Kotro

Ahah, that's a great video, well spotted!

Does anyone remember the BBC Muzzy films Muzzy in Gondoland and Muzzy Comes Back? They were animated films aimed at teaching English at a beginner level. They were quite popular in the late 80's and early 90's throughout Europe, I believe. Still more than the language teaching itself, I remember the absurdly hilariousness of the stories, which I still find quite amusing whenever I come across parts of it on the web. Loved Muzzy, the friendly parking meter gulping alien, and Corvax, the evil scientist. Anyone else has fond memories of that show and, more importantly, perhaps, remember how helpful it was in teaching English to little kids? Muzzy 2

I remember a professor of mine in college would throw a lot of tongue twisters at us. Sadly the only one I remember in full (probably because it was the one I could reproduce best) is the classic English tongue twister "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?". In my native language I can also only remember a couple: - O rato roeu a rolha da garrafa de rum do rei da Rússia (the mouse gnawed the cork of the king of Russia's bottle - which really doesn't make much sense); - Três tristes tigres (three sad tigers - odlly enough, this one, just three words long is much harder to say, bacause people will naturally say a third, non-existant "tr" after the two first ones).

I have been pondering for a while whether to invest some of my time and brain cells in learning a language our of my comfort zone (which would be most romance and germanic languages). Arab culture has always fascinated me, and I often found myself willing to enroll in courses in Farsi or Persian at my college, but somehow never did. Turkish also sounds interesting, but like the other I can't even begin to imagine the amount of devotion to try and pick up those languages on my own without any kind of supervision.

My earliest memory of a movie in French is of one of the old animated Asterix movies - Asterix and Cleopatra, I think. I really can't recall my first live-action French movie, but it was probably of the comedies of Louis de Funès, which were often shown on television.

I second the suggestion of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, it's one of those books that the younger you read it, the better! I wouldn't advise you to jump into the classics just yet, most of them require some patience and can be better appreciated once you have a more solid literary background. Two other books which I find you might enjoy are Jonathan Coe's The Rotter's Club and Hugo Claus' The Sorrow Of Belgium, two masterpieces about growing up.

Although I'm not very keen on machine translation, Google Chrome's built-in web page translator is a very useful tool. However, I wouldn't use it in every kind of site. I find it useful, for instance, in shopping websites, as a way to grasp some basic information as you can find on websites you understand, especially when it comes to find the right buttons for "Add to Cart" and "Checkout". However, if one's researching information or just reading a longer text on the web, the machine shows its limitations, and the result, while it may give you a glimpse of what is being said, isn't as trustworthy.

Through exposure to severall media, I think one can begin to grasp certain differences among languages one does not speak. For instance, I don't speak a word of Mandarin, Korean or Japanese, but I think I can easily identify each by sound. There is this great website that tests your ability to pick up languages by sound. Try it, it's addictive: http://greatlanguagegame.com/

I think I already mentioned on another topic that this is one of the most common mistakes I make when writing in English. And it's not that I don't the difference, because I do - I often spot this mistake when I'm reading text on the internet, or the occasional typo on a book. Yet even though I'm fully aware of it, I still repeatedly fall into the trap. It peeves so much to go back to my writing and find the confusion between "it's" and "its" ocurring so often, especially when I'm not at all ignorant about the rules of their usage!

That was probably due more to his own frustration at not being able to comunicate than you not speaking his language. I also had the impression the French would be most unwilling to bear with my poor grasp of their language, but was also very pleasently surprised with their friendliness and willingness to waste time trying to communicate with me in terms we both agreed. Funny enough, the most I've felt in a situation where clearly the other person was annoyed that I didn't speak his language was close to home: Spanish tourists in Portugal apparently assume we all understand them perfectly and are fluent in their language, so when they ask a question and we reply in Portuguese (which, honour be made to them, they generally understand), they clearly display some annoyance, and quickly dispose of us in search of someone more willing to communicate in their language. This is probably a generalization, but it reflects the experiences I've had.

Thank you, Mizali, I will try to look into those two. cheers!

I've been meaning to pick up one of his books for ages, but haven't quite decided which one to get. I wanted to get a smaller one for my first try, so not to spend much money, but I believe the highest rated of his books are all quite long. Plus, I saw the movie adaptation of Norwegian Wood and really wasn't that impressed with the story (although I did enjoy some of the dialogue). What would be your recommendation for a first Murakami?

No, not Ye Olde Englishe. Just English spoken a few years back, by a part of the population in America, specifically the part that went on televison. Boy, where the hell am I coming from? Allow me to explain. I am basically a sucker for old American talk shows and panel shows. Thankfully YouTube has a lot of those. Stuff like What's My Line, The Dick Cavett Show, Firing Line. A lot of the pleasure I derive from those shows has to do with the language employed, which I find extremely polite, very rich and well emplyed. Host like John Daly, Dick Cavett and even William Buckley all have a delightful way to express themselves and adress their guests that I simply can't find on today programming. It's as if television has been dumbed down. Or perhaps it's just the natural evolution and I'm hopelessly pining for days gone by. I mean, take a look at one of the shows mentioned, and compare it with the norm today - you can clearly see the difference! What's My Line? Tony Randall, Joan Crawford

The book might feel a bit dated, especially regarding plot structure and the characters voices. It's general theme, of untamed ambition, is still pretty much up to date, in my view. There are certainly better works out there from that age, but it is still a great read. As for the story, personally I still prefer it to any other version of Frankenstein made since.

