English Speaking Club Aarbergen

Source:pxhere.com CC0 According to legend, there is a tombstone beside Club Street, Sandringham, Johannesburg , at the bottom of the dip. If you happen to pass this dip at exactly midnight, you will see a woman in white standing on the side of the road next to the grave. Some people say they have given her a lift, but when they turn to talk to her, she vanishes, leaving only behind a small pool of water and a ghostly chill. The property next to the road belonged to Rietfontein Hospital who in the late 90's decided to clean the area up for development and in the process, discovered a graveyard. It turned out to be the graves of patients who had died of cholera decades before, and who, to avoid contamination, had been buried in this isolated area. Rietfontein Hospital (now known as Sizwe Hospital) was established in the last 1800s as a quarantine station (lazaretto) for communicable diseases like Smallpox (which had reached epedemic levels then). Later it was used as a hospital to t...

This is a poem written Robert Burns in Scots-English. If you cannot make head or tail of it , here's Sir Billy Connoly reading it in the best way ever! Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a pannic's in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murd'ring pattle! I'm truly sorry man's dominion, Has broken nature's social union, An' justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An' fellow-mortal! I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request; I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't! Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green An' bleak December's winds ensuin, Baith snell an' keen! Thou s...

Olivia Colman does a far better job than I ever could but here is a letter from Queen Elizabeth to her mother-in-law Maria von Teck . My Darling Mama I hardly know how to begin to tell you of the horrible attack on Buckingham Palace this morning. Bertie and I arrived there at about quarter to eleven, and he and I went up to our poor windowless rooms to collect a few odds and ends – I must tell you that there was a “Red” warning on, and I went into the little room opposite B’s room, to see if he was coming down to the shelter – He asked me to take an eyelash out of his eye, and while I was battling with this task, Alec came into the room with a batch of papers in his hand. At this moment we heard the unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane – We said “ah a German”, and before anything else could be said, there was the noise of aircraft diving at great speed, and then the scream of a bomb – It all happened so quickly, that we had only time to look foolishly at each other, when the sc...

Source:pxhere.com CC0 Germany has a Rundfunkbeitrag; Austria the Haushaltsabgabe and the Swiss have their Serafe. In many countries, citizens are required to contribute to the public broadcasters in the form of a monthly or yearly fee. This fee is, in most cases, around €10 per month. In most cases, the money is used to solely finance the public broadcaster. While some may not agree with having to pay this fee, I think it is an important cornerstone of any democracy in that it keeps the broadcaster in public hands. Take, for example, Hungary: there, the public broadcaster is state funded and, as a result, Magyar Televízio is often accused of being a mouthpiece for President Urban’s Fidesz Party. As a consequence, journalists at MTV fear that if they do not follow the party political line, they may loose their job or worse. On the opposite end of the scale, news broadcasters like Fox News and Sky News are often accused of being biased and sensationalist. In my opinion, this is because t...

Source:pxhere.com CC0 A 2014 BBC Panorama documentary exposed extensive, organized cheating in the English language tests international students in the UK had to pass for course changes or visa renewals. Consequently, the Home Office revoked about 35,000 students' visas, leading to most being expelled from their courses, 2,500 being deported, and 7,200 leaving voluntarily due to arrest threats. Despite evidence of cheating with help from some test center workers, thousands of students have protested their innocence over the years, and it has emerged that many were wrongly accused. The Home Office faces accusations of hastily penalizing a large group of international students. The Home Office provided international students with details of four approved English test providers. However, widespread cheating was exposed by Panorama in two centres run by a UK subsidiary of Educational Testing Service (ETS), a US-based company. Post-investigation, ETS found that 58% of about 58,000 test-...

Source:pxhere.com CC0 The Americans and the British have some words that differ from each other. The table below lists some of the everyday objects that have different names, depending on what form of English you are using. British English American English trousers pants flat apartment bonnet (the front of the car) hood boot (the back of the car) trunk lorry truck university college holiday vacation jumper sweater crisps chips chips French fries trainers sneakers fizzy drink soda postbox mailbox biscuit cookie Chemist drugstore shop store football soccer If I remember any more, I will add...

Source:pxhere.com CC0 Early Modern English is the stage of the English language from the beginning of the Tudor period to the English Interregnum and Restoration in the late 15th century, to the transition to Modern English, in the mid-to-late 17th century. The grammatical and orthographical conventions of literary English in the late 16th century and the 17th century are still very influential on modern Standard English. Most modern readers of English can understand texts written in the late phase of Early Modern English, such as the King James Bible and the works of William Shakespeare, and they have greatly influenced Modern English. Early Modern English used words like thou (you 2nd pers. sing. Subj.); thee (2nd pers. sing. Obj.) and thine (2nd pers. sing. Poss.). These words originate from Proto-German, the common ancestor for all Germanic languages. So thou means Du; thee as the same as Dir and thine would be Dein. Thou is pronounced the same as Du, execpt with the ð sound at the...

Image: pxhere.com CC0 The study found that the British have an astonishing 546 words that are formally defined as meaning drunk, including 'trolleyed', 'hammered', 'wellied' and 'steampigged'. Read the newspaper article here.

Well known English idioms "Break a leg" - Good luck. "Bite the bullet" - To face a difficult situation with courage. "Cutting corners" - Taking shortcuts or doing something in an easier or cheaper way.  "Piece of cake" - Something that is very easy to do. "A dime a dozen" - Something that is very common or easy to find. "Hit the nail on the head" - To be exactly right or accurate. "Kick the bucket" - To die. "Let the cat out of the bag" - To reveal a secret. "Barking up the wrong tree" - Accusing or blaming the wrong person or thing. "Raining cats and dogs" - Raining heavily. "In the same boat" - In the same situation or predicament. "On thin ice" - In a risky or precarious situation. "The ball is in your court" - It is your turn to take action or make a decision. "A picture is worth a thousand words" - Visual images can convey more meaning than wo...

Only 5,1% of the world’s population speak English as a first language yet, 51,7% of written internet content; 66% of YouTube and 62% of Tiktok videos are in English. 21,87% of all printed books have been originally written in English. 65,187% (or 1880) of cinematic productions in 2021 were in English. Around 15% speak English as their second language and the top ten countries with most number of English-second-language speakers are: Netherlands (71,45%) Sweden (70,40%) Denmark (69,93%) Norway (67,77%) Singapore (66,03%) Finland (65,83%) Luxembourg (64,57%) Germany (63,77%) Poland (63,76%) South Africa (63,37%) Technically, English is one out of South Africa’s eleven official languages. The majority of South Africans actually speak English as a second language, but English is the most commonly spoken language and the one used in commerce and government. Around 26% of English words originate from Proto-Germanic; 29% from Latin and 25% from French. This means that it is easier for native ...