In this section you can learn about useful references and resources that will help you acquire and practice your English language skills outside of the University and this blog. Both the city of Hamburg and the World Wide Web are great places to find opportunities. Be sure to also check the calendar for upcoming events and activities!
In addition, we include here our observations and reviews of literary, musical, and pop-cultural events or manifestations that appeal to us, and hopefully to you! If you yourself have read, heard or seen something recently, and would like to share your reaction with us, we would be thrilled to hear from you! Contact us under the Help & Share section to let us know what you’d like to contribute.
Out and About in Hamburg
We are so lucky that this beautiful city is also a multicultural metropolis! Check out all the venues in Hamburg where you can find activities and events in English.
Amerikazentrum
English cinemas
English theatres
For current events, check out the calendar on the right-hand side.
Learning opportunities on the internet
The World Wide Web is a remarkable resource. But you will also find a lot of things that are not so useful. Here are some of the best sites and pages that can help you learn and practice English.
Daily dose of English
PIASTA English conversation online!
Doing Research in Times of Covid-19
Free books and knowledge for the low, low price of $0
Online resources for learning English: Dictionaries
Online resources for learning English: Corpora and word lists
Online resources for learning English: Grammar
Online resources for learning English: Writing
Learn with online audiobooks
Art and culture online
Entertainment and Thought
Looking for new ideas on what to read, watch or listen to? Maybe you’ll find some tips here!
Literature we love We at English Explorations love to read, and we hope you do, too! Under these links you can find recommended reading from our own bookshelves, and hopefully soon from other users like you!
Bone Black
Free books and knowledge for the low, low price of $0
The Handmaid’s Tale
The Genius of Dr. Seuss
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
American Black History reading
American War
Animal Farm
The Bell Jar
The Death of the Author
Check out our weekly poems, too!
Keats: After dark vapors have oppress’d our plain
Ebenbach: Passover this Year
Owen: dulce et decorum est
Shakespeare: shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Lorde: A woman speaks
Carroll: Jabberwocky
Blake: The Tyger
Dadzie: Baton
Angelou: Still I Rise
Hughes: The Weary Blues
Sorley: Such, Such is Death
Erdrich: Peace Path
Shakespeare: Sonnet 14
Angelou: Caged Bird
Clare: I love to see the summer beaming forth
Hughes: Freedom
Keats: To Autumn
Various: haikus
Bradbury: If only we had taller been
Parker: Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom
Various: Cinderella poems
Mansfield: Loneliness
Marvell: To His Coy Mistress
Keats: This living hand, now warm and capable
Dickinson: Because I could not stop for Death
Siken: Scheherezade
Music and Video Music speaks from and to the soul, and expresses the contemporary culture of its time. Whether you are a music fan or not, you will find that songs and sometimes the videos that are released with them can offer a valuable window to the society from which they emerge.
This is America
Why is Australia hosting the Eurovision Song Contest?
Movies and TV in the Spotlight Trying to decide what to watch on Netflix or in the cinema tonight? Find recommendations and reviews of movies old and new from the English-speaking world.
Hurricane Bianca
Hurricane Bianca: From Russia with Hate
BlackkKlansman
Bojack Horseman
Game of Languages
Get active and creative in English with interactive opportunities!
Pen-and-paper role playing games boost your creativity and your language skills
Playing games together during the pandemic
Under Visual arts and cultural offerings you might find reviews of exhibitions showing at local museums or other useful information about similar events available to you. Check it out!
Art and culture online
International Media Phenomena What is happening around the world that might be related to global English, etc.?
J.K.Rowling: Faux-Pas or Transphobia?
Addressing our Past
Fridays for the Future
News Sources in English No news is good news? No way! Nowadays, especially with the help of the WWW, it is easy to access news in English from all over the world. But is every source reliable? Here you can learn about the great variety of English language news media and their biases.
Critical reading: English language news sources
Holidays and Culture in the English-speaking World
English-speaking cultures are as varied as the language is world-wide. They are expressed in the holidays the different countries celebrate and the kinds of sports they play as much as anything else. Variety is the spice of life!
The Origins of Halloween
The Queen’s two birthdays
The Controversy about Columbus Day
How is Thanksgiving celebrated?
Elaine Thomas on “Black Lives Matter”
A brand new feature is our series Culture and Cuisine, which offers recipes specific to a specific English-speaking places. Check out these posts to help you get through the hard times with good cooking.
Culture and Cuisine: Gumbo
Culture and Cuisine: Lamingtons
Culture and Cuisine: Cottage pie
Culture and Cuisine: Bagel and Lox
You probably already knew that the English spoken in the U.S. is different from that spoken in England. But did you know the extent to which Irish, Australian, and South African Englishes differ? Or that even within the small country of England, language can vary over just a 50-km distance? Check out a few posts about English varieties and the cultures they go with!
Wanna cuppa? – The diminutive in Australian English
Indian English
Why English? Diversity and individuality in academia’s global language
News from the University
Here news from English-language projects throughout the University of Hamburg
Writing under CoVid-19
Grammar teaching video
PIASTA Sprachcafés go online!
Do not panic Do not panic
Writing at Home
Studying world varieties of English: the LARES project in the English linguistics department
Idiom of the Week
New series! Find a new English-language idiom here every week!
Dark horse
The elephant in the room
Moving the goalpost
A skeleton in the closet
Kill two birds with one stone
Add fuel to the fire
The last straw
No room to swing a cat
Burn that bridge … wait, what?
Herding cats
Silver linings
Baseball idioms
Vox Pops
Voices from campus. Get perspectives from University members here. The Home Editions offer some ideas on keeping your active language use fresh and up to date in these difficult socially and physically distanced times.
Vox Pop: Home Edition #1: watch/listen!
Vox Pop: Home Edition #2: speak!
Vox Pop: Home Edition #3: write!
Vox Pop: Home Edition #4: read and listen!
Vox Pop: Home Edition #5: all the skills!
Vox Pop: Advice for first years 2019
Your daily dose of English, now in a handy (get it?) app
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Weekly Poem: Scheherazade
I stumbled upon Richard Siken’s poem Scheherazade by chance and it has quickly become one of my favorite poems. Despite the straightforward language being used, it is a challenging poem as it isn’t immediately clear what is being conveyed. The…
Idiom of the Week: A fly on the wall
Invisibility is a super power many people have daydreamed about. IGN ranks it as the second best super power – just after the ability to fly – and it is easy to see why this ability is so sought after.…
Idiom of the Week: Dark horse
Since last week we talked about elephants in rooms being ignored, we decided that this week’s idiom should also be animal-related. This time, the subject is the expression dark horse. This concept is used in different contexts, particularly in politics,…