Hi there! Ok, ok. How are things? I got news! The course for vocational students that are training for an internship somewhere in Europe has begun. So welcome y’all! First and foremost allow me to take care of some reminders.

For my intermediate crowd: please try and make sure you can handle verb+object collocations so that you don’t have to stop and think how to say something as simple as I’m going to have to call you back later.

For my FP pupils: the people from Djibouti are called Djiboutians. And I know you may think you will never need to talk about Djibouti. That said, you should be ready to discuss multiple nationalities and worldviews. At any rate, don’t forget we’re going to be dealing with personal descriptions pretty soon and the country of origin can be part of a descriptions.

This is for my C1 students: Yes. I know you already know your nationalities. You would never mix up the Swiss and the Swedes. However, I suspect you might have a hard time trying to come up with the nationality adjectives for certain countries. Are you sure you know what to call the people from Madagascar, New Zealand or Peru? And, by the way, what would you answer if someone asked you where do you hail from?

Ok, my up-and-coming wordsmiths, we're going to center on social types (again). That means you should be ready to a) learn relatively new vocab (fashionista, chav, etc.) and b) think of new social types. For some reason, the English language is great at noticing new trends and naming them. Sometimes neologisms never quite catch on (the word touron, a blend from tourist + moron is a notorious example). All in all, it's fun just to check out the suggestions. Take the Internet subculture, for instance, is a treasure trove for language learners that offers new words just about every day. In case you're interested here you have a list of neologisms which only true geeks may actually use on a daily basis. Still, it comes to prove that you can always find a new term for just about every new reality. Have fun!