Online Language Resources for English – Page 4 – The Paris Savannah Connection

Cheese – by ANDROUET

Here is a link to one of the best and most famous cheese sellers in France. Savour.

In English … and other languages!

androuet.com

On … the Isle of … Hope!

SLOW

NARROW

ROAD

Coincidence that this sign, slightly hidden from view, should be posted … on an island called “Hope.” Maybe instructions for … life?

This land … by Woody.

Folk music is all about folk – people, family, friends, you and me and everyone else; individuals coping with life’s everyday cares. Happy ones and sad, hard and sweet.

Folk music provides us with a country’s history because it’s the people’s history … and how can we understand the present without a feeling and grasp of the working people who’ve lived before us, built our railroads, plucked our cotton, suffered the dust storms and prayed for rain? Brought us to where we are? Not only with their successes … but also their failures. Folk is about “everyday” people in touch with their emotions, their strengths, their weaknesses, their environments.

American folk music is so incredibly rich that I’d like to introduce you to a few tunes, stories, people and songs. Far from today’s global political stage, these songs are rooted in everyday experience. Pionners. Immigrants. Roamers.Expressions of work, love, family, discovery.

Without the advent of sound recording, they’d be lost. Fortunately, there are many many recordings and thanks to a fellow whose name was Moses Asch, the Folkways Collection was a lifetime project to guarantee their perennity … and I, at least, am grateful to him and his team for their work. Vanguard Records, too, as well as major and minor labels produced artists whose souls are still very alive.

Folk music is for listening. And here’s one of the classics: Woody Guthrie, of course.

PS.The Folkways Collection put about 2 dozen podcasts on the net for free downloads on iTunes (and maybe elsewhere!) … and this leads me to one of my father’s, bless his soul, favorite sayings:

“A word to the wise is sufficient.”

miles and kilometers

distances … measuring how far … or how close!

In our age of precision, we have learned that … we strive for precision but that … actually, statistically, nothing is perfectly exact.

We ordinarily say that 1 mile is equal to 1.6 kilometers and that 1 kilometer is .6 of a mile.

For most practical purposes, this is sufficient. This is, in Donald Winnicott’s terms, “good enough.” … Maybe even better, in the circumstances, than precision down the scale:

kilometer
[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf24352.mp3|titles=kilometer]

What’s the equivalence?

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex24352.mp3|titles=A mile equals one kilometer six hundred and 9 meters]

mile
[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex25604.mp3|titles=A mile equals one point six kilometers]

meter

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf24353.mp3|titles=meter]

((A meter equals 39.37 inches. Their house has floor space of 200 square meters. A square meter is equal to 1.196 square yards.)) And then there are other meters, too … like parking meters … electricity and gas meters …

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex24353.mp3|titles=A meter equals 39.37 inches. Their house has floor space of 200 square meters. A square meter is equal to 1.196 square yards]

centimeter

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf24347.mp3|titles=centimeter]

One hundred centimeters …

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex24347.mp3|titles=One hundred centimeters make a meter]

Eleanor Bearsdley on NPR: Audio Report Impressionism in Normandy

From NPR (National Public Radio) by Eleanor Beardsley May 6, 2010

Normandy is considered the birthplace of the 19th century impressionist movement. And from now through the summer, French cities and towns across the region are celebrating the impressionists in a series of activities including art exhibits and concerts.

Read and Listen!

just one letter from the alphabet: “s”

and it make … S all the difference in the world … when we hear it pronounced.

It gives the plural of millions of wordZ … except feet and mice and geese …

AND

It is PRONOUNCED with present tense verbs with subjects like “he” … “she” and “it” …

This is the letter that make…S the difference! Try it … You just might like it …

Listen to this …

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex22019.mp3|titles=s as in snake]

then this;

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf22019.mp3|titles=s s ess]

and … in context:

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex18044b1.mp3|titles=Love makes the world go round]

If you’re interested in the English language as it’s spoken today … subscribe to the Paris Savannah Connection.

the opposite of thoughtful?

… how about … thought… less. “Thoughtless.” “Inconsiderate.”

“It ain’t necessarily so” from Porgy and Bess

pronunciation & spelling: way … weigh

Just a few sound clips … to show you how easy it is to pronounce and spell these homonyms!

We all know “one way street …” ((sens unique dans tous ses sens)) [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex18171d1.mp3|titles=one way street] and we know that there’s more than “one way” : Which way? Oh dear … No way! ((impossible!))[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex18064a1.mp3|titles=no way]

Talking pounds and kilos … How much does it weigh?

weigh <pronunciation> way [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf18171.mp3|titles=way]

Oh dear I just realized … the noun form of weigh is … weight. Which is pronounced just like wait. “Heaven can wait” wasn’t that the name of a movie?

weight <pronunciation> wait [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/mf18165.mp3|titles=wait/weight]

surely there are others … any suggestions?

If you need to practice your pronunciation and spelling … subscribe to the Paris Savannah Connection!

The vocabulary of “Green”

The “Greening of America: An Opportunity for Europe” conference held on Monday, April 12th was hosted by Microsoft at their new Parisian Campus in Issy les Moulineaux. Discussion centered around one major theme: Public and Private Partnerships, local and trans-Atlantic.

US policy is to export know-how and to welcome job creating innovative green projects.

I think French policy is about the same. So … maybe there’s some business to be done.

Most of the conference was in English and I was struck by the vivacity of the language used. I’d say I could understand upwards of 90% of the speeches. There were a few accents and some unusal pronunciations my ear had to get used to. But they were all informative, rich and intelligent.

Here are a few of the most frequently used terms:

green, sustainable and sustainability, partnerships, cloud (as in cloud computing);

There were lots of comparatives used and especially this one: cleaner. More efficient came out frequently as did the word “new” often as an adjective with both a prefix (re-) and a suffix (able): renewable.

These conferences are always good for scrabble players : renewability was used about every 15 minutes .

The prefix re- and the sound re- was heard in these words: reward … re-energize.. and recovery…. and responsible.

Innovation was a key word as was the subject: energy. And of course: energy efficient…which is, I learnt, what the Empire State Building will soon be!

Self-funding is a neat concept. I don’t recall if that came from a “public” or a “private” institution. Of course, investment was used over and over again but I have no recall of the word ‘cost’ … except in the phrase “low-cost.”

“Paperless” “Paper-free” : Someone in the audience translated these as “sans-papiers.”

More than one speaker used a very clear and easy to pronounce expression:

“At the end of the day …” This expression, which means … the end result …. is roughly synonomous with

“When all is said and done” or “The bottom line”

and in French … maybe something like … Tous comptes faits … En fin de compte … and I will say that today, at the end of the day, there was a lot of goodwill, lots of business cards exchanged and promises made!

I couldn’t help but note that one other word, a word which immigrated into American English from Europe, was used: Chutzpah!

Bravo to all the participants and thanks to the hosts and sponsors. This is a step in the right direction.