Professor Stephen Hawking

As promised, here are two links to some videos and speech samples. I'm told that professor Hawking has switched to a new software called NeoSpeech, so you might want to check out their website as well.
BTW: Yes, he really was on Star Trek.

Idiomatics

No, I'm not talking about a newcomer to a Gaulish village we all know (I'd have to spell it with an "x", anyway) ;) If you really want to get into idiomatic expressions, here is a page that lists a humble 1,977 of them:

http://www.usingenglish.com/reference/idioms/

To round it off, an exhaustive (or should that read "exhausting"?) dictionary of phrasal verbs:

http://www.englishpage.com/prepositions/phrasaldictionary.html

If, after careful, long and arduous studies, you feel you're ready to be tested on them, try this page:

http://a4esl.org/q/h/idioms.html

Mind you: I don't expect y'all to know all of these by the end of the term. 50% will do. (Just kidding.)

Life's A Show

Well, I'm not sure I should be saying that ;) Anyway, if you watched last year's E.T. play ("Hard To Be" by Nicole Jauernig), you should be familiar with this song on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni9TBUNZn9Q

I still like Nicole's and my rendition better, naturally :)

Speech Accent Archive

English is spoken all over the world - not necessarily all natives, but nevertheless...
You might already have noticed, for example, how strange a Welsh accent sounds (7c: remember that listening comprehension exercise?) to somebody who isn't used to it. This website will give you access to a great number of different speech samples, with speakers from literally all walks of life (and, more importantly, places) reading the very same text in their very own accent. Enjoy! ;)

Special Thanks To...

You might just think that this "E.T." group has a special place in my heart because I keep mentioning it here. Well, of course it does! Anyway, I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to y'all who went on without me (being sick) last weekend & gave a terrific performance (so I've heard) in front of the few viewers who had found their way to the Alex' postponed "Bazaar". You really are the greatest :)

Go hang a salami...

...I'm a lasagna hog! That's not the only sentence in Weird Al Yankovic's song "Bob" (a tribute to Bob Dylan, I'm told) that can be read backwards - in other words, a palindrome. Some of them even make a little more sense ;) A preview for regular blog readers - we're going to listen to the song as well very soon, time permitting - can be found on this lyrics site. A streaming video is available at YouTube.

The latest on E.T.

Another press release by Katharina Krappmann: Click here to read it (and to see some new photos as well)! Once again, I apologize for this being in German, but try getting an English article into a local German newspaper...
By the way, if you're reading this: Kudos to the people of "Hard to be" - you did a terrific job! I'm so proud of you!

...and the press said...

The press release about E.T.'s latest play is now available online. It's in German, I hope you don't mind :) Coburg's "Neue Presse", which featured the article in their Oct.19 edition, made me a female teacher, but otherwise they were kind enough to even include a photograph made during rehearsals.

Peace Through Superior Firepower

When the North Korean government announced that their recent A-bomb test was a measure to ensure "peace and stability" in the region, this popular slogan was what first crossed my mind. Incredibly many people seem to think like this, even this Nobel Prize laureate from Israel. There goes the planet? I hope not.

Hinterland

Remember the Australian hinterland aka outback? Remember how they had a blitz in Oliver's room? A few "English" words are far easier to learn than others for us Germans. You'll find some lists (far from complete) here, here and here (more if you follow the links there). And did you know that the name of the school Viktor Krum (from the "Harry Potter" novels) goes to, "Durmstrang", is actually derived from the literary period Sturm und Drang?