Hello Sacha,
I write to you because I didn’t know the word “pinoy” what Julius wrote to me. I realized that it can be an abbriviated form of Filipinos.
Filipino is the name of a person from the Philippines.
Filipinos is its plural form. So he wrote to me “a lot of pinoy” this can mean a lot of Filipinos died because of the typhoon.
Best wishes:
Kati
Hello everybody,
I am Antonio Ibáñez and I am from Almería in Spain. I know that Almería didn’t say anything to you but it’s in the south of Spain. We have a great time normally. A lot of sun, beaches and tapas. The tapas are a special food from Almería. You go to a bar and order a drink and the food is free. It is a little portion but is very good.
I want to send a special hello to Kati, because I was studying abroad 10 months in Budapest. I love Hungary and the hungarian food. Furthermore, my girlfriend is from Pécs, a city of Hungary and I speak with her in English. Now I am a bit rusty but I want to improve my speaking skills.
And well, I will be very glad to speak with everybody here.
Best wishes
Hello Antonio and Yuri teacher’s pupil,
For the first sight your letter, Dear Antonio, aroused my curiosity as we have been in Spain and we liked it very much. We have been first in Madrid . We spent a day in the Prado. -and of course if we were in Madrid we visited the Modern Museum where -among other beautiful paintings - there is the Guernica.
Dear children the Pardo is the biggest museum in Spain as big as the Hermitage Museum in St Petersbourg ,or the Louvre in Paris, or British Museum in London or the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, or The Pergamon Museum on the Museum Island in Berlin and so on.
From Madrid we vent a beautiful and the biggest seaside town of the Galician province which is the biggest town in Galicia. Vigo where the fresh breeze (=light wind at the seaside) was touching our face and body. It was very pleasant. It is so beautiful town that I would like to send you a lot of pictures, but I am sending only one where you can see the town and the seaside also.
Our accomodation was a great surprise . It was a castle from the Middle Age.There were lot of similare medieval castles there. Almost all of them were renovated in their original style and used them for different aim. Its walls were so thick that the summer warm couldn’t warm up the rooms so they had to heat up them. Everything glittered from the cleaness. Our castle was in the middle of a gigantic park what the gardeners were tending all day .
We ate our meals there.Their cusine was very good.
Antonio already talked to you that the Spanish cuisine is very famous and diverse. I sent you a pic of their national meal. They put in it different kinds of meats and fish, crabs and so on - so their taste varies.
Paella, a Spanish most famous dish.
Finally I am sending to you the reproduction of the very famous Spanish painter, Picasso. The Guernica.
What do you have to know about it?
Probably Picasso’s most famous work, Guernica is certainly the his most powerful political statement, painted as an immediate reaction to the Nazi’s devastating casual bombing practice on the Basque town of Guernica during Spanish Civil War.
He is Self-Portrait - Pablo Picasso
This letter is merely a draft. I couldn’t say anything ,only a random sample to you.
Dear Antonio, many thanks that you reminded me that not only you like our country but we also like your beautiful country.
Bye for now:
Kati
Hello Antonio and Kati,
It was very nice to know many interesting facts about Spain. Antonio, I am very curious about tapas. Tell me, please, what kind of food it is. What is it made from? Is it with fish or meat? My favourite dish is Buryat boozah. They are like big raviolies, and they are prepared on steam.
Kati, thank you for your great pictures of Spain. I enjoyed them very much.
Take care,
Lena
Hello Everyone,
My name is Ira, and I am 12 years old. It is my first recording here. I am a little bit shy but my teacher says that everything will be Ok. I would like to learn how to speak English, too.
Best wishes,
Ira
Dear Yuri,
I am sorry but my reading out about Spain isn’t so good. I was a little bit shy as your teeny pupil, Ira. I could have corrected it but my Java didn’t work so that’s how it is.
Regards:
Kati
Hello everybody,
I loved your explanation about Spain, kati. I was in the Prado too and I liked every painting I saw.
And because of Yuri asked me to speak more about the tapas, I will do it.
The tapas have a lot of history. Nobody can tell when they were created but I can say that it’s a typical dish from the south of Spain.
