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We’re so happy at Culips! Our podcast is being featured on the Language Portal of Canada’s webpage. It’s nice to be recognized by our home country! If you’re interested in what they have to say about us, check here.

Happy birthday to us! As of March 2012, Culips is four years old, and we want to celebrate with you!
So much of what we do here at Culips is online, so we wanted to try something a little different to mark this special occasion.

Everyone loves getting a postcard in the mail, right? So we’d like to send some out to our listeners! And we’d love to get some postcards from you too.

So here’s our idea: Send us a postcard from wherever you are in the world, and we’ll send you one back from beautiful Montreal, Canada, with a hand-written message from one of the Culips hosts.

1) Just mail your postcard to the following address:
Culips
4663 Christoph-Colomb Ave
Montreal, QC H2J3G7
Canada

Don’t forget to include your name, your full mailing address, and any personal note to us that you’d like to add. And make sure you choose (or make) a great-looking card, because we’ll be posting some images of them (just the side with the picture, not the side with your writing or contact information) on our website!

or

2) Send us an email at contact@culips.com
Everyone who sends us a postcard will receive one back from us in return, but just in case you can’t send a postcard for whatever reason, we’ll also be accepting some requests for a postcard by email.

Send us an email by March 31st at contact@culips.com and include your name, your full mailing address, and any personal comments you might have for us. We’ll choose 10 of the people who email us to receive a postcard.

In April, we’ll choose 5 of our favourite postcards or emails to receive a FREE one-year Culips membership, so be sure to keep an eye on Culips.com in April to see if you’re a winner.

*We won’t keep your mailing address once we’ve sent the postcards, and we’ll never sell them or share them with anyone else.

So drop us a line by mail or email and get a one-of-a-kind reply with a personal touch!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Culilps

The beginning of Spring in Montreal

The official first day of spring, according to the Gregorian calendar, is March 21st. Spring in Montreal is an interesting time. The winter snow starts to melt away as the weather slowly starts to get warmer. Unfortunately, the melting snow also reveals all the garbage that was buried underneath it, making the city look a little dirty until the city workers have a chance to clean it up.

In the spring, we typically have a mixture of really sunny, warm days that make you think that summer’s on the way, and cold windy ones that remind us it’s not here just yet. While we don’t have to wear our thickest winter coats and scarves anymore, we still need to put on light jackets with sweaters underneath. Nonetheless, we’re eager to spend time outside again, and you’ll often see people eating or drinking on terrasses (the French word for terraces, open spaces for tables and chairs outside) around the city.

Now, in April, the trees are still bare and there is also quite a bit of rain and humidity toward the end of the month. But as the saying goes, “April showers bring May flowers.” So it won’t be long until we can put our umbrellas away for a while and enjoy the sunshine and warmer weather.

My name is Dasilva and I’ve joined the Culips team primarily to help out with the blog. I’m originally from Montreal, and I’m interested in a lot of things: music, photography, travel, and especially writing. I’ll be posting short pieces every two weeks about what’s going on in our city and its neighbourhoods; about local artists, cultural events, and other fun stuff. Hopefully, through the blog I’ll be able to let you see a little bit of what Montreal is like, while helping you with your English at the same time. Feel free to send me your comments and suggestions!

Last Saturday I went to my first Igloo fest with a friend. In case you’ve never heard of it, Igloo fest is a yearly winter event in Montreal. It’s a series of outdoor concerts in the old port (one of the oldest parts of the city) where you can not only see international djs perform but also see some sculptures, grab a hot-dog, or have a few drinks at a bar made entirely out of ice!

I took a few pics so you can see what I’m talking about, but you could also check out the official site.

On the night that my friend and I went it was pretty cold, but jumping around at the Stanton Warriors show (two djs from the U.K.) soon warmed us up. If you like electronic music and dancing outdoors in the snow, this is definitely an event for you. Just make sure to bundle up in your warmest winter gear before you go.

Do you remember the time before portable music? Only being able to listen to music while inside?

Portable Cassette Player

Well, I still remember my first portable cassette tape player; it was a hand-me-down from my older sister. It was amazing to me to be able to listen to the radio and music while walking around outside. Then I remember getting a portable CD player. I felt so fancy and modern.

The last time I went to visit my parents, I saw my old CD player and it looked so big and bulky. After this, I moved on to (much smaller) MP3 players, and now I listen to music and podcasts on my cell phone; everything in one small device!

