#15 Travelogue Uzbekistan: The Big Bens of Andijan
Let’s face it. The attractions of Andijan are its people, not really any noteworthy landmarks. But that hasn’t stopped the city government from creating some brand-new landmarks.
A lot of thought goes into landmarks as they are highly symbolic and not only express but also shape the character of a city. And what did they come up with? Three churchless clock towers, one of them showing the time in four cities: Tashkent, Moscow, London and Dubai.
---Vocab---
📍let’s face it = let’s be honest 📍noteworthy = important 📍landmark = a building that is unique and easy to recognise 📍brand-new = totally new 📍come up with sth = have an idea 📍churchless = without a church
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #uzbekistan
Let’s face it. The attractions of Andijan are its people, not really any noteworthy landmarks. But that hasn’t stopped the city government from creating some brand-new landmarks.
A lot of thought goes into landmarks as they are highly symbolic and not only express but also shape the character of a city. And what did they come up with? Three churchless clock towers, one of them showing the time in four cities: Tashkent, Moscow, London and Dubai.
---Vocab---
📍let’s face it = let’s be honest 📍noteworthy = important 📍landmark = a building that is unique and easy to recognise 📍brand-new = totally new 📍come up with sth = have an idea 📍churchless = without a church
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #uzbekistan
What do you make of the towers?
Anonymous Poll
51%
The towers make the city more beautiful.
30%
They're not amazing but better than nothing.
14%
The city wants to be international but isn’t.
5%
They don’t make any difference.
#29 Spot Afandi and his donkey: Afandi protesting against a giant waste of precious electricity
❓ 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
❓ 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
#9 Featured article: Nervous countries
📍 Read this article to find out just how nervous governments can be when faced with protesting citizens, or not even protesting ones. One boy in Singapore holding up a smiley face is revealing just that. Funny and sad at the same time!
⛓ https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/11/28/public-order-in-singapore-has-been-shaken-by-a-hand-drawn-smiley-face
👉@afandi_english👈 #article #economist
📍 Read this article to find out just how nervous governments can be when faced with protesting citizens, or not even protesting ones. One boy in Singapore holding up a smiley face is revealing just that. Funny and sad at the same time!
⛓ https://www.economist.com/asia/2020/11/28/public-order-in-singapore-has-been-shaken-by-a-hand-drawn-smiley-face
👉@afandi_english👈 #article #economist
The Economist
Public order in Singapore has been shaken by a hand-drawn smiley face
An activist who stood in a public place with the offending image has been charged with illegal assembly
#13 Afandi Quiz: Cultural Misunderstanding
Today’s quiz is about a cultural misunderstanding in the following situation:
▶️ Aleksey from 🇷🇺Russia is a first-time visitor to 🇰🇷South Korea. He is both a total foodie (=sb who cares a lot about good food) and a hobby photographer, and he is excited to capture (=catch, take) every aspect of life in the country. To his great surprise, while enjoying a spicy snack at a beach in Busan he suddenly gets arrested. What might have happened?
👉@afandi_english👈 #culture_quiz
Today’s quiz is about a cultural misunderstanding in the following situation:
▶️ Aleksey from 🇷🇺Russia is a first-time visitor to 🇰🇷South Korea. He is both a total foodie (=sb who cares a lot about good food) and a hobby photographer, and he is excited to capture (=catch, take) every aspect of life in the country. To his great surprise, while enjoying a spicy snack at a beach in Busan he suddenly gets arrested. What might have happened?
👉@afandi_english👈 #culture_quiz
Afandi English
What’s the problem?
Ouch!
👎 Unlike Singapore or Japan, Korea is not obsessed with (=crazy about) keeping public spaces clean. And even in Singapore where lots of things are banned it would still be okay to enjoy food and drinks outdoors. That’s only forbidden on metros and buses.
👍 Secretly taking photos of women is indeed a social phenomenon and problem in both South Korea and Japan. If you buy a smartphone in these countries – by law – you cannot mute (=make sth silent) the shutter sound (=clicking noise when you take a photo) of the camera. Watch a video about the problem of spycams in South Korea: www.youtube.com/watch?v=blsHmTp_Vvs
👎 Licence? It’s South Korea, not North Korea.
👎 Street food may not always be safe but South Korea isn’t China where food safety is a huge problem. Koreans love street food and often grab some snacks or fancy (=high-quality, luxury) drinks on the go (=on the way, while going somewhere).
👎 Unlike Singapore or Japan, Korea is not obsessed with (=crazy about) keeping public spaces clean. And even in Singapore where lots of things are banned it would still be okay to enjoy food and drinks outdoors. That’s only forbidden on metros and buses.
👍 Secretly taking photos of women is indeed a social phenomenon and problem in both South Korea and Japan. If you buy a smartphone in these countries – by law – you cannot mute (=make sth silent) the shutter sound (=clicking noise when you take a photo) of the camera. Watch a video about the problem of spycams in South Korea: www.youtube.com/watch?v=blsHmTp_Vvs
👎 Licence? It’s South Korea, not North Korea.
👎 Street food may not always be safe but South Korea isn’t China where food safety is a huge problem. Koreans love street food and often grab some snacks or fancy (=high-quality, luxury) drinks on the go (=on the way, while going somewhere).
#2 IELTS DOs & DON’Ts: Speaking: Self-introduction
▶️ It is said that making a good first impression is absolutely crucial. Here’s something to keep in mind:
1) ❌ Don’t start greeting in a local way. ✅ Do use a simple but polite “good morning” or “good afternoon”, perhaps followed by a “Sir” or “Madam”, that’s quite enough.
