Category Archives: Language & Terms

Ted Landphair of Voice of America had an interesting story recently about a contest that is held (takes place) each year by the publishers of Webster’s New World Dictionary to pick a new word or term that became popular in … Continue reading →

QUESTION: Jorge from Peru wants to know what this sentence means: “Germany and Spain doled out incentives to consumers.” ANSWER: To dole out means to give something–money, food, clothes, or something else–to other people who need it, and usually to … Continue reading →

QUESTION: Mitch in Italy wants to know how to express quantities (amounts; numbers) by using “hundreds” and what is the largest quantity that can be expressed in this way. ANSWER: When you see the number 2,300, you may say to … Continue reading →

We often get emails from listeners asking us to talk about British English or to tell them the British English equivalent (the same thing in another language/dialect) in our podcasts. We would like to be able to do this, but … Continue reading →

QUESTION: Mauro from Italy wants to know how to get the attention of a person or a group of people whom he doesn’t know, in both formal and informal situations. ANSWER: The simplest phrase to use is “excuse me” and … Continue reading →

QUESTION: Raul from Mexico wants to know what the difference is among these phrases: What happened? / What’s up? / What’s the matter? / What’s going on? ANSWER: “What’s up?” can be used in two ways. One common way is … Continue reading →

We received an interesting question from Maggie and Savor in Beijing: We have a question from Cafe 150: What is the difference between “begin doing” and “begin to do”?  In Cafe 150, it says “Josephine began to act in movies” and … Continue reading →

QUESTION: One of our listeners, Natalia, recently asked what the common and polite way is to say that you have to go to the bathroom. ANSWER: In the U.S., the most common terms are bathroom and restroom for the room … Continue reading →

QUESTION: Brian in the U.S. asked: What are “cooties”? I watch “Arthur,” the cartoon (show with animation (drawings)), every morning, and the characters often say, “You have cooties!” but I do not understand! Please help! ANSWER: Cooties are imaginary (not … Continue reading →