Monday, 2 December 2013

ENGLISH CONVERSATION PRACTICE: English Aam Kulfi Season 1#2-Neelam & Parvez:Mangoes & Milk-Learn English Grammar By Speaking English In This Lesson

Posted by Nash Biani

English Aam Kulfi

Mast Mast !

SEASON 1

No 2

Neelam and Parvez :
Mangoes and Milk Page 1

Page 1

Page 2

LEARN TO SPEAK ENGLISH THE EASY WAY IN FUN LESSONS

Hello and welcome to English Aam Kulfi # 2. I hope you enjoyed the first episode of this series. We will learn to speak English together with our friends Neelam and Parvez. Other friends will also be joining us very soon. English grammar doesn't have to be dull and boring as our friends will very soon show you.

Some of our viewers (? this sounds like a TV show :D ) have been asking me if they should get a book for these lessons (episodes?). Well it is still early days but no harm in getting a 100 page long book. You can call it -

English Aam Kulfi Book

So, in the last episode we saw Neelam and Parvez discuss the price of onions and apples. Let's see what they are doing now.

Here is the conversation in Hindi. Let's see how you translate it into English.

नीलम : वो सब छोड़ो। एक बात कहूं , हम आम का मिल्कशेक बनाते हैं।

परवेज़ : अच्छा आईडिया है।

नीलम : तुम बाज़ार से आम और दूध ले आओ।

परवेज़ : अभी जाऊं ?

नीलम : नहीं, परसों जाना।

परवेज़ : क्या मतलब?

नीलम : जैसा सवाल वैसा जवाब। तुम्हे क्या लगता है - कब जाना चाहिए तुम्हे?

परवेज़ : ठीक है, ठीक है अभी चला जाता हूँ।

नीलम : अब क्या हुआ? जाते क्यों नहीं ?

परवेज़ : पैसे तो दो...

नीलम : क्या ?

परवेज़: मज़ाक कर रहा हूँ बाबा।

Answer will be posted here very soon. In the meantime you try to translate the conversation :)

Posted by Nash Biani on 04-12-2013 -

All right everybody! Let's see what you've done. Check the translated conversation below.

Neelam: Forget all that.Tell you what? Let's make
mango milkshake.
Parvez: Good idea.
Neelam: Go get some mangoes and milk from the
market.
Parvez: Shall I go now?
Neelam: No, go the day after tomorrow.
Parvez: What do you mean?
Neelam: Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.What
do you think? When should you go?
Parvez: Okay, okay, I'll go right now.
Neelam: Now what? Why don't you go?
Parvez: Give me some money...
Neelam: What?
Parvez: I'm just joking.

So, how did you do, guys? Look, if it was not all like what it is here, don't worry too much. These translations can take several forms.

There's a lot to learn and practise in this conversation, which we will do in my next post :)

I hope you are following me on Facebook and Twitter.
Just click on the buttons in the right hand panel.

Page 1

Page 2

Kulfi # 1

Kulfi # 2

Kulfi # 3

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Saturday, 30 November 2013

ENGLISH CONVERSATION PRACTICE:English Aam Kulfi Season 1#1-Neelam & Parvez:Apples & Onions-Spoken English Basic Step By Step Course To Learn To Speak English

Posted by Nash Biani

English Aam Kulfi

Mast Mast !

SEASON 1

No 1

Neelam and Parvez :

Apples and Onions (Page 1)

Page 1

Learning to speak English with fun in an easy to understand way with simple grammar

Hello, everybody! With this post we start a series of fun and interactive lessons within our overall programme of spoken English - English Aam. This series will be a part of our programme and will be called English Aam Kulfi. Why this name? Well, I think we all love kulfi and my favourite kulfi is mango kulfi or, as we say, Aam Kulfi. This series is intended to be interactive as much as possibe. This means that you will have to participate in the lessons. How? You will know as we go along. Please let me know how you like it.

By the way, we are now on Facebook so please follow on the pages there. We are also on Twitter so please follow on that site too. If you look on the panel on the right of this page, buttons have been provided for both Facebook and Twitter. Please click on these buttons right now, one after the other and start following on both these sites for more fun!

Now, many of you must have seen the post on Facebook where you were asked to translate a small conversation between Neelam and Parvez. Remember these friends from our earlier English Aam video mehfils? Well, they were away for some time but they're back now and we hope to see more of them. Of course, some other people will also be joining us very soon on English Aam Kulfi -Mast Mast!

The translation of this conversation can be done in quite a few ways. However, we will try to have as informal and natural a language in our translation as possible. Also, remember that when we translate from one language into an other, the translation doesn't have to be exact. What I mean is that some words or idioms may be used which are not the exact meanings found in bi-lingual dictionaries, that is, dictionaries from one language into an other.

This conversation can be translated as:

Neelam: Onions are costlier than apples.

