I’m sure everybody thinks surfing is pretty cool. This is a Youtube video of Garrett McNamara breaking the world record for the largest wave surfed. The dialogue that can be heard during the video is quite low quality but the short interview with him afterwards is good listening practice.

Below are some interesting words and phrases that appear in the video:

Rogue waves: Also called freak waves, monster waves, killer waves, extreme waves or abnormal waves, are waves that are bigger than what is expected.

Shore: The coast.

Swell: A large wave that continues for a long time without breaking.

Sandbar: A ridge of sand formed under water by currents.

Rode: Irregular past tense form of the verb “to ride”

A ton of bricks: A phrase which is used to talk about a really heavy weight.

It's hard to not look cool with a surfboard!

This is a Youtube video by The F Pac. They are looking for funding to build an enormous camera to capture incredible images of the people of America. Even if you are studying British English, it is always good to have some experience listening to American accents.

Below are some of the words that you might not have known:

Propensity: Likeliness. If somebody has a propensity to do something, it means they normally do it.

Vanishing: Disappearing.

Mile: Imperial measurement, approximately 1.6km.

Commemorate: To remember.

Nuance: A subtle aspect.

Pro-bono: Professional work done voluntarily, without payment.

Homeless: People with no home, who generally live on the street.

Venue: The place where something happens.

This may sound like a crazy question, but in this Youtube video of one of the TED Talks, Chris Anderson explains the theories that leading physicists are formulating, around quantum theory and string theory, that say that there may be many universes in different dimensions. It sounds like science fiction… but is it?

Below are some of the interesting words and phrases with a short explanation or synonym:

Gaze: To watch, to look at.

Vast: enormous, incredibly big.

Plane: Aeroplane.

To get your head around: To understand.

In the great scheme of things: Relatively, especially when considering a small part of a larger thing.

Pale: Very light in colour.

Mist: Similar to fog, fine droplets of water.

Detectable: Visible, or noticeable.

The Milky Way: The galaxy in which we live.

Feet: The plural of foot, a unit of imperial measurement, one foot is approximately 30cm. In the UK and USA most people talk about their height in feet and inches and somebody who is six feet and two inches tall would be written like this: 6’2”

Miniscule: Tiny, very small.

Pace: Speed, velocity.

Space... but how many universes are there?

Is caffeine really bad for us? Nutritionist Marion Nestle discusses the effects of caffeine in one of the Big Think Youtube videos. Do you drink lots of coffee? How does it affect you?

Here is a list of some of the more challenging words and phrases that appear in the video:

Metabolise: To process the food you have eaten converting it into energy.

Jumpy: Agitated, hyperactive.

Shaky: Trembling.

Kids: Children.

Bouncing: To bounce is to hit a surface and rebound off it.

Labelled: To label is to put a ticket with information on a product.

Rapidly: Quickly.

Absorbable: Having the ability to absorb or soak up, normally associated with liquids.

Nutrients: What the body uses from the food we eat.

In one of the previous dexway magazine articles I spoke about my favourite hobby: rock climbing

Here is a short youtube video about my favourite hobby. There are different people, with different regional British accents, talking about why they love climbing. Try watching the video first and if you struggle with the language then watch it again while reading the transcript below.

Transcript:

You absolutely leave everything else behind when you take your foot off the ground and it just becomes absolutely free, and you’re just up there and you’re just totally absorbed in what you’re doing.

It can be quite therapeutic, you become very focused on a simple thing, you know, you don’t worry about all the other stresses in life, you just worry about where the next hold is and getting to the top.

It’s really hard, when you’re hanging on to some little tiny, kind of, rock edge by your fingertips, to be worrying about, kind of, day to day routine, so it’s a lovely sense of escape and freedom for me, really.

You just have to completely forget where you are, forget how high you are, forget how dangerous it is, and just focus on the task that you need to do.

As soon as you get five, six feet off the ground, you’re on a real adventure, the consequences are high if you make a mistake and you become very, very focused on just the metre in front of you.

It totally consumes you, every single, kind of, area of your brain is totally focused on the climbing.

And you form quite intense relationships. Your life is literally in each other’s hands. There’s an old saying which is: “The best climber in the world is the one having the most fun.” So… you know, you don’t necessarily have to be climbing hard to be a good climber.

It makes you fully aware that you can do anything you put your mind to.

There are five large airports in and around London: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City and it can be very difficult to decide which one to travel to. If price is your main concern then it is probably best to check all of the airports to see which one has low cost airlines operating from your city to London. But if your hotel is in West London, then it is probably a good idea to land at an airport that is in the west! On the other hand if you want to come to London to visit the Olympics then it is probably a better idea to get a flight to an airport in East London. Below you’ll find a brief description of the location and travel options for each of the main airports.

Heathrow: Located to the West of London, approximately 32km from Westminster. Transport links are good from Heathrow; it is connected to the London Underground network via the Piccadilly Line (the blue line), you can get a train directly to Paddington Station which takes 15 minutes, and you can get buses and coaches to various destinations around London. A taxi from the airport to your destination is definitely the simplest option but also the most expensive.

Gatwick: Gatwick Airport is around 48km south of London. It is possible to get a train from Gatwick to Victoria Train Station (Gatwick Express) or from Gatwick to London Bridge Train Station. Again, there are buses, coaches and taxis which can take you to various locations, but the train is probably the fastest and easiest way to get into London.

Stansted: This airport is located to the north-east of London, between London and Cambridge. There is a train from the airport to Liverpool Street Station (East London) and to Tottenham Hale (North London), but the train is quite expensive (£21 for a single journey). Stansted is one of the closest airports to the Olympics and there is a coach service that goes from the airport to Stratford, the Olympic location, for just £9, and although it takes a bit longer than the train to get into central London, it is my personal preference thanks to the lower price.

