype. It is a huugee motivation boost if you can use a language you're learning in a practical way. It also helps you to learn how to pronounce words properly.

If you're looking for english lessons made by professional teachers for FREE, you should definitely check out engvid.com. These are not courses, but rather a single lessons about specific topics. Here is an example video from that site: http://www.engvid.com/work-out-your-english/ (James is my favourie teacher from their team:) )

Hi folks, My name is Rafal and I hope to find here some interesting tips which would help me to improve my english. I can see that there is a bunch of friendly people on this forum, so without further ado, see you in threads!