2) ❌ Don’t stand around frozen waiting for an order or think “Now it’s show time”. ✅ Do be natural. Always think yourself into the examiners who are really tired people. Make it easy and pleasant for them.
3) ❌ Don’t memorise your self-introduction. It’s tempting but don’t do it. ✅ Do give your introduction a natural flow and only prepare some points to speak about.
❗️ Finally, if there’s a big difference between your self-introduction and the rest of the exam it’s probably better to start poorly and finish well (positive surprise) rather than starting well and finishing poorly (disappointment).
👉@afandi_english👈 #ielts
▶️ It is said that making a good first impression is absolutely crucial. Here’s something to keep in mind:
1) ❌ Don’t start greeting in a local way. ✅ Do use a simple but polite “good morning” or “good afternoon”, perhaps followed by a “Sir” or “Madam”, that’s quite enough.
2) ❌ Don’t stand around frozen waiting for an order or think “Now it’s show time”. ✅ Do be natural. Always think yourself into the examiners who are really tired people. Make it easy and pleasant for them.
3) ❌ Don’t memorise your self-introduction. It’s tempting but don’t do it. ✅ Do give your introduction a natural flow and only prepare some points to speak about.
❗️ Finally, if there’s a big difference between your self-introduction and the rest of the exam it’s probably better to start poorly and finish well (positive surprise) rather than starting well and finishing poorly (disappointment).
👉@afandi_english👈 #ielts
#49 Our favourite mistakes: Grammar
▶️ Please translate the following sentence:
Afandiga telefon qilishing va undan so’rashing kerak, balki u senga yordam beradi agar kutib tursang.
❌ Perhaps you think it is:
You should call to Afandi and ask from him, maybe he will help to you if you wait him.
✅ Well, it should be:
You should call Afandi and ask him, maybe he will help you if you wait for him.
❓Why?
❗️ Just like in Uzbek, English verbs are often used with prepositions (well, actually postpositions in Uzbek). But which preposition or if they need one at all is often different:
❌ call to sb
✅ call sb
❌ ask from sb
✅ ask sb
❌ help to sb
✅ help sb
❌ wait sb
✅ wait for sb
👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #grammar #vocabulary
▶️ Please translate the following sentence:
Afandiga telefon qilishing va undan so’rashing kerak, balki u senga yordam beradi agar kutib tursang.
❌ Perhaps you think it is:
You should call to Afandi and ask from him, maybe he will help to you if you wait him.
✅ Well, it should be:
❗️ Just like in Uzbek, English verbs are often used with prepositions (well, actually postpositions in Uzbek). But which preposition or if they need one at all is often different:
❌ call to sb
✅ call sb
❌ ask from sb
✅ ask sb
❌ help to sb
✅ help sb
❌ wait sb
✅ wait for sb
👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #grammar #vocabulary
Afandi English
#1 Self-study: Tom & Savannah 🆕 Brand new on the channel: Materials for self-study! Learn English with interesting videos. You won’t believe how much English you can extract from a video if you go to the bottom of it. IELTS students – here is your source…
Media is too big
VIEW IN TELEGRAM
#2 Self-study: Saving a minority language in Australia
Today’s video and handout are about efforts to save Miriwoong, an language that is spoken by only a few Aborigines in Australia and is in danger of dying out.
If you think this is good material for your self-study, please follow the instructions in #1 👆 and the instructions on the handout below 👇.
👉@afandi_english👈 #self_study
Today’s video and handout are about efforts to save Miriwoong, an language that is spoken by only a few Aborigines in Australia and is in danger of dying out.
If you think this is good material for your self-study, please follow the instructions in #1 👆 and the instructions on the handout below 👇.
👉@afandi_english👈 #self_study
#16 Travelogue Uzbekistan: You’re a number
All the schools that I attended in my life always had names, not numbers. They were named after people or places, not just a cold number. What if I had gone to numbered schools, would I have had the same feelings about my school? Would I have felt special at all?
Not only people – schools also have an individual character, as do shops, companies, products, countries, cities, streets, mosques, and many more places. What is numbered in this world? Technical things like bus lines perhaps. They don’t have a character anyway.
Numbering schools is actually a communist thing to do. People should all be the same and function like machines for their country. In China for instance all schools are numbered. Are you surprised?
---Vocab---
📍individual = unique, different from others 📍function (verb) = work in a correct way 📍for instance = for example
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #uzbekistan
All the schools that I attended in my life always had names, not numbers. They were named after people or places, not just a cold number. What if I had gone to numbered schools, would I have had the same feelings about my school? Would I have felt special at all?
Not only people – schools also have an individual character, as do shops, companies, products, countries, cities, streets, mosques, and many more places. What is numbered in this world? Technical things like bus lines perhaps. They don’t have a character anyway.
Numbering schools is actually a communist thing to do. People should all be the same and function like machines for their country. In China for instance all schools are numbered. Are you surprised?
---Vocab---
📍individual = unique, different from others 📍function (verb) = work in a correct way 📍for instance = for example
👉@afandi_english👈 #travel #uzbekistan
What’s your take on numbered schools?
Anonymous Poll
17%
It’s simpler and more practical to number them.
22%
Schools should change their names if they want.
23%
We should give names to all our schools.
39%
Names or numbers – it doesn’t make any difference.