Dallas is responsible for making me learn English
“You so want to be a part of the culture, fit in and find out what’s going on,” she says, with real feeling. “Dallas is responsible for making me learn English.”
I guess that makes Dallas the Harry Potter of its time (or indeed makes Harry Potter the Dallas of its time, which explains a lot).
From the Scottish newspaper The Herald- Secrets of Language An Open Mind and a Glass of Red Wine
And they have also decided to have a go at the “language learning as sports metaphor”, so I guess that my attempts to do that are less than original (like thinking you’ve invented a new TEFL game and then finding out that Mario Rinvoludicrous did it in 1871):
”It’s probably helpful to compare it to athletics,” she says. “There are some people who have a natural ability and are going to win gold medals, but that doesn’t mean no-one else should do any exercise.”
I should point out (without the use of smileys) that any jokes I make or borrow about Great Uncle Mario are done with no malicious intent. Anyone who has read my contributions to his site or read my reviews of his books will know that I am a big fan- I am glad he gives English lessons based on obscure psychoanalysis texts so I don’t have to and can just steal his best ideas, in the same way as I am glad some people overdid it on drugs in the 60s so I can read about it without having to suffer flashbacks…
February 7th, 2008 at 6:49 am
i am from japan please link it
February 7th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
who shot JR? i mean, i forgot…….who shot him?
February 7th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
Aye, it was Laurie Lee and George Orwell who turned me on to Spanish at a rather tender and impressionable age. But three years of the place was enough. There is, after all, only so much kalimotxo a guy can take…
February 7th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Nice post - the Herald article was pretty good for a newspaper, and linking to Sandy always keeps it real.
Speaking of keeping it real, I followed the link to the Uncle Mario interview and almost immediately read this:
“In a very real sense EFL teachers are as much propagators of the Imperium Americanum as F22 pilots or managers of Kentucky Fried Chicken stores.”
I mean, WTF? I don’t even know where to start with that…
February 8th, 2008 at 12:33 am
Cleve- I didn’t actually read the link myself, just put it in in case anyone didn’t know who Mario was, but looks like I chose a good one to show the kind of eccentric behaviour our favourite Great Uncle can get up to after a couple of glasses of sherry.
Sandy- me too, zact same experience. Never got over the disappointment the civil war was over myself…
Osaka- me too! Seems like a good opportunity to buy the whole series dubbed into Chinese or Russian and learn a language as you watch it to find out…