Parvez : I know.

Neelam: What will we do?

Parvez : We'll sauté apples and make a gravy.

Neelam: Oh?

Parvez: Yes. And we'll make onion milkshake.

Neelam: Great!

Now, this is not the one and only way to translate this conversation. For example:

Onions are costlier than apples.

Onions are more expensive than apples.

Onions cost more than apples.

What will we do?

What are we going to do?

We'll sauté apples and make a gravy.

We'll fry apples and make a gravy.

Great!

Fantastic!

Using this conversation to Learn English grammar and usage while speaking English

I'd like to discuss a few things here. It is obvious that Parvez is joking about the whole thing.

When Neelam says "achcha?" in English, she is not saying 'good'. If she were to say, "Yeh sandwich achcha hai." that would translate as, "This sandwich is good." or "This is a good sandwich." Here, when she says "achcha?" her tone indicates what would translate as "Oh?" in English.

Then, Parvez uses the word 'sauté'. This is pronounced सौतेई (that's the closest I can get in Hindi). The meaning of this word is to fry something in oil or butter till it becomes brown.And that's what we do to onions for the gravy base. So, I think for 'bhun-na' that would be appropriate. For 'tal-na' the word would be 'fry'.

Also, notice that when Neelam says,"Great!" she doesn't really mean that Parvez's idea is very good.

Here, she is being sarcastic. A person is being sarcastic when she or he says something but actually means the opposite.This is understood from the tone in which the person speaks and the context in which the statement is made.In this conversation, Parvez's ideas are clearly foolish. So, when Neelam says,"Great!" she actually means "Stupid!"

Collocations for practising to speak English

Write the following in your English Aam Spoken English Collocations Book and practise them by speaking aloud.

1. costlier than

2. more expensive than

3. cost more than

4. What will we do?

5. What are we going to do?

Translate into English: Angrezi mein anuvad yaniki tarjuma karen

Neelam: Pyaaz apple se mehengi hain.
Parvez : I know.
Neelam: Hum kya karenge?
Parvez: Hum apple ko bhoon kar gravy bana lenge.
Neelam: Achcha?
Parvez : Haan, aur pyaaz ka milkshake banayenge.
Neelam: Badhdhya!

from: English Aam on Facebook

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Kulfi # 1

Kulfi # 2

Kulfi # 3

Wednesday, 20 November 2013

CARDINAL NUMBERS-Spoken English Grammar Lesson To Learn Cardinal Numbers Online

Posted by Nash Biani

ABSOLUTE BEGINNER COURSE

SPOKEN ENGLISH

Lesson 10

(Page 1)

English Grammar:Cardinal Numbers

Page 1

The Importance Of Numbers When We Speak English

(or any language!)

Hi friends. In the last two lessons we looked at days of the week and months of the year. Both these sets of words are very useful to us when we speak English. Hardly a day passes without using something from these vocabulary lists. We refer to a particular day or month almost every day. "I'm going to Delhi on Thursday." "We are going to watch a movie on Saturday." "The report has to be ready by Friday." "Robert is getting married in January." "Our semester starts in July." "Diwali is in November this year." These or similar sentences we say or hear all the time. But there is another vocabulary list that we use every day -numbers.

"I'll be there by 5 o'clock."

"There are thirty-five students in my class."

"We have to write three papers this week."

"Afzal Bhai has two shops in the main market."

"Sudhir has three brothers."

"There are fifty pages to be photocopied."

So you see, we use numbers every day; in fact, one could say we use numbers every hour!

Now, most of us know the numbers in English but believe me when I tell you that we often get students at our academy who are are unable to count the numbers even from one to twenty. Then there are some who do rattle off some numbers but no one can understand what they are saying. And what if I tell you that we sometimes also get students who are from English medium schools but their pronunciation of the numbers while speaking English is not proper?

So, in this lesson let us learn something about numbers in spoken English.

ENGLISH AAM SPOKEN ENGLISH GRAMMAR BOOK

Write the following in your grammar book

In English grammar numbers are classified as cardinals and ordinals. Cardinals are numbers like 1,2,3 etc. or four, five six and so forth. Ordinals on the other hand are numbers like first, second, third etc. We will look at ordinals in a later lesson. In this lesson we will learn something about cardinal numbers and how to pronounce them when speaking English.

NUMBER	IN WORDS	HINDI
1	one	ek
2	two	doh
3	three	teen
4	four	char
5	five	paanch
6	six	chcheh
7	seven	saat
8	eight	aanth
9	nine	nau
10	ten	dus
11	eleven	gyarah
12	twelve	baarah
13	thirteen	terah
14	fourteen	chaudah
15	fifteen	pandrah
16	sixteen	solah
17	seventeen	satrah
18	eighteen	atthrah
19	nineteen	unnees
20	twenty	bees