#9 Tongue twister: A rather fishy business

❗️Challenge yourself and practice your pronunciation with this tongue twister today.

▶️ Selfish Miss Smith's fish-sauce shop seldom sells shellfish.

❗️Pay attention to:

🔘 Pronunciation – The two sounds s and ʃ are confusingly similar. There is also one ‘th’ sound θ.

🔘 Linking – Same or similar consonants are linked with one another:
Selfish Miss ͜ Smith's fish ͜ sauce ͜ shop seldom sells ͜ shellfish.

🔘 Practice – Practice parts of the sentence first, not the whole sentence right away because you may want to give up too quickly. Practice meaningful units in the following way: “Smith” … “Miss Smith” … “Selfish Miss Smith” … “Selfish Miss Smith’s” … “fish sauce” … “fish-sauce shop” … “shellfish” … “sells shellfish” … “seldom sells shellfish” … Then only the whole sentence!

----------
Vocab:
fishy = ishonib bo'lmaydigan
selfish = egoist, xudbin
seldom = kamdan kam
shellfish = dengiz chig’anoqlari


👉@afandi_english👈 #tongue_twisters

#9 University Vocab: Coursework

❗️ University isn’t like a primary school. We may have to do some reading as homework for the next seminar or lecture but what about written, graded homework?

🔎 In each semester you have some coursework to do. Coursework consists of assignments you have to write for each course (seminar, lecture, etc.) that you are taking. That could be essays, project reports, summaries, internship reports, or any other pieces of writing that you give (hand in or submit) to your professor or lecturer for grading.

🔎 What’s really important for coursework is the deadline of each assignment, sometimes also called “due date”. You will be given a date and by that date you have to finish writing and submit. If you’re late you may get punished, perhaps by a 5% penalty on your mark per day. Some universities are very strict with this.


👉@afandi_english👈 #uni_vocab

#26 Our favourite mistakes: Vocabulary

▶️ Please translate the following sentences:
Afandining o’g’li abituriyent.

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
Afandi’s son is an applicant.

✅ Well, there are three possibilities:

🔘 Afandi’s son is a high school graduate. (He just finished school and we assume that he will enter university)

🔘 Afandi’s son is preparing to enter university. (He is any age, at school or out of school)

🔘 Afandi’s son is a university applicant. (He has actually applied)


❓Why?

❗️ Someone who is not familiar with the Uzbek education system will not understand what “applicant” means here. It’s not precise enough.

❗️ The word “applicant” would usually be understood as job applicant.

❗️ Whether job applicant or university applicant, before an application is made we cannot call the person an applicant.


👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #vocabulary

#8 YouTube Channel Recommendation: The Economist

⛓ Link: www.youtube.com/user/EconomistMagazine

📊 English Level: Upper

🔤 Subtitles: Available

💬 Topics: Nature, society, politics, future, space, culture

💡 Content: The world’s most reputable news magazine runs a YouTube channel with a number of very informative videos that give you background information about significant topics. Watch this channel to better understand big issues in this big world.

👉@afandi_english👈 #youtube #economist

#9 Learn how to learn: Grammar

❓English grammar isn’t that difficult but we still struggle. How can we learn grammar more cleverly?

1️⃣ Know what you want. Knowing 16 tenses is amazing but can you use them? And are tenses really so important? What about articles, prepositions, ‘to be’, plural, …

2️⃣ Stop separating. We learn grammar rules and vocabulary and then just put them together, right? Wrong! It doesn’t work like that. We learn pieces of language as a whole.

3️⃣ Keep an open eye for grammar. When you watch or read something there are ways to learn grammar “on the go”. We only have to see it. Practice what seems useful to you.

4️⃣ Play with grammar. When you find a good grammar structure you can talk to yourself. Practice by making some sentences about yourself, your life, the world around you.

5️⃣ Use grammar books for reference. Everyone has different problems and there’s no need to learn rules from A to Z. Check rules only for the problems you have.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

#2 Featured article: Coronavirus in Central Asia

📍 It’s always interesting to read about one’s own country and culture from a different perspective. Today’s article is about the Central Asian countries’ handling of the corona crisis in these days. As always, Turkmenistan is a rather interesting place!

⛓https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/07/23/central-asian-governments-admit-they-have-a-problem-with-covid-19?utm_campaign=coronavirus-special-edition&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=salesforce-marketing-cloud&utm_term=2020-07-25&utm_content=article-link-1

👉@afandi_english👈 #article #economist

#10 Spot Afandi and his donkey: Afandi waiting for a train to nowhere

❓ Can you spot Afandi and his donkey in this picture?

❗️If you can, follow the instructions in #1 (see pinned message) and win 5,000 Paynet-soums!

👉@afandi_english👈 #spot_afandi

#27 Our favourite mistakes: Grammar

▶️ Please translate the following sentence:
Hech kim Afandini tanimaydi.

❌ Perhaps you think it is:
Nobody doesn’t know Afandi.

✅ Well, it should be:
Nobody knows Afandi.


❓Why?

❗️ Nobody and doesn’t are both negative words. Used together they make a double negative – in English this is usually wrong.

❗️ Sometimes double negatives are used, especially in spoken English and slang. You may hear sentences like Nobody tells me nothing! or I ain’t got no money!


👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #grammar

#7 It’s a strange world: An underground town

❓ A long time ago people used to live in caves. But today?

