媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

全球都在學英語，而且有越來越多的人出國學習，愛爾蘭就是其中之一。該國的語言學校說盡管經濟不景氣，可是他們的生意卻越來越興隆。BBC 記者McDonald有以下報道：

Oliver Lyons runs the Swan Institute, which has been a fixture on Dublin's main shopping street for the past decade. His school attracts around 4,000 students a year from Europe and beyond, with more and more coming from the Middle East and China.

This year, many schools like Oliver's are reporting extra business, due, they think, to the Olympics in London. Some even suggest that reports of higher costs for accommodation and flights into the UK might have led more students to choose Ireland. And the Irish accent, rather than being viewed as a handicap, is actually quite sought after by students, Oliver says: "Irish English tends to be pretty clear in its pronunciation, easier to actually study. People have said that, for example, in the UK, in advertising agencies, the Irish accent is considered attractive because it's got no particular class connotation, and it's a warm, friendly inflection and tone. I think people find that attractive."



And how do you tell if someone's studied English here or not? The clue is in what Oliver tells me is the rhotic ‘r’:

"In Irish English when we speak we simply put the 'r' - we pronounce it when it's actually there, when it's not there, we don't pronounce it."

"So give me an example - a difference between …"

"Law. When we say 'the law', we don't say 'the law-r'."

So next time you meet an English language student, listen out for that 'r'. Apparently, it's a giveaway.