Hello, February

 Hello, Friends.

This week we welcome February! Ask people to say this word for you. You will hear many variations. The shortest month of the year is packed with celebrations and reasons to enjoy the people around you. Days are getting longer here in Indiana. Get ready to get out or stay home and cuddle up.

February in America 

Black History Month: Learn more at History.com

Siberian Husky is the dog of February

Groundhog's Day is February 2: Will he see his shadow? Do you follow the local groundhog prediction or do you go with Phil?

• Why do we have Groundhog Day? Who is Punxsutawney Phil? What does his prediction mean? Find out these answers from PennLive.
• Punxsutawney Groundhog Club Est. in 1897 is the place to go to find all the festival fun.
• Watch Groundhog Day Movie at Flix Brewhouse in Carmel on Wednesday or on Prime, Hulu, Starz....and watch the trailer.

Valentines' Day is February 14. Celebrate with your honey, sweetie, sugar plum baby!

• Nickel Plate Valentine Express ride the train and celebrate a fun, family or romantic minivacation.

February Things To Do In Indiana: so much to see and do…even in these cold months.

February 21: Presidents' Day 

American Sign Language: Monday, 5:30-6:30 PM (GMT-5), Zoom

We shared impactful moments and explained why they had a strong effect on our lives. Can you read this affirmation? 

hint........

International Bible Study: Tuesday, 9:30-10:30 AM EST (GMT-5), Zoom

Grace, mercy, love and empathy are the words that best describe the relationship that was built between Paul and the Christians in Thessalonica. Paul describes how they did not have ulterior motives and they did not butter up the Thessalonians to gain their favor. Paul expresses empathy and understanding of the challenges of losing friends and family when choosing to follow a new path. 1 Thessalonians 2 (this side by side link allows for language comparison). A loving relationship between friends makes life's journey easier.

February 1: 1 Thessalonians 3 is Paul's Valentine of encouragement.

International Friends: Tuesday, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM EST (GMT-5), Zoom

We had an interesting conversation about world events and their influence on our home countries. Proximity to the situation offers perspectives. Words and terms: NATO (we say NAY  toe), hot war and Cold War.

Navigating the American healthcare system is an ever-changing challenge. Insurance often drives our doctor choices so start with your provider's web page. You may have to have conversations with Human Resources (HR) at your workplace to straighten out questions. Do not to hesitate to contact providers, HR or your insurance company to get questions answered.

Everyone needs a primary care physician to orchestrate health concerns. These doctors (or physician's assistants or nurse practitioners) provide direction, order tests, and advise patients based on their individual needs.

• Find a Doctor
• Find a doctor that takes your insurance with Zocdoc
• USA.gov offers this step-by-step guide with links to help you Find Doctors and Medical Facilities.

February 1: Let's talk about February Fun. What do you like to do during the cold days of winter. Do you have a favorite winter poem?

Open Conversation: Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 PM EST (GMT-5), Zoom

It was good to share time for an hour. 

February 2: Did the groundhog see his shadow? What is this all about?

English Class: Thursday, 9:30 AM-12:00 PM, Zoom

We learned key words for expressing sympathy. We talked about American customs at funerals. We hashed out many ways to support our friends when they need our love or care.

On a lighter note, here are tongue twisters to challenge your pronunciation.

February 3: Let’s talk about getting our taxes done. This article from Fidelity lists advantages for starting to work on it now. Brush up your tax vocabulary.

eFile has some good descriptions of the American tax system:

• Tax Terms Glossary: Tax Dictionary 
• Tax Forms and Explanations

 IRS Forms Instructions and Publications

Kids' Conversation: Friday, 4:30-5:00 PM EST (GMT-5), Zoom

It was nice to have a full house. Welcome back everyone from your winter break! We had an introduction to Universal Design.

February 4: Design or modify something to make it useable for all people.

affirmation: words of encouragement

cold war: sanctions and treaties 

drives: influences or directs

hot war: fighting war

on a lighter note: now it is time to talk about fun and happier things

ulterior motives: an unstated reason for doing something

work on it: 

Exciting Recaps

Go to International Friends webpage

Hello, Friends.

We had great week of meetings with many topics for discussion, information, understanding and learning. Be sure to visit each topic and meeting recap to learn more and find tips. Better yet, join us and discover with us firsthand. Register for free and get the Zoom links.

It appears that our current feed burner does not support YouTube links in the email. Visit our pages to see posted YouTubes. 

COVID-19: Home tests

Each residential household address can order four COVID tests to be mailed to its home address by filling out the USPS form. 

New Year’s Resolutions and Goals

This article from the January 20, 2022 Hamilton County Reporter talks about making LIFE goals. Here is the source for the article: LIFE goals are about helping other people.

