Watch the Walk

Giving a speech, with money pinned to him The other day I went to a ceremony for English students to receive their certificates of completion. This was the first ceremony of this type ever held in that particular village, and it was quite the experience. I've been to dozens of ceremonies, but this was by far the most intense. And while the style wasn't particularly to my liking, it occurred to me that it might have been very much to the liking of another person. So here's a description of a couple notable parts of the ceremony, told two different ways: There were so many people at the ceremony! The town square was filled with chairs, but there were far more people than chairs. And what an excited crowd! There were old people and kids, and everyone wanted to see what was going on.  The number of people was intense. Even though they'd set out chairs, the number of people standing dwarfed the chairs that were set out. And the crowd kept getting closer in on the stage too. ...

A restaurant meal Lately I’ve been working on a “Ramadan Special” English program for the radio. Basically, we just take an easy dialogue, say it once in just English and once with translation, then ask questions about the topic. Each week there’s a different dialogue and every day we ask a different question which listeners can answer by sending a text message to the radio station. Well, we chose topics which interest islanders who travel abroad, trying to think of phrases or words they might want to know. One of the scenarios is at a restaurant. What things do you think are important to know when you go to a restaurant? Things like the bill/check, menu, order, to go, and how to phrase your request for food and drink, right? What about how to ask where the bathroom is? It occurred to my islander counterpart and I that learning the location of the bathroom is a common part of going to a restaurant. But it caused a fun discussion between the two of us. Islanders can go all day without...