English Tips Self-Taught

sexta-feira, 1 de outubro de 2010

Podenglish, lesson 52, health problem

Welcome To Potatoland

Language Level: Basic
Standard American Accent

The Maine Potato Blossom's Festival takes place every year in Fort Fairfield, a small town in Aroostook County, Maine, on the US border with Canada. Fort Fairfield is simply beautiful in July: visitors come over the hills into Aroostook County to see field after field potato's plants and their blossoming flowers.

The programme begins on Tuesday, July 11th with a Gospel Music Festival. This is followed by beauty contests for for all ages; there is a bicycle rodeo and a five-mile walking race; there are cooking contest for the best potato recipe and the best pie; there are street dances and barbecues. The festival parade takes place on Saturday, July 21st and on Sunday, 22nd there's a horse show, a regatta and a duck race on the river. The festival ends in real style, with music and fireworks over the River Aroostook. And we musn't forget the mashed potato wrestling: the men watch and eat, while the women battle in a giant mashed-potato ring!

Glossary:

Potato Blossom: Floração da batata Inglesa

Cooking Contest: Concurso de Cozinha

Recipe: Receita

Fireworks: Fogos de Artifícios

Mashed potato wrestling: Luta Livre no purê.

Period: De época

Settlers: Pioneiros

Travel Information (no audio available)

The French Connection

28 miles (44 km) North of Fort Fairfield you'll find Van Buren. This is home to "Acadian Village", with original period buildings, including a chapel, school house and village store. The Acadians, who were French settlers, came to the area in the 18th century after the English government had deported them from Nova Scotia, Canada.

A short drive across the border into Canadá and you'll find Grand falls, New Brunswick (above, left). Today you can across the border into Canada without any problems, but in 18th century this land almost caused a war. US and British Settlers both claimed the area: fortunately, their government agreed on today's borders and avoided a war.

Support Zacharias, contribute, please

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Computers Terms

WORDS AND THEIR STORIES: COMPUTER TERMS

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Computer technology has become a major part of people's lives. This technology has its own special words. One example is the wordmouse. A computer mouse is not a small animal that lives in buildings and open fields. It is a small device that you move around on a flat surface in front of a computer. The mouse moves the pointer, or cursor, on the computer screen.

Computer expert Douglas Engelbart developed the idea for the mouse in the early nineteen-sixties. The first computer mouse was a carved block of wood with two metal wheels. It was called a mouse because it had a tail at one end. The tail was the wire that connected it to the computer.

Using a computer takes some training. People who are experts are sometimes called hackers. A hacker is usually a person who writes software programs in a special computer language. But the word hacker is also used to describe a person who tries to steal information from computer systems.

Another well known computer word is Google, spelled g-o-o-g-l-e. It is the name of a popular "search engine" for the Internet. People use the search engine to find information about almost any subject on the Internet. The people who started the company named it Google because in mathematics, googol, spelled g-o-o-g-o-l, is an extremely large number. It is the number one followed by one-hundred zeros.

When you "Google" a subject, you can get a large amount of information about it. Some people like to Google their friends or themselves to see how many times their name appears on the Internet.

If you Google someone, you might find that person's name on a blog. A blog is the shortened name for a Web log. A blog is a personal Web page. It may contain stories, comments, pictures and links to other Web sites. Some people add information to their blogs every day. People who have blogs are called bloggers.

Blogs are not the same as spam. Spam is unwanted sales messages sent to your electronic mailbox. The name is based on a funny joke many years ago on a British television show, "Monty Python's Flying Circus." Some friends are at an eating place that only serves a processed meat product from the United States called SPAM. Every time the friends try to speak, another group of people starts singing the word SPAM very loudly. This interferes with the friends' discussion – just as unwanted sales messages interfere with communication over the Internet.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss. I'm Faith Lapidus