Happy Easter!

Wednesday 25^th March

Hi Isabel,

How’s your Easter holiday going? I hope it’s Ok.

The weather is wonderful or as Carter (from the film ‘In Good Company’) would say, “Awesome”.

Easter traditions in Spain are basically a combination of religious rites and beach holidays, but in the U.K. and the USA they are connected to chocolate eggs and Easter bunnies.

In our last class before Easter, we carried on talking about wishes and regrets and hypothesising about the past and the future.

And we went on seeing the film.

In this part of the film we see how both, Dan and Carter are struggling (fighting to adapt) in the new corporate set-up (the new organization system). We see Carter’s introductory speech, his first speech to his employees. The speech is full of ‘business bullshit’ (words that sound very well but don’t mean much!) He talks about synergy, to be psyched (in the right frame of mind; ready for something) and also to be proactive. Meanwhile the ‘rif’ (reduction in forces) start and he has to dismiss (fire, sack, make redundant etc.) or as he says ‘let them go’, because it sounds better. Dan’s life goes on in a bit more stressful way. He’s getting ready for his new paternity (more expenses with the baby) and his eldest daughter tells him she’s been accepted in NYU and she’ll move to the city (more expenses, again) and meanwhile, he has to explain that he’s been demoted so now, he’s earning less money. The whole situation brings about some arrhythmia…

We’ll continue in our next class…  

Enjoy the rest of Easter!

See you on Wednesday!

Unreal Past & A Film

Wednesday 11^th March, 2015

Hi, Isabel!

Winter came back and this weekend wasn’t as good as the previous one!

Anyway, let’s be optimistic because this week is shorter.

What did we do last Wednesday?

We continued talking about regrets, and hypothesizing about the present and the past.

We revised the uses of the unreal past.

Sometimes the verb tense we use does not coincide with the time. Bear in mind that “tense” isn’t the same as “time”.

Time: present, past or future.

I wish I had Sue’s telephone number. So, I could tell her about the lecture.

“Had” is past simple tense but the time it refers to is present. It refers to a present situation.

·         When Bill and I got married, his attitude to money amused me.

·         If Bill got promoted, our standard of living would go up.

·         I wish we were better off.

·         I was so jealous when I heard about Carol’s weekend in New York.

·         I think it’s time we moved to a bigger house.

·         I’d rather my daughters married a man with money.

·         I wish I’d married my first boyfriend!

·         If I’d married Sean, I would have a better standard of living.

Tenses In bold red really correspond to past time.

Tenses in bold green, use the past but refer to present or future situations.

 Summing up

·     Use wish + past simple to refer to things we would like to be different in the present or the future (but which are impossible or unlikely)

If only I knew the answer!

I wish I knew the answer.

Wish + past perfect, to talk about things which happened and we now regret.

 (Instead of ‘wish’ you can use ‘if only’ in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, ‘if only’ is more emphatic).

 If only you hadn’t forgotten the map, we’d be there by now!

I wish you hadn’t forgotten the map.

·         We use would rather + subject + past tense to express preference.

I’d rather you left your dog outside. I’m allergic.

We can use would rather+ infinitive without ‘to’ when there is no change of subject.

I’d rather not talk about it.

·         We use the past simple after it’s time + subject to say that something has to be done now or in the near future.

It’s time (high time) the government did something about unemployment.

We can use it’s time +to+infinitive when we don’t want to specify the subject.

It’s time to finish this.

And we continued watching the film.

Carter has been promoted and starts his new adventure in business. He’s now the head of sales at the advertisement department of the magazine ‘Sports America’. Dan, the former manager finds out that he has been demoted when he comes back from playing tennis with her eldest daughter. It’s when he enters his office that he finds out that the ‘kid’ he bumped into in the corridor is going to be his new boss. Previously, Carter had met Dan’s daughter in the elevator, although he didn’t know that she was Dan’s daughter.

