Watch today's show at YouTube.
Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.
I thought I’d tell you about a common mistake today. The use of midnight.
A lot of my students in Japan make the mistake of saying “at midnight” when they mean “in the middle of the night”.
At midnight means at exactly 12 o’clock. For example, the TV program starts at midnight.
Not that many things happen at exactly midnight so you’re more likely to want to use things like:
around midnight
about midnight
before midnight
after midnight
If something happens at, say, 3am, like the phone rings. You can’t say “the phone rang at midnight”. But you can say “the phone rang in the middle of the night”.
In the middle of the night doesn’t mean exactly the middle of the night – it just means during the time that people are usually asleep.
Other useful things you can say are at night, during the night, really early in the morning.
And speaking of in the middle of the night. There is a famous rhyme with that line in it. And there is something strange about this rhyme – see if you can figure out what it is.
One fine day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other
STICK NEWS
Kia Ora, in Stick News today the world’s most widely-read blogger is a Chinese actress and director.
This woman is a 33-year-old Chinese actress. She’s also a movie director and a blogger.
She started her blog in October 2005. Last week her blog got its 100 millionth hit.
CNN reported the blog focuses on her work and day-to-day life.
And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 18th of July.
Kia Ora.
conversations with sarah
#269 Is it the first time you’ve been IDed in Canada?
Step 1: Repeat Kris's lines.
Step 2: Read Kris's lines and talk to Sarah.
Sarah Someone asked me for ID the other day.
Kris Where?
Sarah At a bar in Nelson. There was this place with tables outside and it was in the afternoon and we felt like sitting down and having a beer.
Kris And they asked you for ID?
Sarah Yeah, I was so surprised.
Kris Why? Is that the first time you’ve been IDed in Canada?
Sarah Yeah. I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess. In Japan, I’ve never been asked for ID for buying alcohol. Only by random police officers in the street.
Kris So what happened? Did you show them?
Sarah No, I don’t usually carry my passport around so I just said, I don’t have any and then she said, oh well, never mind ... which kind of defeats the purpose of asking for it in the first place.
Kris What is the drinking age in Canada?
Sarah Yeah, I didn’t even think about it until that happened ... but it’s, 19.
Kris 19? Oh yeah.
Sarah Yeah, weird aye. It’s usually 18 or 20. I wonder how they came up with that number.
music
show start, cws start, qa start
artist: Matthew Tyas
album: Music for the movies vol1
tracks: Superheros, Intellectuel, Three ways to run away
from: Oloron Sainte-Marie, France
artist: mindthings
album: The First Emotion
track: E-idfrom: Bordeaux, France
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