 

Vocabulary Building

Learning words in context of the situation (the content of the text or conversation) is very important for understanding and remembering (retaining) word and concept meaning. Word clouds can help you to see the words individually to both get a feel (understanding) for the overall content as well as concepts (ideas). 

Here is a word cloud for the above article. You can see the words at a glance and target particular words that you are unfamiliar with.

Word cloud generators are free. Pick one that is easiest for you to use. You can save them, print them on paper, t-shirts, mugs. You can play with color and shape to enhance meaning for you or communicate to others.

• Word Clouds
• Free Word Cloud Generator
• Tagcrowd
• Word It Out
• WordArt

What is Wordle?

Have more fun playing with your words. Learn more about this trending, popular game from this Fox News article.

Join the Wordle community and challenge yourself and others and play the game Wordle.

Dropping the "G"

When a word ends in -ing, Americans may casually drop the final g when the word functions as a verb/adverb or is added as a suffix.

• I am walkin' the dog later.
• Will you go shoppin' with me?

When the word is a noun, the g is usually pronounced.

• thing
• king
• ring

Following along these lines, someone might say:

The baker is busy frostin' the cake with buttercream frosting.

The Free Dictionary has a comprehensive (and some are inappropriate) list of words ending in -ing. These lists are great for expanding your understanding of all things -ing.

American Sign Language: Monday, 5:30-6:30 PM EST (GMT-5)

We reviewed the names of the days of the week and then told each other what we did on specific days. We talked about naming different nationalities, but also talked about problems with appearing to be politically incorrect with the signs and what we should do. We did not talk about impactful moments in our lives. Whew! We have a reprieve and can do more work on our discussions.

January 24: Tell two impactful moments and our most creative accomplishment.

International Bible Study: Tuesday, 9:30-10:30 AM EST (GMT-5)

1 Thessalonians: 1 is the introduction and sets the stage for the letter to the people of Thessalonia. We find out, first of all, who is writing the letter. The authors then go on to give the people affirmation and appreciation as well as to set the context for the information that follows. 

January 2: We will talk about 1 Thessalonians: 2

International Friends: Tuesday, 10:30 AM-12:00 PM EST (GMT-5)

We had a great meeting where we got our personal questions about cyber security answered. Sometimes we need to have information settle before we realize that we have questions.

We took a nice little vacation to Vera Cruz. The architecture is beautiful, and the history is so interesting. This is an old city that has retained 

We talked about needing to practice our English with others and how it is difficult to find chatting partners. This meeting is a great place for chatting and learning about living in the U.S. and in Indiana.

January 25: Finding medical help for specialists.

February 1: Celebrating Valentines' Day in the United States (and your home country)

Afternoon Conversation: Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 PM EST (GMT-5)

January 26: Last call for this meeting.

English Classes: Thursday, 9:30 AM- 12:00 PM EST (GMT-5)

We had some great discussions. We explored how we remember words and discovered what works best for us as individuals. We talked about how we fall back on our favorite methods but also how to use non favorite 

January 27: We will talk about sympathy words and phrases and customs in the U.S. and other countries. 

Kids Conversation: Friday, 4:30-5:00 PM EST (GMT-5)

We talked about what was going on in school. We calculated area using feet and inches. 

We talked about universal design making something that is useable by many different people. 

This definition is from the Universal Design Project.

January 28: Create something that is useable many people regardless of their size, strength or ability. Show us what you have created and tell us how it works and how it is useful for many different people.

• at a glance: upon a quick look
• feed burner: application that sends you email summaries and updates from blogs and sites
• firsthand: for yourself, in person
• following along these lines: logically 
• got: had (not always interchangeable...)
• household: people living together in one home (apartment, house, condo, etc.)
• inappropriate: not polite, rude, not proper, not suitable
• it appears that: something seems to be
• last call: closing time
• politically incorrect: language or action that might be offensive to a particular group of people in a current social context
• recaps: high level overview
• reprieve: cancel or postpone a dreaded event or punishment
• source: original point or beginning point
• trending: growing statistics or numbers
• useable: works
• useful: practical, beneficial

January Update!

 Hello, Friends.

We had a productive week this week. While we are all getting back into the swing of things, we are also looking forward to our upcoming week and meetings.

Our classes are wide open and free to everyone! Register and join us no matter where you live.

Martin Luther King Day

Martin Luther King, Jr. was a civil rights advocate in the 1960s. Read his biography in The Nobel Prize.

