Brands and You

Here is an interesting story about brands.

Listen and take notes.

Write a summary.  

Grammar Revision III

Here are some previous posts on Grammar for you.

http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/11/grammar-revision-ii.html

Subjects/Subject Verb Agreement
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/08/test-your-subject-verb-agreement.html
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/08/subject-verb-agreement.html
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/10/i-needneeds-to-practice.html
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/11/grammar-revision-ii.html

Relative Clauses
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/08/relative-clauses.html
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/09/quick-quiz-on-realtive-clauses-which.html
http://trylingualpage.blogspot.com/2008/12/relative-clause-quizzes-that-will-help.html

The Aussie Accent

Here is a quick video of an Aussie comedian making fun of the Aussie accent.



The Aussie accent can be hard to understand at first. Many people have never heard it before coming to Australia as it is not common accent around the world.

This website gives lots of examples of the Aussie accent. First, the people read out a text. They will read either The Rainbow Passage or Comma gets a Cure. Then, they will talk about some autobiographical details (You can read this by clicking on the text file in the right hand column).

Listen to a few of the people so you can hear the differences between people.

Possible Practice for Perfect Pronunciation

Here is a great little website to help you practice your pronunciation. This practices the differences between words that have only one sound different from each other (e.g. said and sad). Follow the instructions on the title page of the website.

There are many other pages that have practice for different sounds.

Relative Clause Quizzes That Will Help You

This one is a good one to start with.

This one is a bit more challenging.

Mobile Phones + Driving = ???

Brainstorm some vocabulary about the title above.

Here is an article for you to read.

When you are reading, try to answer the following questions:

1. What does this this article say about mobile phones and driving?


2. Where was the study published?


3. Who did they test in the latest study?


4. What did the latest study show?


5. What explanation did the researchers give for the results?


6. How likely are you to have an accident if you use a mobile phone while you drive?

You can find the answers in the comments section of this post.

Aussie Vowels

Here is a great website that lets you listen to some examples of Australian vowel sounds. This can a troublesome area for many studets.

How can this website help me?

You can practice your listening by running your mouse cursor over the pink letters in "quotation marks." Try to listen careful and hear what word they are saying.

You could also practice your pronunciation by listening to the words and then copying the pronunciation. Try to make your vowel sounds as close to the website's as possible.

Good Luck.

Australian Music: Sounds as vast as our Landscape

I love Australian music. It is completely different from music from the Unitied States or the Unitied Kingdom. It is a rich and creative relfection of Australia's people and landscape.

Triple J recently aired a series of programs on the connection between the Australian landscape and Australian music. The Wide Open Road series celebrates this connection. It has a great website that takes you on a journey through the Australian landscape to better understand the music from our country.

Here is a taste of some Australian music featured in the Wide Open Road series.



This is a great song from an Aussie Hip Hop group called the Hilltop Hoods. They often sing about current Australian themes and issues. This song is called Stopping all Stations. It is about travelling on a train in an Australian city. Each part of the song talks about a different passenger on the train and tells us about their life. Very cool!

Aussie Slang

Australian people use a lot of slang in everyday life. Here is an interesting list of commonly used Aussie slang.