So you managed to visit a website...

... what do you want? A medal?

Sorry, just kidding.

Great you're here.
Great you want to improve your English.
Great you... oh, hell, who am I kidding, now?

You are here for the...

 

 

World of Awesome Sh!t

From Ultimate Fantastic Four #14, Marvel 2005

Yeah. That one.

The Fact-Sheet:

Who you are:

• You can vote and legally buy alcohol.
• Your English is okay. Enough to get by, but not really good enough to read, write, watch or converse in it. So you don’t, unless you really have to.
• You would like your English to be better – for school, university, work or your personal life – so you can read, write, watch or converse in it. Whenever you want to.
• You like to go out and have a drink or two.

What we do:

• In a group of up to six people, we go out to a bar, or some other place with easy access to alcohol. And we talk. In English.
• We drink and we talk. We have fun. We play games, drink some more, and have more fun. We discuss. Everything and anything. We argue. We agree to disagree. We enjoy ourselves.
• No classroom. No tests. No pressure… But there will be “Homework”.

What you get:

• Better at English.
• An introduction into the World of Awesome English Sh!t: Books, Comics, Poetry, Movies, TV-Shows, and much more.
• Lots and lots of reasons to keep getting better at English.
• A really good time.

 What it costs:

•  A laughable 20€ per evening of at least two and a half hours of Awesome Shit and Drinks. No, wait, that doesn't sound right...

The "Why?"

Here's the thing: As you can see, all the Awesome Shit is already there. You just need to understand it. You... need English. You need to know it. Understand it. Live it. And you will love it.

To really learn anything takes practice. To really learn a language you need to speak it. Converse in it. Joke in it. Argue in it. Curse in it. Write in it. Scream it at the top of your lungs in the middle of a bar fight. All of which only happens if you really want it. And enjoy doing it.

And part of it is work, alright. There will be lots and lots of times you don't know a word, don't know how to say what you want to say, don't understand what is being said or what you are reading. And it will be challenging for some, maybe even frustrating for others. But the better you get, the better it gets. And anyway, once you've taken that first step into the "World of Awesome Shit", you will want to do it. Not for school. Not for work. For yourself. For Fun.

But I digress. Which means I say stuff that's not really relevant to what I'm saying - but then again, since I am saying it... Nevermind. Those circular arguments never go anywhere. It's like that question "How do I know the color orange you see in your head is the same color orange I see in my head?" That way lies madness, people.

Now, what the fuck was I talking about before digressing about digressing? Right. English. World of Awesome Shit, learn to love it, so you'll love to learn it.

The "How?"

It's simple, really. Instead of sitting in class, hating the fact you are, in fact, sitting in class, and therefore, most likely, also hating whatever it is you have to learn in that class... we take it outside.

We talk. We laugh. We have fun. In English. In bars. We talk like real people, drop the "F-Bomb", spit the "S-Word", and all that. We play little games, have big discussions, enjoy progressive teaching elements on our smartphones, but most of all we enjoy ourselves.

Here`s how this will work:

• We will meet in small groups of up to six people - plus me. And we talk. In English. All the time. And since you paid for it, you will want to get something out of it, so you will participate - especially after you've had a few drinks. Because - did I not mention that? All that talking will happen either in bars, or other locations with easy access to alcoholic beverages. 
• We will talk about all kinds of things, and sooner or later engage in discussions. We will argue. And since all that arguing will also be in English, to win your arguments, you will want to be able to express yourself well in English - and you will want to get better and better at it.
• You will also get introduced to some of that "Awesome Shit you're missing out on", and, hopefully, like it enough to want more of it. Which, again, will make you want to get better at understanding all the things said and written in that "awesome shit", so you can better enjoy it.
• And after a little while you will notice, that not only will you have gotten pretty good at speaking and understanding English, but you will want to get even better. Because you enjoy it. You will actually want to learn more English.
• And then... well, the sky's the limit. Your English will be better, and you will be more confident about speaking and writing it. And you will have seen enough of the "World of Awesome Shit", have gained enough insight into everything the language has to offer, to want to keep on speaking, writing and enjoying it. And that was the plan, right?

And if you did read through all this, understood at least half of it, and found what you understood enjoyable enough to want to understand more, I think you'll love being a part of this.

Be warned, though: There will be homework - but I think you might actually enjoy that, too.

If you are still interested, please contact me via email at: Nummer1@Eberwort.de. It's my official work account, and on the named website @ www.Eberwort.de, you and interested family members can find enough information about my German persona, to send Russian kill-squads to my house should you not be satisfied with my services.

Please also visit the next blog post Welcome People, for more information, more explanations, some more of that "Awesome Shit", and a small preview of what to expect. The next post is also a bit more complicated than this one, so don't worry if you don't understand all of it. If it gets too long or too boring, just look at the pictures and videos :)

Welcome People

Welcome, People-who-want-to-improve-the-English-you-have-already-learned-in-the-hopes-of-learning-to-love-it-and-therefore-actually-wanting-to-learn-even-more!

How did you get here? Well, you're obviously one of the People-who-want-to-improve-the-English-you-have-already-learned-in-the-hopes-of-learning-to-love-it-and-therefore-actually-wanting-to-learn-even-more. You saw my intriguing, yet smart and cleverly funny flyer, read the first blog post, and actually wanted to learn more - or you were looking for porn and made a shitload of typos.

