Tökfesztivál in Rácalmás

Whether we call it Marrow, Squash or Pumpkin Festival in English, it is still the biggest event of Rácalmás in autumn. Rácalmás is a little town on the bank of the Danube, located 65 kms south from the capital city, Budapest.

This year the festival takes place from 30th September to 2nd October in Jankovich Kúria (Mansion). Apart from the handicraft market, the program includes a lot of interesting concerts and performances.

You can see the detailed program here:  Tökfesztivál program

Do you know the English names of the different cucurbita species?

Marrow (British English)

 Pattypan squash

Courgette (British English) / Zucchini (American English)

Pumpkin

If you visit the festival, you can taste some typical squash dishes.

Pumpkin Cream Soup

Courgette Ratatioulle (similar to Hungarian lecsó)

If you are still hungry, let's have some Tökös-mákos rétes (marrow-poppy seed strudel) for dessert.

September: Harvesting Grapes

Most grapes are harvested during the weeks of September. If your family owns a vineyard, it can be a funny weekend program to invite friends and relatives to pick the grapes together.

After processing the grapes, at first must is created.

Must = freshly pressed grape juice

The fermentation begins with adding yeast to the juice. Finally the taste of the wine depends on the experience of the winemaker and the quality of the grapes.
There are different kinds of wine: white, rose and red.

Have you ever heard about Schiller wine?
The Schiller wine is a rose-colored wine produced from a mixture of red and white grapes, which are harvested and pressed at the same time. The two types of grapes have to be blended before fermentation.

Hungary has plenty of famous wine regions, for example Tokaj which is famous for its Aszú, a kind of sweet white wine or Eger with the popular Bull's Blood.

                                                            The Hungarian wine regions

Hungarian people don't usually drink wine from foreign countries because the wine we produce is of very good quality.
But if I travel with my English friend around the world we prefer South American and Spanish types.

Either a bottle of Rioja from the north of Spain or a bottle of Argentinian Malbec is always part of our holidays.

 

Gossip Girl - Season 5 from 26th September

I can't imagine any teenagers in America who doesn't watch Gossip Girl. The episodes of one of the most popular US series are also followed by many youngsters in Europe. A lot of our students download it every week and watch it with either English or Hungarian subtitles. It's definitely a good English practice for them! Even if they read Hungarian subtitles, their pronunciation improves a lot. They acquire the language while enjoying the stories of Blair, Serena, Chuck and the others. If you are keen on fashion and English but haven't seen any episodes, it is time to download them!

We've collected some interesting quotes said by the characters in the course of the first 4 seasons.

Blair Waldorf: "I'm not a stop-along-the-way. I'm a destination, and if you refuse to attend, I'm gonna have to find a replacement. Girls, the waiting list!"

Serena Van der Woodsen: "I even made a list of pros and cons. Dan: Good shoulders to cry on. Nate: Good shoulders."

Chuck Bass: "Women like to pretend their complicated. I know better."

Serena to Blair: "Right now, I’m with exactly who I want to be with—my best friend. You are high school to me. All of the boyfriends and mean girls and tests and teachers and our crazy mothers, we learned through it together. We raised each other. You’re my sister."

Dan Humphrey: " Life is giving you signs, and you're ignoring them because you're afraid of the thing they're signaling you to do."

Blair: "Changing your name doesn't change who you are."
Chuck: "It's a good start. A chance to live simply, earn people's respect. Maybe become a person someone could love."
Blair: "Someone did love you. And... you owe it to her and everyone else you're leaving behind not to run away. Which is what you're doing. And I don't think that great man you're talking about wanting to be is a coward. I think he would face up to what he did."
Chuck: "I destroyed the only thing I ever loved."
Blair: "I don't love you anymore. But it takes more than even you to destroy Blair Waldorf."
Chuck: "Your world would be easier if I didn't come back."
Blair: "That's true. But it wouldn't be my world without you in it."

CV and covering letter

If you want to apply for a job these days, apart from your curriculum vitae, you surely need to write a covering letter too. Because of the multinational companies and Hungarian firms trading with foreign partners, you might need these documents in English as well for your application.

You can download both a sample CV and a covering letter from our website if you register: Download

Also, you can find some useful expressions below which you can use in your documents:

Positions	engineer, lawyer, manager, waiter, sales representative, doctor, nurse, accountant, computer programmer, dentist, driver, electrician, teacher, receptionist, secretary, assistant
Universities	technical university, economic university, medical university,
Skills	computer skills, communication skills, organization skills, management skills, problem-solving skills, working in a team
Levels of language knowledge	elementary, intermediate, advanced, proficiency

Language courses

Nyelvtanfolyamok

Hamarosan itt a szeptember. Eljött az ideje, hogy a jól megérdemelt nyári pihenés után beiratkozz egy nyelvtanfolyamra.
Tanfolyamra a honlapunkon is tudsz jelentkezni: Jelentkezés 
Ha arra vagy kiváncsi, milyen szinten állsz jelenleg, töltsd ki ingyenes online szintfelmérő tesztünket: Szintfelmérő

It is September soon. After your deserved summer holiday, it's time to enrol on a language course.
You can register for a course online: Register
If you are curious about the level of your current knowledge, fill in our online Placement test.

