July 27, 2013

Weekly Finds: July 27, 2013

A Man With Magnifying Glass by digitalart
Image courtesy of digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Every week, we’ll be sharing a list of posts, stories, news, or opinions that we've run across the Internet during the past week or two. We won't be discussing them in detail here, but we do encourage you to check them out as they could contain valuable ideas and insights for your IELTS exam.

If you're ready, here we go...

LISTENING


Singing the ABCs in 8 Different Languages

Since the 19th century, we've been learning our ABCs through the alphabet song sung to the same tune as "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." But ours is not the only alphabet, and not every alphabet will fit into that song. Here are some other songs from around the world to help them learn their ABCs.

READING


A Visual History Of The Photograph [Infographic]

The Mobile Revolution has fundamentally changed how photos are taken, where they are taken, by whom they are taken and, most importantly, how often they are taken.

WRITING


How to explain the hardest things in the easiest words

Check out the Up-Goer Five text editor, a widget created by geneticist Theo Sanderson, which restricts writers to the 1000 most commonly used words in the English language.

SPEAKING


When Presidents Say 'Y'all': The Strange Story of Dialects in America

From Appalachian hollows to urban neighborhoods, the ways people speak can bring them together or cause social isolation. A language expert explains why.

GRAMMAR


Why pick on adverbs?

Adverbs come in many shapes and sizes , so it’s worth looking at each type to see which are the worst offenders – and which are harder to do without.

VOCABULARY


20 Words We Owe to William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s scripts contain over 2200 never-before-seen words—a diverse collection of loan-words from foreign languages, compound words from existing English terms, nouns turned into verbs, and creatively applied prefixes—many of which have entered into everyday language. Here are 20 examples of words we can thank Shakespeare for.

SELF-IMPROVEMENT


How to inspire people every time you speak

The author shares the importance of telling stories.