"Surprising English"

Na tomto mieste nájdete odteraz pravidelnú rubriku jedného z najlepších učiteľov anglického jazyka široko-ďaleko. Každý týždeň vás tu bude Andy prekvapovať svojimi postrehmi z používania angličtiny ako cudzieho jazyka a zároveň vám ukáže, že učiť sa cudzí jazyk môže byť celkom zábava.

Andy Billingham sa narodil v St. Albans, 35 km severne od Londýna. Vyštudoval francúzsky a nemecký jazyk a literatúru na Univerzite v Durhame. V roku 1983 prišiel na Slovensko. Tri roky pôsobil ako lektor anglického jazyka na Univerzite Pavla Jozefa Šafárika v Prešove ale aj na Technickej univerzite v Košiciach. V roku 1992 sa na Slovensko vrátil a začal opäť vyučovať najmä technickú angličtinu, o ktorú bol čoraz väčší záujem nielen v spoločnosti U. S. Steel Košice (vtedajších VSŽ), ale aj vo viacerých spoločnostiach z oblasti IT. Od septembra bude Andy poskytovať svoje služby aj študentom a pracovníkom Fakulty materiálov, metalurgie a recyklácie (Hutníckej fakulty) Technickej univerzity v Košiciach.

No°36

The question this week concerns assessment systems, as the time for school-leaving and college entrance exams is upon us. The traditional Slovak (Central European) grading system is from 1 to 5, with 1 as the highest grade, while in the USA and the UK grades from A to E are more often used, with F for “fail”. This produces an interesting difference in expressing required achievement levels for high-school or college acceptance. In the USA the minimum requirement might be set as “at least” B+, whereas in Slovakia it would be expressed as “at most” 1.5, because numerically “higher” grades in fact indicate worse results. This reveals a focus on form rather than content, because thinking about the meaning of the grade 1.5, I would automatically say “at least 1.5” as the minimum required grade.

No°35

This week’s question is about the use (or rather the non-use) of TITLES by native English speakers. Titles are used before or instead of a person’s name. They are a Central European custom, and the range is quite limited in English-speaking cultures. Apart from Mr, Mrs, Miss (or Ms, if a woman’s marital status is not important), and the honored titles Sir and Dame (followed by the first name), there is Doctor, meaning of medicine (Doctor for PhD degree holders is only used within universities) and Professor (the top university rank, not a secondary school position), and Reverend (for vicars and pastors) or Father (for priests). University degrees (which come after the name anyway) and professional positions are not usually mentioned. The person’s name is basically more important.

No°34

This week’s question comes from someone who heard an American colleague (no names, no pack drill) utter the expression “Jiminy Cricket”, and wants to know what it means. The first thing is that it has nothing to do with the original English bat and ball game. A lot of people know it as the name of the personification of Pinocchio’s conscience in Walt Disney’s classic 1940 cartoon film (cricket meaning „svrček“). In fact, though, it’s a way for polite people to swear (zahrešiť, zakliať) without taking the name of Jesus Christ in vain. There are many expressions of this kind in English as a result of puritan Protestant indignation: “cor” or “gor” instead of “God”; “jeez” or “jeepers” instead of “Jesus”; “cripes” or “crikey” instead of “Christ”; “bloody” instead of “by Our Lady” (Mary).

No°33

This week’s question is about the word “morning”. Everyone thinks (because their teachers told them) that it means „ráno“. Well, English people might have agreed with you about 500 years ago, because at that time the words “morn” and “morning” were used to mean dawn (úsvit) and sunrise. Nowadays, though, people use the word all the way up to noon or midday, so there’s no problem at all in saying “Good morning” at 10 a.m. or even 11.30 a.m. (ante meridiem, or before midday). Watch out for Slovak dubbing of films such as Poirot in which the characters still say „Dobré ráno“ to each other even when they meet clearly after 8 am. If you connect „ráno“ and „ranná hodina“, however, you’ll see that „ráno“ means “early morning”, so don’t translate „Dobré ráno“ – think about „Dobré dopoludnie“ instead.

