English as spoken by foreigners

Hi guys,

Check out this video on a MSN blog:

http://msnukhomepage.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!7BDE7EE9F7039764!4055.entry

It's interesting to read the comments made about it by some native english speakers and how they feel about the way foreigners speak. I find in some of the responses good pieces of advice about what to do and what not to do.

Cheers!

Your love is by Paul and Storm

Lyrics:

My love is a butterfly
Floating sweetly through a summer field
Spreading beauty and love under the midday sun
And your love is an entomologist
Chasing me down, ensnaring me in your net
And taking me home, jabbing a pin through my guts
And mounting me on your wall
A pin
Your love is a pin through my guts
My love is a sailing ship
Seeking out a friendly shore
To cast out my anchor, happily never sail no more
And your love is the ocean that drowns me
Leaving my bones to be picked at by crabs
And bringing settlers to the New World with smallpox and influenza
And wiping out the indigenous population
Smallpox
Your love is smallpox
You are a giant redwood falling on a family of deer
You are a soaring eagle landing in a minefield
You are river rising over the downtown levees
You are Christmas in Iran
My love is a tiny puppy
Knowing only joy and trust
Greeting each new day like a miraculous gift
And your love is an underground dog-fighting ring
Catching me and keeping me in a cage
On the brink of starvation
Torturing me daily until all I that know is hate and rage
And death holds no meaning for me
Just like Christopher Walken in the end of The Deer Hunter
Christopher Walken
Your love is Christopher Walken

Your extra verses:

My love is like argentine football full with talent and joy,
your life is like boring English football, with nothing more than fouls
My love is a magnificent midfield goal, your love is a lucky rebound score

My love is the NBA, the best league in the whole world with the best players,
your love is the Torneo Nacional de Ascenso, with awful referees and falling stadiums
My love is an alley-oop, your love is a shot that didn´t hit the ring

My love is Federer and Sampras, unic, winner and fantastic
Your love is Andy Murray, Coria and Gaudio, loser and sad
My love is a great drop, your love is a double fault.

My love is Ferrari and Mc Laren
Your love is Renault and Honda
My love is Fangio and Shumacher
Your love is Barrichelo and Mazaccane

Alan

My love is New Year in Paris
Full of lights and hope
And your love is the following day
Full of hangover, headaches and hunger

My love is sailing though Venice channels
With soft music and romantic kisses
And your love is pigeons flying over
and pooing over people’s heads

my love is New York
with all its shiny and glamorous style
and your love is the fast food
and the imperialism eating third-world countries.

Caro, Agus and Anita

My love is promotion
Rising up from janitor to boss
After working all day long, finally receiving an amount to take home
And your love is getting fired from every job,
Being blamed for someone else’s mistakes and flaws.

My love is a paid vacation, flying high on a first class seat
Drinking wine and room service all day long.
And your love is working 24-7 all year long
Without hope of leaving those four walls.

Micaela, clara and Leila (with jobs)

My love is a mouth-watering chocolate cake filled with caramel
And sweets of all sort and kinds
Your love is the ugly lettuce that falls off my King-size burger
And leaves a greasy stain in my favorite pair of pants
My love is a raspberry gum
That I chew with so much delight
Your love is the leftovers of my dog’s dinner
Wrapped in the fridge and two days old.

Tino and Juan

My love is a chocolate
Melted over banana split
Spreaded over your table, always at dinner time

Your love’s a frustrathed chef
Unable to fry a single egg
And when you cook at home, it only gives me cholesterol

Coles
Coles
Terooool
I’ll die of cholesterol

Your love’s like salt to an hyperthense
Or some sugar for a diabetic
Do keep cooking or you’ll kill me
Or maybe I suicide

Zeke and Nikita

My love is a furry coat,
Keeping us warm in snowy winters,
Spreading airs of luxury along foggy streets
And your love is a ragged old-fashioned outfit,
A Charleston dress in a seventies party,
A leather jacket in a table of bargains,
where Bronx ladies struggle for style.
A bargaaiinnnn
Your love is a bargain.

Mickey and Lucrecia

My love is a last minute winner
Floating through a soccer field
Spreading beauty and love like a referee giving a free penalty kick
Your love is like a defender
Chasing me down while I try to score in the goal
Your love is like getting relegated to the 2nd division
Or like the worst injury in the beginning of the season

My love is...

Pato and Seb

My first love is a flower crown
Filling my mind with bird songs and colours
Making me feel like a booming King..
And her love is an artificial rose
Lacking scent and taste
Thrusting me a thousand thorns.
A needle,
A deadly needle through my skin.

My second love a summer beach
Making me dumb with her tropical drinks
Drying me out like an omnipresent sun
And her love is a warm poison
Blowing my mind away like a raging storm
Leaving me all wet and shivering.

