I hate renovating, and try to avoid it every year. So both of these options are nothing I’d look forward to. But they might be necessary. Which one uses correct grammar?

• If we were to renovate our flat, I’d have to take a week off.
• If we would renovate our flat, I’d have to take a week off.

Do any of you have to make changes around the house this year?

grammar guru | 6 Comments »

The new OK Go video doesn’t have them dancing. Instead, it’s all a fantastic machine of falling dominoes and rolling marbles and levers moving handles to open latches, tipping seesaws that release springs to shoot balls into the air that, falling, trigger further chain reactions, like water running through tubes and pouring into vessels that in turn drop to tug on strings that draw back curtains…. Is any human power at all going into the machine after that initial push? Do you like any specific parts of the machine especially? I love the final shot (hehehe). Thanks Christian (via Kai Müller/stylespion.de). 3.279.913 views at posting.

You know you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down
And you can’t keep draggin’ that dead weight around
If there ain’t all that much to lug around
Better run like hell when you hit the ground
When the morning comes
You can’t stop these kids from dancin’
Why would you want to?
Especially when you’re already gettin’ yours
‘Cause if your mind don’t move and your knees don’t bend
Well don’t go blamin’ the kids again.
When the morning comes
Let it go, this too shall pass
(You know you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down)
(No, you can’t keep lettin’ it get you down)

Directed by James Frost, OK Go and Syyn Labs. Produced by Shirley Moyers. The official video for the recorded version of “This Too Shall Pass” off of the album “Of the Blue Colour of the Sky”. The video was filmed in a two story warehouse, in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, CA. The “machine” was designed and built by the band, along with members of Syyn Labs over the course of several months.

PS: Sorry, editing in the making of:

extra viral song video of the week – englisch lernen mit liedern

short film, songs | 3 Comments »

Joan sent me a presentation with quotes from German second graders. Most of them are mondegreens that won’t work in English, but I’ve translated some of the others into English for fun:

• Garden gnomes have red hats so they don’t get mowed down.
• Men can’t get married to men because then who would wear the wedding dress?
• Life insurance is the money you get if you survive a fatal accident.
• Daddy won the prize for best rabbit at the animal show.
• My parents buy the grey toilet paper because it’s already been used, and that’s good for the environment.
• Adopting is actually better. Then parents get to choose their own kids and don’t have to take what they get.
• Adam and Eve lived in Paris.
• During the week God lives in Heaven. On Sunday he goes to church.
• The northern and the southern hemispheres turn in opposite directions.
• Cows have to walk slowly so they don’t spill their milk.
• Worms can’t bite because they’ve got tails at both ends.
• A peach is like an apple with a rug on it.
• If you eat mad cows, you’ll get ISDN.
• Fishsticks are long dead. They can’t swim.
• I haven’t been baptized, but I’ve been vaccinated.
• When people stopped being monkeys, they became Egyptians.
• The train came to a grinding halt and the passengers emptied themselves onto the platform.
• The whole world listened when Luther posted his 95 prostheses on the door of the church in Wittenberg.
• Spring is the first of the seasons. In spring chickens lay eggs and farmers lay potatoes.
• A circle is a round square.
• The Earth turns 365 days a year. Every four years the year takes an extra day to finish, and that just happens to be in February. I don’t know why that is. Maybe it’s because it’s so cold in February, which makes it a little harder.
• The pig is one of the most useful animals there is. You can use everything from the pig, all of it front to back for meat, its hide for leather, its bristles for brushes, and its name for a bad word.

German originals: “Erkenntnisse aus Schulaufsätzen” on Lustich.de

other | 2 Comments »

Joni Mitchell: Night ride home

Once in a while
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this 4th of July
Night ride home

Hula girls
And caterpillar tractors in the sand
The ukulele man
The fireworks
This 4th of July
Night ride home

I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the overkill
Far from the overload

Back at the bar
The band tears down
But out here in the headlight beams
The silver power lines
Gleam
On this 4th of July
Night ride home

We round the curve
And a big dark horse
Red taillights on his hide
Is keeping right alongside
Rev for stride
4th of July
Night ride home

I love the man beside me
We love the open road
No phones till Friday
Far from the undertow
Far from the overload

Once in a while
In a big blue moon
There comes a night like this
Like some surrealist
Invented this 4th of July
Night ride home

song of the week englisch lernen mit liedern

songs | No Comments »

Nonsense rules!

language, teaching | 10 Comments »

You watch an old film on TV for the first time. Afterwards, what do you say?

1. “This is the first time I see this film.” You use the present tense because it’s true now.
2. “This is the first time I saw this film.” You use the past tense because the film is over.
3. “This is the first time I’ve seen this film.” You use the present perfect because it’s about your experience so far.

There are regional differences in where what is said, so answer without thinking too much, please!

grammar guru | 11 Comments »

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 science, like why the fragments of an older, wilder world I’d glimpsed seemed so full of a strange meaning and energy that’s completely foreign to the technolopolis where we mostly live now, or why islands seem to have such a great hold on our imaginations, whether we’re talking about Lost or Homer.” One album review (link) compares Shearwater with Brian Ferry. Most of the tracks are quietly intense, but from time to time they produce interesting loud dissonances that keep things from getting too melancholy. Pretentious or great? Shearwater is in Munich on 2 March.

Mini-documentary:

Album trailer:

Official video:

short film | 1 Comment »