English Recordings

Question: How Long Does It Take Zoloft to Wear Off?

Answer: Zoloft has a half-life of about one day. That means that for every day that passes without taking the medication the level in the blood falls by 50%. After one day the level is reduced to 50% of the original level, after two days to 25%, after three days to 12.5%, and so on.
When one stops Zoloft too rapidly discontinuation syndrome may develop. Among the symptoms that may be experienced are nausea, tremors, lightheadedness, muscle pains, weakness, insomnia, and anxiety. While most people coming off Zoloft have none of these symptoms, some people do have one or more. The symptoms usually last 1-2 weeks; but, in some instances, they may gradually decrease over a period as long as a month. It is generally recommended that one taper off this medication gradually under a doctor's supervision. Check with your own personal physician for specific instructions.

“Narrow listening” means listening to many things about the same topic. This method is more pow-erful than trying to listen to many different kinds of things. Students who listen to similar things learn faster and speak better than students who listen to different kinds of things. For example, you can choose one speaker and find many things by him. Listen to all of his pod- casts, audio books, and speeches. This is powerful because all speakers have favorite vocabulary and grammar. They naturally repeat these many times. By listening to many things by the same person, you automatically get a lot of vocabulary repetition. You learn faster and deeper! Another example is to choose one topic to focus on. For example, you could read an easy book, lis- ten to the same audio book, listen to a podcast about the book, and watch the movie. A.J. did this with his class in San Francisco. The class read “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Then we listened to the audio book. Then we watched (and listened to) the movie. Then we lis- tened to interviews with actors in the movie. His students learned a lot of vocabulary in a short time, and their speaking improved very quickly.

What is the most important English skill? What skill must you have to communicate well? Obviously, number 1 is Fluency. What is fluency? Fluency is the ability to speak (and understand) English quickly and easily... WITHOUT translation. Fluency means you can talk easily with native speakers-- they easily understand you, and you easily understand them. In fact, you speak and understand instantly. Fluency is your most important English goal. The research is clear-- there is only ONE way to get fluency. You do not get fluency by reading text- books. You do not get fluency by going to English schools. You do not get fluency by studying grammar rules. Listening Is The Key To get English fluency, you must have a lot of understandable repetitive listening.

That is the ONLY way. To be a FANTASTIC English speaker, you must learn English with your ears, not with your eyes. In other words, you must listen. Your ears are the key to excellent speaking. What kind of listening is best? Well, it must be understandable and must be repetitive. Both of those words are important-- Understandable and Repetitive. If you don't understand, you learn nothing. You will not improve. That's why listening to English TV does not help you. You don't understand most of it. It is too difficult. It is too fast. Its obvious right? If you do not understand, you will not improve. So, the best listening material is EASY. That’s right, you should listen mostly to easy English. Most students listen to English that is much too difficult. They don’t understand enough, and so they learn slowly. Listen to easier English, and your speaking will improve faster! Understanding is Only Half The Formula. Understanding is not enough. You must also have a lot of repetition. If you hear a new word only once, you will soon forget it. If you hear it 5 times, you will still probably forget it! You must hear new words and new grammar many times before you will understand them instantly. How many times is necessary? Most people must hear a new word 30 times to remember it forever.

To know a word and instantly understand it, you probably need to hear it 50-100 times! That's why we tell our students to listen to all of our lessons many times.

I think the ability to understand has a bigger effect on ability to speak (respond) than most people realise. You have to be able to understand considerably better than to speak because what you are listening to is much more complex than what you are going to say. And if you are struggling to try to understand, or are worrying about how well you have understood, it makes responding much more difficult. To say it in another way, if you understood completely and effortlessly, it would make responding a lot easier.

Another problem is trying to compose what you are going to say while the other person is talking. That disturbs your listening and understanding, and makes responding even harder. I'm not good at it, but I think it is better to try to concentrate 100% on listening until the other person is finished. Then TAKE A PAUSE. Don't try to answer immediately. Take a moment to think and compose, and put your mind in gear. Don't blurt out something too quickly. Use short sentences. Use simple straightforward sentences. Don't get trapped in the middle of an overly complex sentence and an advanced way of saying something that is just too confusing. That ability will come in time

I'm not exactly sure where this question belongs. It's a little strange. Without going into too much detail, I have an acquaintance who has been living in London for several years but has not made great progress in learning English. Her work does not give her much opportunity to use English. Being without family in a foreign country, her social life is centred around her own ethnic community, again limiting opportunities to improve her English. Another problem she has encountered is a ridiculous long waiting time for English language courses. (By this, I assume she means free courses for immigrants. This is a little shocking for me, as language courses for immigrants are a high priority here.)

