- - - - - - HAVING A MEMORY LIKE A SIEVE

THE FRUITCAKE SPECIAL

It is a smelly story collection.
Imagine you could change people's mood just by smeeling a perfum.
Imagine you could stop the time just blowing a whistle.
I liked the book, the problem is that the stories are not long enought and when you start and like the story, it ends. May be, Fran Brennan, the writer could enlarge them more because I can't guess the possibilities of having that perfum or the whistle. Can you?

BLACK BEAUTY

What a wonderful story!
It is like if Anna Sewell told us about the Human rights using a horse story. Wonderful!
Interesting sentences:

Mind your own business!

I've never seem hin since...

Thank you a thousand times.

They called me all kinds of bad names.

It was money hard-earned.

THE MOONSPINNERS

WE MOVE TO GRECE, THEN TO CRETE. HERE, NICOLA, THE MAIN CHARACTER, FOUND A WOUNDED MAN. AGAIN WE HAVE A THRILLER WHERE NICOLA MUST KNOW HOW TO BEHAVIOR IF SHE WANTED TO STAY ALIVE.
SHE IS IN DANGER EVEN IN THE HOTEL WHEN SHE IS HOSTED.
BE CAREFUL NICOLA YOU ARE NOT WELCOMED AND NOBODY WILL HELP YOU.
HERE WE HAVE ANOTHER STRANGE-ODD BOOK FULL OF MYSTERY. ALTHOUGH THE COVER IS DREADFUL MARY STEWARTS MAKES YOU TRAVEL TO CRETE. I GUESS THERE IS A FILM BASED ON THAT BOOK.

DEATH OF AN ENGLISHMAN

WE ARE ON CHRISTMAS. IN ITALY, FLORENCE INDEED. THERE IS MURDER. AN ENGLISHMAN IS DEATH. IT WAS TOO ODD. HE LIKED CHANGING HIS FURNITURE IN THE NIGHT WHEN EVERYONE WAS SLEPT.
AN ECHOE IN THE NOISY STREET'S OF FLORENCE. CARABIENERI BACCI MUST SOLVE THE CRIME. CIPOLLA KNOWS THE TRUTH. BUT WHO IS CIPOLLA? WHAT IS HIS STORY? IS HE THE MURDERER?

CRIME AND MYSTERY IN THAT STRANGE BOOK WITH SO INUSUAL STORY. THE BEST, WITH ANY DOUBT, THE COVER.

THE WHISPERING KNIGHTS

YES, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT MAGICIANS AND WITCHES. SPECIFICALLY WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE RETURN OF MORGAN WITCH. SOME CHILDREN WERE PLAYING IN AN OLD BARN. THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS ONE OF MORGAN'S (MORGANA) HOUSES. AN INNOCENT SPELLING BECAME TRUTH. NOW THEY HAVE A BIG PROBLEM, WHO CAN STOP MORGAN?
I ENJOY READING THAT BOOK. IT SHOWS THAT GROWN UPS MUST TRUST CHILDREN WHEN THEY CHANGE THEIR BEHAVIOR.

PRONUNCIATION 3: REGULAR VERBS IN PAST /-ED/

THE FINAL SOUND IS LIKE A /T/ IF THE LAST CONSONANT IS:

/K/: LIKE: WALKED OR TALKED.

/TS/ (ch): LIKE: WATCHED

/S/: LIKE: WASHED

/s/: LIKE: PASTED

/KS/ (x) LIKE: FAXED

/P/ LIKE: STOPPED

/F/ (gh) LIKE: LAUGHED

IF THE LAST LETTER IS A T/D/ OR AN OTHER CONSONAT, THE SOUND IS LIKE A /D/ LIKE: IMPROVED, CLEANED, OR REMOVED.

HERE, YOU CAN READ MORE INFORMATION. REMEBER YOU CAN TRY THE PRONUNCIATION BOX.

PRONUNCIATION 2: -AGE

WHEN WE HAVE ONLY A SILABE NEXT TO THE WORD "AGE" LIKE: PAGE, RAGE... WE SAY /EICH/, SO /EICH/, /PEICH/ AND /REICH/...

WHEN THE WORD IS BIGGER LIKE: VINTAGE, MASSAGE, GARAGE, VILLAGE... WE SAY /ICH/ SO WE HAVE /VINTICH/, /MESSICH/, /GAREICH/, /VILLICH/...

