Examples:

submit səbˈmɪt  - dostarczyć

tiger ˈtaɪɡə(r) / ˈtaɪɡər  - tygrys

chocolate ˈtʃɒklət / ˈtʃɔːklət  -  czekolada

photograph /ˈfəʊtəˌɡrɑːf  - zdjęcie

about əˈbaʊt  -  o

Although we often associate photoediting with technology and software, the practise isn’t actually a new one. Photo editing has existed since the 1860s (the first known example of editing is a photo of Abraham Lincoln). Back then photographs were analogue, so they were edited by hand, using ink and brushes.
Multiple images were also sometimes pasted together. It wasn’t until the 1980s that photo editors became available on personal computers, although at the time most photographs were still taken and developed using analogue techniques.
In 2011, the first photo editing app for mobiles was released on the App Store, following the popularity and advancements of mobile phones and digital cameras.

You can find more information about photo editing in English Matters newest edition, available – among others – here:

https://www.kiosk.colorfulmedia.pl/

Here are some dialogues that might be useful while shopping – not only during the sale season.

At the clothes shop
Shop Assistant: Can I help you?
Customer: Yes! I really like this black dress. Do you have it in a medium?
Shop Assistant: Let me check. Yes there’s one left, but it’s in red.
Customer: No, I need something black for a party I’m attending. Do you have anything similar?
Shop Assistant: Just a minute, I’ll go and check. Here you are. A black dress
in medium. You will look good in this. Do you want to try it on?
Customer: Yes please. [In the changing room] It’s a bit loose. Do you havea slightly smaller size?
Shop Assistant: I ’ll be back in a moment … Here you go!
Customer: This one fits much better. I’ll take it, how much is it?
Shop Assistant: That’s 49.99.
Customer: But it says 39.99 on the label.
Shop Assistant: Oh, yes! My mistake.That dress is currently on sale.
The price on the label is the right one!
Customer: OK. Do you take card, or is it cash only?
Shop Assistant: No, card is fine.

At the supermarket
Customer: Excuse me! Where can I find the nappies?
Shoping assistant: They’re in aisle fourteen, sir, between the toiletries and the cleaning products. I’ll show you…
Customer: That’s very nice of you!
Shopping assistant: It’s no problem.
Customer: Oh! Here they are. Thanks!
Shopping assistant: Just ask if you need anything else.
Customer: What time are you open until?
Shopping assistant: Today, we’re open until 10 pm. But it’s a bank holiday

At a UK market
Customer: Hello! How much are these potatoes?
Shopkeeper: They’re a pound a kilo, madam.
Customer: I’ll have a kilo and a half, then.
Shopkeeper: Anything else?
Customer: That rhubarb looks nice.
Shopkeeper: Yes, it’s organic, grown by a farmer friend of mine just down the road. It’s great in savoury or sweet dishes.
Customer: I think I’ll take three stalks.
Shopkeeper: Good choice. What else do you fancy today?
Customer: I’d also need a few eggs. Which ones do you recommend?
Shopkeeper: Well, I have two kinds. These ones here are organic, while these… are free range. Very happy chickens laid those eggs. You can taste the happiness in your morning
breakfast!
Customer: Oh! Can you give me a dozen of the free-range ones, please. Could you please choose the cleaner ones?
Shopkeeper: Sure. Here you go. Anything else?
Customer: That lettuce looks a bit wilted. Is that all you have?
Shopkeeper: I have a few more in the back. How many do you need?
Customer: Just one, thank you.
Shopkeeper: Here it is. What else can I get you, madam?
Customer: I think that’s it. What’s the damage?
Shopkeeper: Err. Let me see. That will be seven pounds fifty, please.
Customer: Here’s a tenner.
Shopkeeper: And here’s your change. Thank you very much.
Customer: Thank you.

CAN I GET “CANCELLED”?
Yes, people can now get cancelled. What’s all this about? Cancelling a person means dismissing them because of something they’ve said or something they believe. It’s becoming more popular to shun or isolate people you disagree with. If you disapprove of something, it can be cancelled.
Celebrities, companies and films can all be cancelled too. Common headlines can look like “Cancel Christmas” or “Cancel Meghan Markle.”
Many people regret the rise of “cancel culture” and wish society could return to an era of civilised discussion when it was OK to disagree with one another. Today, though, it seems as if more of us are idealists who only accept a specific view of the world. If anything goes against it, it’s all too easy to brush it aside with a “cancel” instead of confronting it head-on.

ARE SPLIT INFINITIVES BAD?

No. English educators of old always taught that using split infi nitives was impermissible.

