26 October 2012

XII - VOCABULARY Personality


active
aggressive
ambitious
arrogant
boring
brave
broadminded
calm
careful
careless
coward
charming
cheerful
clumsy
confident
curious
dishonest
dull
energetic
friendly
funny
generous
gentle
happy
hard-working
imaginative
independent
intelligent
kind
lazy
loyal
modest
moody
naïve
patient
polite
practical
reliable
rude
secretive
self-controlled
selfish
sensible
sensitive
shy
strong-minded
stubborn
stupid
talented
tolerant
tough
trusting
worried

22 October 2012

VI - COMMERCIAL M&M I'm sexy and i know it


COMMERCIAL'S SCRIPT:

So I then said, Mr. Prime Minister, I'm flattered that you love chocolate. But I'm hear strictly in a professional -- What's wrong with him?

He thinks your naked.

My shell is brown -- it just looks like my milk chocolate is showing. Only a fool would think I'd actually show up naked.

So it's that kind of party.

I'm sexy and I know it
Ah -- Girl look at that body
Ah -- Girl look at that body
Ah -- Girl look at that body
I work out
WIGGLE, WIGGLE, WIGGLE, WIGGLE, WIGGLE YEAH

11 October 2012

V - A BIT CONFUSED Any & some


ANY & SOME


Any with plural and uncountable nouns

Any is normally used with plural and uncountable nouns in questions, negative and conditional sentences and some with positive ones:

Examples with any:

-          Do we have any beer?
-          Yes, we do. It's in the fridge.

-          No suitcases?
-          No, I don't have any suitcases.

-          If you need any help with your packing, just let me know.
-          If your hand luggage contains any knives or scissors, they will be confiscated.

Examples with some:

-          I have some pencils on my desk.
-          Some of the students don’t pass the exam.

With this usage, in these examples, we would normally require a/an before a singular countable noun:

-          Have you got a glass for the beer?
-          Have you got a vase for the flowers?

-          I don't have a suitcase, just hand luggage.
-          If your hand luggage contains a knife or a pair of scissors, they will be confiscated.

We would not normally say:

-          Have you got any glass for the beer?
-          Have you got any vase for the flowers?
-          I don't have any suitcase, just hand luggage.
-          If your hand luggage contains any knife or any pair of scissors, they will be confiscated.

Any with singular countable nouns

However, when we want to emphasize that any means of any kind, it is quite natural to use any with singular uncountable nouns. So in your example, Esther, any query - meaning any kind of query - is a justifiable alternative to any queries:

-          If you have any queries about the trip to the Philippines, please ask me.
-          If you have any query about the trip to the Philippines, please ask me.

To emphasize any query a bit more, we could also say:

-          If you have any query whatsoever - it doesn't matter what it is - please ask me.

Note also the following examples of this kind of use:

-          Which newspaper would you like?
-          Any newspaper, as long as it's a broadsheet.

-          Where does he normally play?
-          He normally plays in defense, but he can play in any position.

Some or any in questions?

Note that we tend to use some instead of any when we expect a positive answer to the questions we are asking:

-          Would you like some more pasta and salad?
-          No more thanks. I'm quite full.

-          Don't you need some new clothes for when you start your new job?
-          Yes, I do.

-          Shall I send you some information about our new products?
-          Yes, please do.

08 October 2012

XXIV - VIDEO Airlines safety parody



Keeping our passengers safe in the air

Welcome aboard. It's 2007, and we are more committed to your safety then ever. And that's why we'd like you to pay careful attention to this important safety information. 

["No Smoking", "Fasten Seat Belt", and "Life Jacket Under Seat" are shown]

First, please make sure that your seatbelt is securely fastened. Seatbelts can be purchased for 5 dollars. To fasten, insert the metal fitting into the buckle and 
tighten the buckle by pulling the loose end away from you. To release, purchase a release flap for 7 dollars. Now I know what you're thinking: we've never paid for seatbelts before! ...Once we've reached our cruising altitude, your flight attendant may or may not go down the aisle with snacks. If she chooses to, each passenger will be given a single peanut. Lavatories are located at the front and the rear...of the airport. Please take a moment to look at your safety pamphlet. The charge for looking at this pamphlet is 3 dollars. The charge for looking at this pamphlet and putting it back quickly is 4 dollars. Should there be a rapid change in cabin pressure, oxygen masks will automatically drop from the compartment above your seat free of charge. Place the mask over your nose and mouth, and to start the flow of oxygen, pay your flight attendant 75 dollars and 63 cents. As always, exact change is appreciated.

Now I know that some of you are still concerned about getting there safely. Enjoy your flight!

