ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½

A bit like me - I'm from Glasgow, Scotland

but I spend almost all my time in London, England

Though honestly, the languages spoken in Glasgow and London aren't that different ... or are they? How good are your language skills? Can you ?

Here in the UK we have lots of different days to celebrate families, religion and culture but not one to celebrate children. I wonder why that is? As you say, it'll be interesting to find out how other people celebrate Children's Day around the world.

You've got a lovely chatty style in your blog writing, and you used lots of interesting expressions like:

Moscow is an impressive city.
The truth is that my profession is my passion!
I'd like to write a few words about my hobbies.

I thought we'd take a look at a few vocabulary items as well as looking at formal and informal language today.

Vocabulary

Here are the vocab items I'd like us to concentrate on today:

at the beginning
mansion
practically
24 hours tempo
very various
except

• When we want to introduce something we can say:
  

To start with,

or, to make it more informal, we could say:

To kick off with,

Rather than At the beginning

• The word mansion means a very big or grand house

I think the word you were looking for is mention which means to talk about something quickly or briefly without giving too many details.

So you could improve your original sentence:

At the beginning, I'd like to mansion that the 1st of June is International Children's Day!

by saying this instead:

To kick off with, I'd like to mention that the 1st of June is International Children's Day!

• The word practically means almost or nearly but in this sentence:

Its population is about 11 million people officially and about 18 million people practically!

you're contrasting officially and practically, and that's not quite right. Usually we contrast officially with unofficially. So we'd say:

Its population is about 11 million people officially and about 18 million people unofficially!

• When we want to talk about a city that never stops we say:
  

Moscow is an impressive city with a 24-hour pace of life!

rather than:

Moscow is an impressive city with 24 hours tempo of life!

Note that even though 24 is plural, hour isn't plural here. Other examples of this noun + noun (usually hyphenated) construction, where the first noun is normally in the singular are:

a five-day working week

a six-kilometre swim

a 55-minute lesson

• A word like various means very many different types, so the idea of very is already incorporated into various. So we usually use various on it's own, rather than saying very various. Having said that, various still isn't quite the right word here:
  

My music taste is very various

Instead we'd be more likely to say:

I have quite extensive musical tastes.

Or, if you want to be more informal you could say:

I like lots of different types of music.

• Except means all others, but not that one. But it's not quite the right word here:
  

Except English, I'm learning Spanish at the moment.

I think you mean, as well as (learning Spanish), so the expression you want is apart from:

Apart from English, I'm learning Spanish at the moment.

Informal language

There were a few instances when you used more formal language than is necessary in a blog. So your first piece of homework is to try to rewrite the italicised words in a more informal way:

1. I'd like to express gratitude to ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ team
   


2. It possesses the world's second busiest (after Tokyo) metro system
   


3. and comprises 180 stations
   


4. It's important that our society cares about the observance of children's rights.
   


5. So, I intend to tell you about the most exciting moments of these great events.

That's all from me today.

Ta-ta ra noo (that's Glaswegian for Goodbye for now),

Nuala

Vocabulary
chatty - speaking in an informal way
construction - particular way in which the words in a sentence or phrase are arranged
incorporated into - included in