by Dwane | Mar 27, 2023 | Education, Vocabulary
Voilà came up in class this morning as we were reading through Le Français par la Métode Nature. Voilà is a French expression meaning “Here it is”, “See there” or “Look there”. Ultimately, voilà derives from Latin videre (to see)...
by Dwane | Feb 8, 2023 | Education, Healthy, Tip of the Week, Wise
Sometimes, after studying languages all day, I just want to sit on the couch and not think for a while and watch a great movie. Unfortunately, there is so much filth and junk out there, I often end up searching for a movie instead of actually watching a movie. To help...
by Dwane | Jan 10, 2023 | Education, English, Vocabulary
Criticize: to find fault; to point out flaws real or perceived I took some time off for Christmas and New Year. No one criticized me. Pretty impressive, guys. You could be nicer than you think you are. Criticize comes from the Greek word χριτιχός (kritikos)...
by Dwane | Dec 17, 2022 | Education, English, Vocabulary
This week, one of my students translated egg nog into French. She ended up with the phrase: lait de poule. Lait is French for milk, and poule is French for hen. Put the two together and you get, “hen milk”. Um. This threw me for a loop. I started wondering,...
by Dwane | Dec 9, 2022 | Education, English, Vocabulary
Ever wondered why some cities have ‘ham’ attached to their names? Birmingham, Nottingham, Gotham, Buckingham, and even Hampshire? The Old English word for home or homestead is ‘ham.’ ‘Ham’ is also the source of our English word ‘home.’ As the three little pigs said,...
by Dwane | Dec 8, 2022 | Education, English, Vocabulary
A few days ago, one of my students asked where the eight tiny reindeer got their names. I knew there were some German names in there, but beyond that, I was not sure. So, I went looking. The reindeer first show up in a poem by Clement C. Moore. Mr. Moore wrote A...
