Joey Barton English/French?

I wasn't intending to write a post today but couldn't resist after reading this BBC article and hearing the footballer Joey Barton (from Liverpool) speaking English in a "French" accent.

After years of nothing but trouble in the UK (both on and off the pitch), this season he has moved to the south of France to play for Marseille. In the very international world of modern football Barton must have played alongside numerous foreign teammates who had to struggle with English (and generally have made fantastically impressive attempts). Poor Joey seems to think that by speaking with a French accent and making basic grammatical errors (!) French journalists will understand him better.  It's quite sweet of him really.

Here is a transcript with the errors and unnatural phrases in red - if you're learning English perhaps you can identify the problems and improve Joey's English!

You can listen to the interview here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/20509103

Yesterday I make one tackle and all everybody speak about is this tackle. Nobody speaks about the 50-yard pass that kills Balmont and it causes a red card for him. And nobody talks about the shot that Landrew would have been happy to see, you know he didn’t see the ball never mind have a chance to save it. So for me it’s important that people talk about the qualities I bring as a footballer, and I’m a little bit bored, y’know from the English media, hopefully the French media have…has more about it than the English media and concentrate on stupid little incidents like this. For me I think my best position is deep-lying midfielder,  y’know, because I have good engine to stop attacks, I can tackle and also I think from this position, certainly in France,  I’m….very dangerous because I have a good pass from distance, you know, as I’ve shown in games before if I can play in a deep position and take the ball – an’ I have players with the quality of Ayew, the Ayew brothers, Gignac when he comes back,  Valbuena, Amalfitano - if I can get the ball in a deep position it’s a big problem for teams in France.

Of course grading your language (selecting your language to be appropriate for the level of the audience with whom your speaking) is something all (good) teachers do.  Here's another interesting BBC article about "speech accomodation" - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20508309 

Present Perfect - Part 01

"He's worked here for ages."

This week's post is a wee bit of grammar to get you all excited over the weekend - the Present Perfect! Woohoo! Hang on to your hats!
This is just part 1 of what will be three thrilling lessons which look at the different ways we use the Present Perfect (or don't if you're American).

I taught in Berlin for a couple of years and basically just taught the Present Perfect all day, every day. It was as if the entire tense had been invented just to frustrate and annoy German speakers, for whom no grammatical equivalent exists. The school had a large collection of audio cassettes (yes, cutting edge technology I know) and I soon realised that in Germany it was generally unecessary to rewind or forward the various tapes to the place you required as they tended to already be at the correct unit - because the unit was always the Present Perfect, and whoever had last used the cassettes... well they had of course also only been teaching the Present Perfect etc etc.

Years before that, in Spain, I had a one-to-one student, a bank manager who wore a camel hair coat over his shoulders like a mafia don, tell me that the Present Perfect was stupid and unnecessary. I have often thought about that since then (ooh look! "I have often thought..."!) and it always makes me smile. So Señor Venegas, this one's for you!

There is also a worksheet which you can download for free here It has lots of extra exercises (and answers):
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1LCyaQkPPAhRUhzMDJ1ak14ZmM

If you want to do me a favour in return you can also go and "Like" my Facebook page here:
https://www.facebook.com/londonenglishclasses1?ref=hl
(I'm not sure why, I'm still waiting to find out the reason, but apparently it's important.)

Part 2 coming soon!

Animals

male/female/baby animals

Here's a table to really test your vocabulary (this might even be tough for teachers!). You can find the answers on the worksheet. 

I've left out some of the more ridiculously obscure words (i.e. on the conceited basis that if I haven't heard of the word, nobody has).

Similes

I expect that every language makes good use of animals in their idioms – they’re pretty useful things to compare ourselves to.

Can you match these similes with the correct animal? I guess most of them make sense but one of them really doesn't so I’ve given you some help with the picture! (answers on the worksheet)

  peacock   fox   mouse   dog   bee   mule  pig   bird   ox   bat

1)  As stubborn as a…

2)  As blind as a…

3)  As greedy as a…

4)  As sick as a…

5)  As free as a…                      

6)  As sly/cunning as a…

7)  As strong as a…

8)  As proud as a…

9)  As quiet as a…

10) As busy as a…

Idioms

Of course there are many animal-related idiomatic expressions in English - I think these are the most common/useful.

to kill two birds with one stone - to save time/effort by doing jobs at the same time.

to have butterflies in your stomach - to feel nervous/excited

to be pig-headed - to be obstinate/stubborn

to let the cat out of the bag - to reveal a secret (when you shouldn't)

to go at a snail's pace - at annoyingly slow speed

to make a mountain out of a molehill - to overreact, to act as if something is more important than it really is.

Despite what numerous vocabulary books might say, one thing that no native speaker ever says is "it's raining cats and dogs" - but I will address this pet hate (no pun intended) in another post!

I'm always interested to hear what similar (or different) idioms or similes you have in your language if you want to leave some in the comments below.

And to finish, predictably, here is a little clip - even if you're one of the 122 million people (and counting) who've already seen it, you must surely want to see it one more time...don't you?

A worksheet for teachers (and students) with exercises and answers for all the above vocabulary can be downloaded for free here: https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B1LCyaQkPPAhRklDRWZPUE5rRnM