Canadian online radio stations

I believe listening to radio is a great way to get introduced to a new culture and learn a new language.Talk radio is best than the music stations. Here are some popular Canadian online radios.

1.CBC-For News,Talk shows and interviews of prominent people from various fields and around the world.
2.CFRB-Listen to interesting Talkshows from lifestyles to politics.My favourite host is Spider on this station.
3.640 Toronto-Talk shows from lifestyles to politics.A view from Space Saturday midnight in local time (GMT -5) one of my favourite talk show.
4.680 News-All news radio for 24 hours from Toronto.Keep in touch what’s happening in Canadas biggest city.

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Useful websites for an English learner.

Here I list some of the website I feel would be useful for an ESL learner.I listed the sites into two categories:
Reading and writing,listening and speaking. If you know any other websites please let us know about it through our comments section.

Listening and Speaking

1.Focus English - A great site with conversations related to various places and situations.You may need real player to listen.
2.Randall’s esl cyber Listening lab -One of the best sites.You can feel the authors sense of humor in the conversations.A best site to learn the culture too.

Reading and Writing

1.Cambridge Online Dictionary - A good companion for your reading improvements.Facility to search idioms and Phrasal verbs.
2.Dictionary Encarta - A good dictionary for hear the pronunciation of the word.

Do you have any site to suggest please feel free to submit it?

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RSS feed

I added RSS feeds for my posts today.I add buttons for two readers one is Yahoo and the other google reader.I use google reader personally.I like the look and feel.If you are new to the word RSS.You can learn that here

If you find that too much technical, RSS is a format where regularly updating contents or news in a website can be syndicated through,by using a RSS reader or feed reader you can read the new content in the website without visiting the website.For example let’s say you regularly visit five different websites for read news,now if those websites have feed you can subscribe to those feeds through one of the readers.Now you don’t need to go to those five websites every week.Login to your reader…. there you go all of the new contents will be updated there.It’s convenient to follow the news of your favorite websites.

There are many RSS readers.Some popular ones:Google reader, Newsgator,Bloglines

I think it’s a good tool to a language learner who has the need of grab much knowledge in a short period of time.Find useful websites which can help you in your learning process and subscribe to them.I will write about useful websites here time to time.Book mark them or Subscribe to them to keep in touch with them.

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What’s up?

From the beginning I arrived in Canada,I noticed a phrase among youngsters very common,which I never heard about in our high school English text book back home.In south asia mostly we start to learn English as a subject from third grade.
I soon realized it’s a kind of greeting like ‘How are you?’,but I couldn’t figure out the real meaning and what the reply should be for this ‘What’s up?’

I didn’t know how to reply for that even after finishing first year in University.

One day I was going to school in the bus,some girls from my community got into the bus.I know one girl in the group.They sat in the next seat and the girl asked me ‘What’s up?’.
I felt like why this world still exists?

You might wonder it’s a simple thing why wouldn’t I go and ask someone.Yes,that’s the most appropriate action one should take.I would have asked some one if I think like I am today.Before I was trying to hide as much as possible that I don’t speak English well.But that’s the only thing a person who is learning language shouldn’t do.

After some of the embarrassments I decided to use a technique : OK I’ll ask some one the same question.Hey,what’s up?

I chose a person who looks nice (I don’t want to get into troubles) and waited for some days to met that person some where and asked him ‘Hey,What’s up?’.I still can remember the weird look he gave me.

OK then what is the true meaning of ‘What’s up?’
As far as I learned this not a proper form of English( if I am wrong please someone correct me).It means similar to ‘what’s going on?’.You can say what you are doing at this time,but most of the time ‘Nothing much’ would be enough.

Please correct me.Others also get help from your comments.

Posted in Language usage | 4 Comments »