Portable CD Player

It still amazes me that now, with such small devices, we can listen to music and podcasts wherever we want. At the last Culips meeting, we were discussing an email from a listener. She mentioned that she listens to our free Culips ESL podcasts while she’s out walking her dog. We got an email from another listener who listens on the train to work.

Where do you listen to Culips? We’re going to make a short video using photographs of Culips listeners listening to Culips all over the world in all kinds of places. If you’d like your photo to be a part of the video, send us a picture of yourself listening to Culips anywhere, whether it’s the place you normally listen, or the craziest place you can think of!

Here’s a picture of me listening to Culips last weekend while enjoying the warmth of the fire at my friend’s cabin. We’ll be adding more pictures to our Facebook page soon!

Harp listening to Culips

I just finished listening to this week’s Culips ESL podcast episode, hosted by Harp and Maura, and I really enjoyed it! It’s a Chatterbox episode about the art of telling stories in English.

If you haven’t heard the episode yet, check it out here (for free, as always): The art of telling stories in English

In this episode, Maura and Harp both share some funny, interesting stories from their own lives and discuss how people tell stories in English in general. They give you some great ways to grab people’s attention at the start of a story and talk about how people often exagerate when telling a story.

Listening to Harp’s and Maura’s stories put me in the mood to tell a funny story of my own. My story relates to language, so I thought I’d tell my story in the form of a Culips blog post!

So, do you want to hear a funny story?

A couple of years ago, I was visiting one of my favourite places, the Science North Science Centre in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada. They have all kinds of neat science exhibits there, including some live animals that are native to Canada, like beavers, porcupines, turtles, snakes, frogs, flying squirrels, and birds.

I was visiting the Science Centre with my mom and we were exploring the area with all the animals. I was looking at a beautiful bird, called a rough-legged hawk, and my mom was looking at something else. I had never seen a bird like that so close before, and it was really neat. I wanted my mom to come over and look at it with me, so I said “Hey mom! Come see this. It’s so cool!”

She came over and we looked at the bird for a while, then moved on to the next part of the exhibit. As we were walking away from the hawk, a little girl, maybe about 8 years old, walked up to the cage and said to her mother, in French, “Maman! Regarde! C’est une socool!” which in English translates to “Mom! Look! It’s a socool!”

The little girl had overheard me calling my mom over before, but because she didn’t speak English, when I said the bird was “so cool” she had thought I was telling my mom the bird’s name! I wish I could have heard the rest of the conversation between the little girl and her mother, because there’s no such thing as a bird called a “socool”!

This story gave me a good laugh when it happened, and it reminded me how easily misunderstandings can occur in different languages.

Do you have a funny story that you’d like to share? It could be about a language misunderstanding, or about anything at all! Share it in the comments section of this blog post!

Hi everybody!

It’s summertime in the Northern Hemisphere and in Montreal that means that it’s time for all kinds of festivals and outdoor events like sidewalk sales. A sidewalk sale is a special event where all the stores and restaurants on a certain street or in a certain area move outside and sell their things in front of their stores, on the sidewalk.

I had a neat cultural experience this afternoon in Montreal’s Chinatown (an area where many Chinese and East Asian immigrants and families live). There was a big sidewalk sale happening in Chinatown, so my boyfriend and I went to explore the neighbourhood a little and to see what interesting things we could discover.

One of the most interesting things we saw was a little shop selling a special kind of candy called dragon’s beard candy.  It’s called “dragon’s beard” candy because the sugary candy is pulled and stretched again and again until it’s thin and wispy like the hairs of a long white beard. Then the thin strands are wrapped around a yummy mixture of peanuts, sesame seeds, chocolate, and coconut.

Photo by Ryan King

Photo by Ryan King

The owner of the shop and his assistants make the candy right there in front of you, so in addition to getting to eat some really interesting, delicious candy, you also get to see how it’s made, which is really entertaining!

If you’d like to read more about dragon’s beard candy, here’s an article about the shop we visited in Montreal’s Chinatown: Dragon Beard Candy in Montreal and around the World.

Photo by Ryan King

What kinds of festivals and events happen in your town in the summer? We’d love to hear about them!

Jessie

Browsing – To look through

To come across – To Find.