No°32

The question this week is about short English words that sound alike, e.g. “to land” and “to lend”, or “lend” and “lent”. The first issue is how to cope with them in speaking, and my answer is: Focus on the length of the vowel sound (dĺžka samohlásky). It’s like the difference between „súd“ and „sud“ in Slovak (Vychodniari, please try harder!). Say “la-and”, but say “lend”, and (relatively) say “le-end”, but say “lent”. Luckily we don’t often have to say these words close together – maybe only if the hotel beds are really bad (say ba-ad). The second issue is the meaning of the words, and here the answer is to learn TWO Slovak translations for each English word – so “lent” means „požičal(a)“, but “Lent” means „pôst“, forty days to Easter. Then think about the CONTEXT.

No°31

The question this week is about CHEESE – is it the same as Slovak „syr“? In the modern sense I’d say it’s the same – Edam or Eidam, blue cheese or Niva, Cheddar cheese, Parmesan – some of them are softer, some very hard, but they’ve all been PRESSED into shape. The Latin word „forma“ is the origin of the French „fromage“, but “cheese” comes from the Latin „caseus“, which meant “curd”. Pressed, dried curd is „tvaroh“ (tvar = forma), but that’s “cottage cheese” in English, because it’s easy enough to make at home, and fermented sheep curd is „bryndza“, but you can call it “sheep cheese” for simplicity. There is an old thieves’ slang expression “Cheese it!”, meaning “Stop it” (probably a distortion of “cease it”), but I’ve never heard anyone say it.

No°30

The question this week is: why do English-speakers use the phrase “How do you do” when introducing themselves? It must be to make life difficult for foreign students, who either think it means “How are you?” and answer politely “Very well, thank you” (but wrongly – an appropriate response is “Pleased to meet you”), or take it literally (doslova), like one of Walt Disney’s dwarfs responding to Snow White’s “How do you do” with “How do we do WHAT?” And Roxette’s song plays it both ways: “And I say… How do you do, do you do, the things that you do?” The point is that “How are you (doing)?” is a real question about our current, temporary state of health, whereas “How do you do” is a greeting phrase with general, timeless meaning.

No°29

The question this week is about English interjections, and how they are different from Slovak „citoslovcia“. Some of them are quite similar, e.g. when people feel pain, Slovaks say „aúú“, and English speakers say “ow” or “ouch” /auč/, or to get a baby to eat, Slovaks say „ham“, English speakers “yum” /jam/. Others are less similar, e.g. S „hopla“, E “whoops” /wups/, or S „bum“, E “bang”, and some are quite different, e.g. S „fíha“ or „jéj“, E “wow” /wau/, or S „hap-či“, E “a-tishoo”. S „fúj“ or „brr“ is E “yuck” /jak/, but E “brr” is ONLY for feeling cold. Animal noises are similar (múú/moo, or miaou/w), or different (haf-haf is bow-wow, and kikiriki is cock-a-doodle-doo). 

No°28

The question this week is whether I can find a Slovak equivalent for the English idiom “They are like peas and carrots” (literally „hrach a mrkva“), meaning two people who form a couple even though they are different, like friends who do things together, but they’re not twins – similar to “ebony and ivory”. Talk about difficult! There are Slovak idioms which suggest identity (ako vajce vajcu), or opposites that fight (ako pes a mačka), or typical combinations that don’t relate to people (hrom a blesk), but we need an idiom for Lasica and Satinský or Laurel and Hardy. So what about „zohraná dvojica“ or „jeden sa bez druhého nepohne“, or with the expressivity of dialect: „sú ako moj s moju“ (so what if they’re both men!).

No°27

The word faculty has developed many meanings over the centuries. The original Latin idea was power, not in the sense of moc or sila, but rather schopnosť, which could be mental as well as physical. Bodily faculties are the five physical senses and the ability to move our limbs, and mental faculties are the ability to think, understand, learn and reason. The idea of a group of people having these faculties and the ability to teach as well lies behind the American English understanding of faculty as the teaching staff at a university (a professor is a senior faculty member), whereas the European sense is part of the organizational structure of a university (TUKE originally started with three faculties). Other words for this meaning of faculty in UK or US unversities are department, division or school.