Whichever way, here's "more":

You are here, because you find the notion of "learning to love English in order to love to learn more English" intriguing. Or confusing. Because what does that even mean?

Too often, learning English only happens in classrooms, whether it's school, university or some language course. Because it's never just "English", it's "English Lessons". Lessons lead to pressure, pressure leads to fear, fear leads to anger, and anger... leads to your English-learning-experience suffering. You learn it because you have to - not because you want to.
You have to, to pass whatever tests there are, after all, and nobody really likes tests, do we? Fine, okay. Maybe there are people that do like tests, but we don't like those people, do we?

As such, it is not uncommon for people - like you - to run away screaming as soon as someone mentions something like "Shakespeare" outside of those lessons. "Shakespeare" is pretty much synonymous with "terribly confusing English lessons (and they're not even talking fracking English but some weird medieval bullshit)", and you just got out of those gorram lessons, so why the Fuck are we even talking about it?!
And it's a completely natural reaction. Whether it's school, university, independent language lessons or, even worse, actual work, we all do what we have to do. But once that`s done, we want to do what we want to do. And nobody really wants to do more of the things we have to do than we actually have to, do we? Fine, okay. Maybe there are people that like doing "work" in their free-time, but we don't like those people, do we? No, we hate them, because they will all end up having better jobs and more money than we ever will, so "Fuck 'em!"

The thing is, though... when it comes to English - and yes, even Shakespeare - you're missing out on a lot of... well, awesome shit!

But more on that later. First, why should you want-to-improve-the-English-you-have-already-learned-in-the-hopes-of-learning-to-love-it-and-therefore-actually-wanting-to-learn-even-more? Being able to say "Me", "You", "Beer" and "Fuck", and then form sentences from these words should be enough, right? And maybe it is, but it's not really impressive, is it?

English is also the primary secondary language of the world. Which means that pretty much anywhere people don't already speak English as their first language, they do speak it well enough. In some countries they speak it perfectly, in others they speak at least enough of it, to give you directions, flirt with your girlfriend, or distract you while their buddy steals your stuff. So, it's both useful when globetrotting, and when waking up on a freight ship somewhere in the open ocean after a mind-blowing bender - again.

And yes, okay, apparently it's also the "official" language of stock brokerage, IT and computer stuff, the internet, space flight and... well, truth be told, most international business, science, and even politics is conducted in English at some point.

It's all good, as long as you don't wear your hair like that...

Also, if you're ever stuck in a plane to some country you never even heard of, and everybody including the pilot gets sick because of some twisted terrorist plot, and you're the only person who can save everyone, and you take out seven terrorists in Hand-to-Hand Combat because your Kung-Fu is stronger than their Kung-Fu, and you sit down in the cockpit and hope to God that the operator can talk you through landing the plane, and you don't speak English? You're shit out of luck. Because World Wide Language of Aviation? English.

So yes, it will be useful. Even for work, if said work will cross language borders. But that`s work. And it's called "work", because "shit" was already taken, so, despite what your teachers and parents might say, it's not really the reason why I want you to want-to-improve-the-English-you-have-already-learned-in-the-hopes-of-learning-to-love-it-and-therefore-actually-wanting-to-learn-even-more.

I want you to get good enough, so that you can enjoy all that awesome shit you're missing out on, the awesome shit I was hinting at before. What kind of shit might that be, you ask? Well, it's shit like this:

From The Boys #7, Dynamite 2007

Or this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or (especially) this:

And if you ever thought to yourself, "Wow, that sounds like a really shitty translation - Go, Google Translate! Am I paying for this shit?" while watching one of the many awfully dubbed (that means "translated") movies, or while reading a translated book, comic or otherwise, playing a dubbed video game, you know exactly what I'm getting at. What I would respond if you said: "Isn't that what German Translations are for?"
Things get Lost in Translation. Important things. Like flair. Charisma. Atmosphere. Fun. Cool. And it's getting worse. There was a time when German translations were fun and clever and creative. That time is not now. And I don't even want to talk about all the things that are deemed "too small" - which usually means "too small of a profit margin" - to even be translated.

What I'm trying to say here: Improving your English to the point of being able to fully enjoy original English Entertainment, will open up a whole new world of fun. Movies, TV-series, books, comics, video-games, all of it will become so much more when experienced in the original.

And it is this very fact, the fact that there is so much amazing English-speaking shit you are already missing out on because you have to resort to translations, that sets English, as something to be learned, apart from other classes, like, say... Math. Improving your English will bring you more, and more often than not, better and smarter fun in your life. Immediately. It's not just something for your possible career, not just something that has no use outside of work or school or university or Marine Force Recon Sniper Training (that last one is where you'll need Math). It's your first step into a bigger world... of Awesomeness.

So, now that we know that we should all improve our English skills so we can enjoy watching movies and TV-shows, reading books and comics, and playing video games even more, and thus waste even more of our lives doing it, where does "learning better English to further your career" come in?

Well... it's a perk!

Yes. That's it. It just happens.

Awesome, isn't it?