The tapas are served in the bares, a typical type of restaurant in Spain. We have bares everywhere. Well as I was saying, the tapas are very different, they can be fish, meat or vegetables. The most famous are usually paella and migas.
Kati explained what is the paella, I will explain what is the migas.
The migas are a special food made with semolina fluor and you can eat with sardine, olives, green pepper, spicy sausage called chorizo and broad bean.
Tapa de paella:
Tapa de migas:
The tapas are a bit little but depends of the bar, they can be bigger than normal.
Nowadays, the fashion in the tapas are modern cuisine such as pork with honey mustard sauce or special burger with caramel onion.
The truth it is that we have a lot of options to choose and every bar has its special food.
In addition, I will say that in these moments, they are shooting Exodus in Almería whose principal actors are Christian Bale, Aaron Paul and Joel Edgerton.
I have a photo with Joel in a famous pub of Almería.
Un saludo desde Almería.
Hello Antonio!
Hello Antonio,
This is Ira. You asked my teacher to send a picture of boozas. Let me do it! I will take a picture when my mother prepare it. Boozas are very tasty. I like them very much.
Antonio, tell me, please, what is the weather like in Spain now? At my place the winter is unusually warm. It is minus 5 now.
See you soon,
Ira
Good Sibirian fish meals and more…
Hello everyone
I’m sorry for being absent for such a long time, but I was busy with finding a new job.
And now, that I’ve found one, I’m busy with ticking off all the million things that I would like to finish before my first working day on January 9th…:).
I would like to send you some pictures from my fishing trip with your teacher when I visited Kyren this summer. I didn’t tell you about it, did I?
We followed the white river upstream by car.
On the way, there is a waterfall - and a bear!
I said a shy hello to that wild animal…
Then we set out to the river to catch fish!
I caught 4 fishes (Harious, I think, they are called).
The rest of the fishes were caught by Yuri…
That evening, we cooked a delicious fish soup, with potatoes and onions - yummi!
We spent the night out there in our little camp and then got on with our journey in the morning.
I liked the landscape very much! Rivers flowing so naturally and beautifully has become very rare in my own country!
That day, we caught even more fishes and Yuri prepared them over the open fire, using wooden sticks to hold them in place…
It was the most tender and delicious fish I ever eat in my whole life!
We went up to the source of the river Irkut which is a beautiful lake.
Then we got into another valley and found another camp there on the riverbank.
But there were too much moskito’s around! They got at me while we were preparing dinner - look at my poor face!
And there was the threat of a thunderstorm. So we were in serious troubles!
The road we had taken to go down to the riverbank was very steep! We even had to prepare the road, by taking away big stones and laying wooden planks on the ground so that the weels wouldn’t spin!
The second attempt of “my racing car driver” Yuri to roar up that road was successful!!!
I should have taken photos, or even better, make a film out of it… but unfortunately, I didn’t think of it back then:(
We finally got home in the middle of the night and I even could go to the banja - aaaahhh, what a refreshing feeling!!!
By the way:
Who likes to go fishing?
Who is the one in your class that has cought the most fishes ever in his life?
And who of you has visited theese beautiful landscapes?
Did you spend the night out there too?
I’m looking forward to your replies!
Have a nice day:)
Cheers Urs
Hello Urs and everyone,
We prepared a song about pizza for you. Please, listen!
Urs, thank you for your pictures. They are amazing.
Hello everybody
I’m very sorry to be late!!
Please forgive me!
But I listened to your PIZZA SONG and it was GREAT!
Is it a new song?
One that didn’t exist till you created it?
I wonder about that - could you write me back?
You are singing with all your heart, that’s amazing!
And I can make out the word pizza very clearly.
Do you like pizza? I guess, very much so!
And it’s quite a fast song, congratulations!
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to understand all of the text - and I think, this is because it’s not so easy to record a song like this with so many singers and only a laptop to do it…
After all, it was a “home studio” (your school room, I take it) where Yuri did the recording.
So the equippement was not as sophisticated like they have in a professional sound studio where they record pop songs and things like that…
So please:
Would you mind writing down the whole text, just as a favor for me and all the other people from abroad?
That would be fantastic:):):)!!!
