Open from 1892 to 1954, Ellis Island was an immigration centre and all the immigrants had to stop there to undergo numerous and varied examinations before being allowed to enter America.
All the newcomers hoped for a new life, they wanted to start from scratch and live their own American Dream. Here is one of the most famous pictures, showing a whole family (on Ellis Island) waiting for the longed-for authorization to set foot on the American soil.
If you want to know a bit more about Ellis Island, here is a very interesting link ( worth visiting):
Speaking English is said to be as easy as pie. But when you read that, you may change your mind... This one goes out to all those who have a tendency not to worry because ( I quote) "English ? So what ? Fingers in ze nose !" ;-)
POEM
(to be read aloud, wow, who is going to take up the challenge ??)
I take it you already know
Of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Others may stumble, but not you
On hiccough, thorough, slough and through.
Well done! And now you wish, perhaps,
To learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word
That looks like beard and sounds like bird.
And dead; it's said like bed, not bead.
For goodness sake, don't call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat,
They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.
A moth is not a moth in mother,
Nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
Nor dear and fear for bear and pear,
And then there's dose and rose and lose --
Just look them up -- and goose and choose,
And cork and work and card and ward
And font and front and word and sword.
And do and go and thwart and cart --
Come, come, I've hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Man alive,
I mastered it when I was five.
So, was that a piece of cake ?? ;-)
If you need to have words pronounced, here is a useful website :www.howjsay.com
And this one goes out for the buzzing bees who don't get on well with the "-th".
More seriously, here is a short video to help you pronounce those two nightmarish letters : "the terrible -TH".
