English Recordings

Kind greeting Julian
please answer these questions clearly.
How can I call you?
Are you single?
Do you work or are you a student?
How do you spend your weekends?

Please

My name is Lucy Logan and I’m a professional violin player. Playing the violin has permitted me to lead a successful life and to travel all around the world. I owe all my success to my parents.
Today I want to pass on some of the love and support they gave me. With ‘Classical Music for All’, a non-pro- fit music organisation, we help children who have lost everything because of war – their family, their home, their future. The concerts we give and the albums we record help to collect money for schools and orphanages. Our music can help children live a better life, away from the horrors of war. And you can help too. Each concert ticket or CD that you buy allows victims of war to start a new life.

Before I turned to music, my life had only been about surfing and competitions. Wherever I went, I took my board with me! By the age of 14, I had decided to become a professional surfer. And then, I broke both my legs in a car accident. This accident turned my life upside down. No surfing for me anymore. I fell into depression. That’s when my uncle started to teach me the drums and, well, it literally saved me. Playing the drums kept me busy. And also, whenever I played, I could express what I felt and it helped to ease the pain. A few months after I had recovered from the accident, I joined my first band... And in the end music permitted me to become not a professional surfer but a professional drummer!

Hi Gran!
How are you? I am in London for four days and I'm staying at my penfriend's, Bruce. He is very nice and his
parents are great and I'm having a wonderful time.
On the first day we left his house early in the morning and we took the tube to the Tower of London. It's the
oldest castle in London and we saw the Crown Jewels. It was nice and we saw Tower Bridge from the castle. Then
we went to St Paul's Cathedral but we didn't visit it because it was quite expensive (£15). However we visited the
Tate Modern. It's a great and very interesting museum. The building is ugly but the collections inside are so
amazing. Bruce took me to a great place for lunch and we ate fish and chips (it was soooooo delicious!).
After that we took the boat to Westminster but we didn't go to London Eye because it was closed. I was a bit
disappointed. Finally, we skated in Hyde Park, which is the biggest park in London. It was awesome!
We were lucky because the weather was sunny and not too cold!! We had such a good time! We came back
home around 6pm and drank tea. In the evening Bruce's parents took us to the theatre and we saw a good play.
The sets were so impressive! I was very exhausted at the end of the day so I slept late.
Unfortunately yesterday it rained all day long. So we spent the morning at the British museum. It's a free
museum and I saw incredible Egyptian mummies. We didn't go to the National Gallery because Bruce said it was
very boring. So after that we took a double-decker bus to Covent Garden. It is a very crowded market where you
can eat in nice restaurants and do some shopping. I bought many souvenirs and presents for all of you there J
and I found a great t-shirt for only £5 (it's really cheap!). I also wrote and sent a postcard to my best friend.
Today we're going to the Warner Bros Studios and visit the sets of Harry Potter. I'm so excited because I'm such a
huge fan!!!
Lots of love,
Justin.

Don’t sweat the small stuff: words and phrases connected with keeping calm
By Liz Walter

I’ve written quite a bit recently about arguing and fighting, so I thought it would be nice to turn to something more pleasant: staying calm and relaxed. This can be difficult in the modern world, where many people report feeling stress or pressure (the anxious feeling you have when you have too much to do or difficult things to do): I couldn’t stand the stress of that job. We were under pressure to work harder. The related adjectives are stressful and pressurized: The situation was very stressful. She works in a pressurized environment.

If someone is working too hard, we might advise them to pace themselves (do things at a reasonable speed): You can’t continue like this – you need to pace yourself. We might also remind them of the proverb More haste, less speed, which means that when we try to do things quickly, we often make mistakes and they end up taking longer. We sometimes describe a person who puts too much pressure on themselves as their own worst enemy: I know teaching is a tough job, but Carla’s her own worst enemy – she never gives herself a break.

We often describe someone with a calm, relaxed personality as laid-back: I enjoyed sharing an apartment with Josh – he’s a laid-back kind of guy. If someone is calm at a particular time or about a particular situation, we often used the informal adjectives chilled or chilled-out: We’d eaten all her food, but she was chilled about it. If someone appears to have no worries at all, we say they don’t have a care in the world: He was laughing and joking as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

It is of course important to keep things in perspective/proportion (understand when something is not as serious as we think): Sales are down slightly, but you need to keep it in perspective – the business is still doing very well. Some people make themselves anxious because they take things too seriously (think that things are more important than they really are): You shouldn’t take her criticism too seriously – she’s like that with everyone. A useful phrase that has recently moved from US English into UK English is Don’t sweat the small stuff. This means that it isn’t worth getting upset or stressed about minor issues. A similar idiom (with very nice imagery!) is Don’t make a mountain out of a molehill. This means that you should not let a small difficulty seem like a major problem – a ‘molehill’ is a small pile of earth made by a small animal (a mole) digging underneath the surface.