Maybe we could sing the song together next time when your teacher organises a skype session with me, or Mujibur, or even with Megan…
That would be a historical moment - don’t you think so too?
Have a nice day, all of you!
Hope to hear from you again soon.
Urs
P.s.:
By the way:
this is one thing that has kept me busy recently:
I had to paint my office at home, because of new furniture…
Have a nice day!
Hello Bair,
Many thanks for your letter. I think in your country the winter arrived. I’ve seen a picture and I think of you and your classmates. I hope you have a good time. Soon you have the winter holiday.
I wish the best for all of you.
Bye:
Kati
Hello Urs and Kati,
We are going to send you the lyrics of the song on Tuesday when we have enough time.
Take care,
Sergey
Dear Sergey and Everybody,
I liked very much your pizza song composed by yourselves. I am looking forward to its lyric.
It is always more difficult to understand a song in choir than a song sung by single person .
Tell the truth I usually understand more difficultly the songs than the conversation. So I always look for the lyric on the Google if there is lack of understanding in my comprehension.
Cheer !
Kati
Lyrics
Hello everyone,
Kati, you’re perfectly right about lyrics of songs, it can be very difficult to make the lyrics out, even if it’s sung by a single person! Many pop songs make perfect proof of that!
With a few exeptions, of course:
When the lyrics goes like this:
“Michelle, ma belle,
These are words that go together well,
My Michelle.
Michelle ma belle,
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble
Tres bien ensemble.
I love you, I love you, I love you,
That’s all I want to say,
Until I find a way,
I will say the only words I know that you’ll understand.
Michelle ma belle,
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble
Très bien ensemble.
I need to, I need to, I need to,
I need to make you see,
Oh what you mean to me,
Until I do I’m hoping you will know what I mean.
I love you…
I want you, I want you, I want you,
I think you know by now,
I’ll get to you somehow,
Until I do I’m telling you so you’ll understand:
Michelle, ma belle,
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble,
Tres bien ensemble.
I will say the only words I know that you’ll understand,
My Michelle.”
Then it’s easier, of course.
But mind you: there is some French words too in it, did you find them out?
The song is from the Beatles, maybe you have heard it once.
If not, you might find it somewhere on the net.
I’m looking forward to your lyrics of the PIZZA SONG:)
Have a nice weekend, all of you:)
Cheers Urs
Hello Children,
I have just finished a French test on DUOLINGO. It is a very good language course where you can learn minimum two languages together but you can learn - in the same time -several languages. It is free. I chose: English- French. I enjoy that my forgotten French lives again. Here is their LOGO.
Here is the French part of the song but the second and the third lines are in English.
"Michelle, ma belle,
These are words that go together well,
My Michelle.
Michelle ma belle,
Sont des mots qui vont très bien ensemble
Très bien ensemble.
Translation:
"Michelle, my beauty
These are words that go to together well,
My Michelle.
Michelle my beauty
Are words which go very well together
Very well together.
Of course in a song can be grammatical mistakes:
You know the rule" the first is the subject +verb + others." -in both of the languages.
Can you find the grammatical mistake in the text and in the translation?
I reveal the secret. Grammatically it would have been correct the 5th. line. in this way:
Words are…etc-in English
Des mots sont…etc in French.
The librettist inverted the (subject + verb) order.
In French we could do the inversion if there is a question.
Best wishes to all of you.
Kati
Hello Kati
Thanks for helping with the French part of the song and the link to the website duolingo:)
Cheers Urs
Your welcome. If we speak about a poem we don’t call it a mistake but the
poetic licence.
But in life or on a language exam it wouldn’t be good.
Kati
Hello Urs and Kati,
We are sending you the lyrics of the song. No, we didn’t write this song by ourselves. This is from Elizabeth Gray and Virginia Evans course (Express Publishing, the UK).
Pizza (3 times) it’s my favourite food,
Pizza (4 times) it’s so good!
Put some cheese on top of it,
Pizza (4 times) - it’s a hit!
Put your favourite food on it,
You don’t need a knife or plate,
Eat it cold and eat it hot!
It it when you’re young or old!
Take care,
Sergey