Nowadays, that might not necessarily be the case. First off, what is a split infinitive? As you know, infinitives in English consist of two words, like “to run.” Traditional grammar
rules dictate that those two words cannot be separated. For instance, the following sentence would be incorrect:
• I like to quickly eat my breakfast.
You’d have to say:
• I like to eat my breakfast quickly.

However, most folks today are perfectly fi ne with the fi rst example. Split infinitives were originally frowned upon because of Latin grammar rules that were transferred over to
English, but most people today don’t see any point to the restriction. Even Star Trek included the phrase “to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

WHAT ARE THE MOST COMMON ORDINAL NUMBERS?
The three most common ordinal numbers – which correspond to the three lowest ordinal numbers – one, two and three – are
first, second and third. They are irregular because most ordinal numbers are formed by adding the suffix -th to cardinal numbers
e.g. fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, tenth and eleventh. The ending -ve in the cardinal numbers fi ve and twelve is replaced with -f to form the ordinal numbers fifth and twelfth. The final -e in the cardinal number nine is dropped, giving us the ordinal number ninth, whilst the -y at the end of cardinal numbers from twenty to ninety is replaced with -ie, hence the forms twentieth, ninetieth etc. In compound numbers like twenty one, only the nearest number from the end is declined, so we say twenty-first.

If you are interested in more tidbits concerning English, reach for English Matters newest special edition – FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS IN AND ABOUT ENGLISH – available at kiosk.colorfulmedia.pl

Ever noticed how some of Louisiana’s towns and geographical regions bear French names, like Baton Rouge, Lafayette, or Lake Pontchartrain, just to name a few?

Well, in the 17th and 18th centuries the French were more than happy to go and colonise the region. Naturally, the effects of the migration are visible to this day.
One of the remnants of the French influence in the South is the Cajun dialect.
Spoken mostly in Louisiana, just north of the Mexican Gulf, the dialect is characterised by its lively sound and French-like pronunciation. Cajun is also not shy of Frenchisms, French words casually mixed into English sentences. C’est la vie in the swamps of Louisiana.

To the West of Louisiana we’ve got the Texans and their infamous southern drawl. You know the stereotypical Texan, you’ve seen him on TV a million times before. Probably owns a ranch, drives a pickup truck, wears a hat, tucks his shirt into his jeans and his jeans into his cowboy boots. And it takes him 3 minutes to say a single sentence, because he speaks
with the aforementioned southern drawl. This unique (although not exclusive to the South) linguistic feature makes him elongate simple words to the maximum.
Instead of saying sit with the usual short i sound, he’ll add a diphthong, making it sound like siyet. The guy’s also keen on double negatives, loves using ain’t, and his could’ve is actually could of.

While the southern drawl is mostly associated with a stereotypical white southerner, there’s also a large population of Hispanic and Latino Americans living in the South West. The dialect they use is called Chicano. Chicano English borrows a lot from Spanish, making it a soft sounding dialect. For example, z consonants are often devoiced, making them sound
like s, so words such as was or cause end with /s/. Some Chicano speakers may replace v with b, making very sound like bery. It’s also not uncommon to hear th pronounced as either d, t, f, or even s.
Then there’s jou – a truly Mexican way of pronouncing the word you. Similarly to Cajuns implementing French words into the everyday language, Chicano speakers also like to use a Spanish word here and there, ¿comprende? The mixture of English and Spanish is called Spanglish.

If you’re interested in more tidbits concerning American English, look for English Matters special edition „Spice Up Your American English” -  available in shops on the 7th of September:)