Although this person is important to my extended family, we are not close friends as I have only met her once before. That situation, plus the language barrier, means I need to tread carefully so as not to give offence. I don't want to appear to disparage her language skills, nor do I want to imply that I know what is best for her.

I would really like to do something to help her learn English - which would improve her education and employment opportunities. I don't live in the country, but will be visiting this summer for a couple weeks. Suggestions would be appreciated.

In general, phrasal verbs tend to be more informal than single-word verbs, so a reasonably good rule of thumb is to avoid them in writing unless you are writing something informal like a blog post. There are many phrasal verbs which are OK to use in formal writing, though. You should get a good sense of what is OK and what is not OK by reading content like magazines and newspapers.

An SAT essay is designed to test how well American students know "big" words (words used in books, etc.). For an American student, "give up" is an everyday word, while "capitulate" is a rare word that shows you are smart. (For an ESL student, "capitulate" might well be easier than "give up".) When a student writes the way they speak, using words like "kick out", the teacher assumes they have a poor vocabulary. Usually this assumption is correct. I know it does not have to be the case, but this is how it works in schools.

Passive learning is the opportunity to just listen to or read something of interest, without having to interact with anyone, do drills or exercizes, or answer comprehension questions, or say anything when prompted.
It is a tremendous way of learning because;

•you can do it anytime, even, in the case of listening, while doing other chores
•it is relatively stress-free, and usually enjoyable
•you do not have to go to a class or make an appointment with a teacher
•you can choose what to listen to and read
•if you read or listen to a variety of sources on related subjects, you can reinforce your understanding almost effortlessly

•you can tune in and tune out and you will still learn, especially if you blend different sources of similar information
•it is inexpensive
•it is easily controlled by the learner
•technology has made it easier than ever
•you reinforce the power of listening by reading and vice versa

I love the laws of thermodynamics, especially the first law. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. We are a part of nature. And we need energy and we have to utilize the natural resources of the earth in order to survive. I'd divide natural resources into two groups: inexhaustible and exhaustible. Most natural resources are exhaustible: for example, fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Humans have been searching for an alternative fuel supply, because using too much fossil fuel cause catastrophic changes such as acid rain, deforestation, widespread loss of water animals and so on. That is why, in my opinion, we have to find an alternative energy source within a short period of time. I hope that Man's mysterious brain will find the solution through using nanotechnology and biotechnology. And I also hope that mankind will get rid of its selfishness and will learn to love Mother Nature!

Dear Farid,
Today I had a conversation with Daniel and Jim about my experiments and I have a suggestion.
As we previously talked together, I should know the ressidual stresses of the surface of the specimens before cutting. I would pick a normalized steel for working with these experiments. I will know properties of the material and I can expect its behaviour. I mean, it is difficult to expect the behaviour of a titanium material. Before I start to research the dependance of the strains on the diameter of the drills (using various diameters of drills), I need to know the ressidual stresses of the surface, because there might be various residual stresses:
I will use the same drill when drilling into the different materials and I will also have the maintain the same conditions
So I will have the same:
- Cutting conditions,
- Material – which is normalized and have the same properties,
- Gauges,
- Drill,
- I will measure it in CNC machine where the drill hand is , it must be very precise, becase the hole in the centre is very small, but by using CNC, it can be very precise.
I will pick a small piece of material (in order to place one gauge) and then I will place a gauge in the centre of it. Then, by using CNC, I will drill a hole. I will do this with all 6 pieces of material and then I will compare values and see how the values vary.
If the values vary by, lets say, 2-5%, it is ok, and I can start doing experiments as mentioned above (dependance diameters of the drills on the strains). At the end of these experiments, I will write the conlusion that there is a deviation of ….(the value I find out by suggested experiment).
Please, write to me what you think about it.
Regards,
Jarda

Zero Tolerance:
No crime or law breaking big or small will be overlooked.

Zip it:
This is used to tell someone to be quiet.