One of the evening tv specials had a Japanese title, and an English title for that extra special touch.

The show was mostly about a 19 year old policewoman, who is working in an area with bars and whatnot, so she's seeing some of the best drunks around. Also a mother and daughter team working in a grocery store, picking up shoplifters. And a woman ( Read more... )

I'm not sure how helpful this will be for anyone who is trying to learn English as a second language, but I think for those of us who have been scarred by the ordinary approach to teaching English grammar, you might find these postings useful. Suzette Hayden Elgin is a professional linguist, and she is posting pieces from her course on English ( Read more... )

That was kind of interesting. Last evening we had dinner with a Japanese postdoc who works fairly hard on his English. While we were talking, he admitted to being puzzled about the difference between Halloween and Thanksgiving. Mitsuko (my wife) and I took a moment or two to catch on, and then double-checked. Sure enough, he thought they were the ( Read more... )

Kind of fun (that means I scored well, doesn't it?). Anyway, you can try it at http://www.helloquizzy.com/tests/the-commonly-confused-words-test
( My results )

Just a vagrant itch in an episode of Monk that I saw recently. Sort of a grammatical issue. Which I know I should ignore, but...
( little bits )