Andrea and Lupe

Test 1, Paper 3, Part 5 Summary model answer.

Nowadays perfume companies can produce any scent they wish including unusual and unpleasant ones. This has lead to strange new perfumes becoming more common. In addition, smells can be used in public places such as the cinema to enhance experiences. Unfortunately smells are difficult to remove when no longer wanted and can become mixed up leading to unpleasant situations.

Paul says: You can see that the first line encapulates the basic idea that any smell can be produced artificially now. It them continues by showing the results positive and negative. How does it compare to yours?

Eulogy for the late, great, Mickey F

Never have I met such a creative artist as Micaela was. Having shown literary qualities from a very early stage, she produced and published her first poetry book at the age of 19. Not only was this first book a massive sale success, but also implied for her the possibility to travel abroad. Being invited to deliver a lecture on Argentinean Literature in Paris, she also showed her great aptitudes for public relations, hence being offered a post in her country’s French Embassy as part of the Cultural delegation. As a result of being promoted to the head of the Argentinean delegation two years afterwards, Micaela finally had the opportunity to fulfill her life’s dream: participating in the ordinary sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations as a representative of her own country. Never before had a writer achieved such honorable position that Micaela acquired at the age of 35. Working as a peace ambassador, she visited several African nations and spoke before plethora of International Forums. Rarely did she take a time to rest, except for this last one. Only by chance will her enterprise be imitated and that is the reason why we will remember her forever and ever.

Mica, Zeke and Leila examen exams

Alan, Luli and Stepo get progressive

Script:

ALAN: I would like to begin by saying that you can´t have a traditional education in a progressive society. In our particular changing world, you can´t keep the same learning methods that the ones used hundreds years ago. Education should adapt to this new era.
STEPO: I don´t think you fully appreciate the fact that it is this changing society that should be built upon a rigid traditional instruction so that students learn the proper values of an upstanding lifestyle.
LULI: On one hand, I agree with the idea of constantly improving the methods of education but on the other hand, I feel that some techniques should be maintained so that a minimum of education is ensured. For example, beating kids with a ruler when they misbehave to keep the order of the class is necessary in modern education.
STEPO: I couldn´t have put it better myself. Without a teacher that doesn´t have authority, children wouldn´t learn effectively.
ALAN: Under no circumstances could I agree to that. It is highly unprobable that students learn more wth an authoritarian teacher. In recent times, little kids need a comprehensive and friendly instructor that can help them not only with school subjects but also in every aspect of their lives.
STEPO: I firmly believe that teachers shouldn´t trespass the academic environment with such nonsense as sexual education and phsycological assistance…
LULI: With all due respect, you just can´t ignore these aspects of everyday life that students should be aware of as they grow up.
ALAN: Exactly, it is certain that the education that we are receiving is not preparing us to the real world - we should change the syllabi and educate our children with stuff they are really going to use in their life.
STEPO: Well, I think I can agree on that, seeing that much of what I’ve learned at school doesn’t help me with the daily grind.
LULI: I think we have agreed that we should keep a traditional educative method while updating it with the needs of an advancing society, such as sexual ED, drug prevention and first aids programmes.

AgUs Carissima and Clarita talk singl sex vs co-ed

Script:

C: I would like to begin by saying that I have only experienced the idea of an all-girls school and as I see it, this kind of education reduces distractions and the formation of cliques in the classes.
A: I totally disagree with you. I reckon that mixed schools are way better than the other ones because they teach you how to socialise with different kinds of people and you get used to be with the opposite sex.
M: I can see both points of view but surely you can accept the fact that it isn’t totally influential when it comes to learning. There are, if I may say so, certain points you should bare in mind that everyone has their own individual way of learning and connecting with the teacher and their classmates.
A: I think we can accept your position on that, it depends on how the group works as a team more than how it’s composed.
C: You’re completely mistaken. How can a group work correctly when you have to face different reactions or thoughts according to the gender of the students?
M: Your question leads us back to my statement. It’s all about the relationship between the members of the group; it’s about how comfortable they feel with each other. I consider that there should be no problem in talking about certain issues in front of the opposite sex.
A: I am of exactly the same opinion. Sharing experiences with the other gender from a young age is the best way to learn how to act and how to react in front of everyone. It opens your mind in a big way.
C: With respect, I don’t agree with you at all. Coming back to what I was saying…
M: Sorry to interrupt but I think we could agree that both of you are right in some points, the difference caused by gender might be problematic at times, yes, but it can also help us open our minds and learn a lot from one another... don't you think? So maybe we can just conclude that none of the two kinds of education is better or worse than the other one.