LEARN ENGLISH THROUGH POETRY

Funny poem for children :)

By Kenn Nesbitt

I'm growing a truck in the garden.
It's true, though it may sound bizarre.
I'm growing a bus and an airplane,
a rocket, a boat, and a car.
I planted them yesterday morning.
I'm sure they'll be sprouting up soon.
I'll water them all every morning,
and care for them each afternoon.
My mother said, "Let's plant a garden,"
for gardens are one of her joys,
but I didn't have any plant seeds
so that's why I planted my toys.

Funny Tongue Twisters to Help You Learn English

Have fun ;)

Peter Piper picked a pack of pickeled pepper. If Peter Piper picked a pack of pickeled pepper, where's the pack of pickeled pepper Peter Piper picked?

A driver drives a drivers driven car for taking test drive of the drivers car driven car.

Benny bought a bit of butter but the butter was so bitter so she bought a better butter to make the bitter butter better.

If you understand say I understand, if you don't understand say I don't understand, but if you don't understand and say I understand then how will I understand that you understand.

Mr. See owned a saw.
And Mr. Soar owned a seesaw.
Now, See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw
Before Soar saw See,
Which made Soar sore.
Had Soar seen See's saw
Before See sawed Soar's seesaw,
See's saw would not have sawed
Soar's seesaw.
So See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw.
But it was sad to see Soar so sore
just because See's saw sawed
Soar's seesaw.

How to make friends...

Today is Saint Valentine's Day. It's a day to celebrate friendship and love. On this occasion I'd like to share with you this...

"The Little Prince"

by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Chapter 21

It was then that the fox appeared.

"Good morning," said the fox.

"Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing.

"I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree."

"Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at."

"I am a fox," the fox said.

"Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy."

"I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed."

"Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince.

But, after some thought, he added:

"What does that mean--'tame'?"

"You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?"

"I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--'tame'?"

"Men," said the fox. "They have guns, and they hunt. It is very disturbing. They also raise chickens. These are their only interests. Are you looking for chickens?"

"No," said the little prince. "I am looking for friends. What does that mean--'tame'?"

"It is an act too often neglected," said the fox. It means to establish ties."

"'To establish ties'?"

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world . . ."

"I am beginning to understand," said the little prince. "There is a flower . . . I think that she has tamed me . . ."

"It is possible," said the fox. "On the Earth one sees all sorts of things."

"Oh, but this is not on the Earth!" said the little prince.

The fox seemed perplexed, and very curious.

"On another planet?"

"Yes."

"Are there hunters on that planet?"

"No."

"Ah, that is interesting! Are there chickens?"

"No."

"Nothing is perfect," sighed the fox.

But he came back to his idea.

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat . . ."

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please--tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me . . ."

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day . . ."

The next day the little prince came back.

"It would have been better to come back at the same hour," said the fox. "If, for example, you come at four o'clock in the afternoon, then at three o'clock I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o'clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart is to be ready to greet you . . . One must observe the proper rites . . ."

"What is a rite?" asked the little prince.

"Those also are actions too often neglected," said the fox. "They are what make one day different from other days, one hour from other hours. There is a rite, for example, among my hunters. Every Thursday they dance with the village girls. So Thursday is a wonderful day for me! I can take a walk as far as the vineyards. But if the hunters danced at just any time, every day would be like every other day, and I should never have any vacation at all."

So the little prince tamed the fox. And when the hour of his departure drew near--

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you . . ."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added:

"Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."

And the roses were very much embarassed.

"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or ever sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.
And he went back to meet the fox.

"Goodbye," he said.

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose . . ."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Improve Your English

This poem is composed by Dr. Gerard Nolst Trenité (1870-1946), a Dutch author and teacher. "The Chaos" illustrates many of the irregularities of English spelling and pronunciation.


The Chaos
Gerard Nolst Trenité

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it's written.)

Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation's Ok
When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamor
And enamor rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangor.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loath.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succor, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation -- think of Psyche!
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won't it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?

It's a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough?
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is give it up!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqxoWYDZg30

In Guardia Parade

If you wish to learn more about Malta’s history and are looking for an interesting event to see, you should visit the In Guardia Parade. It’s held in the capital of Malta, Valletta. This show is a re-enactment of historical event that took place regularly inside of the fortification of Fort St. Elmo.

The re-enactment shows in Fort St. Elmo’s “Place of Arms” take place on several different dates each year. During the 40 minute show the audience will step back in time and witness the authentic inspection of the fort and its garrison by a high-ranking officer Grand Bailiff of the Order of the Knights of St. John in charge of military affairs. More than 70 re-enactors will be dressed as solders and knights wearing 16^th century style costumes and perform a military drill demonstrating to the Grand Bailiff the garrison’s state of readiness in the event of military threat. This re-enactment show is like a colourful portrait of the 16^th century military history including dress, drills and cannon firing.

Visiting the In Guardia Parade gives you a perfect opportunity to visit the Fort of St. Elmo which otherwise is closed to the public. The fort is open to the visitors to see only prior to the re-enactment, so if you wish to take a tour around the fort, you should enter the fort well before the show starts.

The “In Guardia Parade” is staged by the Malta Tourism Authority and it alternates with another military re-enactment called “Alarme!”.

