Mother’s Day is a day to honor our mothers and thank them for their sacrifices and everything they have done for us. Children in the United States, like in Brazil, make or buy their mother presents and/or cards. Children traditionally begin the celebration by making their mother breakfast in bed, which they prepare themselves. They may take their mother out for lunch or to a movie. According to Wikipedia, on Mother’s Day more families eat at restaurants than on any other holiday. They spoil her on her day and do the dishes for her, and make a fuss about her to let her know how special she is to them. Dads take the children shopping so they can buy her perfume, a pretty blouse, chocolates, flowers, jewelry, bubble bath, books, art, CDs, DVDs, or something else they know she will like. Kids may help Dad make a bar-b-que or picnic lunch and enjoy the beauty of nature with Mom by taking a walk together or visiting somewhere special. My kids took me to Longwood Gardens one year and the National Forest another time.

President Wilson declared Mother’s Day an official holiday in 1914 after Anna Jarvis initiated efforts to commemorate motherhood. One can read about the origins of Mother’s Day in many articles on the internet, for example Mother’s Day , so I would like to give you a more personal account, an insider’s view so to speak, of how we celebrated Mother’s Day in my family.

In my family, we would take the family out to IHOP (International House of Pancakes) for breakfast when the children were small. One year they surprised me by making me pancakes themselves from scratch, using their grandmother’s recipe, and serving me and my husband in bed. With freshly squeezed orange juice, which they squeezed with their tiny precious hands. They were excited about the new computer software we had just gotten, which makes holiday cards, and they composed me the following card. “To our honorable, mineral water mother! love, M—and C—“. It was illustrated by clip art that they lovingly chose. You may well be wondering what in the world mineral water has to do with mothering. Children learn languages differently than adults. When I had taught them the words “honorable and venerable” as words that show respect, they had remembered them as “mineral water, which was the kind of water we ordered in restaurants when we went out.” I treasured that card which showed the tender hearts of loving children eager to show their mother their special, innocent love in the most respectful manner possible.

Another time each of my children composed me a song and performed it for me. They would invite their friends over to perform skits for us mothers and share cake that the children had baked for the occasion.

When I was young, I wrote my Mother a card using the letters of the word Mother to begin each line of the message, like this:

M - because you’re Marvelous
O - your’re Oh so beautiful
T - This card is to show you how much you mean to me
H - Hugs to show you how much I love you
R - youré Really wonderful.
S - So, Happy Mother’s Day—I love you!

In school the students prepare presentations for their mothers to attend: skits, recitations of poetry, songs, art work, or giving a speech they researched and wrote for the holiday. The teachers often devote some class time to gift making. When I was young, we made our mothers elegant silhouettes of our profile by tracing onto black construction paper, the outline of our shadow, cast by a projector onto the classroom wall. My daughter’s class was still making these classic silhouettes for a new generation of mothers, and it filled my heart with a mother’s pride to receive this precious and unique gift of my daughter’s profile cut out with care by her young hands.

Teachers plan their lessons around the development of tiny motor skills. Learning to cut with scissors and how to string beads is very difficult for young students. So, it meant so much more to me than any store bought gift could have meant to see how my daughter had succeeded at cutting out the difficult shape of her profile by herself. (Maybe the teacher helped a little).

When she was in Kindergarten, she made me a necklace. Her 5 year old fingers could not use a normal sized needle to string regular beads. They used huge wooden beads with large holes so the thick string would easily pass through the holes. I still have that necklace and I have received many compliments on it, because it is so unusual. I proudly tell them my daughter made it for me, if they can’t tell.

My children were always very creative and put a lot of love and thought into their gifts.

My son made me a porcelain duck which he painted in art class. In shop class, he made me a wooden clock which he assembled, stained and varnished himself.

My oldest daughter made me a lamp which she carved herself out of wood, and my other daughter made me vases and other pottery in art class.

My children thought of the idea to make me coupons, which I could cash in whenever I wanted. For example, one coupon was good for a free carwash. Or I could cash in a coupon for having the lawn mowed or the dishes done or the vacuuming done by the kids. I always loved celebrating Mother’s Day with my Mom and later when I had my own family, with my kids. In my family, we started celebrating Children’s Day like they do in Japan to reciprocate all their love they showered and their Dad me with, although it is not common in the United States.