I have to agree with you with regards to my own experience and my country. Most of my fellow Portuguese in my age group, but also older and younger, have very good diction when speaking English, and that is mostly due to television and cinema. Because we didn't have a dubbing industry, we opted for the cheaper method of subtitling the images, which naturally granted us access to the way English sounds in severall regions (since we had programmes from the USA, the UK and occasionally Australia). Most of us here have been exposed to the sound of the English language since young and for long periods of time. I was in Canada a few years back, and I got complimented often on how natural it felt. I also find that other countries weren't quite so lucky in this aspect. In places where there is a strong dubbing industry, like Spain, France and Italy, I find that the locals have very poor spoken English skills, and their home accent is much more prevalent.

Just remembered this great scene from Monty Phyton's Life of Brian - you'd be surprised to learn that it resembles a lot of my actual Latin lessons.

Ah, this is a fun topic. Here's my take for the Portuguese language: Cão (dog): ão ão (sounds like ow ow) Galo (cock): cócórócócó (cog kohrog cog cog) Sapo (frog): crok crok Cabra (goat): baaahhhhhh Gato (cat) : miau, miau Vaca (cow): mooooo

Yeah, Latin can be a hassle. When I was studying it I couldn't get my mind around all the possible combinations - it was more like learning math formulas than grammar. Eventually I had to take special training, and the only way I could pass my exams was through a lot of practice exercises. I don't think it's a very easy language to learn on one's own, unless there is a lot of time devoted to it.

Hello, everyone! I see that this English literature section already has quite a few topics, but I noticed most, if not all of them, deal with works of fiction (whether in the form of novels, novellas, short stories, poetry or comics). Is there no love out there for some good non-fiction? By non-fiction I include all kinds of scientific, informative works, biographies, memoirs, essays, even newspaper columns. Do you enjoy reading non-fiction for pleasure, that is, if your work does not require it (the same way most people do with novels)? What are some of your favourite genres or authors? Non-fiction has provided me so far with some of the best literature I've had the pleasure of reading. I love to spend time with good rambling essay or a well written History book. If I may be so bold, I would like to leave you with some suggestions - all of the following books rank high in my all-time favourite readings, regardless of the fiction/non-fiction divide, and I consider them all, each in its own way, as a triumph of English language in the way it can be both richly informative and highly entertaining if used properly: John Hersey, Hiroshima Stephen Fry, Moab is My Washpot Simon Schama, Dead Certainties, Unwarrented Speculations Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs & Steel Share some of your favourites, or discuss the merits/lack thereoff of Non-fiction!

Olá, caparica007. Sou de Coimbra, nascido e criado.

Really think it depends on the language. I have little trouble reading and speaking English, Portuguese and French, but still find myself commiting writting mistakes now and then. When I was learning German and Italian, however, I felt writing and reading was much easier than speaking and hearing the language. And I'm not even going into languages with different alphabets and symbols...

I really enjoy the short story medium, although I'm afraid a lot of the authors of the genre which I enjoy aren't English writers - I suspect a lot of them haven't even been translated. Among English language authors my favourite is John Cheever, so much that I'm at a loss as to which of his short stories is my favourite. Apart from the better know, such as The Swimmer, Goodbye My Brother or O Youth and Beauty, I really enjoyed reading and still enjoy returning to The Enormous Radio, The Chimera, Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor or The Housebreaker of Shady Hill (I generally love the whole Shady Hill suburbial ambience repeated in many of his stories. It's the same thing I find in Mad Men, and probably one of the reasons I love that show so much). I also enjoy some classics by HP Lovecraft, like The Music of Erich Zann and At the Mountains of Madness. Is Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener a short story or a novella (it's between 60 and 90 pages, I think, depending on the edition)? That's also one of my favourites. If I had to pick an absolute favourite, I think the abovementioned The Chimera would be my choice.

Yes. In Portugal, English is mandatory from the 5th year on (it's optional before that), and it's the only compulsory language besides Portuguese.

Another native Portuguese right here! Regarding the question of accents, it's all a matter of practice. Some regional dialects may be easier to grasp than others, but if communication is longer than a few hours, after a while there should be no problems. I've had initial trouble with speakers from Timor, some parts of Brazil, the islands of Madeira and Azores, and yes, even some areas of Continental Portugal, but nothing that continually speaking and hearing with them didn't solve. Also, if any troubles do arise, the old trick of asking people to speak slower still works wonders.

I am constantly making spelling mistakes in words with double consonants. I also find I swith "it's" with "its" more often than I should, especially in the context of text messaging or forum posting. Obviously I try to be a lot more careful with work related writing, but still, good thing there's spell checkers!