2012 re-enactments Schedule at Fort St. Elmo:

Feb 5, 12, 26

March 4, 11, 25

April 1, 15, 22, 29

May 6, 13, 27

June 3, 10, 17, 24

July 1, 8

Sep 23, 30

Oct 7, 14, 28

Nov 4, 11, 25

Dec 30

All shows start at 11.00.

Tickets can be purchased at the gate and cost 7 Euros for adults and 3 Euros for children (6-12 years) and students.

Maltese Carnival

Malta is predominantly a Roman Catholic country and as a result the yearly calendar is generously scheduled with public holidays and festas (a feast, festival). A festa is the time of food, song, camaraderie ( a feeling of good friendship among the people in a group) and having fun, as most Christian celebrations are.

One of these religious festivals is Carnival which is held between February and March a huge Carnival is celebrated in Malta. It has an important place on the Maltese cultural calendar and has been celebrated since the 15^th century.

Originally, Catholics were not allowed to eat meat during the 40 days of Lent. Carnival was the tradition to hold a merriment celebration the day before Lenten days and got its name from the Latin "carne levare" , which means putting away the meat because of the Lent.

Carnival received a major boost after having been introduced to the Islands by Grand Master Piero de Ponte in 1535, five years after the Knights of St. John arrived in Malta.

Carnival is held during the week leading up to Ash Wednesday. It’s a whole week of fun including colourful floats, fancy mask and dress competitions, marching bands and costumed revellers.

Up until 1751, carnival was held exclusively in Valletta and lasted for three days. Around 1752 the Carnival was extended to five days.

By time the Carnival popularity increased and more people participated in the event.

Nowadays you can find people celebrating Carnival in every corner of the islands but the largest of today’s Maltese Carnival celebrations are still held in the capital city of Valletta and its surroundings.

The Nadur Carnival in Gozo is very popular amongst younger generation as it is known for its darker themes.

The Valletta Carnival is usually opened with a light-hearted sword dance called Parata (re-enactment of the 1565 victory of the Knights over the Turks).

Traditional Carnival food includes perlini (multi-coloured, sugar-coated almonds) and the prinjolata (towering assembly of sponge cake, biscuits, almonds and citrus fruits, topped with cream and pine nuts).

Join the celebrations of this years Carnival, held in the cities of Valletta and Nadur from February 17^th – February 21^st 2012. Have some fun and experience Maltese festa.

Cambridge Exam Preparation Courses

The Cambridge ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) qualifications are recognised by thousands of employers, universities, and colleges worldwide and accepted in over 130 countries. inlingua Malta is and authorized open centre for the Cambridge ESOL Examinations here in Malta. Students have the added advantage of preparing for the Exam held in March, June, August or December on the actual Examination premises.

We will prepare you for FCE, CAE, CPE, PET or KET Examinations. This course in a minimum of 8 weeks and is the ideal certification for your professional and academic life. An advantage of the Cambridge exam is the livelong validity. The Cambridge exams are sequential but you can also enter on a higher level.

Course includes:
30 Group Lessons per week targeted at Exam preparation
Minimum 8 week duration
Maximum 10 Students per class

Courses starting at inlingua Malta in 2012:

FCE Exam Package Recommended Level: Upper Intermediate
16 January; 16 April; 25 June; 15 October

CAE Exam Package Recommended Level: Advanced:
23 January; 16 April; 25 June; 8 October

CPE Exam Package Recommended Level: Proficiency
16 January; 16 April; 8 October

Standard Season
Cambridge Exam preparation Course (8 weeks) = €1400
inlingua Residence Accommodation (8 weeks) = €714

High Season
Cambridge Exam preparation Course (8 weeks) = €1840
inlingua Residence Accommodation (8 weeks) = €1134

inlingua Registration Fee and Cambridge Exam Registration Fee are not included in the price
*The inlingua Residence is situated in St.Julians

For further information visit: http://www.inlinguamalta.com/frontpage/cambridge-exam-special-offer/

Or send and email to: info@inlinguamalta.com and book your preparation course today!

Home is where the heart is...

From time to time life tends to be unpredictable. It makes its twists and turns of fate when we never see them coming. Taking us to places where we never imagined going to.

Sometimes it takes us somewhere nice. Other times you wish you would have missed the ride.

My twist of fate brought me here to Malta and I’m enjoying my ride.

If someone had told me on that sunny day in September when I stepped off the plane in Luqa airport that 4 months later I’d be here in Malta I probably would have laughed. But that’s the reality. Autumn passed, then Christmas, year 2011 became 2012…and me – well I’m still here without signs of leaving. Instead of leaving, I’m settling down – working here at inlingua Malta, meeting new people almost every day, discovering this small but beautiful country, enjoying Maltese winter and its unpredictable weather.

My main reason for staying is not the breathtaking landscapes but people. The kind of people who make you feel as if you were at home – warm, welcoming and helpful.

We never know what tomorrow brings but as long as it lasts I’m trying to make the most out of every day here – enjoying myself and the people that surround me.

They say: "Home is where the heart is." – in that case, I guess, I have to split mine in two because part of it is always with my family and friends back home and the other part of it seems be here in Malta.

Greetings to all my loved ones in Estonia and a big thank you to those who have made me feel welcome here in Malta .

Merili

Marketing Representative at inlingua Malta