Children learn what they live. In my house my children gave me wonderful Mother’s Days, filled with love. I will always fondly remember all they did for me.

Abraços,

Mary from USA

If you had a medical emergency in an English speaking country would you know what to say? In the US there is a number for reporting emergencies. It is called 911. You can read more about 911 here.

Telephone conversation - In English:

911: Police.
ME: I want to report an emergency.
911: Yes?
ME: I think I am having a heart attack.
911:What’s your name?
ME: Mary Ziller.
911: And the address?
ME: 527 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
911: Telephone number?
ME: 215-432-6781
911:All right. We`ll be there right away.

Conversa telefônica - Em Português:

911: Polícia.
ME: Eu quero comunicar uma emergência.
911: Sim. Pois não. Prossiga.
ME: Eu acho que estou tendo um ataque do coração.
911: Qual o seu nome?
ME: Mary Ziller
911: E o seu endereço?
ME: 527 Walnut Street, Philadelphia.
911: (Qual o) número de telefone?
ME: 215-432-6781
911: Tudo bem, nós estaremos aí imediatamente, o mais rápido possível.

I hope this has been helpful.

Hey friends! Let’s continue learning idioms through Movies and TV series. Today, I picked a very popular TV Series: LOST. I’m sure most of you know it, but let me tell you in ‘broad strokes’ (in a general way, without giving details) that the plot is about a group of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island, somewhere in the South Pacific. The examples below belong to Lost’s second season.

That said, let’s learn a couple of idioms: in the loop & out of the loop.

To be in the loop means to be provided with information (usually known to only a privileged few) and included in a decision-making process.

For example, “Hurley then says he’d be more help if Jack kept him in the loop.”
http://www.tvrules.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9905

This expression uses loop in the sense of “a circle of individuals among whom information or responsibility circulates.” The antonym is to be out of the loop, meaning “left out of such a circle”.

For example, “…and poor Sun and Jin are so out of the loop that they didn’t seem to know that Michael had returned, much less that Libby and Ana-Lucia were dead.”
http://televisionary.blogspot.com/2006/05/messages-in-bottle-lost-thoughts-10.html
This statement means Sun and Jin are not part of the privileged group that knows everything that’s going on in the island.

Now, let’s check examples from other sources:

Alias – Season 3
“Sydney tries to manipulate the CIA to stay in the loop of the organization (they don’t trust her because of her absence).”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Bristow

24 – Season 2 (3:00 P.M.- 4:00 P.M.)
“Sherry reveals that Ron refused her deal. She then asks her ex-husband if she can stay in the loop.”
http://www.tv.com/24/day-2-300-p.m.-400-p.m./episode/191810/recap.html

Friends
“Feeling a little out of the loop for never having attended college, Phoebe comes up with a fake story involving a sorority named ‘Thigh-Mega-Tampon, which was shut down after Regina Phalange died of alcohol poisoning’.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebe_Buffay

Finally…if you are out of the loop, and you want to become fully informed or up to date, you can say: “Bring me up to speed”.

Karin,
From Guatemala

Oi pessoal, hoje eu apresento a vocês a Karin. Ela é Guatemalteca e apesar de ter o Espanhol como idioma principal, fala Inglês como poucos. Já faz um bom tempo que eu a convidei para participar do English Experts, hoje para minha surpresa ela mandou a sua primeira contribuição, um texto bem interessante onde ela fala sobre como é possível aprender Inglês estudando através de Filmes. Confira abaixo.

Hi friends! I believe that watching movies in English is one of the best ways to learn vocabulary and improve your listening skills if you don’t live in an English-speaking country. So, I will be writing regularly about new idioms, phrases or expressions from movies or TV series.

Today, I would like to start with “to have a twenty on something”. This is a phrase used a lot in “24” a famous TV series where Jack Bauer works for the fictional Los Angeles Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) as they try to safeguard the nation from terrorist threats.

The expression “to have a twenty on something” belongs to the “ten-codes”, properly known as “ten signals”, which are code words used to represent common phrases in voice communication, particularly in radio transmissions. “Twenty” is the short form for 10-20 (ten-twenty), which refers to the location of something or someone.

