Category: Online Language Resources for English

Now let’s be polite … preferably sincerely … !

1. Excuse me. [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex17079e1.mp3|titles=Excuse me.]

2. Will you excuse us, please? [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex17079c1.mp3|titles=Will you excuse us please?]

3. Would you excuse me?  [audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex17079d1.mp3|titles=Would you excuse me?]

If you’re interested in real English … it’s time to subscribe to The Paris Savannah Connection.

Related Images:

Where do more people speak more languages than anywhere else ?

New York City!

Here’s where English is the most common language but far from the only language … Enjoy this wonderful documentary about very alive and disappearing languages … all spoken in New York.

I’m sure that there must also be hundreds of languages spoken in Paris. Can anybody help with more information on this???

Thanks to the New York Times.  It speaks of the dangers of languages becoming extinct.  The other danger is for us  … realizing how little we know about our world.

Related Images:

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.

This Land is Your Land:

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.”

PSS. If French is your native language … be careful not to mispronounce “folk.” The “o” is like “Oh!”

Related Images:

Life is too short! In addition to everything else to do, I’d love to host a radio show broadcasting folk, blues, musicals, songs, instrumentals. There is so much incredible music that lives and lives and goes on living.

Today, I take no credit except for bringing Odetta to your screen.

Authenticity. Intelligence. Soul. Spirit. Beauty. Nobility. To say the least.

Thanks to the NYT’s Last Word, here she is. For all of us.

The Last Word: Odetta.

Related Images:

Now if this were … “I can’t help you” or “I can’t help him” or “I can’t help them”… it would be easily translatable.

In French, for example, we’d say literally: “Désolé, je ne peux pas vous aider” ou “Je ne peux pas t’aider … dans le sens de “Je ne peux pas te donner un coup de main” , “Je ne peux pas te dépanner … ” “Je ne peux pas vous être utile…” ou même “Mon cher ami, si vous saviez …” … etcetera.

But the “it” … changes everything! Unless you’re talking about Minerva,  your pet cat, or Tolleston, your pet dog …  for example …,

“I can’t help it” is what someone says when they’re doing something compulsively. Indulging in something. Having an uncontrolled reaction. Cleptomania, for example … just picking up something that doesn’t belong to them.  Maybe having … one more drink.

Just listen: 

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/ex17041a1.mp3|titles=can’t help it]

In French, we might now translate this as:

“Je n’y peux rien…” ou “Je ne peux pas m’empêcher …” ou “C’est plus fort que moi …”

Apparently, it’s said on both sides of the Atlantic. As much by women as by men?

Why did I put this little thing in here today?

[audio:http://test.paris-savannah.com/wp-content/uploads/just-couldnt-help-it1.mp3|titles=just couldn’t help it!]

Related Images:

When you’ve got a question, you need an … answer.

Related Images:

and here’s an article by Ben Zimmer just about this underused marvel:

the semicolon.

Related Images:

If you’re interested in the life and career of Clint Eastwood and briliantly written journalism doesn’t frighten you … I strongly suggest you read

OUT OF THE WEST !

Enjoy.

Related Images:

Here are a few resources you might be interested in. This is bound to be one of the most innovative:

The Visual Thesaurus

Enjoy it!

Related Images:

I can’t say that this question prevented me from getting a good night’s sleep but maybe it should.

Nonetheless, when I woke up, the question was going through my brain: Just what do they mean when they talk about “sustainability” ? Is it ecology? Is it perennial? Is it anything “green”?

“Acting responsibly  in accordance with what we know about our environment” is sort of what I come to. Here’s what a specialist has to say:

MIT urban studies prof Judy Layzer.

Thank you for helping us out, Judy.

Related Images: