#3 Documentary: China’s New Silk Road

▶️ Today’s documentary is about China’s so-called “Belt & Road Initiative” – a multi-billion dollar project to connect China to the rest of the world. It’s all about building infrastructure (=structures like roads, railways, airports) in less developed countries and facilitating (=making sth easier) those countries’ trade with China. When we see the Chinese building a road here, opening a factory there, buying a company here and influencing the media there – these efforts are all connected to the big plan called “Belt & Road”.

📎 YouTube link (for subtitles): www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvXROXiIpvQ
And another video about the topic: www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2xQF0o0Z24

👉@afandi_english👈 #documentary

#22 Afandi Quiz: What’s the word?

Today’s quiz is about an accident and a sewing machine.

▶️ Some pictures just don’t seem to make any sense. For example this one.

👉@afandi_english👈 #word_quiz

Funny, eh?!

👎 Sarcasm is wrong because to be sarcastic the joke should be verbal (=using language, either written or spoken) and you should be criticising someone or something, for example saying “Oh, lovely weather again today!” – when it’s been raining for days. Standing somewhere and smiling is not a case of sarcasm.

👎 Black humour is also wrong because this joke isn’t evil enough. Maybe if there was some dead body in the background then we would be able to speak of black humour.

👍 Irony is the correct answer. Irony is all about unusual situations that go against our expectations in a way that amuses us.

👎 Satire is wrong because it implies criticism and wants to make certain people look stupid. Perhaps you know the French magazine Charlie Hebdo – that’s all about satire.

#18 Learn how to learn: Choosing words to learn

❓ There are too many words in every language and learning them all will take you more than a life time. So how can we choose useful words?

1️⃣ BEST: Words you’ve seen before but you forgot the meaning of – these are always good words to learn because they seem to be more common. Let’s say you forgot what “apparently” means but you’ve seen it before. Check the dictionary and also look for related words like “apparent”, “appear” and “appearance”.

2️⃣ GOOD: Words from your classes may or may not be useful. It’s up to you to choose. Your teacher or your book made a selection but you need to have your own mind. You can only really learn the words you choose to learn.

3️⃣ BAD: Words that are two levels above your level may not be useful. You will find it hard to learn these words and then blame yourself for not remembering them.

👉@afandi_english👈 #learn2learn

Dear friends, 新年快乐！Happy New Year of the Ox!

Watch the world's biggest televised event right now live on YouTube: The Chinese New Year Party on TV!

The show has already started, and 21:00 Uzbekistan time will be 0:00 Beijing Time. Enjoy!

Prepare to be amazed by bombastic choreographies and breathtaking performances. See a glimpse of the bigness of China!

▶️ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-lxMLoGtIg

#58 Our favourite mistakes: Pronunciation

▶️ Try pronouncing the following words:
• creature
• field
• ingredients
• key
• legal
• media
• metre
• period
• quarantine
• scenery
• secret
• senior
• serial
• serious

❓What do these words have in common?

❗️ They're pronounced with the long [i:]. For clarity in Cyrillic:
• creature – wrong: криейчер, correct: крийчер
• field – wrong: файлд, correct: фийлд
• ingredients – wrong: ингредиентс, correct: ингрийдиентс
• key – wrong: кей, correct: кий
• legal – wrong: легл, correct: лийгел
• media – wrong: медия, correct: мийдия
• metre – wrong: метер, correct: мийтер
• period – wrong: периед, correct: пийриед
• quarantine – wrong: куорантайн, correct: куорантийн
• scenery – wrong: сенери, correct: сийнери
• secret – wrong: секрит, correct: сийкрит
• senior – wrong: сениёр, correct: сийнёр
• serial – wrong: сериял, correct: сийриял
• serious – wrong: сериес, correct: сийриес

👉@afandi_english👈 #mistakes #pronunciation

#19 World Englishes: Cockney

❗️ The Cockney accent of English originated in East London where most people were poor. Cockney speakers used to be discriminated for their accent but that has changed. Nowadays it’s cool to speak Cockney, and this accent has had a big influence on Standard British English, especially ‘street language’.

🔘 Pronunciation: Very noticeable is the “glottal stop” – not pronouncing the [t] in the middle and end of words, e.g. button becomes bu’on; the schwa sound [ə] at the end of words is a straight [a:]; the [h] in the beginning of words is skipped and the ‘th’ sounds are [f] and [v] – brother sounds more like bruvva.

🔘 Grammar: My is me, e.g. Me dad’s car and there are double negatives, like I don’t know nothing.

🔘 Vocabulary: Beautiful or handsome are both fit, money is dosh or dough, and girlfriend is missus.

👉@afandi_english👈 #world_englishes

#18 YouTube Channel Recommendation: VisualPolitik

⛓ Link: www.youtube.com/channel/UCT3v6vL2H5HK4loLMc8pmCw

📊 English Level: Advanced

🔤 Subtitles: Available

💬 Topics: Politics, geopolitics, economics, society, news

💡 Content: VisualPolitik is a channel dedicated to (=caring about and working towards) international politics and has videos about almost every country in the world. Each country case is explained in a very thoughtful and detailed way, describing the present political situation as well as the reasons and dynamics (=sth causing action) behind current developments. The channel is a great source of information for those interested in particular countries and helps you better understand current global affairs (=matters).

👉@afandi_english👈 #youtube

#39 Spot Afandi and his donkey: Afandi hiking near the German-Polish border

❓ 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