Coffee Break

One of our teachers has also tried himself as a film director recently. Read his article about the background of his latest film!

Me and my indie filmmaker group, Syntax Films Entertainment, have been making no-budget movies since 2008. I took the inspiration for Coffee Break from Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset, which is one of my all time favourites. My story is about a man and a woman who haven’t met for a long time and one day they meet by accident. They decide to take a walk and as they are talking the past is revealed and the future is changing moment by moment. I wanted to make a realistic, simple and loveable movie which is driven by dialogue. 

In September, 2010, I started to write the script and finished it within a month. Pre-production took almost half a year. First, Gabriella Szaksz joined the cast then we found Gergely Boronyák. They were both very enthusiastic because they liked the script after first reading.  After looking for locations in Dunaújváros, we started shooting in April, 2011. It took 3 days to shoot and one more day for dubbing.  Post-production (editing, scoring music, cover design) ended in June, 2011.

                The movie made its debut at the I. Dunaújvárosi Amatőrfilmes Fesztivál (1st Amateur Film Festival of Dunaujvaros) and was voted as Best Picture by the audience.

You can watch the film here: 

Coffee Break on YouTube

and give your feedback: 

Imdb site

Amy Winehouse joins the 'Forever 27' Club

Amy Winehouse was found dead at her London home on 23rd July, two months before her 28th birthday. She was not the only musician who died at the age of 27.

Listen to one of her songs, Cherry and fill in the gaps!
Amy Winehouse - Cherry 


Her name is Cherry
We've just met
But ................ she knows me
Better than you
She understands me
After eighteen years
And you still don't see me
Like you .................. to do

Maybe we could talk 'bout things
If you was made of ................ and strings
While I love her every sound
I dunno how to turn you down
You're so thick and my ................. thin
So I got me a knew best friend
With a pickup that puts you to ..................
And Cherry is her name

And when I'm .................
Cherry's there
And she plays along
While I sing out my blues
I could be crying
And you don't care
You won't call me back
You're .................... as mule
Maybe we could talk 'bout things
If you was made of ................ and strings
You might think I've gone too far
I'm talking 'bout my new guitar

Other members of the '27 Club":
Do you know who they are?

Summer vocabulary

Nyári szókincsfejlesztő

Párosítsd a következő kifejezéseket a megfelelő képekkel.
Van egy kifejezés, amihez nem tartozik kép, ha megtaláltad, tölts fel egy ahhoz tartozó képet a Riverside Nyelvstúdió Facebook oldalára! Riverside Nyelvstúdió Facebook
Jó szórakozást!

Match the following expressions with the pictures.
There is one extra word with no matching picture, upload a picture of this word to our Facebook site! Riverside Studio Facebook

Have fun! 

flip-flops               lilo                   swimming trunks               goggles                      parasol

watermelon           deck chair        paddle boat                     flippers 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Royal Wedding

Is there a better topic for an English lesson this week than the royal wedding?

I don't think so. The ideas how you can discuss this event are endless. From family relations to dresses, there are countless things worth talking about.

I've collected some photographs with interesting facts and vocabulary. Enjoy it. Fashion blogs are also popular anyway:)

The royal couple: Prince William and Kate Middleton. While her wedding dress was designed by Sarah Burton, she had a DIY make-up! (DIY=Do it yourself.)

Kate's sister is holding her train! Its length is about 9 feet or 2 metres 70 cm. (1 foot = 0.3048 metres)

Kate's mother, Carole Middleton; Queen Elizabeth II and William's stepmother, Camilla were all wearing coat dresses in pale colours: sky-blue, canary yellow and champagne colour.

Page boys and little bridesmaids are important participants of all royal weddings. You can spot the inevitable ballerina shoes on the girls and lily-of-the-valley hair wreaths.

David Beckham's Ralph Lauren suit was stunning. Victoria is pregnant, she was wearing a dress of her own design and extremely high heels.

Oil spill

Our environment is an important issue nowadays. The current oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico can be connected to a lesson about the environment. Many coursebooks deal with the topic of nature and present catastrophes can make our classes more interesting.

I simplified an article from The Times. There are two versions of this task.

The first one is for Intermediate students. The underlined words should be replaced with a synonym expression.

And the second version is for Upper-Intermediate students with more difficult phrases. Apart from the synonyms, the sentences in bold can be converted into Reported Speech again.

Also, if you prepare somebody for a language exam, it is sensible to discuss current affairs. They might appear among the exam tasks.