Dr. King is often quoted. Here are some of his more famous quotes: 100+ MLK Quotes. His most famous speech is the "I have a dream" speech. You can read the speech. You can watch the newsreel from the day with subtitles:

Indiana Fun and Activities

Volunteer for the 500 Festival have fun and support the community 

iwant2run.com get in shape with these opportunities 

American Sign Language: Monday, 5:30-6:30 PM EST (GMT-5)

Coming back together is always exciting. We realized how much we lost over the break. Interestingly enough, common words like colors were gone from our memories. 

When we looked them up, we were very familiar with what they should have been? Why does this happen?

We noticed that when we started to assume a finger-spelled word we assumed letters. We became confused and lost our confidence. Why do we do this?

January 17: 

• Be prepared to sign about two events that made an impact in our lives.
• Sign the US National Anthem.

International Bible Study: Tuesday, 9:30-10:30 AM EST (GMT-5)

We talked about family dynamics in our immediate families and extended families. As the sandwich generation, we find ourselves concerned with caring for out aging parents as well as caring for and/or helping our children and grandchildren. Challenges come at every new relationship and age. Understanding how we show love and how other people show their love is important. The Five Love Languages helps to identify how people show love and how they like to be shown love. These two things may not be the same.

January 18: We are talking about the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians.

International Friends: Tuesday, 10:30 AM- 12:00 PM EST (GMT -5)

 We met and touched base about what we did over the holidays. We had a presentation of how the cyber security function fits within the IT department and it's help function. We learned that there are white hackers (people who discover ways to break the security of a system and report it for correction) and black hackers (people who work to break the security of a system for malicious intent and are up to no good). See the other "hat" colors hackers can wear in this fun and interesting article: Different Types of Hackers: Six Hats Explained from InfoSec Insights.

January 18: Let's learn about Veracruz from a hometown girl! Join us for a tour and presentation of this wonderful city from the perspective of a native.

Casual Conversation: Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 PM EST (GMT-5)

No takers...

January 19: Let's open the conversation talking about our challenges this week. Mine was cars: buying, selling, trading in, features, new, used, pre-owned, financing...

English Classes: Thursday, 9:30-10:30 AM EST (GMT-5)

We shared our goals or resolutions for the new year. As we talk about goals, we found that the ideas that people presented were good ideas to add to our repertoire. This is a little reminiscent of standing in the grocery line and seeing what the people around you are buying! Our round robin interviews describing two impactful moments in our lives and our most creative accomplishment gave each of us a chance to refine our skills and get to know each other better.

Tutoring on T

We all have been practicing the many ways to pronounce (or not pronounce) "T" in American English. Interestingly enough, when people are trying to help you understand what they are saying, they may pronounce the T when it is normally held to be better (bedder not better) understood. Learn more in the videos below.

This YouTube video compares the Stop T and no T.

Another resource for pronouncing the American "T" on the Clear English Channel. There is a great video as well as other notes to help you improve.

Finally, the American Accent Training video for Chapter Four also covers other common consonant errors. The T Sound begins at 12:52. The introduction beginning at 12:28 is worthwhile.

January 20: We will finish our conversations one on one with each other. Bring your observations about the American T lessons.  

Kids' Conversation: Friday, 4:30-5:30 PM EST (GMT-5)

We had a great meet up to share how we celebrated the new year as well as what happened over the past week. Our Japanese friend shared his handwriting practice.

Here are three examples of Japanese Shodo as a performing art:

Here is a festival version of the art:

Look for more versions. Do you think our Friend will become this type of Samuri artist?

January 21: Many Friends may still be on summer break. We people in the Northern Hemisphere are jealous! We hope to see you soon and hear about your adventures.

1 Thessalonians: pronounced "first Thessalonians" not "one Thessalonians". Usually a single digit or number is written out, but in this case the numeral is written. So, we write: the first chapter of 1 Thessalonians. We say or read: the first chapter of first Thessalonians

concerned with: interested in or 

extended family: a sociological description: family outside the nuclear family (spouse and children)

hometown: the city or place someone was born or grew up; can also mean someone's primary residence

immediate family: a legal or rule definition or description: parents, spouse, children, brother, sister, grandparents

interestingly enough: a statement to pay attention

native: someone who is originally from a place

over the past week: last week, the previous week

round robin: when people meet to compete against each other; also 

worthwhile: valuable, useful

2022 And Beyond!

Hello, Friends.

Welcome back after a nice break. Be sure to look at the notes for each of our offerings. Some of our meetings will be on break until February. Our format for International Friends is evolving to accommodate the current needs of our Friends. Feel free to join any of our events.

Indiana Fun: The Great Dineout

One Last Ornament

Have you finished putting away your Christmas decorations? Probably not. There is always one last ornament or decoration that escapes being put in the bin. Where did you find yours? Have you found it yet?

