If English isn’t your first language, there are lots of ways to learn it, such as memorizing Barack Obama’s speech to the 2004 Democratic Convention. Martha and Grant talk about some of the unusual ways foreigners are learning to speak...
Hockey mom? Staycation? Recessionista? What’s your choice for Word of the Year 2008? Also, what expression do you use to describe when it’s raining but the sun is still shining?
Do English-speaking foreigners understand you better if you speak English with a foreign accent? A Californian says that on a recent visit to Armenia, he discovered the locals had an easier time if he spoke English with an Armenian accent. Is this...
call centre couple n.— «For instance, the Indian consumer is changing very rapidly. We are seeing the emergence of what I call “call centre couples”—young, college-educated, stressed people. They don’t want their parents living with them...
boat n.— «Edison Senat learned how to speak English in five months. The 26-year-old Haiti native didn’t want to be tagged as “boat,” a derogatory term referring to immigrants. So he made it a point to speak it as often as he...
interdesperse v.— «Jamaicans speak English, but it’s so interdespersed with slang and colloquialisms that it often hard to decipher.» —“Regiment’s school project is a class act” by Johnny Caldwell in...