❗️Coober Pedy is an underground town in the Australian desert. People decided to live underground to escape from the scorching heat above and live in so-called “dugouts”, rooms that they dig out. Take a look and see what it’s like to live there:

⛓https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coober_Pedy

▶️ Here’s a YouTube video about the town (with proper Australian accent): www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1XSKu3pK8A0


👉@afandi_english👈 #strange_world #geography

#2 Education Video: Alternative Math

❗️Today’s video is a humorous short film criticising the American education system. Modern education often means discussing, expressing one’s opinions, building confidence, accepting students’ views, respecting parents, and so on. But as you can see in the video there can also be too much of all that!

▶️ www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3Yz3PiXZw


👉@afandi_english👈

#1 Tour the world: London, UK

🆕 Travelling isn’t easy, especially in 2020. To help you explore the world from your cozy home, Afandi English is bringing you the unique opportunity to take virtual tours on Zoom with local guides. For one hour at the scheduled time your guide will take you around interesting places, explain things and answer your questions.

❓ How does it work?

❗️Click on the link below or enter the meeting ID and passcode in your Zoom app.

▶️ https://us04web.zoom.us/j/74668237955?pwd=TFR5T0lDb0RNcGhyVXQxRldDbkNmQT09
Meeting ID: 746 6823 7955
Passcode: 2CMRVL

❗️For a tour of London, UK by our tour guide Ricky join us tonight at 9:00pm Tashkent time.


👉@afandi_english👈

#10 World Englishes: Irish English

❗️ As an island with a population of 6.6 million, Ireland isn’t a very crowded place. Nonetheless, the Irish accent has fans around the world, as does Irish beer!

🔘 Pronunciation: Unlike British English, every ‘r’ is pronounced; some vowels are changed – aɪ as in “Ireland” becomes a short ɔɪ, aʊ as in “brown cow” becomes eʊ, əʊ as in “goat” becomes a long o:, ʌ as in “Dublin” becomes ʊ.

🔘 Grammar: Like in Uzbek, no plural is used after numbers in measurements, e.g. 5 minute, not 5 minutes; they also often add tags to the end of sentences, e.g. It’s raining, so it is.

🔘 Vocabulary: What’s the story? or just Story? means What’s going on?; What’s the crack? means Any news?; a common expression of surprise in Catholic Ireland is Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph!

▶️ Check out what it sounds like:
⛓ A tutorial
⛓ In real life

👉@afandi_english👈 #world_englishes

#28 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• ancient
• April
• basic
• behaviour
• cake
• Cambridge
• Danish
• favourite
• maybe
• radio
• tasty

❓What sound do these words have in common?

❗️They all have the double vowel eɪ, like “hey”, in them. For clarity in Cyrillic:
• ancient – wrong: эншинт, correct: эйншинт
• April – wrong: эприл, correct: эйприл
• basic – wrong: бэсик, correct: бейсик
• behaviour – wrong: бихэвиер, correct: бихейвиер
• cake – wrong: кэк, correct: кейк
• Cambridge – wrong: кэмбридж, correct: кеймбридж
• Danish – wrong: дэниш, correct: дейниш
• favourite – wrong: фэверит, correct: фейверит
• maybe – wrong: мэби, correct: мейби
• radio – wrong: рэдио, correct: рейдио
• tasty – wrong: тэсти, correct: тейсти


👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#11 Spot Afandi and his donkey: Afandi visiting Muhammadyusuf

❓ Can you spot Afandi and his donkey in this picture?

❗️If you can, follow the instructions in #1 (see pinned message) and win 5,000 Paynet-soums!

👉@afandi_english👈 #spot_afandi

#3 Go out and teach! Language environment

❗️Everybody agrees that in a language class it’s best to use the language that the students are learning. Yet we hear a lot of mother tongue in foreign language classes. Here are some common excuses:

🔎 “If I speak only in English my students don’t understand me!” – Don’t think they have to understand a 100%. To practice their communication skills it is unnecessary. It’s more important to think in English.

🔎 “But my students’ level is too low!” – You can still speak as much English as possible. Use mother tongue words in English sentences. And beginners can understand easy commands like Please sit down! or Next one! without translation but with body language.

🔎 “It takes too much time!” – In language learning the process is important, not the number of pages or exercises.

❗️It is possible that your students actually learn more English from classroom communication than all the materials you’re giving them.

👉@afandi_english👈

#10 Tongue twister: Bad brakes

❗️Challenge yourself and practice your pronunciation with this tongue twister today.

▶️ A black bloke's back brake-block broke.

Translation:
Bir qora yigitning orqa tormoz bloki buzildi.

❗️Pay attention to:

🔘 Pronunciation – The two sounds r and l are somewhat similar, not only for Japanese people. Try to say it fast but clearly.


👉@afandi_english👈 #tongue_twisters

#10 University Vocab: Undergrad Years

❗️ Most universities in the world now offer 4-year Bachelor programmes. What’s the vocab?

🔎 There are basically two ways, one American and one British. The American one is more specific, four words, one for each year, while the British one is plain and suits any country’s education system.

🔎 In America, students in the first year of college or undergrad studies are called freshman, no matter if they are male or female. Students of the second year are called sophomore, in their third year they are called junior and in their final year senior. There are also super senior students – those who don’t graduate on time and stay for a fifth year.

🔎 In Britain and elsewhere first-year students are simply called first-year students, or in Britain itself sometimes freshers, in the second year we can call them second-year students, then third-year students and in the fourth year final-year students.

👉@afandi_english👈 #uni_vocab