Carter feels exhilarated (really excited) about his new status and decides to buy a luxury sports car but he crashes it as soon as he drives off the car dealer’s. As a result, his arm ends up in a sling. He gets home to find that his wife is leaving him and …

TO BE CONTINUED!

See you on Wednesday!

Wishes & Regrets

See you on Wednesday!!!

 

Wednesday 4^th March, 2015

Hi! How’s everything?

I hope you’re enjoying the nice weather on our day! International Women’s Day.

Last Wednesday we talked about wishes & regrets.

 



One way of expressing them is using the expressions ‘I wish’ or ‘If only’

Sometimes the verb tense we use does not coincide with the time. Bear in mind that “tense” isn’t the same as “time”.

Time: present, past or future.

I wish I had Sue’s telephone number. So, I could tell her about the lecture.

“Had” is past simple tense but the time it refers to is present. It refers to a present situation.

·         When Bill and I got married, his attitude to money amused me.

·         If Bill got promoted, our standard of living would go up.

·         I wish we were better off.

·         I was so jealous when I heard about Carol’s weekend in New York.

·         I think it’s time we moved to a bigger house.

·         I’d rather my daughters married a man with money.

·         I wish I’d married my first boyfriend!

·         If I’d married Sean, I would have a better standard of living.

Tenses In bold red really correspond to past time.

Tenses in bold green, use the past but refer to present or future situations.

 Summing up

Use wish + past simple to refer to things we would like to be different in the present or the future (but which are impossible or unlikely)

If only I knew the answer!

I wish I knew the answer.Wish + past perfect, to talk about things which happened and we now regret.

(Instead of ‘wish’ you can use ‘if only’ in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, ‘if only’ is more emphatic).

 If only you hadn’t forgotten the map, we’d be there by now!

After this, we started watching the DVD.

The movie is called ‘In Good Company’. Before actually starting watching the DVD, we read something about the language used.

The plot is about takeovers(when a company buys another company), acquisitions and mergers (conglomerate of companies), as well as globalization. Although the story takes place before the crisis, there is a big number of lay-offs (people who lose their jobs) as the new managers come into the new firms.

The film is a comedy and it starts with Dan Foreman, a middle- aged top advertisement salesman for a leading company. He flies from New York to Los Angeles on business to find a home pregnancy test in the garbage (rubbish). He thinks it belongs to his elder daughter but in fact, it’s his wife who is pregnant. To make his day complete he finds out (discovers) that his company has been bought by a vast media conglomerate and that his new boss is going to be a young man half his age!

 Meanwhile, Carter, his new boss, is desperate for company after his wife left him and he invites himself for dinner at Dan’s house.

I won’t continue, as I don’t want to be a spoiler (a person who tells the end of the movies).

As for the language used, it’s full of abbreviations and ‘business bullshit’ (language of corporations with its clichés and meaningless high sounding phrases and evasions). The use of abbreviations has a double intention. On the one hand it shows the rash of the modern life and the way business is understood. Everything is so fast that there’s no time to speak slowly, with whole sentences. On the other hand, it excludes the people who don’t understand the meaning of those acronyms or abbreviations.

It’s a funny film with a lot of business vocabulary. I hope you like it!

We’ll continue watching it next day. As well as hypothesing about the past and the future…

So, see you next Wednesday!!

Phonetics & Limericks!

Wednesday 25^th February, 2015

Hello Isabel!

I’m sorry for our last class! I thought it was going to be funny to decipher phonetic symbols but, I’m afraid you didn’t enjoy it!

It isn’t as difficult as you think. It’s like deciphering a secret code. Don’t you like this type of exercises?

Now, seriously!  If you pay attention to the chart I gave you, you’ll be able to transcribe the words. In that chart, you have a picture which represents every one of the sounds.

Bear in mind that whenever you see : (colon), this means the sound is a long one. /ᴵ/ for fish (short ‘i’ sound) /i:/ for tree (long ‘i’ sound)

Do you remember what Limericks are?

They are short poems with a distinctive rhythm. The lines rhyme AABBA.

