New Student: Welcome ANNTRK, LK, BNY!

Some new students have decided to join Help Me English and undertake the journey towards becoming powerful language users. Dani + Döme welcome ANNTRK, LK and BNY and wish them a successful period of learning!  

Victory - congratulations for GCHIEF!

My dear student, GCHIEF has pressed against the examining  committee of the  IELTS exam and has earned himself a marvelous 7.5 score. Help Me  English congratulates him for going this far! GCHIEF's exam is real proof that hard work, dedication and a little push from Dani + Döme can make the dream become a reality!  :)

Irregular Verbs - this you must know!

Irregular verbs are one of the few parts of English that really makes students go mad: they are unpredictable, nasty and, well, irregular. Help Me English, however, says irregulars are not scary monsters you should fear, rather they are words that separate the weak users of the language from the powerful. Learn the important irregulars and speak like a boss! 

(The document is available to all HME students upon demand, also it is down-loadable from my Dropbox ]Text library > HME written resources > HME_irregular_verbs].)

One Dictator Minus - Kim Jong Il on The Hungry Beast

Kim Jong Il is dead. He was is as dead as a door-nail*. Watch The Hungry Beast video channel's summary of his character with an animation-sequence that makes the Aussie accent a notch more understandable. I made a transcription and a glossary for you, these can be read below. Peace! 

Meet Kim Jong Il, supreme leader of North Korea, the world's most captive nation. The slave-state, where famine is the norm, 49 million people are trapped in their homes every night without electricity. An old-school dictator, the reclusive Kim mixes repression with myth-making and delusions of grandeur. North Korean children are taught that his birth was heralded by a spontaneous double-rainbow, a new star and a giant talking iceberg. Apparently many also believe that he controls the weather. But, that is not Kim's only magic. According to state textbooks Kim does not produce urine or feces. His official biography insists that Kim Jong Il is the world's greatest golfer routinely scoring 3 or 4 holes-in-one every time he plays.

Kim Jong Il is also prime to dictatorial whim. It is claimed that in 1989 Kim cleansed the entire capital, Pyongyang of short people. He also imprisoned family members of convicts, believing the stain of criminality persists for 3 generations.

North Koreans live in poverty with 68% of the country's population living on food rations and one in three children malnourished. Meanwhile flight- phobic Kim reportedly air-lifts lobsters into his armored train when he travels. Kim also likes a drink: Hennessy Cognac say that in 1993 and 1994 the dictator was the company's biggest single client.

But Kim Jong Il is not impervious to his people's needs. In 2006 he announced the plan to import and breed giant rabbits to feed the poor. He then discovered that they produced less food than they consumed, but Kim still bought 12.

When not starving or imprisoning people Kim loves to create. His biography says he's composed 6 operas   and stages elaborate musicals. He's also a movie-buff, author of 'On The Art of Cinema'. And in 1978 Kim had a South Korean film director Shin Seng Ok and his wife  kidnapped. They were held captive for 8 years and forced to make propaganda movies, all of which credit Kim as executive producer. Best known is Pulgasari, which is basically Godzilla, as capitalism and made out of rice. Kim Jong Il, dictator, myth-maker and jailer. It would all be funny, if it wasn't so sad…

captive	fogoly(i), bebörtönzött
famine	éhínség
reclusive	világtól elvonult
was heralded by	bejelntetett, beharangozódott
repression	elnyomás
myth	legenda/ mítosz
delusion	káprázat/ képzelgés
grandeur	pompa, nagyság
urine	vizelet
feces	széklet
hole-in-one	golf: együtéses pontszerzés
whim	rigolya, szeszély
to cleanse	megtisztítani
Pyongyang	Fen jang
convict	elítélt (n)
stain	folt
to persist	marad, megmarad
poverty	szegénység
malnourished	alultáplált
to air-lift	bereptetni, repülőgéppel szállíttatni
impervious	áthatolhatatlan, megérinthetetlen
to breed	tenyészteni
still	itt: ennek ellenére is
to stage	színpadra alkalmaz
elaborate	gondosan kidolgozott
movie-buff	filmbuzi
to kidnap	elrabolni (személyt)
to hold captive	fogságban tartani
to credit sbdy as sthg	valaminek címezni, valamilyen rangba helyezni vkit

A Concise Dictionary of Opposites

Good news to all Help Me English students: I have finally finished compiling the dictionary most of you already know about - opposites. In this (lengthy) piece of text you will find hundreds of word pairs organized in a very simple manner: word - opposite | Hungarian meaning. The text is alphabetically organized and is composed to be printer-friendly, as possible. This document is 'concise' because it only contains essential word pairs and no transcendent mumbo-jumbo... :) 

All Help Me English students get free access to the document via the HME Dropbox library! 


Cheers! 
your teacher, 
Dani 

Angolul tudni kell: Fordítói Terrorizmus

Gurulás a Mélyben

Akár egy szép Kassák vers is lehetne, de nem: elrejtve egy népszerű könnyűzenei alkotás, nos, alacsony szinten fordított változata hívja fel a figyelmet arra, hogy angolul tudni kell. A megfejtést nem árulom el, de a kép és maga a szövegtörzs sokat segít, meg az, hogy az órán már nem Adél fölött áll a mutató... 

[...] van egy tűz indítás a szívemben,
elérés egy láz magaslat
és ez visz engem a sötétből ki
végre tudlak téged látni kristály tisztán
Menj egy fejet és adj engem ki és én a hajódat pucérra fektetem
Látod hogyn én elhagy, minden darabjával neked
ne alulbecsüld a dolgokat amiket én akarok csinálni

A sebek a te szerelmedből emlékeztetnek nekem mi
Ők tartanak engem gondolkodni hogy mi majdnem mind megettük,
a sebek a szerelmedből, ők elhagynak engem, nem lélegeznek
nem tudok segíteni érezni
mi lehetett volna megennünk mindent
gurulás a mélyben
könnyek gonna esés, gurulás a mélyben.
megetted a szívemet a kezedben
te gonna kívánni te sooha nem ettél volna ismerni engem
és te játszottad verni
könnyek gonna esés, gurulás a mélyben. [...]

Help Me English meets Harry Potter!

Upon some demand I gave in and decided to get familiar with the Harry Potter saga, which I had no previous connection with. At present I'm reading the books and simultaneously watching the film adaptations, to become perfectly familiar with the arc of the story. HME students thus get access to the HP books via Dropbox and hopefully I can also provide the films in the near future.

I strongly recommend reading the book for those, who are keen on the films as the authress applies nicely built sentences, that are understandable, yet carry good-to-know words and phrases; excellent study-material!