For example, in Episode 9 of Season 1, agent Hays says “I have a twenty on Bauer” meaning “I’m looking at Bauer right now”. In the previous episode, another agent says “I got a possible twenty on Bauer” meaning “I think I’m looking (or ‘I think I just saw him’) at Bauer”.

Another example, in Episode 13 of Season 2, Jack says “Unit three will await my command as soon as I’ve got a twenty on the bomb.” He means, unit three should wait for his orders, which he will give as soon as he finds the bomb.
http://www.twiztv.com/scripts/24/season2/24-213.htm

Now, let’s look at some other examples in other sources….

“Do you have a ‘twenty’ on this?” she asked referring to the location of the crime as they hurried down the hall.
Mourning Dove by Aimée and David Thurlo
http://www.aimeeanddavidthurlo.com/dove.htm

- “Do you have a twenty a shooter?”
- “Negative. The roof is bare.”
The Team by Bluejay
http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~david/derya/storys6/story8071.htm

“I’ve got a twenty on the FOB (father of the bride).”
The wedding planner
http://www.filmquipsonline.com/weddingplanner.html

For more information on the ten-codes, check this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-code

Karin,
From Guatemala

When I lived in Rio de Janeiro last year I didn’t have much Portuguese. Here are some accounts of how that impacted my daily life there.

Living in a foreign country where you don’t know the language is a challenge. It can be very rewarding, though.

It is very labor intensive and takes a lot of preparation to complete even the most menial tasks of daily life that we normally take for granted. You can’t be spontaneous, like you are in your own culture because you have to plan out what you will say. You have to take into consideration all the contingencies of what will happen in a transaction.

Staying in a country where you don’t speak the dominant language is like existing in a living language laboratory. Every utterance is communicative, real world oriented, hands-on, authentic, and goal-oriented because you want something. You are saying something to an actual person for a real reason.

It is so different from the sterile and hypothetical book learning exercises and drills that have little relevance to real world experiences. You always have something at stake, and a positive or negative outcome depends on your ability to establish successful communications.

My language lab was the beautiful, vibrant, dynamic, marvelous citey of Brazil: Rio de Janeiro. My teachers were everyone. From a professor to private tutors to volunteer literacy teachers to shop clerks to beach vendors and my online friends in msn, paltalk, and skype.

Since I lived there a whole year, I made a lot of acquaintances. I became a known entity on the beach and the vendors did not treat me like a tourist anymore after a while. The vendors were kind. They remembered my name and told me their names. They read sentences from my grammar to me so I could hear the pronunciation, and they sometimes even tried to explain to me the correct way to say what I had tried to say. Even sentences like, “If I had any money I would like this one the best.” Se eu tivesse dinheiro, eu gostaria este mais, ou eu achei este o melhor.”

I took my dictionary everywhere with me, and usually my verb conjugation book, too, 500 verbs in Portuguese. Upon returning home to the US, it felt strange to hear English on the streets. It was strange to be able to understand conversations I overheard. It was strange not to have to mentally prepare before every transaction (taking a bus, buying food, ordering from a menu, requesting information). It felt unnatural to not have to go through the mental gymnastics that were necessary for everyday life in a foreign land. My mind was still attuned, for several days after we returned home, to trying to formulate phrases in Portuguese that I would require in order to express my needs when I left my home to shop or do errands.

Some of you who frequent the blog chat may have already heard the story I am about to tell. It is illustrative of how helpful having online friends in msn can be. They can be life saving. One day my husband and his friends had planned to go to Búzios for the weekend. I was supposed to go too, but on the day of our departure, I was too sick to go with them. since we had not planned on being home that weekend, we had not bought any food. I was too ill to go shopping, and my husband couldn’t because he would miss his bus if he shopped for me. I decided to order a pizza by phone to be delivered to the apartment. But I didn’t know how to order. Luckily Alessandro was online and he told me what to say. He practiced the sentence with me until it sounded understandable. Then I called the pizza place and was able to place my order. They understood me well enough. Success! It was the best tasting pizza I had ever eaten because it was flavored with success.

That’s how it is when you live in a foreign country. Feed back is imediate. If you can make yourself understood, you win a pizza. But if not—no donut for you, as they say in Orkut.

See you!

Mary Ziller
From USA to English Experts