Cultivating your English #6: Floating boats and bags of frogs
♥️“Once you stop learning, you start dying”♥️ Albert Einstein
Learning English in 1967 Vs learning English in 2021…. A whole different bag of frogs!
This is the 6th of 20 emails in 4 weeks- I hope you are finding them useful, if not you can unsubscribe anytime.
I bought this box collection of “El Ingles es facil” vinyl records a while ago, it’s more than 50 years old and when I started teaching in FIAC Terrassa in 1997 things hadn’t changed so much. (Ooooh, that makes me feel old!!🙈)
Doing listening practice was sooooo much more difficult than today. And finding a language exchange partner, gamifying the learning process or being a proactive learner too. Does anybody remember those times? I’d love to hear about your experiences, press reply and let me know!
Sometimes I wish that my younger students could go back in time and see how much more challenging learning was with the technology that was available back then.
You could say that it was a “whole different bag of frogs”🐸 or a “different kettle of fish”🐟 (much more common but I prefer the 1st one!). This means that the two things are completely different. Here’s the origin: https://literarydevices.net/a-different-kettle-of-fish/
Mika gave me some useful newsletter feedback when she asked for some ideas regarding idioms, metaphors and colloquial expressions like this. When investigating the bag of frogs expression online I couldn’t find any entries about it. I was surprised because it’s an expression I use with my brother and other friends.
This is an important point: colloquial expressions can cause confusion, there are regional and national differences and they can be difficult to remember and use appropriately/accurately.
Buuuuut….. They are so much fun and can be so rewarding when you use them in a conversation in an appropriate way!
If you would like to make your English sound more colourful and fun I recommend you copy antique George’s strategy. When he hears/sees one he likes he tries to remember it and use it whenever possible.
He loves trying to incorporate these expressions in appropriate contexts and does a great job with it!
🤔Does he always use them exactly how a native speaker would? No, of course not. 🤔Is that a problem? No, of course not. 🤔Is it possible to learn without making mistakes? No, of course not. (it’s a fundamental part of the process!) 🤔Are you going to continue learning until your last day on earth? Well, you tell me…... I hope so: I think Einstein was right!
Obviously, if you would prefer to keep your language simpler and more “neutral” then forget about these kinds of expressions- whatever floats your boat! ⛵https://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/2012/11/121101_todays_phrase_whatever_floats_boat.shtml
Here is a list of some of the more common expressions but a few of these are new to me and I wouldn’t normally use probably half of them. https://www.ef.com/wwen/english-resources/english-idioms/ There are many more lists like this available if you look online.
🦄Challenge🦄
If you do want to learn and use these expressions, can you think of some imaginative ways you could help your brain remember them and how to use them? My thought would be to give them a context and for that context to be as relevant to your life as possible- then it will be easier to remember!
See you in #7 folks!! 😁