A few days ago I was browsing through the New York times website when I came across a really interesting article. The article was on the city of New York and all of its linguistic diversity. Apparently, there may be as many as 800 languages spoken in the city. 800! That’s really incredible, isn’t it? A lot of these languages also happen to be endangered ones (i.e., langauges that will probably disappear in the next 20 or 30 years). Because of this, a linguist in the city has started a project to record all of these languages that are under threat found in the area. It was really interesting to read the article and think about how globalization has changed the world and places that we used to consider traditional. Can you believe that the same person who started this project went to Indonesia to find speakers of Mamuju, a small langauge spoken over there, and although he was unable to find anyone there, when he came back and attended a family wedding there was a guy sitting right next to him who could speak Mamuju?!! Situations like that really blow my mind. I mean who could have guessed that something like that would happen.

Are you interested in different languages apart from your own and English? What other languages would you like to speak? Here is a link to a video about the project.

Do you ever get a song stuck in your head? You keep singing it over and over in your mind.
Last weekend I edited the Catch Word episode about the word wannabe. In it, Jessie and Maura talk about the singer Lady Gaga and how someone might be a Lady Gaga wannabe and dress like her and say provocative things like she does. It’s an interesting episode so check it out here if you want to know what a wannabe is.

 Well, ever since I listened to that episode I’ve had Lady Gaga’s song Poker Face stuck in my head. Here’s a short clip of the song. If you’re interested in learning more about what a poker face is, check out our Catch Word episode titled Stone, where Maura and I discuss the idiom poker face.

 When a song is stuck in my head, I often find myself humming it out loud too. To hum a song is to make the tune of the song without opening your lips and singing the words. I’m really bad at singing (and actually even at humming), so people can never recognize what song it is.
What song is stuck in your head?

 Harp

Here are some expressions used in my blog!

To get out of shape – To become unhealthy

To hit some weights – To lift weights; to exercise with weights

To get back into the swing of things – To get used to a routine

To have a lot on your plate – To be very busy

Downtime – Free time

You know, recently I’ve been feeling a little out of shape.  I haven’t been hitting the gym as much as I’m used to.  What’s worse, I’ve been eating really late and buying things that probably aren’t so good for my health.  It’s just been one of those stressful periods, I suppose, where I have so much on my plate that I can’t manage to sit down and have a proper meal.  If I’m not at work, I’m at school.  If I’m not at school and I’m at home, I’m doing my homework or working on something. There never seems to be any downtime in my life.  I really just can’t wait ’til things slow down. When I have time I’m going to go back to the gym and hit some weights and try to get back in shape.  Sometimes, it takes a few weeks to get back into the swing of things when I start working out again, but after about a week or so, my body adjusts and I get a pretty good routine going.

So what kind of junk food do you eat when you’re busy? I would love to hear about your routines as well. Hope you guys will post some.  I’ve got to run for now. Take care Culipsers.

Hello Everyone! Happy New Year!

In some places midnight has already passed…Happy New Year too you! As I write this, in Montreal the party has yet to begin. The weather was super cold a couple days ago, but luckily it has warmed up and is currently only -5! People are ready to get bundled up (dressed in warm clothes) to go out and celebrate New Year’s.

All of us at Culips are looking forward to bringing you even more, funky new episodes and other fun functions on our site in the new year! Robin, Jessie, Harp and I hope to be in more contact with you!

Thanks for listening! We truly appreciate it! And….HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR!

The Nutcracker is a classic Christmas ballet and I had wanted to watch it since I was a young girl. This last weekend I finally had the chance to go and I was not disappointed. It was an amazing show. I would recommend the ballet to everyone out there who has a chance to go.

There were a lot of young children (between the ages of 3 and 12) there and it was cute watching the young girl sitting in front of me reacting to all the beautiful dancing.  It was nice leaving the theatre to a light snowfall. 

Hi Everyone,

I hope this week has been going good for everyone. It has been very nice for me. This week I have had some friends visiting from my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. It has been very fun showing them the sites of Montreal. This weekend my boyfriend and  I are planning on meeting up with our friends in Quebec City to visit some of Quebec that I have not visited before. Hopefully I will have some nice pictures to post here next week from the weekend.

Today was what many people refer to as Hump Day. This is a funny expression that is used in Canada which I will try to explain clearly. For most people the work week is Monday to Friday, typically people enjoy their time off from work and they look forward to the weekend. Since Wednesday is the half way point of the week people are happy when it is finished because that means the weekend is coming up soon. If you imagine a small hump or hill and Monday and Tuesday are like walking up the hill, Wednesday is the top of the hill and after Wednesday is finished it is all easy walking to the weekend. The hump of the week is finished.

Even though I really like my job and I enjoy working, it is always fun when the weekend is coming closer. This weekend is a long weekend because Monday is a holiday so that is even more exciting.

I hope you all had a good hump day!

Harp