Luton: This airport is north-west of London in the town of Luton, approximately 56km from the centre of London. It is a good option if you are planning on staying in North London or West London. Again, the airport is accessible by road or rail and the train from the airport to Kings Cross St Pancras Station takes just over 20 minutes.

London City: I don’t have a lot of experience flying to or from London City Airport, as far as I know there are not as many low cost airlines that operate from this airport. It is a slightly smaller airport but it is actually in London, not in the outskirts. It is near Beckton and it is connected via the Docklands Light Railway. It is only 14km from Big Ben and it is very close to Stratford and the Olympics.

The Ginger Pig, one of the best butcher's in London

In two of the other dexway magazines I have discussed some interesting markets in London. In this article I will look at a different one: Borough Market. It is a lively food market located near the south bank of the River Thames at one end of London Bridge. It is open to the public on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays and from Monday to Thursday it is open as a wholesale market and supplies food to some of the best restaurants around London. It is London’s oldest fruit and veg market; traders have been selling on the same small patch of land next to the pretty St Margaret’s Church since the 13^th century, when traders were forced to stop selling their produce on London Bridge.

There is a specialised independent panel that tests the quality of all the traders selling food in Borough Market so if you buy any food there you know it will taste delicious. I have not tried food from all the vendors at the ancient market, but I have a few favourite places that are definitely worth visiting if you’re in London.

For a delicious sausage roll (pork meat wrapped in pastry) then head to The Ginger Pig, it is a terrific butcher. Their sausage rolls are a bit more expensive than a sausage roll from the supermarket, they cost £3.00 each, but they are a thousand times more delicious, with pork from less commercial pig breeds that taste great, coupled with the perfect seasoning of salt, pepper and herbs.

If, after your sausage roll, you fancy a coffee, then join the queue at Monmouth Coffee. They have an incredible range of coffee beans from around the world and know how to make a perfect espresso, latte or cappuccino.

But there are so many delicious treats to try that it is worth going on a couple of days to try something different. In fact, I’d say it’s worth staying in a hostel that has self-catering facilities so you can buy all your food from the market and cook it when you get home after a day of sightseeing!

Seasonal fruit; apples, rhubarb and pears

Paper books; what will happen to them?

You may have read the article on the dexway blog about e-books and taxation, and although these days it seems that everybody has a Kindle or reads books on their smart-phone, tablet or iPad, apparently the world of paper books is not dying out. Paper books are still very popular and the massive exhibition that is taking place this month in London is the literary event of the year for publishers, literary agents, librarians and booksellers. It is the 41^st year for the London Book Fair and over 24,000 literary professionals are expected to attend the three day event. There are hundreds of seminars on a massively varied range of subjects, and this year there is a focus on Chinese literature. But beneath all the excitement and fervour of the fair, the publishing industry is undergoing so many changes with the sudden boom of digital media and the fast pace at which everything is moving, it’s not only taxation that needs to be considered but all kinds of publishing laws that need to be adapted to the digital generation.

The industry itself is split, with the fissure often passing right through the middle of well known companies. The printed book departments tend to think that e-books are good but that good old fashioned paper will never die out, but the digital departments tend to consider printed books as a breed that will soon be extinct.

Smaller publishing companies are often intimidated by the huge scale of projects being carried out by Amazon, Apple and Google and they turn their back on digital publishing instead of embracing it as the exciting and advantageous thing that it is. Personally I am very proud of my personal collection of paper books, and I love the character that a book acquires over time, but I also appreciate the fact that we live in a world of limited resources and if digital books are going to help reduce factory emissions and deforestation then I am totally in favour of them.

How do you feel about e-books and digital publishing?

The digital era; an eBook and a laptop.

Britain is a welfare state, there is equality of opportunity, so employers must try to be impartial when they are looking for new employees; the distribution of wealth is governed by a tax system that aims to offer help to those that do not have the resources to have an acceptable quality of life; and there is a national health service and government funded pensions. The National Health Service or NHS is mostly funded by taxes paid by English citizens, and healthcare is free to residents of the United Kingdom, unlike many other countries, such as America and Australia, in England you do not have to pay ambulance fees if you are taken to hospital in an ambulance and you do not need to have medical insurance. However, there are private healthcare options that are not free and they try to reduce waiting times to see a specialist or to have an operation.

Foreign people in the UK are also entitled to free healthcare if they have been a resident there for more than 12 months, or they are planning to stay permanently or if they are claiming asylum.  Tourists that are visiting from a country within the European Economic Area must hold a valid European Health Insurance Card to receive free treatment. People that do not qualify for free treatment must sign a contract saying that they will pay for any treatment received, so if you are planning on visiting the UK and you are not from a country within the European Economic Area it is definitely a good idea to take out travel insurance that covers any medical treatment you may require in case of emergencies.

If you are planning on travelling anywhere it is always a good idea to find out how the healthcare system functions in your destination.

Do you like making videos and short movies? Start thinking about a short video you can make about learning languages with dexway. Very soon dexway will be launching a video competition with some really great prizes. You can use your smart phone, or your camera, it doesn’t matter if you don’t know how to edit. We want interesting, funny or innovative videos about why learning a language with dexway is great. It can be about the features of the dexway language courses, or how learning a language with dexway has made your life better, or a funny situation that happened because of your language learning… maybe you embarrassed yourself by using a “false friend” (read my embarrassing story), perhaps you met the person of your dreams because you learned a new language, or maybe learning a new language saved your life (“How learning a language saved my life” story). Let your imagination run free. Official details of the competition will be coming soon, but now you can start thinking about potential ideas and you could be in with a chance of winning a fantastic prize.

Lights… Camera… Action!