Do you have any similar idioms in your own language?

Ghosts, coughs and daughters: how to pronounce ‘gh’ in English
By Liz Walter

There are many common words in English that contain the pair of letters ‘gh’. ‘Gh’ can be pronounced /g/ (like ‘goat’), /f/ (like ‘fun’) or it can be silent, but in that case it will affect the vowels that come before it. Unfortunately, many of these pronunciations simply have to be learned. However, there are a few basic rules that can help.

Firstly, when ‘gh’ is at the beginning of a word, or at the beginning of a stressed syllable, it is always pronounced /g/. Examples of this are ghost, ghastly, ghetto and spaghetti.

Words that end in ‘ought’ have the pronunciation /ɔːt/ in UK English (the sound in the word ‘short’) and /ɑːt/ in US English (the vowel sound as in the first syllable of ‘father’). Examples are thought, fought, bought, brought and ought.

Words containing the letters ‘igh’ have the pronunciation /aɪ/ (the sound in ‘white’ and ‘nine’). This is the same for UK and US pronunciation. Examples are tight, high, sigh, bright, fortnight and delighted.

The combination ‘eigh’ is pronounced /eɪ/ (the sound in ‘wait’ or ‘hate’), for example in eight, weight and neighbour. The only exception to this (among commonly used words) is height, which is pronounced /haɪt/ (and rhymes with ‘white’). This is a great example of the difficulty of English pronunciation – why should weight and height, two words with similar spellings and describing similar concepts, have different pronunciations? The answer is almost certainly to do with the word origins, but that doesn’t help our poor students!

The usual pronunciation for ‘augh’ is /ɔː/ (UK) /ɑː/ (US). This is the case for words such as caught, taught, daughter, and distraught. However, the words draught(y) (UK spelling) and laugh(ter) have the sound /ɑːf/ (UK) /æf/ (US).

Strangely, there is only one common word that contains the letters ‘aigh’, and that is straight (along with the other members of its family such as straighten and straightforward). The sound here is /eɪ/ for UK and US English.

Finally, I will go back to that tricky combination ‘ough’. I have already dealt with ‘ought’ words above, but there are at least 7 other ways of pronouncing this combination, and I’m afraid they simply have to be learned, so here they are:

/əʊ/ (UK) /oʊ/ (US): although, dough, though.
/aʊ/ bough, drought, plough
/uː/ through
/ɒf/ (UK) /ɑːf/ (US) trough, cough
/ʌf/ enough, rough, tough
/ə/ (UK) /oʊ/ (US) thorough, borough

I will end with the weirdest one of all: hiccough, which is pronounced /ˈhɪk.ʌp/ (the sound ‘up’ at the end). Nowadays, we often spell it ‘hiccup’, but you do still see it written with the -ough spelling.

Do let me know if you come across any ‘gh’ pronunciations I’ve missed, and don’t forget, there are audio recordings on all the words in the dictionary on this site.

Egging on, storming out and making up: phrasal verbs connected with arguing (2)
By Liz Walter

My last post looked at phrasal and prepositional verbs connected with starting arguments and what happens during arguments. Today I’ll start with describing other people’s involvement in an argument and then go on to talking about what happens when an argument is over.

Usually, the best thing to do when two people are arguing is to stay out of it (not become involved): My sisters are always arguing, but I try to stay out of it. However, there are times when you might feel you need to step in (try to deal with or stop the argument): I had to step in before they started punching one another. Some people, however, prefer to stir up (cause) arguments: He’s always trying to stir things up between Jamie and Rose.

If you side with one person in an argument, you agree with them and often try to support them: My parents always side with my little brother. If you feel that one person is being treated unfairly, you might stand up for or (slightly more informally) stick up for them: I tried to stick up for my colleague, but our boss wouldn’t listen.

And what happens at the end of an argument? Well, someone who is still very angry and has not reached an agreement might storm out or storm off (leave the room in an angry manner): He stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

However, another person might back down or give in (allow the other person to win the argument) either because they have been proved wrong, or because they do not want to continue the argument: She insisted on firing him and refused to back down. Eventually he gave in and agreed to their demands.

