"Did you know, for example, that around 90%..."

"The Bank of English™ forms part of the Collins Corpus. It contains 650 million words from a carefully chosen selection of sources, to give a balanced and accurate reflection of English as it is used everyday" [...]
 
"Did you know, for example, that around 90% of English speech and writing is made up of approximately 3,500 words? Corpus tells us which these words are, and helps us ensure that when you use a cobuild dictionary, you can be sure that you are learning the words you really need to know."


Source: http://mycobuild.com/about-collins-corpus.aspx

Digabi: Project schedule

According to the current Digabi project schedule, the new format of the Finnish Matriculation Exam in English will be taken into use in spring 2008. The picture below is from the project website.

Source: https://digabi.fi/digabi/projektin-aikataulu/

Anybody and anyone

After reading a sentence written by a student, I needed to refresh my memory regarding the indefinite pronouns anybody and anyone.
First, I reached for a frequently used book in my bookshelf: the Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English by Biber et al. The conclusion I made, based on information found on pages 351-353, was that the two indefinite pronouns mentioned above differ the most in terms of usage frequency. In English: anybody is used more frequently in AmE than BrE and it is considered to be more informal than anyone.

This finding was corroborated via Cambridge Dictionaries Online:
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/anyone-anybody-or-anything

Oxford Dictionaries - a new, public and up-to-date online dictionary

While searching for the word "nondegradable" on the web and through www.oed.com, I happened to discover the "old" OED's sibling, Oxforddictionaries.com. It seems to search words like a charm and you can hear the audio clips (pronunciation examples) in a blink of an eye. Try it!

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/

More information about the site and its philosophy:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/about

Time to put things into perspective after the matriculation exam

Dear abi

If you took part in the matriculation exam today, this song / art work in the form of a YouTube video might help you to endure the time that you have to wait for the preliminary and final exam results to be announced.

Regards,
Lasse

Two important dates: September 8th and 17th

The dates mentioned in the post title are truly important for those students who are going to participate in the Matriculation Examination of autumn 2014. If you belong to this group, start revising with your course books and notes. In addition, familiarize yourself with the contents of the links provided in the beginning of the right-hand column.

Here's a link to the page, administered by the Finnish Matriculation Examination Board, where all the examination dates are displayed:
http://www.ylioppilastutkinto.fi/fi/ylioppilastutkinto/aikataulut/13-aikataulut/149-syksyn-2014-koepaivat

Time is of the essence, so start working! Good luck!

Listening comprehension countdown
Written part countdown

Age, a surprisingly complex word

While reading some course essays, I realized how the word age and its proper use in a compound structure can be quite demanding for a Finnish student. Inspired by this word, I decided to make a Visuwords^TM search on it. You can see a screenshot of the search result below. Keep in mind that the screenshot includes just a fraction of the complete "word map". If you want to try Visuwords^TM yourself, click on this link: www.visuwords.com

 

New Year's resolutions from a Scottish perspective

You might know the meaning of a New Year's resolution in Finnish, but do find out what Sophie Cameron thinks it means. The list is by no means easy to guess.

http://www.visitscotland.com/blog/active/new-years-resolutions-scotland-2014/

Picture source: http://www.visitscotland.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Gaelic.jpg