Best Wishes for Christmas

and the New Year to

All Readers

No°26

Long words derived from Latin roots are another sign (together with passive verb forms) of more formal style in written English. There are words ending in “ation”, with “ution”, “ition”, plain “tion” (production) and “sion” (division). In fact, although they are relatively long, they’re not really all that tricky. For one thing their pronunciation (there’s another one!) is quite standard, because the word stress is always on the syllable before “tion” – par-ti-ci- PA-tion, sa-tis-FAC-tion, dis-tri-BU-tion, pro-DUC-tion, di-VI-sion. For another thing, the meaning of these words is usually the same as the similar-looking words in Slovak (e.g. produkcia, exhibícia, orientácia). Occupation has two meanings, one reflected in okupácia, the other being zamestnanie. This goes against the general principle, which should normally be given priority, that words from Latin which are used in Slovak and in English have different meanings (e.g. nervózny IS NOT nervous, aktuálny IS NOT actual, akcia IS NOT action).

No°25

Passives again. Reminder - passive forms are used more frequently in English than in Slovak for four reasons: 1. To bring the grammatical object (Slovak koho/čoho, komu/čomu) into subject position (Slovak kto/čo) at the beginning of a sentence because the former is more important than the latter; 2. When the people responsible for an action are not known or much less important than the action itself; 3. To make a text more formal by putting it in impersonal style; and 4. To shorten a text by using passive participles alone instead of whole relative clauses (leaving out „which is“, „which were“ or „that has been“, for example).

Examples 1. The competition was entered, victory was won, Halo TU was informed; 2. This space is now filled, soughtafter raw material, new washer is brought into operation; 3. Plant is to be brought into use, return is expected; 4. Event named, show watched, campaign organized, system renovated, washer built, weekend spent. Be careful not to mix up the latter examples with the simple past tense!

No°24

Passive forms mostly serve to make the text more formal by keeping it impersonal, although in several cases the agent of the passive verb is revealed using the preposition „by“. This shows how the passive is used in English to make something else the subject of a sentence, putting it in a position of emphasis. Simple past forms (was set up, were organized, was attended, were expressed, was held) are required when the specific time or date of the event is mentioned. There can also be a „hidden“ simple past, where „was“ or “were” is omitted. Present forms may express state (are expected), a regular event (is put on) or a process happening round about now (are being made). Future references are also possible (to be carried out, will be ensured), and there are forms which look like passives (is located, are wellprepared) but they are really just those participles being used as adjectives, because no agent can be inferred in these cases. Many English passive expressions are translatable with „sa“ in Slovak.

No°23

Passive forms can be commonly found on the basis of the following participles: known, involved, completed, carried out, made, broken, set, expected, represented, informed, terminated and handed over. Passives should give a text generally a more formal tone, because what they do usually is eliminate unnecessary references to people in particular sentences, making the general style more impersonal and official. Sometimes the passive is followed by „by“, where for reasons of context it is important or interesting to mention the agent who carried out some action in each sentence, but otherwise what is more important is the subject of the whole sentence, and that comes at the beginning. Then the other, „small“ part of the passive form gives the tense: is/are for regular events or states with no time restriction; was/were for things that happened at specified times in the past; and has/have been for things happening in the past (recent, but with no specified time ) which have consequences in the present. Sometimes the small part is missing (such as “the artist formerly known as Prince”), to save space in places where the meaning is quite clear.

No°22

There is a traditional story about a little tailor who is peste­red­­ by flies in his workshop (which is a tradi­tional­­­ workshop, I must point out), until he makes a special­ fly-s­watter­­ out of cloth which enables­ him to kill seven of them with one blow or stroke („úder“). He feels so good about this achievement­ that he makes himself­ a T-shirt­ saying “Seven at one stroke”, and he goes and strolls down the main street wearing it. Even though he is stunted and puny („krpec slabučký“), the strong, hard men of the town judge him by their own values and persuade­ each other that the tailor­ has in fact punched out seven of their kind with one blow of his fist. After this they all want to be friends with him, just in case he decides to swat ano­ther seven of them. Even though this story is well known in Britain, however, the typical­ expression­ for solving two problems­ with one decision or action­ is not based on flies or strokes, but it is “to kill two birds with one stone”.