IT IS A GOOD MOOMENTO TO TRY THE PRONUNCIATION BOX. TRY WRITING THOSE ALL WORDS AND LISTEN CAREFULLY TO GRAHAM.

SAY VS TELL

SAY:

You can say an informaiton. You can say something. Say=give out information. So say + a piece of information. Be carefull: They say it TO me. (He said me: wrong)

TELL:

To distinguish: tell time, ...

To give instructions: Please, tell me...

To order something: I told you not to...

For further information you can visit this web, which explanation is in Spanish.

NEWS VS NEW

NEWS: Always plural, some bad NEWS, a piece of NEWS...

NEW:It is an adjective. This car is NEW. Only in singular.

PRONUNCIATION

That year we have to improve our pronunciation too. So we have to work harder. I have just added a gadget which can reproduce perfectly and accurately the pronunciation of the text you write into.

We saw the difference between:

Watch: The /t/ sound disappears. /wach/

Talk: is like /tok/without /l/

Walk: is like /wok/ without /l/ too.

If you want to understand better, you can try writing in the Pronunciation Box those three verbs.

STEVE JOBS: "STAY HUNGRY, STAY FOOLISH".

WAYS TO COMMUNICATE.

Those are the verbs appearing on the book. Page 10 exercise 2.

SUBMIT AND DEADLINES

Submit: it can be a synonymous of to give. It can be to sent by email, or it can be to hand something out. If the teacher said that we have to give her our workbooks done before Christmas, I have to hand my workbook out for the date she said.

The last day when the teacher is going to take our workbooks is called the deadline. It is a time limit.

But be carefull with the prepositions. Imagine that the picture shows October's calendar. We can say that the deadline is the 5th of October but we have two posibilities:

You have to hand your workbook out ON the October 5th. It means that you have to submit your book only in that day, you have not other posibilities.

You have to hand your workbook out BY the October 5th. It means that you can submit the work the 4th of October or even in September but the last day will be October 5th.

SAFE / SECURE / SURE

Poor mouse....
Let's see:

Safe and secure are synonymous, so safety and security too. There is a risk and if you are not in danger, that means that you are safe. The mouse takes security a tool like the helmet. It wants to be safe when it takes the cheese. Not to be killed. Estara salvo, sin peligro, seguro (de seguridad, de riesgo).

Sure, certain: when you are certain about something, you are sure. It is coming from the word certainty. You are sure that it is going to rain when the sky darkens and lightenings appear in the sky. So I'm sure that the mouse is going to be killed although the security protection.

ALIEN / LOCAL/ PACE (VOCABULARY)

An alien person: It is not an ET. An alien person is a strange person, a foreign one.

Local: In Spain we can say: I'm going to our local. But not in English. Local means that something is from the area surroinding us. It is coming from location. And if you are speaking about people, locals are the people living in that particular area.

Pace: It means SPEED. It is like the film of Keanu Reeves. I'm writing on my blog AT my own PACE.

A TALE OF TWO BRAINS.

I have just received that video and I liked a lot. It's too funny, you can watch it and if you like you can buy the dvd at www.laughyourway.com. Enjoy it.

GIVE WAY

Give way: Be careful, you have to look the road before crossing it with your car. If someone is coming, you have to stop your car and after the road is free, then, you can cross it. In Spanish we say: ceder el paso. But it is not a phrasal verb.

AT YOUR OWN RISK

When we were walking through the old streets of Haworth, the birthplace of lovely sisters Brönte, we could read that curious text.

I liked it because of the location and the gramatic level which they explain the risky situation: relative clause, two prepositions for the two actions you could do and a final expression: To do at your own risk.

HOLIDAYS VS HOLIDAY + PREP

Sometimes we have problems with the prepositions. There is a trick: If the word contains the word "day" or a piece of day like "Eve" it is with the preposition ON.
Let's see:

On Mon"day". On Tues"day"...

On my birth"day".

On holi"day".

On Christmas's "Day". (In December 25th)

On Boxing "Day". (In December 26th)

On Christmas's Eve.

On New Year's Eve.

On Fool's "Day". (In April 1st)

On Good Fri"day".

But AT Christmas, and AT Easter.

