Show 267 Thursday 25 January

Watch today’s show at YouTube or BlipTV.

Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

Today’s language is Persian.
Persian is also called these two words. I’m not sure how to pronounce them.
Parsi and Farsi.

Persian is an Indo-European language spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan

And by minorities in these countries.

Uzbekistan
Turkmenistan
Pakistan
India
Azerbaijan
Armenia
Georgia
Southern Russia

And neighboring countries, and elsewhere.

Apparently Persian used to be even more widely used.

For five centuries prior to the British colonization of South Asia, Persian was widely used as a second or first language in the Indian subcontinent.
Only in 1843 did the British force the subcontinent to begin conducting business in English instead of the traditional Persian.

Persian is written in Perso-Arabic script which is a writing system based on the Arabic alphabet.
So it looks similar to Arabic.

And you can learn some Persian from messmanreturns on YouTube.

In this video he teaches some Persian letters and words.

Including these words:

tear
Japan
Circle

STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today the 2006 word of the year in Australia has been announced. It’s muffin top.

In Australia some people enjoy wearing low cut tight fitting pants and skirts.
According to the Australian government’s website around 67% of Australian men and 52% of Australian women are overweight.
The excess fat the Aussies are carrying around can’t fit into the tight pants – so it spills out over the top.
This creates an effect which looks like the shape of a muffin. So it’s called a muffin top.
Muffin top has just been chosen as the Australian word of the year. Judges chose the word because of its vivid imagery and sense of playfulness.

That was Stick News for Thursday the 25th of January.
Kia Ora.

conversations with sarah
#162 Have you ever seen a muffin top?

Step 1: Repeat Hide’s lines.
Step 2: Read Hide’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Hide Have you ever seen a muffin top?

Sarah Yeah – it was one of the first things I noticed when I went to Australia.

Hide Why do people wear clothes like that?

Sarah I guess they think it looks good.

Hide They think a roll of fat looks good?

Sarah Well, some people think excess fat looks good.

Hide Really?

Sarah Yeah. Have a look on the internet. There are some people who want to gain more fat. And they say it’s attractive.

Links

Today's news.