No°21

Not so much regarding words this time, but something on the use of capitals in English, which is partly governed by rules and partly by writers’ intentions. The rules include the use of capitals for proper names of people, places and countries, as in Slovak, but also for languages and nationalities, days and months, in contrast to Slovak. Examples might be “British English” or “American English”, or „What is the Slovak national dish?”, and then “Wednesday, March 14th”.  As far as writers’ intentions are concerned, there is a lot more freedom in English than in Slovak (or German, say). Capitals can be used to emphasize almost anything you want, so you find every big word in a long name or job title bearing a capital letter, and sometimes in newspaper headlines too. 

No°20

Again, not really tricky words so much as tricky orthography, or correct writing, as far as the use of capital letters in English is concerned. Some people might have the impression that half the words in newspapers start with capitals. This is because there are not so many rules for the use of capital letters in English as compared with Slovak, but they can be used to emphasize whatever the writer wants (almost). This means that capitals are surely used for proper names (Andy Warhol, Medzila­borce, Poland) and for the days of the week and months of the year, but also for titles (President, Vice President) and organizations (Annual General­ Meeting, Slovakian Metallurgical Society, Research and Testing Institute). The main difference here is that all the big words in the name get capital letters in English, compared with only the first word in the string in Slovak.

No°19

People regularly ask me if there are gypsies (pronounced /džipsiz/, and sometimes spelt gipsies) in Britain. There are some original ones, also called Romanies, proud people who still travel round the country in decorated caravans, practising various crafts. There are not so many of these, though, and this rather romantic image is spoilt by the sight of camps set up by other people called “travellers”,­ often on common land near motor­way junctions, with piles of scrap metal­ which brings in some income. People who follow this way of life don‘t want to be tied down with regular jobs, taxes, houses, mortgage repayments, even school education, and people­ living in towns and villages sometimes use bulldozers to push them away. There is an old English word for a type of road - turnpike - in the sense of „mýtna cesta“ or „hradská“ - and from this comes an offensive­ word for travellers - pikeys (pronounced /pájkiz/). Have a look at Brad Pitt in Guy Ritchie‘s film called “Snatch” (called “Podfu(c)k” here). 

No°18

In English football, the goal is the physical rectangle of wood and metal which the players try (aim) to kick the ball through (hence goalkeeper). Objective clearly comes from Latin, and there is a similar-looking word in Slovak, so you can be pretty sure they don’t mean the same. Slov. „objektív“ is Engl. “lens”, so in Slovak it’s what you look THROUGH, whereas in English it’s what you look AT. A target (NB pronunciation /tá-git/) is normally what you shoot at, so it’s what you try to hit. In English, the basic idea of aim is „namieriť“ or „zacieliť“, so the idea of „cieľ“ is a transferred sense. To use these four words properly in English, it’s best to understand them in order of magnitude. Aim is probably the “biggest” (the most general), then goal, then objective, and target is the “smallest” (the most speci­fic). Aims and goals tend to be abstract, while objectives and targets­ are more likely to be concrete (I mean­ quantified). In business, for example, a company‘s aim or goal might be to become the most successful producer of something, but its objective or target for this year should be to make a certain amount of operating profit. 

No°17

Several words can be affected in terms of their meaning, depending on whether they have an „-s“ on the end or not. The first thing to remember is that words ending in „-s“ are not always plural in meaning, For example „steelworks“, which should be treated as a singular word, i.e. the steelworks IS, WAS, HAS or SUPPLIES. Another example is „news“, which is not plural (even though the Slovak word is noviny or správy) but is uncountable, so it apparently takes the singular form, i.e. the news WAS depressing, or the news IS surprising. The opposite case is present in „premises“, which takes a plural verb form in the sense of „land and buildings,“ but changes its meaning completely in the singular, because „a premise“ is a statement of apparent fact or an assumption in logic or law. Other words which change their meaning are: „damage“ (škody) or „damages“ (odškodné); „scrap“ (šrot) or „scraps“ (zvyšky jedla); and „heat“ (teplo, horúčava) or „heats“ (tavby).

