イントロ

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today's mistake comes from The Daily English Show.

On last Friday’s show, in the conversation, I talked about the black stuff that is outside my apartment building. And I called it “ash-felt”.
And then when I was editing the show I looked the word up in the dictionary to check the spelling and I discovered that it's actually supposed to be pronounced “as-felt”.

I was surprised because I think I've been saying “ash-felt” all my life. And I wondered is it just me, or do other people say it like that as well? So I did a search for asphalt spelt incorrectly ... and it came up with a lot of results, so I don't think it is just me. And Hikosaemon left a comment saying that he pronounced it like that too and maybe it's a Kiwi thing?
So I wonder, how do you pronounce this word? And have you ever heard anyone say “ash-felt” before?

Today I also thought I'd tell you about my latest language learning experiment.
Last month, in June, I did a vlogging experiment. And that was about making mistakes and learning from the mistakes. And I asked people to help me and correct my Japanese and a lot of people were kind enough to help me.

This month I’ve been doing another experiment. And this time it's not about learning from mistakes and I'm not asking anyone to correct my mistakes.

This time it's about writing and just writing for pleasure and enjoying the language. So, I opened a new twitter account for this experiment, which is going to be for one month and I started at the start of July. And the rule is every day I have to write five tweets or updates. And I'm not worrying at all about whether my Japanese is perfect or not. It's just about really trying to enjoy using the language.

And it's been going really well, I’ve been enjoying it and I think this is another good exercise for language learning. Of course, sometimes it is really useful to try and write perfect sentences and learn from your mistakes but I think sometimes it’s also useful to not worry about that at all and just relax and enjoy the language.

So feel free to check out what I've been writing on Twitter if you can read Japanese. Although even if you can read Japanese, you probably won't be able to understand half of what I've written, because half of it’s just me making stupid jokes that no one can understand except me.







click here

A few days ago snowblanco left a comment recommending a site called e yep.

Thank you for telling me about that site. I went and checked it out and it’s really good. It’s a site for kids with a whole lot of songs and stories and games. I read a story called Billy the Bully which I thought was good.

So go and check that site out. And if you have a site that you recommend, please leave a comment or send me an email.







STICK NEWS

Kia ora, in Stick News today, a woman’s attempt to smuggle cocaine into the United Kingdom failed because she didn’t know what a handicap was.


A 23-year-old English girl arrived at Manchester Airport with some golf clubs.
Airport staff asked her what her handicap was and she apparently thought they were questioning her about a disability.
Customs officials then checked inside the clubs and found £83,000 worth of cocaine.
The girl is now going to spend the next four years in prison.

And that was Stick News for Wednesday 15th of July.
Kia ora.

'What's your handicap?' Drug mule with £83,000 cocaine hidden in golf clubs is caught out by airport staff

today's STICK NEWS pictures







Word of the Day

Today’s word is handicap.

Do you know what a handicap is?

I don’t play golf and I don’t know much about it. But I know that a handicap is some kind of number and people who play golf usually ask each other, “What’s your handicap?” And then they make a comment on how impressive that is.

So what does the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary say about a handicap in golf?

An advantage given to a weaker player so that competition is more equal when they play against a stronger player. It is expressed as a number related to the number of times a player hits the ball and gets lower as he/she improves.







conversations with sarah

　How many followers do you have?

Billy
How many followers do you have?
何人からフォローされてますか？

Sarah
On my new Twitter account?
私の日本語ツイッター？

Billy
Yeah.

Sarah
Ah, one.
一人です。

Billy
Only one? What a loser!
たった一人？　残念！

Sarah
Yeah. Actually, I have about five I think, but most of them are just spam.
実は５人いたんだけど、スパムでした。

Billy
What do you mean?
どーゆーことですか？

Sarah
I mean, they're not following me because they actually want to read what I've written.
私が書くことに興味があるのではなく、彼らが書くことを読んでもらいたいのが目的の人たち。

Billy
Then why would they follow you?
なぜそのような人たちがあなたをフォローする？

Sarah
Because they want me to follow them back or go and check out their site and then hopefully buy whatever they're selling.
彼らは私がフォローし返しするかもしれない期待、または彼らのサイトをチェックして何かを買ってくれるかも知れないからでしょう。

Billy
Does it work?
うまく行くのでしょうか？

Sarah
Yeah, I guess so, otherwise they wouldn't do it. Doesn't really work on me though.
行くからやるんじゃないでしょうか。　私には効果ゼロですけどね。






サラのメモ：
How do you pronounce asphalt? Have you heard anyone say "ash + felt" before?

I did a bit of a search online and found people saying that "It was a Michigan thing" and that "many Canadians" say it with the sh sound.
(See blog for links).

Hikosaemon
http://www.youtube.com/hikosaemon

"I think it is a Michigan thing because it seems like everyone says it."
Comment from this blog.

Many Canadians pronounce asphalt as "ash-falt" /ˈæʃfɒlt/.This pronunciation is also common in Australian English, but not in General American English or British English.
Canadian English - Wikipedia

Asphalt, Male, British English (Howjsay)

Male, Canada asphalt
Male, US asphalt

How do you pronounce asphalt? ABC (Australian TV)

"It's not pronounced ASH-phalt. It's just not."
Home Envy





Show 1091 Wednesday 15 July
The Daily English Show
http://www.thedailyenglishshow.com/

テーマ: 英語・英会話学習 - ジャンル:学校・教育

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