The Twilight Realms

Well, I guess I have a few things to tell you now. My birthday was awesome. I only got two physical presents (God Of War for the PS2 and a box of After Eights), but I got a metric ton of money. £500 from my parents alone! At the moment I have £708.72 in my bank account - that's more than I've ever had in there before. It's too bad I pretty much will need all of it to survive in Finland when I move - I wish I'd gotten this much money for my birthday before, when I didn't have a responsible need for it! As for God Of War, as always, I'll be giving a review of it shortly. Anyway, the main item of news tonight is concerning my cat, NiGHTS. After delays due to illness, delays due to time constraints, and delays due to procrastination, we finally took her to get spayed. The operation apparently went off without a hitch, and she was quite stoned from the painkillers and anaesthetic when she got back, but the next day she was fine. She's got a big patch of fur missi...

Welcome to another edition of Blogging During Lectures. My name is Host, and I'll be your Twilight for this evening. In tonight's episode, we'll be discussing foreign languages, one of the (admittedly many) things that I am utterly obsessed with. In particular, we'll be focussing on certain words or phrases that can trip English speakers of foreign languages up, and we'll also be looking at how long I can keep up this TV show host persona. Many languages have borrowed words from English (and vice versa, in fact), but sometimes the words' meanings have changed. French, in particular, is famous (or should that be infamous?) for its "faux amis" or "false friends" - words that look like similar words in English, but often mean something different. Here are just a few examples that might trip a beginner speaker of French up - be on the lookout for them! Une veste = a jacket Un blouson = a leather jacket Une librairie = a bookshop Un biscuit = a sp...