If an argument makes you very upset or angry, it may take some time to calm down afterwards: She was absolutely furious, and it took her days to calm down. However, if an argument is less serious, you may be able to shrug it off or laugh it off (show that you do not think it is important): Max was quite rude to Emma but she just shrugged it off. He laughed off their criticism and continued to do things his own way. You could always simply wait until the unpleasantness of an argument blows over (becomes less important and is then forgotten): I know she’s angry with you, but it will soon blow over.

When people become friendly again after an argument, they make up: We fell out a few times but we always managed to make up afterwards. People who make efforts to mend a relationship try to patch things up: Have you patched things up with Jamie yet? However, if a relationship cannot recover after an argument, it breaks down: Arguments about housework eventually caused their relationship to break down.

Falling out, lashing out and blurting out: phrasal verbs connected with arguing (1)
By Liz Walter

We use phrasal verbs a lot, and it’s worth learning as many as you can. In this post, I will look at phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs connected with arguing – there is a surprisingly large number of them! It is often important to know what preposition to use after a phrasal verb, so pay particular attention to the prepositions highlighted in the example sentences.

If people have an argument and stop being friendly, they fall out: Rika and Sam fell out. Rika fell out with Sam. They fell out over money. If an argument has been developing for a period of time, we say it has been brewing up: A nasty row has been brewing up between the two men. It had been brewing up for years. If someone decides to challenge someone about something that annoys or upsets them, we say that they have it out: If Jane’s rudeness upset you, you need to have it out with her.

If two people or groups prepare to argue or fight, we say that they square up (UK)/ off (US): Rival gangs squared up for a fight. Juan squared up to the man. If someone suddenly speaks very angrily, they blow up: Dad blew up at Lexie when he saw the mess. If you criticize someone very strongly and angrily, you rip into them: She ripped into us for ignoring safety regulations. Lay into has a similar meaning but can also refer to physical fights: They pushed him to the ground and laid into him with their boots. Lash out is also used for both verbal and physical attacks: She lashed out at the airline for failing to provide information. The man suddenly lashed out with a metal bar.

If an argument starts suddenly and strongly, it flares up: A huge argument flared up during the lunch break. If it continues for a long time in a less dramatic way, it rumbles on: The feud between the two families rumbled on for years. When people can no longer hide their angry feelings, we say that the feelings boil over: Her feelings of resentment finally boiled over.

During arguments, people sometimes blurt out things that they later regret saying: She was so angry, she blurted out the truth about his mother. People with more self-control may be able to bite such comments back: I could tell he was biting back an angry response. Those people may be able to rise above an unpleasant situation and remain calm: Don’t let them upset you. Just rise above it.

That’s plenty of phrasal verbs for one day, but in my next post, I will write about phrasal verbs that describe what happens when other people become involved in an argument and what happens after the argument has finished.

Day in day out: phrases with ‘day’
By Liz Walter

Back in March, I wrote a post about phrases containing the word ‘time’: https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2018/03/07/having-the-time-of-your-life-phrases-with-time/. Today, I’m going to look at another set of phrases connected with time, all of which contain the word ‘day’.

I’ll start with phrases connected with talking about the past. For something that happened within approximately the last week, it is common to say the other day: I had coffee with Bea the other day. To talk about a period further back in history, we often say in those days: In those days we only had black and white TV. When we are talking about something we enjoyed in the past, we sometimes say Those were the days!: We children were allowed to run free in the countryside. Ah, those were the days!

To talk about the present, we often use the phrase these days: Most people book online these days. We also use in this day and age to talk about the present, often to express annoyance when you think that something or someone should be more modern: Nobody should be without clean water in this day and age. We use to this day to emphasize that something is still true or still happening: To this day, she refuses to talk about the incident.

There are also a couple of ‘day’ phrases for talking about the future. If we say that something will happen any day now, we mean that it will happen very soon: The baby is due any day now. We use one of these days to talk about something we believe will happen in the future, especially to give a warning: One of these days you’re going to cause a serious accident. Conversely, we use the sarcastic phrase That’ll be the day! to show that we do not believe that something will happen: My brother offering to cook a meal? That’ll be the day!

There are many other phrases with ‘day’, and I will finish with a few of the most useful ones. We say that something happens day in day out when we want to emphasize that it never stops and is very annoying or boring: I had to listen to people complaining, day in day out. If we say that someone or something’s days are numbered, we mean that they will not exist much longer: His days as president are numbered. If something has had its day, it is much less popular than it used to be and is likely to disappear: Some people think that print journalism has had its day.

Finally, I hope that reading this post has made your day (made you feel happy)!