English

This lady is able to do 21 English accents. Very interesting!

"Hunky Dory" - for everything to be good or okay.

Example sentence: If you would only finish your homework on time, everything would be hunky dory.

"Down the Hatch" - to swallow food or drink.

Example sentence: You've been talking for long enough, now put your food down the hatch.

Pronunciation is one of the most difficult things in English. I was reading a few words that I thought were interesting. "break" is pronounced br-ay-k and "steak" is pronounced st-ay-k but "bleak" is pronounced bl-ee-k and "streak" is pronounced str-ee-k. Just by changing some consonants, the whole vowel sound changes even though "ea" is still used.

"Break a leg" - this is an idiom that is used during theater performances which means, "good luck".

Example: When it was opening day for the play, my mom yelled to me from the audience and said, "Break a leg Johhny!"

There are always things that are hard to say in any language. Try saying this three times fast. I bet your tongue won't seem to work right.

Tie twine to three tree twigs.

There are three sounds that "ed" makes when it is added to a word.
"t" "id" and "d"

The trick is to know when to use each one.

The sound "t" is used when the verb ends in these sounds:
"k" examples: tracked (sounds like track-t) and rocked (sounds like rock-t)
"ch"examples: launched (sounds like launch-t) and fetched (sounds like fetch-t)
"x" examples: waxed (sounds like wax-t) and boxed ( sounds like box-t)
"f" examples: laughed (sounds like laugh-t) and coughed (sounds like cough-t)
"sh"examples: wished (sounds like wish-t) and fished (sounds like fish-t)

If you are using an indefinite article ( “a” or “an”), you have to decide which one to choose based on the sound of the word after.

“a” is used with consonant sounds and “an” is used with vowel sounds.

Examples:
“a”
I bought a bike.
I have a yogurt.
Tony bought a used car.
They built a university near my house.
(A word beginning in “u” sometimes sounds like it begins with “y” which is a consonant sound, therefore you will need to use “a” instead of “an”.

“an”
I have an idea.
I have an ugly sister.

In some phrases that we say in English, word order is very important. Some phrases are so common that the word order simply cannot be changed. These phrases just have to be memorized.

Two examples of this are:

Red, white and blue.
(These are the colors of the American flag. We cannot say blue, white and red or red, blue and white. The order simply must always stay the same.)

He was soaked from head to toe.
(We cannot say toe to head. It just sounds wrong.)

Memorize these examples and you will know the word order of some important phrases.

A common English proverb that we say is:

"Actions speak louder than words"

This means that what you do is more important than what you say.

An idiom that we use that is similar is: "talk is cheap"

You can say whatever you want, but what really is important is what you do.

"Putting your foot in your mouth"

This is an idiom that means that someone said something without thinking and may have offended someone else who is present, without doing it intentionally.

For example:

Jim, Megan and Kara are in a room.

Jim says, "Hey Megan, what are we eating for dinner tonight?"

Megan replies, "I think we will have lasagna."

Jim, "Oh no! Not the same one that we had last week. That food was horrible!"

Kara says, "Awww, I made that lasagna!"