No°16

This week’s question is: If Slovaks say „na zdravie“ in connection with drinking and sneezing, why do English speakers say “Cheers” for drinking and “Bless you” for sneezing? The word “cheer” can mean “good mood” or “good humor”, which people usually want to get into by drinking alcoholic drinks, so they wish each other “cheers” for that purpose. “Bless you” is short for “May God bless you” („Nech Ťa Boh požehná“), because in the past sneezing could easily be an initial symptom of a potentially fatal disease, e.g. bubonic plague, so people started invoking God’s blessing to protect others from serious illness.

No°15

Sentence structure

For some reason there are several examples of how to combine ideas in sentences, using “also”, “as well” and “too” (not to mention “in addition”). The most important thing in using these expressions is their position in the sentence. “In addition” takes first place in a sentence, and may be followed by a  comma, like this: In addition, the University obtained a certificate at the end of last year… “Also” normally appears within the sentence, near the beginning, between the subject and the verb: The Dean also expressed his opinion … “As well” and “too” should be put at the end of the sentence, and they are less formal compared with the first two: After visiting the university campus and Technicom building, they looked around the Library as well (too).

No°14

Plan, scheme, schedule, itinerary, project. There is no word “harmonogram” in the Oxford English Dictionary, but a plan covers pretty much the same purpose, and if it is set out in a diagram or table it could be called a scheme.

This word also has a negative meaning, a plan to do something bad, and there is a modern form of it, a scam, usually meaning a plan to get money off people dishonestly. A schedule could be a plan with a timetable for implementation built in, like the construction schedule for a new building, and a plan for a journey with a timetable and the route together with stopping-points is an itinerary (aj-TINI-eri), like the description of a guided tour or excursion. The word project means much more than a plan in  English, as it makes the link between idea and practice, planning and realization. Projects should be completed, and then they can be evaluated and their results analyzed.

No°13

Summer may well be over, but the topic of (Slovak) turistika continues into the autumn. You have to think twice (as usual) translating this into English, and even more if you want the correct English for turista. If you mean peší turista, then DON'T say tourist. English speakers understand tourists as people on holiday traveling around in air-conditioned coaches on sight-seeing tours (poznávacie zájazdy), videoing everything and buying souvenirs everywhere. Peší turista is a walker, possibly a hill-walker. Long-distance walkers with rucksacks and tents are hikers. Weekend walkers going up to Lajoška for a picnic are ramblers, and people moving at a leisurely pace along Main Street in Košice on Sunday afternoon are strollers. Hiking is hard work, walking is normal, rambling is for fun and strolling is taking it easy.

No°12

Political correctness

The word „spouse“, which sometimes means husband and sometimes wife, makes me think of other nouns in English which refer to people without indicating whether they are men or women. Other examples are: manager, auditor, customer, worker, employee and pilot.

There is a tendency in English to find more and more of these „sexless“ words, such as „flight Attendant“ (instead of air hostess or stewardess) or „firefighter“ (instead of just fireman, because of the women in this profession nowadays), although the attempt to replace every instance of „man“ with „person“ has attracted some ridicule for being so clumsy, as in „chairperson“, for example. The idea is that words should not indicate the sex of the person involved unlessit is absolutely necessary, to cut down the potential for discriminatory assumptions, such as in the case of „hostess“, which in some situations could be understood practically as „prostitute“, as opposed to „host“, originally the masculine form, which has no such associations.

No°11

There are some more „false friends“ this week too, starting with „prospective“, meaning „hopeful“ or „aspiring“, which is rather different from „perspective“, which is the technique used in drawing and painting to create the illusion of distance by adjusting the relative sizes of objects and figures. „Prospects“ are somebody’s chances of future success, while the booklets you find in a travel agency presenting various companies’ package tour holidays are called „brochures“. There are two kinds of „prospectus“, both of them quite official: one is a booklet presenting a university for future students, outlining all the courses on offer, the entry requirements and various attractions that the place can offer, and the other is a booklet presenting a company which wants to sell its shares on the open market through a stock exchange for the first time, including recent financial statements, the business plan, an auditor’s opinion and other things which they hope will persuade potential investors to buy up all the shares at issue.

