Survival English 

Survival English

Latest News
It's amazing how people can learn a language for years and not be able to say some of the most basic things. I'm always surprised how often people don't know what to say in reply to "Thank you" or how to say properly "I don't understand" (a lot of people learning English tend to say "No understand")
It's also amazing just how sad and boring I've become. There is a game I've been playing for the past year (yes a year) with another teacher friend of mine. We are competing to think of the least amount of words necessary to learn to survive in any foreign language. I've managed to reduce it down to 18 phrases only, which I think could be learnt in only one day. If you think you can do better than this, let me know.
Anyway, here are my essential survival phrases;

1. "Yes"
2. "No"
3. "I'm sorry"
4. "I don't understand"
5. "Thank you"
6. "You're welcome" or "Not at all"
7. "Can I ……?" (This is clever because you don't always need to say what. For example, if you point to a chair or indicate your cigarette it means "Can I have this chair please?" or "Can I have a light please?"
8. "I would like this please" (and point)
9. "What's your name?"
10. "My name's …….."
11. "How are you?"
12. "I'm fine thanks"
13. "What's this in English/Spanish/Polish etc?"
14. "Excuse me"
15. "Where is/ are……..?" ("the toilet" or "hotel …….")
16. "What time's ……" ("the next bus/train to"… or "breakfast" etc)
17. "How much is this?"
18. Counting from 1-20
And that's it. Perhaps I should produce phrase books called something like 'Idiots Guide to Speaking French/ Spanish etc' with only one page. Then it could be truthfully marketed as "learn a new language in only one day".

Latest Funny Bit
There is a term in language learning; 'false friends'. They are words which look really similar in one language but in fact have a completely different meaning in another language. In Spanish they have them, "I'm embarrassed" for example shouldn't be translated as "estoy embarasada" because that means that you are pregnant and so on and so on.
Sometimes you have to be careful. In English we say "I'm hot" but in Polish for example this means "I'm horny"
An English friend of mine staying only a short time in Poland bought a new sofa and was waiting for it to be delivered. The delivery man arrived with the sofa and before unloading it from the van introduced himself by saying "Jestem Sam" (jestem means "I am...") to which my friend replied "Oh hello, jestem Arthur" But the delivery man just got annoyed and repeated, "Jestem Sam" to which my friend replied again "I'm Arthur".The man just got more and more annoyed. "Jestem Sam" means "I'm by myself" in Polish.

Bye for now,
Julian