• The British Empire was in the nineteeth century the largest of the world’s history and it covered about a quarter of the world’s surface.
• “The sun never setzs on the British Empire”
• Britain was a powerful and wealthy nation
• Britain defeated other European countries and conquered indigenous peoples thanks to it’s army and navy
• The rapid technological advances (steam engine, telegraph, steamship etc.) aided expansion
• motives behind Britain’s expansion were for example Trade (The desire to benefit British companies and secure trade routes), economics (desire to increase Britain’s wealth), politics, ambition, adventure, curiosity and religion (the desire to spread Christianity).
• The British Empire was often said to be liberal, guided by the principle that safed the good of the peoples, who would eventually be given the right to self-rule.
• They wanted to improve the welfare of the indigenous peoples, giving them medical care, better legal, education and transport systems.
• The British tried to eliminate practices that they considered barbaric, for example suttee, cannibalism and slavery.

Why did the British Empire decline?

• The 1st and 2nd World Wars led to a decline of Britains wealth and prestige
• The British Empire had less impact
• After the wars: rebuilding their countries, the colonies ruled themselves
• most British terretories had become independent (not always peaceful)
• The British Empire had had a huge impact on the world
• former colonies still have links with Britain
• Many of the colonies are parliamentary democracies
• The legal system is often based on British law
• military, police and civil service often based on british models
• English is still the main or secondary language

Übrigens: Monat und Mond haben gemeinsame sprachliche Wurzeln. Um die Monatsnamen ranken sich viele Sprichwörter: Der Januar muss krachen, soll der Frühling lachen. Im Februar Schnee und Eis, macht den Sommer heiß. Ein feuchter März ist des Bauern Schmerz. April, April, der macht, was er will. etc.

Die Monate auf Englisch

Regeln für die Verwendung der englischen Grundzahlen:

• Im Deutschen sagt man in der Regel „hundert“ statt „einhundert“ bzw. „tausend“ statt „eintausend“. Im Englischen aber gilt die Regel einer Verbindung mit „one“ (wenn die Zahl betont wird) oder „a“(wenn die Zahl unbetont wird).
  Beispiele: 100: a/one hundred per cent (hundert Prozent); 1,000: a/one thousand years ago (vor tausend Jahren); 1,000,000: a/one million people (eine Million Menschen)
• Im amerikanischen Englisch hingegen kann „and“ auch weggelassen werden.
  Beispiel: 110 – one hundred and ten (hundertzehn).
• Geht „the” vorweg, so entfällt „a“ bzw. „one“
  Beispiele: the first hundred years are the hardest (die ersten hundert Jahre sind die schwersten), the country’s thousand-year history (die tausendjahrige Geschichte des Landes), the Hundred Years War (der Hundertjährige Krieg).
• Tausender werden durch Kommas getrennt (nicht wie im Deutschen durch Punkte). Ausnahme: Jahreszahlen und Telefonnummern
  Beispiele: 7,000 (seven thousand), 18,000 (eighteen thousand), 475.125 (four hundred and seventy-five thousand one hundred and twenty-five).
• Bei Dezimalzahlen entspricht dem deutschen Komma ein Punkt.
• Achtung: Das englische Wort für Milliarde ist billion (eine Billion = one trillion).
• Die Zahlen in der Einzahl werden in der Regel klein geschrieben.
  Beispiele: three hundred Euros (dreihundert Euro); several thousand light years (mehrere tausend Lichtjahre)
• Die Mehrzahl wird nur verwendet bei dozen, hundred, thousand, million, billion, wenn diese nicht durch eine weitere Zahl (bzw. a few / several) näher bestimmt sind.
  Beispiele: hundreds of Euros (hunderte Euros); thousands of light years (tausende von Lichtjahren)

Himmelsrichtungen in Englisch

Cartoonbeschreibung Beispiel

In the cartoon, which is a black-and-white drawing, I can see two aliens, which are sitting in a huge space ship and talk to each other. The alien on the left says: “…” to the alien on the right, who has a obsequious facial expression.The viewer has the impression of sharing the place in the space ship with the two aliens who are talking to each other.
The space ship is obviously landed on earth which can be seen by the fact that two human beings are looking through the wind screen towards the two aliens in a very astonished or rather a puzzled way. Amazingly enough the aliens don´t seem to be bewildered about this situation but rather carry out a very normal dispute of being right.The payoff is that the aliens which are coming from a far planet are behaving completely same like the earthlings and are only disputing about unimportant things. Our image of the aliens usually is that the extraterrestrial intelligence is more suffisticated than our “atavistic” brains. But the cartoonist points out, that they are grappling with the same problems like the human race.
The cartoonist wants to point out his point of view that the aliens are very much alike humans in there emotional behavior. He works with exaggeration because such a situation would never exist, every normal person would be shocked about exploring a new race. In addition could be said, that the aliens have got a very strange appearance. They don´t care about the humans in any way.

Before you describe the cartoon:

• Keep in mind that a cartoon is a visual text!
• Therefore the picture and the text are equally important!
• Look at the cartoon carefully!
• Make sure you understand the situation and context of the cartoon.

Ask yourself some questions before you describe the cartoon:

• What would be normal in the situation?
• What is strange or unexpected and why?
• Does the text clash with the picture?
• Is there exaggeration, irony?
• Are there puns (plays on words), or symbols?
• Why is it funny? (If it´s not funny you didn´t understand the joke, or the joke was lame)
• do I get the joke?

The message of the cartoon:

• If you got the joke you´ll get the message. The message can be political, or just funny, or thougt-provoking in some sense.

When you write a description of a cartoon:

• remember that for describing a cartoon you will mostly need the present progressive.
• comment on the cartoon use expressions such as: “In my opinion the cartoonist wants to express…”