I’ve been fascinated with Hungarian for the best part of a decade. I started with some night classes in Vienna during 2002 and continued with the purchase of the US Department of State self-teaching method that runs into fifty-two 90-minute cassettes (we are talking 2004) and is recommended for US embassy staff and spies, I […]
Greece: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
Fix Hellas I know that “Fix Hellas” sounds like a cry of despair, but anyone who’s travelled to Greece before the early 1980s surely remembers ordering and drinking Fix Hellas, the only beer produced in Greece with a national distribution network. The country’s Soviet-style industry control system, import controls and a small domestic market ensured […]
Top Mispronounced Places in the World
Having to correct several non-English speakers (and quite a few Americans) as regards the pronunciation of Leicester Square (LES-ter), Gloucester Road (GLOS-ter) or Greenwich (GREN-ich) in London, I thought I’d get this post off my chest. Queen of mispronounced locations is Davos in Switzerland that suffers from looking like a Greek resort such as Kavos. […]