Readable Blog

Reading is a great way to improve your English at any age. (Some people think reading lots of easy, fun things is the best way to improve your English.)

Here is a new website that may be good for reading English: BeeOsasis.com: Big Things in Basic English. They have 6 different reading levels, from “very easy” to “near native.”

A professor started the website, and it seems different from other ESL websites. It’s very “clean” and nice to look at It doesn’t have a lot of annoying ads like most other sites. Most of the other free reading websites I’ve found have a lot of spelling mistakes and grammar errors, so I haven’t told you about them. This one is good and doesn’t have many mistakes! However, the website is still pretty new, so there aren’t a lot of stories yet. You can join the website, and I hope they’ll add more to read in the future. It’s free to join. (By the way, if you are Japanese, you can use the website in Japanese, too. Of course, the stories are still in English!)

Now, I think the levels are a little confusing. In my opinion, many of the articles marked “middle” are actually “advanced” due to the use of idioms and other difficult vocabulary. Just don’t worry about the levels. If you know you are usually an intermediate-level reader, but you need to read “easy” stories on this website, it’s OK. These levels are not the same for each person. Read things that are comfortable for you.

Shel Silverstein’s poems are known by most American children and adults, because they are strange and funny. His books include drawings by him that go with the poems. Some of his poems are very long and hard to read, but others are easy to understand. These books have been popular for a long time, so you should be able to buy them at used bookstores.

This poem is called “Lazy Jane,” and it’s from his most famous book, Where the Sidewalk Ends. Do you know the word “lazy?” It’s an adjective that means “someone who doesn’t want to do any work.” I think the meaning will be very clear after you read this silly poem, which is about a really, REALLY lazy girl!

“Lazy Jane”
by Shel Silverstein

Lazy
lazy
lazy
lazy
lazy
lazy
Jane.
She
wants
a
drink
of
water
so
she
waits
and
waits
and
waits
and
waits
and
waits
for
it
to
rain.

I added more books to the Readable Bookstore, including some that are good for beginners (Frog & Toad) and high-beginner readers (The Littles). If you like The Littles, there are many more books in that series. Both series are old, but many people still love them. You may be able to find them at a used bookstore in the children’s section.

If you want to visit the Readable Bookstore later, the link is on the right side of the main Readable Blog page. It says “Books for Learning English: Readable Bookstore.” I try to add to it when I think of a good book for English learners (or teachers). If you buy a book through the bookstore, I get a small amount of money from Amazon. But you don’t need to do that. You can just use that page as a useful list of books.

Many English poems are difficult to read because they are long and full of extremely old-fashioned words. However, you should give Langston Hughes a try. He is an important American poet and writer, who was born in 1902 in the same area that I was born in. He died in 1967, but his poems are still popular because they are easy to read, powerful, and beautiful. Hughes was African-American and was important in changing the roles of African Americans in American culture and society. You can read more about him at the Simple English Wikipedia article about Langston Hughes.

Here is one of his poems:

Dreams
by Langston Hughes

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

(”Hold fast” means “hold tightly.” “Barren” means “empty, without life.”)

More of his poems are available at poets.org (look at the right side).

Happy New Year! I’m slow to post again. Sorry! I have an important project that I have to finish, so I can’t spend enough time here. Anyway, I hope you had a good new year and will have a good 2009.

Today let me tell you a little about Lang-8. It’s a language exchange website. Usually I don’t link to these websites. Users often get bored or frustrated, because they can’t explain grammar problems, etc. (Yes, a native speaker can tell you “This is wrong.” However, it takes a language teacher to explain why something is wrong.) Or people just write short notes to each other. That’s pretty useful, but any language exchange site is fine for that.

Anyway, Lang-8 is a little different. It focuses on writing correction. You write a short journal entry in English. Native/fluent English speakers use Lang-8 sections to make corrections to your entry. You can see their corrections highlighted in red, marked out, etc. It’s easy to see the changes. (And you can help other people who are learning Korean, Japanese, German, etc.)

Of course, there’s still a problem. If you ask the commenter “Why did you change that?” he or she probably can’t explain very well. As a result, it’s hard for you to understand why you should write differently next time.

