If you are in London and into languages, head for The Language Show in Olympia this weekend!
I went there today and here are some pictures:
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| Language Show 2014 |
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| Army needs interpreters |
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| Learn Russian, get to know the country |
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| Traditional Turkish music performance |
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| A map of the German languages? |
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| Meeting Tony at Proverbium Ltd |
We had many interesting conversations at the show, but let me tell you about meeting Tony and his partner at the
Proverbium Ltd stand. For many years and at first as a hobby, Tony has been accumulating proverbs in different languages and has amassed a significant collection. They are a great teaching aid, I'm sure you will agree with me upon that. At the school where I was one of the four EFL teachers, we compiled a list of the English proverbs. These are also a great way to bring people together with learning, and at the same time, to help us all remember our cultural identities, in our Europe which is blending into one mass.
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| Two of many stands at The Language Show 2014 |
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| Flamenco poster |
Another chat along the way was with Gordon, of
LoveTEFL, who has much experience of teaching English abroad and was very keen to hear of direct news from Saudi Arabia, a country of which few people have a true knowledge, because there are no tourist visas available !
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Earlier in the day we cycled to visit Yousif Naser and his students of life drawing classes. They were setting up the studio when we came and Yousif's Boxer was making friends with a dog belonging to one of his students.
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| First encounter |
I visited Tony as well. He recited an English proverb and then its Spanish equivalent.
ReplyDeleteHis Spanish sounded pretty good too!
The English proverb was about leading a horse to water and not being able to make it drink.
Tony then gave me his translation of the Spanish one - it was more about a donkey and much ruder although the meaning was the same.
Isn't that amazing that we were browsing among the stalls practically at the same time and somehow managed not to bump into each other?
ReplyDeleteAnd as to Tony, it would be great to talk to him again. 'Proverbium' is a fascinating project. When we spoke to him, he told us that somebody pointed out a spelling mistake in one or two proverbs on display in the languages that he hadn't studied much if at all . Tony welcomed people's interest and contributions.