10 popular expressions we owe to Shakespeare
Today is the official anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth. (23rd April is also the day he died, but let’s not dwell on that.) For those of us who speak English every day, we often forget, or don’t realise, how many of the words and phrases we use come from the works of Shakespeare.
Of course we don’t know for sure that he invented them all himself (although apparently about a tenth of the words he used in his work were new). But it’s interesting to see how many of us, even those who claim not to be fans of his work, are regularly quoting Shakespeare.
There are so many examples of these – here are just a few.
Green-eyed monster
What does it mean? Jealousy.
Which play? Othello (Act III, scene 3) – although Shakespeare had earlier used ‘green-eyed’ to describe jealousy in The Merchant of Venice (Act III, scene 2).
“IAGO: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on”
Cruel to be kind
What does it mean? Treating someone badly for their own good.
Which play? Hamlet (Act III, scene 4)
“HAMLET: I must be cruel only to be kind.
Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.”
It’s all Greek to me
What does it mean? Completely incomprehensible.
Which play? Julius Caesar (Act I, Scene 2)
“CASCA: those that understood him smiled at one another and shook their heads; but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.”
Break the ice
What does it mean? To get a conversation going, often by breaking some initial tension.
Which play? The Taming of the Shrew (Act I, Scene 2)
“TRANIO: And if you break the ice and do this feat,
Achieve the elder, set the younger free”
In a pickle
What does it mean? In a tricky situation.
Which play? The Tempest (Act V, Scene 1)
“ALONSO: How camest thou in this pickle?”
Forever and a day
What does it mean? A really long time!
Which play? As You Like It (Act IV, Scene 1)
“ROSALIND: Now tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed her.
ORLANDO: Forever and a day.”
The world’s my oyster
What does it mean? To have a wealth of opportunities.
Which play? The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act II, Scene 2)
“PISTOL: Why then the world’s mine oyster, Which I with sword will open.”
One fell swoop
What does it mean? All at once.
Which play? Macbeth (Act IV, Scene 3)
“MACDUFF: What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?”
Good riddance
What does it mean? To be glad to see the back of someone.
Which play? Troilus and Cressida (Act 2, Scene 1)
“THERSITES: I will keep where there is
wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.
[Exit]
PATROCLUS: A good riddance.”
Eaten out of house and home
What does it mean? To take advantage of a host’s generosity.
Which play? Henry IV Part II
“MISTRESS QUICKLY: He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his”
How many of these have you used lately? And does anyone have any other favourite Shakespearean phrases?
Personally, we’re a bit disappointed that more of Shakespeare’s insults haven’t made it into modern English; you don’t hear ‘thou cream-faced loon’ often enough these days (although maybe that’s a good thing). There’s probably a whole other blog post to be had from Shakespeare’s insults – but in the meantime, here’s a random insult generator – have fun, but be careful who you say them to!
Easter celebrations around the world
Here in the UK, this weekend is Easter weekend. Many people will be marking the occasion by attending church services on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, while a more commercial tradition is to exchange chocolate eggs as gifts. Easter is a religious holiday, marking for many people around the world the death and resurrection of Jesus, but it also represents new life, falling as it does in spring time, and is often symbolised by young animals, like lambs and chicks.
We decided to have a look at some Easter traditions around the world, to see how other countries mark this holiday. Here are just a few:
Brazil
Mardi Gras (which means ‘Fat Tuesday’) takes place in Rio de Janeiro on Shrove Tuesday and marks the start of Lent. The streets are filled with large processions of people in brightly coloured, exotic costumes, marching, singing and dancing.
Another Brazilian tradition is to create straw dolls to represent Judas Iscariot, then destroy them in the street.
France
Church bells are silent as a sign of mourning from Maundy Thursday until Easter Sunday. Sometimes children are told the bells (known as ‘cloches volants’ or ‘flying bells’) have gone to see the Pope and will return with Easter eggs.
In parts of southwest France, a giant omelette is made on Easter Monday. The dish can feed 1,000 people.
Ethiopia
During Lent in Ethiopia, Christians don’t eat or buy any animal products like meat, eggs, butter, milk, yogurt, cream and cheese.
The first Easter day service starts at 8 p.m. on Easter Saturday and lasts until 3 a.m. on Easter Sunday.
After the service, people will return to their homes and have a breakfast of ‘dabo’ sourdough bread to celebrate the end of Lent. Traditionally, the bread is cut by a priest or the head man in the family.
Czech Republic and Slovakia
As part of an Easter tradition, women and girls are beaten with decorated hand made whips on Easter Sunday. But despite what you might think, this is actually a good thing; the whipping is thought to make women more healthy and beautiful, and girls who don’t get whipped are often quite offended!
Chios (Greek Island)
In the village of Vrondados, the annual ‘war of rockets’ is staged between two churches, Agios Marcos and Erithiani. Residents spend all year preparing thousands of firework rockets and on the evening of Easter Saturday, the rockets are fired between the two churches for hours.
