Rhymey Whimmey or What Makes English So AWESOME

There are two aspects of English that I really love - rhymes and alliteration. I bet you know well what rhymes are, so I won't waste time in explaining it, I'll just give a lovely example from my favourite radio series Cabin Pressure (you'll be hearing more about this one soon enough) - from Cork to York. Easy, effective and ear-pleasing, I'd say. They even based a whole slang on it, no kidding! Guess in what accent you can "give a hook out of the window"? The word "hook" subsittues another very similar word that rhymes with it - "look". Now it makes sense, doesn't it? You can see many more examples of this language playfulness in Cockney Rhyming Slang (a slang originally used by the inhabitants in Cheapside, London). Lovely, right?

Alliteration is another thing that helps you make your statement more audially appealing. It's the simple act of starting words in a phrase or sentence with the same letter. In a sentence, I suggest you don't use alliteration for all the words in it, but only for the key terms. Alliteration is fun and can be part of a daily conversation too. Soon enough you'll train youre ears (and eyes) to spot alliteration in every speech and text you encounter. Just like today - I asked my friend a simple question "Where were we?" and suddenly the complete awsomeness of this sentence struck me. It just sounds SO great, doesn't it?

And what more, the British like to use these two great artistic features in advertisment and public announcements. Unfortunatelly I cannot recall any alliterative announcement, but maybe my dear Trollkona or even you, our dear readers, could help me with it. So look at some splendid examples of how playfully the British can use their mother tongue:

 

Source

Source

Source

Guess what product is thusly advertised!
Source

                                   

Get a friend!

They're saying it all the time. And they're absolutely right - the best way how to master a new language is to have a native speaker as a friend. But when I say friend, I really mean a friend. Because only then you will really communicate on daily basis and sooner or later you will probably cover every thinkable topic in the Universe. Yes, you can chat with native speakers from time to time but what you really need is a total immersion and that is possible only when some friendly feelings are involved.
There is the trick - in a friendly chat, native speakers use whatever expression come to their mind, just as you when you're chatting with your BFF you've known since your first grades. Often it will be slang and the more experienced you will get, the less help and explanations you will need from your friends when they use some word/phrase you don't know. What more - it is no shame to ask your friend - "What does this mean?" - "What do you mean by that?", but I would probably not be as courageous with some casual acquaintance. It is also great to meet both in person and on chat, as when chatting, you can look up the phrases by yourselves and even add it to your personal word list. Also, you will probably better remember the word or phrase because it is placed in a very specific, personal context and it carries a message only for you.
When looking up new words and phrases, I find the web site Urban Dictionary very useful. They also have a great FB page where they post new words and phrases daily - and most of them are pretty amusing! With these, you can easily astonish your native speaker friends ;-). It is also important to remember that we are all just humans and even native speakers can have something wrong. Bear in mind from that background your friend is and apply the new knowledge wisely and approrpiatelly. There is nothing easier than ask - "Is this considered polite?" or "Can I use this when speaking to my teacher/boss?" This info is often not involved in the dictionaries and you never know what faux-pas you may cause by wrong expression.
Well, is sounds quite amazing, doesn't it? I am not saying that with a native speaker as a friend you can throw your textbooks aways and that you can spend the money put aside for language courses on hot-tub full of champagne, but having English/American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealandian/whatever friend can be an invaluable addition to your language learning. And where can you meet native speakers? Well, this we will discuss later on.
So long, folks! :-)