New Content for Kids

Site update:

I have added some new content to the junior version of Road to Grammar.

1 For the SIGNS quiz, I have added images to make it more impactful.

URL: http://junior.roadtogrammar.com/?275

2 I have added more content to the Listen and Read activities. There are now 17 listen/read texts in total.

URL: http://junior.roadtogrammar.com/listenandread/

 

The Different Names for @

@ is an interesting little symbol. It started life as a short form for "amphora" - a kind of large jug in the ancient world. The, in our modern world, it has become the international symbol for usernames.

English is unfortunately quite boring, we simply call it 'at' or the 'at symbol'.

However, in other languages, the names for this little symbol are much more creative:

German: "spider monkey"(Klammeraffe)
Dutch: little monkey’s tail(apenstaartje)
Italian: snail(chiocciola)
Danish: trunk-a (like an elephant’s trunk)(snabel-a)
Polish: monkey(małpa)
Hungarian: little worm(kukac)
Russian: little dog(собачка)
Greek: little duck(παπάκι) 
Hebrew: strudel(שטרודל)
Korean: sea-snail(골뱅이) 

Al- Words with an Arabic Origin

Many English words have roots in French, Latin and Greek, but let's not forget about Arabic.

In Arabic, the word for THE is AL-, and this can be seen in many English words, such as:

Algebra

Algorithm

Alchemy

Alcohol

Almanac

Alcove

These words are usually anglicized (made easier for English speakers to pronounce).

For example, the word algebra in the original Arabic is “al-jabr” and it means “the restoration” – referring to restoring (balancing) two sides of an equation.