The custom goes back many years, and although there are plenty of stories, no one is quite sure how the tradition began.
Spain
Many towns and cities in Spain celebrate Semana Santa (Holy Week) with processions through the streets at night. Floats called ‘tronos’ are carried through the streets. Each float bears huge decorated figures representing part of the Easter story. It takes 40-50 people to carry each trono on their shoulders and processions can last between 4-5 hours.
In Murcia, a trono telling the story of the Last Supper has real food on the table. On Easter Sunday, the 26 men who have carried the table in the procession sit down and eat the food.
Please share your own Easter traditions in the comments. And whether you celebrate Easter or not, we hope you have a great weekend.
Seb
10 reasons to visit… Lisbon
Having just come back from Lisbon and having loved every minute of it, I had to continue the ‘10 reasons to visit‘ series with this fantastic city! Here are my thoughts on why you should visit…
1. Cork
I had no idea this was a big Portuguese commodity but apparently Portugal produces well over half the worldwide supply of cork. Presumably because we use less and less cork in bottle stopper production, the Portuguese have become extremely inventive in finding other products to make from the strange bark, and shops in the centre of Lisbon are stuffed full of cork purses, hats, sandals, bags and jewellery – even the odd umbrella!
2. Hills
Some people might disagree with me on this one, but I like a city with hills, and Lisbon is mostly hills. Pretty steep hills. The reason this is good is that it provides lots of great viewpoints, and the view is worth puffing up a hill for. From the top of the Parque Eduardo VII or the Aguas Livres Aqueduct, the view is particularly good, showing a great sweep of pale red rooftops descending into the river estuary. I was staying right at the top of perhaps the steepest hill in town, and climbing up it several times a day made me feel less guilty about having the extra odd pastéis, but if you get fed up with them there’s always the funicular railway to drag you up or down the hill.
3. Pastéis de nata
I really regret not buying a crate of these to bring back. This is definitely the best pastry I’ve ever tasted, and you can get it in every other shop. Gooey, custardy filling inside flaky pastry, slightly burnt like a creme caramel on top. Yum yum yum.
4. Friendly people
I’ve rarely been anywhere where I was made to feel so welcome. Everyone we chatted to had time to talk to us, and everyone was smiley and helpful (a far-cry from London!) Since I work in languages, I always feel guilty not trying to speak the local language a bit so I took uTalk Portuguese with me and managed to get by fairly successfully – but not having practised at all my pronunciation was somewhat questionable. And yet, instead of the scornful expressions you encounter in some places, in Lisbon everyone was patient and happy to listen to me mangling their language. Also, a lot of people addressed me in English before I could even try out my Portuguese – something which impressed me and put me to shame at the same time.
5. Belém
At the far side of the city, the little district of Belem is definitely worth seeing. Its main street is crammed full of bakeries (more pastéis) and small, good-value restaurants selling great seafood dishes. There’s a great big expanse of green park and a long promenade along the seafront, past the impressive statue to Portuguese exploration and the famous Belém Tower. If you’re looking for somewhere to take a book and chill out for an afternoon I recommend Belém!
6. The tram
Lisbon has a set of extremely iconic yellow trams, crammed full of people as they make their rickety way along the streets. Rising very tall off the ground but being very short, they look like little shuffling animals sneaking through the streets. If you’re more of an underground person, the metro has some beautifully decorated stops too – I particularly enjoyed the caricatures at the entrance to the Aeroporto stop.
7. Bacalhau
Aka salted cod. This traditional dish is served for Christmas dinner in some households, and is definitely worth ordering if you get the chance. Historically a fishing nation, the fish and seafood dishes are diverse, imaginative and delicious. I recommend Bacalhau à Gomes de Sá, a mixture of bacalhau, eggs and olives.
8. Cobbled streets
Again, maybe not an actual reason to go to Lisbon, but it’s something really nice when you get there – the streets are all paved with small cubes of white flint which reflect the light so much that it makes you squint. So smooth in places that you slide along them, these cobbles give the roads a charming, uneven surface and make you wonder how long it took to lay all these stones down in the first place.
9. The Elevator of Carmo
I didn’t actually go on this elevator as it seemed a bit of a waste of money, but you can walk along the platform for free and you get another great view over the bustling main street below. The elevator accommodates for the split-level in the street (another consequence of the hilliness) and is built in a fantastic, dark, neo-Gothic style- really imposing.
10. Bairro Alto
The trendy district of Lisbon: we found that it was quite sleepy in the morning and afternoon, but from about 9 at night all the doors open up to reveal tiny, one-room bars selling cheap beer in plastic cups. Everyone meshes together on the streets drinking and chatting, moving from one bar to the next until the dawn creeps in. The whole atmosphere was really friendly and I can’t wait to go back!
