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In time, these lessons and "stubs" will be migrated to the Buzzwords site.
Until then, consider them historical.


Mini-Lessons from Wednesday, Mar. 14, 2012

These Mini-Lessons are posted on Twitter, and in China on Weibo, throughout the day. You can follow them there!

To get the most from them, you should try to use them in sentences, or discuss them with friends. Writing something on Twitter or Weibo is a great way to practice!
  • Science: space shuttle: vehicles that were sent into by the US space from 1981 to 2011; used in building the International Space Station.
  • Language Study: superlative: biggest, smallest, best, etc. With main idea and comparative looks like: big, bigger, the biggest; good, better, the best.
  • Business: foreclosure: act of taking something back (a car, a house) because the owner has not paid back the money he/she borrowed to buy it.
  • Literature: Jules Verne: (1828-1905) French author called the "Father of Science Fiction" because his books show air and undersea travel.
  • New Words: Bollywood: Hindi-language film industry from Mumbai, India; "B" from "Bombay" (Mumbai's former name), the rest from "Hollywood."
  • Slang: geek: like a nerd, a person with high technical but low social skills. "Why would you want to go out with him? He's such a geek!"
  • Modern History: Titanic: a passenger ship that sank after hitting ice on its first voyage across the Atlantic, on April 15, 1912. 1,517 people died.

NOTES:
  1. Except for the Slang words, all the words in these Mini-Lessons came from lists either on the Oxford University Press site or in the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy. I wrote the definitions and examples myself.
  2. The Slang words are from my own list, and I wrote the definitions and examples myself.

This lesson is ©2012 by James Baquet. You may share this work freely. Teachers may use it in the classroom, as long as students are told the source (URL). You may not publish this material or sell it. Please write to me if you have any questions about "fair use."

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