What Is a Paragraph?
A paragraph is a collection of sentences that develop a single idea. The number of sentences in a paragraph depends on how complex a particular idea is. However, most paragraphs contain between two and ten sentences. Below you will find an example of a paragraph which evolves around the concept expressed by the sentence put in bold: What makes travelling worthwhile is getting to know other people.
This kind of sentence, which summarises the main thought of a piece of writing is called its topic sentence and it is usually found at the very beginning of a paragraph.
Where Can We Find Paragraphs?
A paragraph can be an independent form of writing. For instance, it could constitute an answer to the exam question:
Discuss the importance of physical exercise in a healthy lifestyle. Nevertheless, paragraphs also form part of longer texts, for example, academic essays, which are
handed in as assignments at universities or colleges, and are meant to be readand assessed by teachers. Our exemplary paragraph quoted below could be included in an essay discussing, for instance, the advantages of travelling. Generally speaking, paragraphs are found in rather formal kinds of texts that also include scientific books or press articles, and they must   fulfil a number of specific requirements that we will discuss below.
What Should Each Paragraph Contain?
Each paragraph must necessarily contain the topic sentence, such as the one in bold in our example below. This sentence summarises or conveys the main idea of the whole paragraph. The topic sentenceis followed by a number of supporting sentences whose aim is to develop the principal thought expressed by the topic sentence. Supporting sentences give facts (e. g. statistics), examples or reasons illustrating the point in question. Our exemplary paragraph gives two reasons why travelling leads to broadening our knowledge
about other people: i) we can meet interesting locals on the way and ii) get to know our travelling companions better, too. Finally, most paragraphs contain a concluding sentence, which marks the end of the paragraph and repeats the most important information to be remembered by the reader. In the model paragraph, the concluding sentence is: So, we can see that travelling is valuable because we learn things both about the new people we meet and the people we went with. It shows thereader briefly what they have learned by
reading it. Other common expressions that introduce concluding sentences are, for instance: In conclusion, In summary, Inshort, In brief, Thus, These examples show that, So, we can see that, etc. Concluding sentences may sometimes be skipped in multi-paragraph forms of writing.
What Makes  a Good Paragraph?
When you practise writing paragraphs pay special attention to their two principal characteristics. First of all, remember that one paragraph should be devoted to
a single concept and not several distinct ideas. For instance, the example paragraph concentrates on only one positive aspect  of travelling, namely, getting to know other people. It does not tell the reader that making journeys broadens our horizons in general, or that it helps us to recharge our batteries. To develop these points, we would need separate paragraphs. This feature of a good paragraph is referred to as unity. Another crucial characteristic of successful paragraphs is their coherence. Coherent writing has a logical and transparent structure. The relationship between particular sentences is signalled by means of appropriate linking expressions. In the ‘travel’ paragraph below the following phrases guide the reader through the text and make it more coherent: therefore, for instance, what is more, for this reason, so, we can see that. In conclusion, creating comprehensiveand coherent paragraphs is a skill worth mastering. It is the first step to successfully create academic essays of various types, for example, opinion essays, argumentative essays, essays describing people or places, or even different kinds of formal letters. Even if you don’t need to produce those academic texts, dividing any longer piece of writing into paragraphs will make it better structured, more informative and easier to follow for potential readers.

Happy writing!

Fixed phrases are when the wording cannot be changed without sounding odd or a little off to native speakers, like chalk and cheese meaning two people are complete polar opposites. If you exchange one of the words, the meaning becomes muddled, and runs the risk of making very little sense.
When it comes to fixed expressions we often use ‘and’ to combine two words.
Some fine examples being, peace and quiet, pick and choose, come and go, knife and fork, black and white, all commonly used everyday expressions in the English language. A common feature of fixed phrases joined by ‘and’ is that the first or last sounds in the two words are the same, e.g. prim and proper, or doom and gloom. Fixed expressions are such
an ingrained part of the English language that it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint them, as they are spoken so instinctively by native speakers. Of course, you do not need to spend hours memorising fixed phrases off by heart, but you can start to incorporate some of the more commonly used ones in your spoken English.

Do you know anyone who has progressed immensely at something in a short period of time? Well, if you do, they advanced in leaps and bounds, meaning rapidly showing massive
improvement. What about when you go out shopping but only pick up a few bits and pieces, or bits and bobs? Either of these are really another way of sayingyou bought some small items of no great value. What time did you get up at today, was it bright and early? When you went to school, did you prefer to learn facts and figures or were you more of a creative thinker? Have you ever been asked where you were born and bred or how you make your bread and butter, well, what you are really being asked is where did you grow up and how do you make a living?
So if you are sick and tired of using the same standard English time and time again, then next time you have a conversation why not try some fixed phrases out for size. By incorporating some fixed phrases, little by little you will not only sound more like a native speaker, but you will also gain a greater understanding of the inner workings of the English language and
people. When we learn a language, we not only learn a new way of communicating we also learn a new way of thinking, if you will.

▪ The future is shaped by your dreams, so stop wasting your time and go to sleep.

▪ I never worry about the future, it comes soon enough.

▪ How do you know a man is thinking about his future? He buys two cases of beer, instead of one.

▪ Dear future husband, when you propose to me, please don’t put the ring into my food, because I guarantee, I will eat it.

▪ Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

▪ How to make God laugh? Tell Him your future plans.

Interested in more tidbits concerning English Tenses? Have a look at English Matters special edition available at

https://www.kiosk.colorfulmedia.pl/wydania-specjalne/1069-english-matters-english-tenses.html

Example: Ever since Peter set up his online company, he has been such a mouse potato.