Grammar Guru: Watching an old film on TV

You watch an old film on TV for the first time. Afterwards, what do you say? “This is the first time I see this film.” You use the present tense because it’s true now. “This is the first time I saw this film.” You use the past tense because the film is over. “This is […]

Shearwater: Golden Archipelago

Jonathan Meiburg of Shearwater started out as a natural scientist and has reworked his travels into a very interesting concept album (and media package) on remote islands. He says he first thought he should become a scientist. “But I kept noticing that the questions that most interested me are things you can’t really investigate with […]

Spoon: Who makes your money

Spoon “Who makes your money” from their new album “Transference” has a chorus that sounds like “Who makes you mine?” Interesting little twist. At this concert in January, lead singer Britt Daniel introduced the song to the audience, saying: “Got a new record coming out tomorrow. To-mor-row! Was a lot of work. Anybody head it […]

Pigeon: Impossible

Pigeon Impossible, the silent animated film by Lucas Martell released on 9 November that took 4 years to make, passed the 1 million views mark on YouTube after less than 2 weeks online. The film is set in the neighborhood of the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., where two of my nieces and I […]

Welcome, friend

http://annehodgson.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/blackbird.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBlog conversations with blackbirds: 2009, 2008

Grammar Guru: will/going to

Further in my collection of posts you won’t find in a coursebook, and nastiness we could do without (if it weren’t funny): I’ve just finished writing a quiz on using future tenses, and have saved the most sexually incorrect joke I could find for you. “You’re ugly.” “And you’re drunk.” “Yes, but in the morning […]

Crying in my coffee

Writing can be a lonely and frustrating business. Writing for online learners of English as I do is particularly tricky: I don’t get much feedback from my readers. As my employers are very busy, asking them to review and edit my work is not always possible. But that means that any errors I make and […]