Holidays means a long holiday like summer holidays. In Spanish we say "dia de fiesta o festivo", in English we have to say a public holiday or a bank holiday.

TO THINK + PREP

Remember, to think verb only admits two prepositions:

I was thinking about what to eat when my son arrived with a pizza.

I was thinking of my son because it was too late.

So, I can think about a thing or about an action, I can think about what to do with you. But if I'm in love I will be thinking of you all the day.

THE SOONER... AND BILLIONS

Its meaning is "cuanto antes mejor" but you can cut the sentence and add what you want. For example: The sooner you faced your problem, the better.
"The sooner we earn our first billion, the better."
But be carefull. In Spain a Billion is: 1.000.000.000.000 but in England or US a Billion is 1.000.000.000 . So, as you can see, it is not the same.

THE BEACH BOYS VS THE BLUE SYMPHONY

EXAMS, EXAMS....

What can we do with an exam?
I though that we can pass or fail it. But I was wrong because:

We can take an exam.

We can do an exam.

We can sit an exam.

But please, study for the exam.

JAY WALKER ON THE WORD'S ENGLISH MANIA

Amazing video and new vocabulary:
+ pandemonium: chaos, anarchy, apocalipsis.
+ to be a returning point: ser un punto sin retorno. Ojo parece lo contrario.
+ Lingua Franca: again with latin, means that a language is spoken over big piece of the world, that just everyone can talk it.
+ Don't let me down: means dejar tirado.
+ Mother tongue: The language you speak when you are a child, at home...
+ Harness: can be a noum : arnés or can be a verb with two menaning: to put an harness to a horme or to use something. The harness of electricity: the use of electricity.
+ By law: It's compulsory to do.

WHAT CAN WE DO ON THE WEB?

Be carefull:

You can search ON the internet. That means that you know what are you looking for. By the way ON the internet, ON the web.

You can browse on the web when you don't kwon what are you looking for. To browse means: cursiosear, echar un vistazo... In a shop, to a book or on the web. Just watching.

You can surf the web. We don't sail the web.

We can watch a video on the web.

We can pay by credit card over the Internet.

We can look at a page or at pages.

LATIN OR ENGLISH?

Both. You know that some languages take words from other languages, and English did it too. I'm ending a big book about all the English History and there appears that chester means roman camp. So the places called ....chester had long time ago a roman village. Manchester, Lancaster, Chester... I'll explain more of this historical adventures widely in the entry of the book.
But, what is the meaning of?

e. g. : Everyone know that means for example but it is written in latin: In latin it means: Exempli Gratia.

i. e. : Means "that is," but it is written in latin too and the meaning is : id est.

So, although I enjoyed latin just a bit in the High School I have to say that I agree completely with Obelix.

RENT OR HIRE

There are two different verbs with similar meaning in Spanish but not in English:

To rent: (from wordreference.com): that means that if I am the owner of a flat I can let you living there if you pay me an amount of money monthly. (alquilar) So you can rent a flat, an apartment...

To hire: (from wordreference.com): means that you are paing to have the posibility to use a machine or a person. For example: If you go to London, you can hire a car to make some trips. If I have a farm, in harvest time I can hire a person to help me just during the harvest.

The problem is that in Spanish we use alquilar for both verbs, but I think that to hire is a shortter period of time.

FAMILY MATTERS

We can have problems when we are trying to introduce ourselves just translating from Spanish.

Here there are some new vocabulary that can hepls us:

If I have the same name that my father's, I can say: I WAS NAMED (NAME) AFTER MY FATHER.

And when my parents give me a name...: THEY NAMED (NAME) ME. But be carefull never: They named -to- me.

If I have not brothers or sisters: I'M AN ONLY CHILD.

NEW LANGUAGE SCHOOL YEAR

The new school year in the Language School of Barakaldo has been started. Again, many people walk trough the corridors looking for their new classrooms. The classmates have been changed. Thanks God I met many of them before but I think I'll miss my old classroom we have good moments and good memories.
But, life is life, or life is hard, say as you prefer, and LET'S START AGAIN IMPROVING OUR ENGLISH.
B2 be carefull, here we are.

And I want to end that entry writting a joke. I think it will be the first joke of the blog:

Why pirates are pirates?
Because they arrrrrrr.

So don't walk the blank (pasarela) and make your best.