Summer intensive course!!!

 Summer is about to start and our intensive course too!

Do you want to practise your English? Do you have to sit your FCE or your CAE in the near future? Do you need to give a polish to your speaking skills?

In Accent we want to help you. Come to visit us and you will soon see a marked improvement!

 

When approaching the beginning of the summer holidays and thinking of long days on the beach, what tongue twister could be more suitable than the one below?

 

 

She sells seashells by the seashore.

The shells she sells are surely seashells.

So if she sells seashells on the seashore,

I’m sure she sells seashore sells.

 

Learn it by heart and let yourself say it loud a few times!

How do you react when talking English socially?

The course is coming to an end and perhaps you are packing your suitcases to travel abroad for a few days. You may also spend your holidays on a campsite on the coast. In both cases you will be able to put your language lessons to use but ... will you feel confident when coming face to face with a Brit?

What will you say for example if you have misheard someone?
Pardon? Sorry? What?
Will you ask for the toilet? The loo? The bathroom? The ladies/gents?
When having lunch, will you use a napking or a serviette?
Will you rest for a while in your living room? In your sitting room? Perhaps in your front room? Or will you rather remain in your drawing room?
Once there, will you take a seat on your couch? Your sofa? Or your settee?
Do you have a sweet tooth? Will you ask for a sweet? Afters? A dessert? Pudding?
On your answer to this questions may not depend how well you enjoy your holidays but a prospective job may. Social class is a big deal in Britain and the language a candidate uses may well become the issue when it comes to a tie between two candidates' CVs. Vocabulary and intonation are important not only when it comes to a job requiring a university degree, but for shop assistants  and most client-facing occupations as well.

When in doubt, ask your teacher and start packing. Your holiday trip abroad awaits you!

 

Killer weekends — murder mystery experiences

Fictional whodunnits to satisfy your inner Poirot

Did the old butler kill the gent? Or was it the gent who killed the old butler? Don't you have the urge to find out? The English do!!!

 

Because ... who doesn't like a good whodonnit? It may even make you miss those cold wintery evenings sitting in a comfortable armchair with a book in your hands. Always up to the latest trend but looking back towards their traditional detective fiction at the same time, the English are planning a busy - if somewhat gory - summer ahead. 

If you want to travel to the UK during the summer months, you can join the locals in their murder mystery dinners, overnight stays or full weekends in luxury period houses and other locations oozing atmosphere. It seems every Brit fancies themselves a Miss Marple, Lord Peter Wimsey or even the faithful Inspector Japp and wants to test the detecting powers of their "little grey cells" solving a murder mystery in a real country house. 

 

There's something about the tradition of British crime fiction that lends itself to such experience events. If the fictional crime statistics reflected reality, sleepy villages of the deep English countryside, magnificent looming castles of Scotland and grand houses right across the land would clock up a murder rate about 10 times that of the mean ‘hoods of Baltimore. Perhaps it is the sheer number of evocative historic buildings across these islands that moulded its particular genre of Anglo-noir: essentially non-urban and far from the grim streets of the police procedural, often based in remote countryside or ancient dwellings, drawn from the darkness that lies beneath the apparent gentility of the British or from the deep-buried tension of supposedly settled places.
So if your plans for the summer ahead include a trip to the UK, you can enjoy a mystery dinner, an overnight stay or a full weekend in a luxurious period house and other locations oozing atmosphere. At their simplest, the mystery challenge might be a set of clues to solve; sometimes a re-enactment could set out the puzzle; while the more elaborate experiences can involve professional actors who mingle with the guests and form part of the unfolding crime story, never breaking character.

 

Don't allow language to become a problem!  You know the old saying "When in England, do what the English do."

 

Our most beloved friends!

Leading pets, ranked by household ownership in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2017/18

	Share of pet owning households
Any pet	45%
Dogs	26%
Cats	18%
Rabbits	2%

That Brits love their pets is a well-known fact but while playing with my well beloved kitten some days ago I started thinking about other people’s furry friends and I grew so curious that I started googling for information. You can see below the result of my search.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/308218/leading-ten-pets-ranked-by-household-ownership-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/

 

Almost 50 per cent of British families own a pet and there are about 7.7 million cats and 6.6 million dogs in the UK. The nation’s living rooms are home to a million budgerigars and about 18 million goldfish. And don’t forget the armies of hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, mice, rats, weasels and stoats out there. It has even been suggested that the Brits are more attached to their pets than their children, but that can’t be true. Can it?

I suspect the British form deep relationships with their pets because they’re much easier to talk to than other people. Particularly British people. A Labrador is not at all reserved and does not expect you to respect his or her personal space. He will not recoil in horror if you touch him on the shoulder or shout at him. In a country where human contact is not always easy, the unconditional love of a Burmese cat or a Highland terrier is valued deeply.

When a dog owner gets on a train everyone feels relieved because they’ve finally got something to look at and talk about. There are hundreds of dog breeds in the UK, so you can demonstrate your superior knowledge by telling a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier from a Bedlington. “How lovely. How long have you had him?” is a perfect ice-breaker when meeting a stranger. Who knows: when two Brits both pat a dog they might even touch!

Spring is this beautiful season plenty of flowers and which lasts from March to June but...

is this the only meaning of the word?   

    

            1.   I SPRING out of bed early every morning; in fact, today I SPRANG out at 7 o'clock.

 

            2.   Madness and creativity could SPRING from the same source.

  

            3.   There's a SPRING  in my sofa which hurts my back every time I sit on it.

            4.   You must really taste the water from this spring! 

     Which one is which?