Are there any other fans or residents of Lisbon who’d like to share their own reasons to visit? And remember you can send us your own contributions for places to feature in our ’10 reasons to visit’ series 
Nat
5 tips for beginners in Japanese
Adam, 15, recently spent two weeks at EuroTalk for work experience. He’s passionate about languages and is currently learning Japanese. Here are his top tips for other beginners.
In November 2012, I decided to start taking Japanese lessons once per fortnight. As a younger learner, I thought it might be interesting for you to see some challenges that I have already faced while learning. If this post was about a language like French, quite a lot of the tips would be generic and applicable to other European languages, such as Spanish or German. Therefore, I hope that most of my tips will remain unique, just like the Japanese language.
Here are 5 tips for starting Japanese, from the viewpoint of a beginner!
1) Consolidate your kana before tackling Kanji
When I started to learn, I was pretty frightened at the prospect of learning kanji. In fact, I only started to learn kanji about nine months after starting, because my teacher advised me to gain a basic knowledge of the sound system, grammar, vocabulary and kana alphabets before learning. She was absolutely right – I couldn’t have imagined being able to pick up any of the theory behind kanji without the basic grounding first. Often, the On’Yomi reading is written in katakana. Considering I had been learning for 9 months at the time, my katakana knowledge was pretty poor, which inhibited some of my kanji learning. Getting a basic knowledge of Japanese is definitely a must before learning kanji!
2) Choose your learning materials wisely
There are a variety of Japanese learning materials out there, ranging from internet courses to books. It is important to choose learning resources that can cover every aspect of the language, without leaving any gaps in your required knowledge. This is why I would recommend the ‘Japanese for Busy People vol. 1’ book. It covers grammar, various verb forms, vocabulary, information on the culture, particles, conjuctions, sentence structure and counters. Another important feature is that it features no kanji, allowing you to consolidate your knowledge of kana and general understanding of the language. One negative aspect could be the fact that the book is quite business-orientated. In terms of grammar, this is fine, and means that politeness is emphasised throughout. However, some of the vocabulary might not be useful to some learners. For me, it’s quite funny to be able to tell a taxi driver how to get to the main branch office! Otherwise, you could use online vocabulary resources and of course don’t forget the uTalk app!
3) Don’t overload yourself with kanji readings!
When I learn languages, I want to know everything when I first come across it, even if it is really complex. For example, when I started to learn German, I was really eager to learn the perfect tense within the first few lessons. It was exactly the same as in French – just use ‘haben’ and add the past participle, right? Of course I failed, because I put the past participle straight after the auxiliary verb, rather than at the end of the sentence. In Japanese, I wanted to learn all the readings of a kanji as soon as I had learnt it. Eventually, I would have probably ended up using it incorrectly because I had just memorised the words associated with that kanji, without ever encountering them in a sentence!
Instead, you might want to try and learn a new kanji of a word that you have encountered frequently, rather than learning multiple new words from a kanji. In my Japanese book, I have a section for all the vocabulary that I need to learn for homework. I started to look up the kanji for each of those words. If I came across a kanji that I already knew, I would right the corresponding word down, with its kanji written next to it. Furthermore, if an unknown kanji came up a lot, I would write it down with the familiar readings next to it. This method ensures that I learn the readings of words that I am already familiar with.
4) Be organised
When learning Japanese in particular, I like to keep a routine to ensure that I learn kanji, vocabulary and do homework well. Some learners might not like repetition, but I think it’s one of the best ways to learn. By revising for 10 minutes every evening and recalling the information in a mini-test the next day, I can make sure that I remember vocabulary, grammar and kanji well. I like to take advantage of the brain’s ability to work better after waking up. This means that I only learn new words in the morning, during weekends, and revise words in the evening. Furthermore, I think it’s also important to test yourself after a longer period of time following the learning of a word, to ensure that you have maintained the word in your mind! However, it’s also important to state that our brain works even better passively, so doing some occasional Japanese writing, reading and listening is good when learning. You might pick up some new vocabulary without even trying! Try and be organised by placing short revision sessions, mini-tests and activities consistently over an allotted period of time.
5) Make your own learning resources
Lots of people have different methods when learning. I am quite old-fashioned, and approach language with the ‘no pain, no gain’ approach, using repetition and regular tests. This means that I need to locate places to find materials, suitable for my way of learning. Owing to the surprisingly low amount of Japanese kanji resources online, I recently made my own kanji grid on MS Word with 19 rows, and 15 columns. I could then put the kanji and their Japanese readings on the top row, with room for 15 kanji on one grid. I then had the perfect number of rows to have 10 boxes to practise each kanji, 7 boxes to test myself on one kanji everyday, each day of the week, and then had one box left over to test myself 7 days later. This is an example of using a self-made material, suited to my way of learning. I find that everyone has their own way of learning kanji, whether it be using flashcards, writing it repetitively or doing online exercises. Find the best way for you to learn Japanese!
I really enjoyed writing this post, so I hope you enjoyed reading about this. Even though I’m very passionate about language, I still make mistakes, so please forgive any potential inaccuracies in this post!
Adam
