Read & Do the Test

 

English: President Barack Obama talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron before the start of the working G8 dinner at Le Ciro’s Barriere Restaurant in Deauville, France, May 25, 2011. (Official White House Photo) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Buying gifts can be tricky at the best of times, but what do you buy when the U.S. president comes to visit? Barack Obama has released a list of gifts received by his family from World Leaders in 2011.

An Anecdote

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport...

A plane was taking off from Kennedy Airport. After it reached a comfortable cruising altitude, the captain made an announcement over the intercom, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Welcome to Flight Number 293, nonstop from New York to Los Angeles.

Learn about music

Do you know how to talk about music in English? Think of your favorite music. How would you describe it in English? Can you name the type of music (the 'genre') that each of these artists is famous for:

Mozart; The Rolling Stones; Bob Marley; Britney Spears; Daft Punk;
Jay-Z; Taylor Swift; Marvin Gaye

This page outlines the major genres of music:  http://www.allmusic.com/genres
Then click through to read descriptions of at least 3 of the genres. You can also listen to samples of music in the category if you scroll to the bottom of the page. (Year of English)

The Stolen White Elephant

Mark Twain 

THE STOLEN WHITE ELEPHANT

The following curious history was related to me by a chance railway acquaintance. He was a gentleman more than seventy years of age, and his thoroughly good and gentle face and earnest and sincere manner imprinted the unmistakable stamp of truth upon every statement which fell from his lips. He said:

Phrasal Verbs about Socializing

ask (someone) over

If you ask someone over, you invite the person to your house or apartment:

“My roommates and I are going to ask our English teacher over for lunch.”

so clever...

Using Wish

Wish can be a tricky word to use in English, so today, I will show you how we use this word in our everyday English Conversation. We use wish + were when we imagine that we want a situation to be different than it is. When we wish for things like this, we are just imagining something we do not think is possible:

• I wish I were taller. I’m not tall, but want to be taller.