We had two limericks to transcribe:

A rare old bird is a pelican  A

His beak can hold more than its belly can  A

He can take in his beak  B

Enough food for a week  B

And I’m dammed if I know how the hell he can!  A

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There was ayooung lady from Twickenham  A

Whose shoes were too tight to walk quick in them  A

She came back from a walk  B

Looking whiter than chalk   B

And she took them both off and was sick in them  A

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Next day we’ll talk about wishes & regrets. And We’ll start watching part of the film ‘In Good Company’.

The class will be more enjoyable. I promise!

See you on Wednesday!!!

Body Idioms and Lost inTranslation

Wednesday 4^th February, 2015

Hi Isabel,

 So, you’ve nearly mastered the use of modal verbs for probability in the past! Well done!

Last class, we practised this topic by reading a text entitled ‘The Famous Four’. The text is about three kids and their dog. The three friends and the dog were able to rescue a person who had fallen while she had been out for a walk. She must have been lying in the growth for over a day and she could have been suffering from hypothermia (excessive low body temperature). That’s why the title suggests that the lady was rescued in the nick of time (just on time).

The title seems to have been intended to remind the famous adventure books written by Enid Blyton, ‘The Famous Five’.

I used to read these books when I was a child. I used to have them as presents on my birthday and at Christmas. Then, I grew up and the books I read were by Agatha Christie!

We revised verbs followed by prepositions.

Congratulate on	thank for	invite to
She congratulated them on getting married and thanked them for inviting her to their wedding
Forgive for	shout at	accuse of
She would never forgive him for shouting at her and accusing her of stealing the money.
Complain about	remind of	inherit from
Whenever he complains about not having money, I remind him of the amount he inherited from his grandparents.

Click here for exercises Verbs + preposition   Try this test!

Wednesday 28^th January, 2015

 In this class we learnt metaphors and idioms related to the body.

·           My friend is moving house, so I’ve decided to give her a hand tomorrow. (to help)

·           Come on! That’s not possible. You’re pulling my leg! (You’re kidding)

·           She doesn’t make the slightest effort. She’ll have to face the fact that she’s going to fail the exams. (Accept the fact)

·           Although he didn’t like his boss’s instructions, he put a brave face and executed them. (Accept something which isn’t nice).

And we also revised adjectives related to physical appearance and personality.

appearance		personality
graceful	Skinny	brainy  +	narrow-minded −
bald	wrinkled	quick-thinking +	moody −
curly	well-built	affectionate +	big-headed −
		smart +	cheeky −

And we also read an article called ‘Lost in Translation’. It is a collection of examples of mistranslations into English or ambiguous sentences. Both in England and abroad. Some of the examples were very funny!

And …that was all!

See you on Wednesday!

'Jim, Who Ran Away from his Nurse and Was Eaten by a Lion'

Wednesday 21^st January,

Hi Isabel!

How’s it going?

 I hope your doubts about the different uses of modal verbs are sorted out.

 Theoretically, they’re not difficult. Make sure of understanding their different uses. When they indicate ability, permission, obligation etc. the past of can is could. The past of must is had to. When the modal verbs indicate possibility, you make the past using the modal + have +participle.

Last week we read a poem called ‘Jim, who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion”. The moral of the poem is that naughty kids must behave properly because if they don’t, dangerous and terrible things can happen to them…

The poem was written in 1907. I want to think that in the twenty- first Century we prefer to teach our kids manners and to watch over possible dangers without the need of making them terrified of …living!

Hilaire Belloc

1870–1953

Hilaire Belloc is considered one of the most controversial and accomplished men of letters of early 20th-century England. An author whose writings continue to draw either the deep admiration or bitter contempt of readers, he was an outspoken proponent of radical social and economic reforms, all grounded in his vision of Europe as a "Catholic society." Although many critics have attacked Belloc's prescriptive polemical works for their tone of truculence and intolerance—and, especially, for recurrent elements of anti-Semitism—they have also joined in praise of his humor and poetic skill, hailing Belloc as the greatest English writer of light verse since Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear.

