Ken Lee

If you are still alive after Halloween and the Day of the Dead, here is something to kill you. Just how far bad English can take you: the "Ken Lee" phenomenon. And the Bulgarian protagonist lives in Spain. Just in case, don't copy her pronunciation:

In the next video you can read (using the subtitles, unless you speak Bulgarian, of course) how the singer managed to achieve such pronunciation. In spite of everything, I would not reject the method, but I would suggest you refine it a little bit after the first steps (phonetics might help here). Oh, and watch out for some mistakes in the subtitles (at least they do not affect communication):

By the way, here is the original song with the "right" pronunciation. Please, learn this if any:

The Day of the Dead at the British Museum

Coinciding with the exhibition about "Moctezuma, Aztec Ruler", the British Museum will celebrate the "Day of the Dead" on Sunday 1st November, just after Halloween, in the way Mexicans do. Click on the picture to see how:

The English Blog

The English Blog, by Jeffrey Hill, is in my list of favourite blogs and the following post is a good example of why. Of course, on top of the interesting posts, there are excellent links and resources for students of English:

AKINATOR: Who is it game? (elementary)

Time for a game.

This is the classic yes/no question game to guess the identity of a famous person? But this time you play against the computer.

The surprising thing is that you think about the person and "Akinator" asks the questions and guesses. Why don't you have a go? You might be able to beat Akinator.

Click on the picture and then on Play. Introduce a name (or nickname), your age and gender. Think of a real famous character and click on Play again. Tip: Try with easy characters first and then make it a bit more difficult for Akinator. You'll be surprised!

Please, write a comment if you found this link useful.

In The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy,

a "mega-selling cult classic", as defined on the back of the 2009 McMillan edition of the 1.979 humorous novel by Douglas Adams, Bethselamin is mentioned as a "fabulously beautiful planet" affected by one of our modern diseases: tourism.



Adams describes the situation as follows: "Bethselamin is now so worried about the cumulative erosion by ten billion visiting tourists a year that any net imbalance between the amount you eat and the amount you excrete whilst on the planet is surgically removed from your bodyweight when you leave: so every time you go to the lavatory there it is vitally important to get a receipt".



Today, The Independent publishes a piece of news about monuments in danger in the UK and, although tourism may also play an important role, it is not always the main cause. Click on the image to read the article.

At the end of the article you can find that the organization who "watches" over monuments in danger gives a list of their World Monuments Watch for 2010. Among them, the historical landscape of Seville is included, but this time it is not tourism the main cause of danger. Can you guess what it is? Click on the following link to find out:

What's your opinion about it?