 

COVID-19 Quarantine Changes and Omicron 

The CDC has changed the quarantine restrictions to five days symptomatic followed by five days of mask wearing and a return to your normal activities if your fever and other symptoms have resolved (otherwise remain in quarantine until these have ended). The CDC Quarantine and Isolation page has very thorough instruction for positive test and close contact.

Updated guidelines are being implemented in our local schools, public and private locations such as libraries and senior living facilities are restricting access. Be sure to check your email for current information and websites for updates.

Recycling

Indiana communities recycle, but one misplaced piece of trash can contaminate the whole bin. The Hazardous Waste Facility for Hamilton County costs increased from $40,000 to more than $100,000 mostly due to fines. 

Hamilton County Hazardous Waste Facility information and site.

General recycling guidelines:

American Sign Language: Monday, 5:30-6:30 EST (GMT-5) 

Classes restart January 10. We are looking forward to getting together, learning, and growing. Give it a try this semester!

January 10: Our first class of 2021

International Bible Study: Tuesday, 9:30-10:30 EST (GMT-5)

While it is considered a religious book, the Bible offers many opportunities for discussion about society, history and philosophy. Join us as we continue to read the Epistles or letters to the newly formed churches. 

January 11: The Zoom room will be open to explore our next topic. 

International Friends: Tuesday, 10:30-12:00 EST (GMT-5)

We met and compared notes from the holidays. There are many opportunities to learn for free.

• Indy Reads offers ELL (English Language Learners): ELL – Indy Reads
• Indianapolis Library offers many opportunities to meet and learn new things.

We talked about what do we specifically need to know to have a good life in Indiana (or anywhere). Often moves mean changes in our perspectives and goals. We decided to explore our careers and how to move forward in our interests and passions.

January 11: Join us for a presentation about the IT department including help desk functions.

Casual Conversation: Wednesday, 4:30-5:30 PM (GMT-5), Zoom

We had a great chat about many subjects. We did talk about different options for learning and practicing. YouTube offers many options. Speak English with Vanessa is a fun and engaging resource. This YouTube goes through 84 English Lessons and is fun. She uses actual items, so there is no need to translate (the best way to learn!). Have you heard some of the things she references differently? For example, she talks about button up shirts, but you will also hear people call them button down shirts. Bring your differences.

January 12: Come and chat. 

English Classes: Thursday, 9:30 AM-12:00 PM EST (GMT-5) 

We had a great visit catching up. We chatted about what we did over the break. Friends still on vacation zoomed over to say hello. It is good to see families together, especially our families that are classmates!

January 13: Write about your New Year's Resolution. What is your resolution? Why did you choose it? How are you going to accomplish it? Email your writing to Carolyn by Wednesday, January 12. We will speed chat in small groups next week. These lightening rounds will help you build your confidence in speaking about yourself and your goals and plans. You are essentially practicing an Elevator Pitch. 

Kids' Conversation: Friday, 4:30 PM-5:00 PM EST (GMT-5)

It was super fun to catch up with each other and learn about how we celebrated Christmas and the holiday break. We talked about gifts and family get togethers.

January 14: Join us as we chat around the world and practice our English practically!

contaminate: make something impure or poison something
due to: as a result of, because of

get togethers: social meetings
implemented: enacted

offerings: opportunities

restricting access: limiting how many people can enter a building or how they can enter

Welcome Back!

 Hello, Friends.

Happy New Year! Classes and meetings begin again on January 4! I am looking forward to catching up with everyone and hearing about your vacation and holiday celebrations.

Look for an e-mail with Zoom links for the Spring refresh! To prime your English and have some fun

English Word Fun

Playing with words is always fun and interesting. Do you know the original meaning? Are the new meanings funny or apt?

Each year The Washington Post publishes the winning submissions to its yearly neologism (Yes, this is a thing. Click the word for even more) contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternative meanings for common words.

The winners are from a few years ago:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.

2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.

3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.

6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.

7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.

8. Gargoyle (n.), olive-flavoured mouthwash.

9. Flatulence (n.), emergency vehicle that picks you up after you are run over by a steamroller.

10. Balderdash (n.), a rapidly receding hairline.

11. Testicle (n.), a humorous question on an exam.

12. Rectitude (n.), the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. Pokemon (n.), a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. Oyster (n.), a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent (n.), an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

The Washington Post's Style Invitational also asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners were:

-Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

-Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.

-Sarchasm (n): The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

-Inoculatte (v): To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

-Osteopornosis (n): A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

- Karmageddon (n): It's like, when everybody is sending off all these Really bad vibes, right? And then, like, the Earth explodes and it's like, a serious bummer.

- Glibido (v): All talk and no action.

- Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

- Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a grub in the fruit you're eating.

And the pick of the literature:

- Ignoranus (n): A person who is both stupid and an asshole.