Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Show 760 Wednesday 11 June


Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today I’d like to talk about this question: How was your weekend?

I often ask people questions like this at the start of a lesson, just for a bit of small talk to get into the lesson. How was your weekend? How was your week? How was your day?

And I’ve found that a lot of students launch into the details of what they did on the weekend as if they have to even if they don’t want to, because I asked that question.

But, if someone asks you that question, you don’t have to say what you did. You can if you want. And I’d be interested to hear what you did if you want to tell me. But it’s certainly not expected. And it’s absolutely fine if you don’t.

I think the main point of saying: How was your weekend? is to communicate that you care about that person and you want to continue to have a good relationship with them.

So, if you don’t want to talk about your weekend, or you didn’t do anything interesting - maybe you just watched TV and did laundry - then you could just say something like: Mmm not too bad, how about you? And the conversation will naturally move on to something else.

If you did something exciting and you want to talk about it, then you could answer: great! And if they’re interested, they’ll ask: Yeah? What did you do?

If you had a really bad weekend and you want to share it – because it’s good to talk about your problems sometimes, if it’s appropriate of course – then you could answer something like: Mmm not so good or: Well, I’ve had better weekends then, if they’re concerned, they might ask: oh really, what happened?



click here

The site I recommend today is urbandictionary.com.
This site is an excellent place to look up slang. I use it a lot to look up slang words that I see on the internet and I can’t understand.
Sometimes people will leave comments about me, like she is ___ and I’ll be like hmm, that sounds pretty rude, but I wonder what it means and I’ll look it up and it turns out it’s actually a compliment.

The urban dictionary has humerous entries too.

Like the top entry for interesting.

(adj) Something which arouses no interest at all. Used to politely avoid (I said ing by accicent) admitting this, which indirectly expresses your indifference.

e.g. Yes, your bottle cap collection is interesting

And this is the top entry for English:

a language that lurks in dark alleys, beats up other languages and rifles through their pockets for spare vocabulary



STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today designers in the UK have created a washing machine that uses only one cup of water.

A team at Leeds University in the UK has invented a washing machine that cleans clothes by pounding them with plastic chips.
The Independent reported the machine uses less than 2 per cent of the water - and energy - of a conventional washing machine.
The machine uses thousands of reusable plastic chips to remove and absorb dirt.
About 20kg of the chips are used, with a cup of water and detergent.
The chips can be used up to 100 times.
The professor who invented the machine, said its performance was astonishing.


And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 11th of June.
Kia Ora.





Word Of The Day

Today’s word is lurk.
v. to wait somewhere secretly, especially because you are going to do sth bad or illegal



conversations with sarah
#466 How was your weekend?

Step 1: Repeat Jo’s lines.
Step 2: Read Jos’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Sarah Hello.

Jo Hi.

Sarah How was your weekend?

Jo Not too bad. How was yours?

Sarah Pretty good. I went for a bike ride yesterday.

Jo Where did you go?

Sarah I took the bus up the mountain and then rode all the way down.

Jo Can you take bikes on the bus?

Sarah Yeah, the city has just started doing it this summer. It’s awesome and it only costs 100 yen.

Jo Wow, that’s cheap. What a great service.

Sarah Yeah, it is.



links

today's news
today's STICK NEWS pictures

music

show start
artist: BrunoXe
album: aprendiendo desde 2004
track: Mandrake
from: Jerez, Spain
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

click here start
artist: #NarNaoud#
album: Green Vision
track: Oriental Standing
from: Gironde, France
artist at Jamendo
album at Jamendo
artist site

WOD start
artist: DJ iPep's
album: Home Mix 2007
track: Game Toy
from: EVREUX, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws start
artist: San Sebastian
track: Happy Sad
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack4
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa start
artist: ioeo
album: triptracks
track: triptrack5
from: Saint Raphael, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

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