No°10

Realize - I would class this as another false friend, like „nervous“ and „actual“ and so many other words that come from Latin and are used in English and in Slovak, looking very similar (which is what makes them appear as friends) but usually having DIFFERENT meanings (which is what makes them false). In modern, informal English, „realize“ means „suddenly to understand that something is real or true“, as in „I realized they were joking when I saw them wink at each other“. You can find other meanings of „realize“ in dictionaries, much closer to the Slovak sense of „realizovať“, so they’re not wrong, but they tend to be technical, like in financial English: „We realized nine million euros on the sale of the limousines“, or „They were unable to realize the value of their property because of the slump in house prices“. Talking about projects, plans or events, though, there are other English words available that are better than „realize“, like „implement“, „carry out“ or „complete“, if only to break away from the boredom of slavish, literal translation.

No°9

The issue of singular versus plural comes up again. First the word information, which usually has a plural form in Slovak but (and this is a reminder!) is uncountable in English, which means that it always looks like a singular form, so the following verb is singular too. Then the word data, which some English speakers treat as a plural (which is strictly true according to its Latin origin, one datum and several data), but most I think would use as an uncountable noun like information, so again with a singular verb. Next there is profit, and while the Slovak zisk is usually singular, in English it is common enough to find the plural form profits in business texts - it is up to the writer, and the only rule is to get the following verb in the corresponding singular or plural form. Finally there is the word strip (or I could have used kit), which is uncountable in English, whereas the Slovak dres can also be used in the plural form „dresy“. In fact strip means the player’s whole outfit - shirt, shorts and socks (and helmet). And another reminder: NEVER EVER say in English that hockey (or football) players wear dresses. They wear SHIRTS or JERSEYS.

No°8

Several words can be affected in terms of their meaning, depending on whether they have an „-s“ on the end or not. The first thing to remember is that words ending in „-s“ are not always plural in meaning, for example “steelworks“, which should be treated as a singular word, i.e. the steelworks IS, WAS, HAS or SUPPLIES. Another example is „news“, which is not plural (even though the Slovak word is noviny or správy) but is uncountable, so it apparently takes the singular form, i.e. the news WAS depressing, or the news IS surprising. The opposite case is present in „premises“, which takes a plural verb form in the sense of „land and buildings“, but changes its meaning completely in the singular, because „a premise“ is a statement of apparent fact or an assumption in logic or law. Other words which change their meaning are: “damage“ (škody) or „damages“ (odškodné); „scrap“ (šrot) or „scraps“ (zvyšky jedla); and „heat“ (teplo, horúčava) or „heats“ (tavby).

No°7

Singular or plural?
There is a group of words in English which are singular in themselves grammatically, but which can be used effectively in sentences like plurals, if need be, because they all indicate groups of people. These are words like company, team, staff, government, band or family. The following examples are quite typical: „All the family are coming“; „The band were fantastic“; „The government are a complete shower of space-wasting no-hopers“; „The staff have decided to protest“; „Our team stand (or stands) a good chance of gaining promotion“; „The company have (or has) decided to sell off several subsidiaries“. This use of singular nouns as if they were plurals is more typical of informal style, especially in spoken English.

No°6

One word is tricky enough, and that is „worth“. This has come into the English language from the German „wert“, and the idea behind it is the same as „value“. But „worth“ cannot simply be substituted for „value“ in sentences, and the best thing is to learn some special phrases using „worth“. Sometimes it can function as a noun, for example in such expressions as: „The company’s net worth (the sum of its share capital and reserves) was put at $3.4 billion. „More often though it is used as an adjective, but it comes after the noun which it qualifies, e.g. „The crown holds a diamond worth $2 million.“ Or: „I found out my collection of Sex Pistols records was worth $2000.“ Slovak equivalents are based on variations of the expression „mať hodnotu“. Useful phrases include: „It isn’t worth it,“ („Nemá to cenu,“ „Neoplatí sa.“), „What’s it worth?“ (normally: „Akú to má cenu?“ but also as a cynical response to someone’s request: „A čo za to?“), and „It must be worth a fortune!“ („Určite to stojí celý majetok.“)