XXIII - VIDEO The legal battle between Apple and Samsung


From the VOA channel

XXII - VIDEO The alphabet


02 October 2012

XXI - VIDEO Twitter in plain English


TWITTER IN PAIN ENGLISH

So, what are you doing?  It's one of the first questions we often ask friends and family.  Even if the answer is just mowing the lawn or cooking dinner, it's interesting to us.  It makes us feel connected and a part of each other's lives.
Unfortunately, most of our day-to-day lives are hidden from people that care. Booooo! Of course, we have email and blogs and phones to keep us connected, but you wouldn't send an email to tell a friend you're having coffee - your friend doesn't need to know that.
But - what about people that want to know about the little things that happen in your life?  Real life happens between blog posts and emails and now there's a way to share.
This is Twitter in Plain English.
Thanks to Twitter, it's possible to share short, bite-sized updates about your life and follow the updates of people that matter to you via the web. Yaay! Here's how it works.
Meet Carla.  She's addicted to her mobile phone, reads blogs every day and has contacts all over the world.  
She heard about Twitter and was skeptical - she's already overloaded with information.  After some of her friends couldn't stop talking about it, she gave it a try.
She signed up for free and saw that Twitter pages look a little like blogs with very short posts. Each page is personal and has updates from friends.
She got started by looking up her friends on Twitter.com.  After finding a few, she clicked "follow" to starting seeing their updates on her Twitter page.
Within hours, she began to see a different side of people she chose to follow.  She didn't know that Steven in Seattle was a baseball fan, or that Julia in London was reading a new investment book.  The little messages from Twitter painted a picture of her friends, family and co-workers that she'd never seen before - it was the real world.
Soon she became a fan of Twitter and posted updates every day.  Her friends followed her updates and learned that she recently discovered a passion for Van Halen. They could see Carla's life between blog posts and emails.
For Carla, Twitter worked because it was simple. The updates were always short - under 140 characters each.  Plus, she could post updates and follow her friends using the Twitter website, software on her browser, a mobile phone or instant messages. She wasn't tied to one device.
By asking members to answer the question "what are you doing?" Carla found that Twitter brought her closer to people that matter to her - 140 characters at a time.  
Find out what your friends are doing at Twitter.com.
I'm Lee LeFever and this has been Twitter in Plain English.

01 October 2012

XX - VIDEO RSS in plain English



RSS IN PLAIN ENGLISH
The Internet has problems. Technorati says there are 50 million weblogs, and as you can see, it's going up. This is overwhelming. Today's show is about a new and efficient way to keep up with all this cool stuff that's happening on the Internet.

I'm going to talk about two ways that you can keep up with what's happening on the Web. There's the old slow way - Boo. Then, there's the new and fast way - Yay! Here's the difference between the new and the old way.

This is you, and here are your favorite websites. You log on to your computer, and you're looking for something new. So you go out to your favorite blogs. Is there anything new? No. You go out to your favorite news sites. Is there anything new? Nope. Every time you look for something new and its not there, you've wasted valuable time. This is the old way.

Now, let's consider the new and fast way, which is simply taking these arrows and turning them the other way. This means the new things from blogs and new things from your news sites come to you instead. It's like Netflix compared to the video store.
So, what we're talking about is using a single website that becomes your home for reading all the new stuff that's coming from your favorite websites. There are two steps to getting started.

The first step is you need a home for reading new posts. This is a website called a reader. It is free and all you need is an account. I use a site called Google Reader. It looks like this. My favorite sites are listed on the left, and on the right I can scroll through all the new posts from my favorite sites in a single place. So, to complete step one, you need to sign up for a reader. Google Reader, Bloglines, Newsgator, My Yahoo! are good places to start.
Step number two, is to set up a connection between your reader and your favorite websites. Setting up these connections is called subscribing, and it's really important. Nearly every blog and news site offers the ability for you to subscribe so updates in these sites show up here in your reader.

To set up these subscriptions, you just need to look for funny little icons. This is the standard one using the standard orange color. You may also see these. These little icons say, "Hey look! Subscribe to me! I can save you time!" Once you find one of these buttons on your favorite site, click on it and the page that appears will give you everything you need to subscribe.
After you click that button, one of two types of pages will appear. This is one that provides one click access to subscribing in your reader. The other page you're likely to see looks like this - with code on it. If you see this page, copy the address at the top of the page, go to your reader and look for a link that says "Add Subscription" or "Add Feed." Click on that, and paste the address into your reader.

So, once you've added your subscriptions and the connection is there, new posts begin arriving in your reader and you'll see why this is the new, faster way to read the web. It's addictive, so be careful!

A quick recap. There are two things you need to do. Number one is go sign up for a reader. Number two, go to your favorite websites, click on the icon and subscribe.

I'm Lee LeFever and this has been RSS in Plain English.