So I have a suggestion: If you use Lang-8, use it to practice specific grammar points and sentence patterns. Pick something where you basically understand the rules and write just a couple of sentences practicing that grammar point. Make several journal entries over several days working on that grammar point. Use Lang-8 to “check your homework” (except that the “homework” is your self-study). I think this will help make Lang-8 more useful to you.

Actually, I’m going to try this myself with Japanese! Wish me luck…

We call the first page of a newspaper the “front page.” Newseum’s Today’s Front Pages website shows front pages from many American newspapers, and a few others from around the world. It’s a good way to read short phrases of English (headlines) and look at photos. Just remember that news English often breaks the rules of standard English grammar! (This is why I don’t recommend magazines and newspapers for your main source of English reading material.)

Today all of the newspapers show President-Elect Barack Obama, of course. What will they show tomorrow? You can tell what’s on people’s minds by what appears on a lot of different newspapers.

(The site is slow right now because so many people are looking at it.)

Click here to watch and read Barack Obama’s victory speech from last night. He is a good speaker, I think. His speech may be a little difficult to understand, because he included many references to American history, other famous speeches, etc. But you can give it a try. What do you think?

If you are not a US citizen, of course, you can’t vote in the upcoming US presidential election. But many people around the world care about this election. If you have an opinion about who you would like to vote for, you can go “vote” here:

http://www.betavote.com/

Just choose who you would like to vote for and what country you are from. It’s not a real vote. You’re just giving your opinion. You do not need to give your e-mail address or anything.

Check back later and see who is winning in your country! Even though it’s not a real vote, it’s kind of fun, I think.

One of my clients wants to start cooking American food. Well, it’s always hard to say what that is, but Americans eat a lot of pasta. So here is a recipe for tomato sauce.

You can make it first, then make spaghetti (or any kind of pasta). Just keep the sauce warm while you make the pasta. You can add ground beef to the sauce if you want to. You can also add tofu, pieces of chicken breast, or slices of sausage. Just cook the meat first if you use it. I like to use shredded Parmesan cheese on top of the pasta. We often have a meal of this: angel hair pasta (it cooks fast), tomato sauce, and shredded parmesan on top, and baked eggplant cutlets.

This recipe says “to taste” a lot. That means “the way you like it.” So you can put in a lot or a little. I use a BIG onion, a LOT of garlic, some red pepper flakes, etc. It just depends on what your family likes!

This recipe was adapted from “Fast Tomato Sauce” from the book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian
by Mark Bittman. (This book is excellent, but you need to have advanced English reading skills to use it.)

It takes about 45 minutes when I make it.

INGREDIENTS
- 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- 1 onion
- 1 can of whole tomatoes (24-32 oz.) with no salt (unsalted)
- Minced garlic to taste
- Salt and black pepper to taste
- Red pepper flakes to taste (spicy!–optional)
- Dried or fresh or frozen basil, oregano, parsley to taste
- (Optional) A can or tube of tomato paste

EQUIPMENT
A tablespoon (measuring spoon)
A 10-12-inch skillet/frying pan
A cooking spoon

INSTRUCTIONS
1. Dice the onion. (Cut the onion into small pieces.)
2. Drain the can of tomatoes. (Remove the water/tomato juice.)
3. Cut the tomatoes into smaller pieces.
4. Heat the oil in a 10-12-inch skillet over medium heat.
5. When the oil is hot, add the onion. Cook the onion until it’s soft, stirring sometimes, for 2-3 minutes.
6. Add the garlic. Cook for about one minute. Keep stirring. (If it turns brown, lower the heat.)
7. Add the tomatoes.
8. Add the salt, black pepper, and red pepper. Just add as much as you want. You can add more later, so don’t add too much.
9. Keep cooking. Stir it sometimes. Keep cooking until the tomatoes “break up” and the sauce gets thick. This takes at least 10-15 minutes. Taste it and see what you think. Add more salt or pepper if you need to.
10. When it’s almost done, add the herbs (basil, oregano, and parsley). Just add a little, then stir it and taste it. Add more if you want to.
11. If you’re done but it’s too thin, add some tomato paste until it’s thick enough.
12. Put it on some pasta!

You can add lots of other things, including balsamic vinegar, curry powder, Chinese chili sauce, etc. It’s really up to you!