No°5

Evaluation, valuation, assessment, appraisal, appreciation. The root words here are "value" and "price", apart from in assessment, which comes from the session (sitting) of a court for calculating taxes, levies or fines (the idea of "výmera" rather than "hodnota" or "cena"). Valuation is typical for property, especially houses but also used cars or gold jewellery, but not typical for people. Evaluation and assessment are more abstract, for the results of a project or somebody’s performance which can be expressed in values, i.e. figures or percentages. Appraisal and appreciation are more likely to be expressed in words, and they are more concerned with subjective judgements. Appraisal is a real buzz-word („má zvuk“) for managers, teachers and soldiers in Britain these days, as an assessment procedure involving line managers reporting on subordinates’ performance, then giving them individual consultations to talk about the report and formulate a plan for their future improvement. Appreciation is so subjective that its meaning has stretched to include "liking" and "understanding", e.g.: "I really appreciated that bouquet of flowers - thank you so much." or "I  know you’re tired – I appreciate that - but we have to finish this work." That reminds me - Child: "I don’t want to go to America." Parents: "Shut up and keep swimming."

No°4

Each and every – both translatable as každé in Slovak, so what’s the difference in English? In grammatical terms they’re both singular, so they can only be used with countable nouns (one storey, twelve storeys, each and every storey) – if you’re using uncountables or plurals you have to say “all” (all the space, all the floors). Each means each one separately – “Live each day as if it’s your last,” or “They won half a million euros each”– whereas every means one by one, but includes all of them – “I meet him every morning at the tram stop, and he’s wearing the same clothes every time.”Each person is basically každý, and everybody/everyone is všetci – only remember that všetci sú, všetci chcú in Slovak, but everybody IS and everyone WANTS in English.

No°3

Working lunches make me think about meals generally. The thing to remember about meals is that they are at particular times of day, so breakfast is usually in the early morning, lunch is always around midday, tea is in the afternoon, supper is just before going to bed, and dinner is the really tricky one, because for many people in Britain (factory workers, schoolchildren) it is the meal which they have around midday, but for many other people (professional people, company managers) it is their evening meal. They might even have a formal dinner with a minimum of three courses - starter, main course and dessert. The point is that, whether people have it earlier or later, dinner is always the main, cooked meal of the day.

No°2

Photograph, picture, scene, study, shot, snap. The first thing to remember is that the English “photograph” /FOUtegráf/ means the image, the picture, and not the person who takes it, who is a photographer – and note the different pronunciation: /f’TOGrefe/. A photograph is a type of picture (another could be a painting or a drawing), and scene or study are more formal words for a picture. A scene could be a group of people or things arranged in a photo so as to suggest that some sort of action is going on. A study on the other hand could be a carefully-chosen combination of colours and shapes that makes something ordinary look unusual, like an abstract painting for example. A shot suggests the presence of some action too, or a photo that is taken quickly (“mugshot” is slang for the full-face and profile pictures of criminals taken by the police), while snap or snapshot is the most informal (the word imitates the sound of the camera shutter) and is typically used to refer to holiday photographs.

No°1

I’ve been asked to look at the topic of Requests (prosby) again, because of a fundamental difference between Slovak and English usage. You need to be careful, because I suspect that word-for-word translations of typical Slovak forms could or might irritate English speakers, depending on who they are and the situation at hand. Slovak speakers use imperative forms in requests, and this is quite acceptable, e. g. "Zapni telku, prosím ťa", or very common variations on "Buďte taký láskavý" or "Buď tak dobrá". Direct translations of these expressions might irritate English speakers because they may sound too commanding (rozkazovačne) or condescending (povýšenecky). It’s better to use question forms in English, like "Can you switch the TV on, please?" and the very useful phrase "Would you mind…?"