The son of a wealthy French father and English mother, Belloc was born in La Celle St. Cloud, France, a few days before the Franco-Prussian War broke out. The family fled to England at the news of the French army's collapse, returning after the war's end to discover that the Belloc home had been looted and vandalized by Prussian soldiers. Although the estate was eventually restored and made habitable, the evidence of destruction witnessed by Belloc's parents and later recounted to their children made a deep impression on Hilaire; throughout his life and through the two world wars, he habitually referred to Germany as "Prussia" and considered the "Prussians" a barbaric people worthy only of utter contempt.

By the mid-1890s Belloc had married and, through the influence of his sister Marie Belloc Lowndes, begun writing for various London newspapers and magazines. His first book, Verses and Sonnets, appeared in 1896, followed by The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, which satirized moralistic verse for children and proved immensely popular. Illustrated with superb complementary effect by Belloc's friend Basil T. Blackwood,The Bad Child's Book of Beasts, according to critics, contains much of the author's best light verse, as do such later collections as More Beasts (for Worse Children), The Modern Traveller and Cautionary Tales for Children. An impulsive man who seldom lived in any one place for more than a few weeks and whose frequent trips to the continent proved a constant drain on his financial resources, Belloc welcomed the popular success of his verse collections. But, embracing Cardinal Edward Henry Manning's dictum that "all human conflict is ultimately theological," he perceived his primary role as that of polemicist and reformer, whose every work must reflect his desire for Europe's spiritual, social, and political return to its monarchist, Catholic heritage. Belloc's career as an advocate of Catholicism first attracted wide public attention in 1902 with The Path to Rome, perhaps his most famous single book, in which he recorded the thoughts and impressions that came to him during a walking trip through France and Italy to Rome. In addition to its infusion of Catholic thought, the work contains what later became acknowledged as typically Bellocian elements: rich, earthy humor; an eye for natural beauty; and a meditative spirit—all of which appear in the author's later travel books, which include Esto Perpetua, The Four Men,and The Cruise of the "Nona."

The period between the century's turn and the mid-1920s was the time of Belloc's widest fame and influence. Throughout these years Belloc's name and reputation were frequently linked in the public mind with G. K. Chesterton, whom Belloc had met around 1900 when each was a contributor to the radical journal the Speaker. In Chesterton, Belloc found a talented illustrator of his books, a friend, and a man who shared and publicly advocated many of his own religious and political views. Anti-industrial and antimodern in much of their advocacy, the two were jointly caricatured in print by George Bernard Shaw as "the Chesterbelloc," an absurd pantomime beast of elephantine appearance and outmoded beliefs. Both, according to Shaw and other adverse critics, had a passion for lost causes. Belloc and Chesterton were "Little Englanders"—opposed to British colonialism and imperialism—whose essays in theSpeaker had infuriated many Londoners by the authors' opposition to Britain's imperial designs on South Africa and the nation's participation in the Boer War. Each looked to the Middle Ages as an era of spiritual and material fulfillment when Europe was united in Catholicism and small landowners worked their own, Church-allotted parcels of property, providing for their own individual needs, free from both the wage-slavery that later developed under capitalism and the confiscatory taxation and collectivist policies of state socialism. (Belloc in particular, after serving for several years as a Liberal M.P. in the House of Commons, held a cynical view of the modern British political system, seeing little difference in the methods of the government's Liberal and Conservative ministers, who were often, to his disgust, fellow clubmen and the closest of friends outside the halls of Parliament.) As an alternative both to capitalism and to the Fabian socialism advanced by such contemporaries as Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Beatrice and Sidney Webb, Belloc propounded an economic and political program called Distributism, a system of small landholding which harks back to Europe's pre-Reformation history. This system was outlined in the 1891 Papal Encyclical Rerum Novarum, and is fully described in Belloc's controversial essay The Servile State, published in 1912.

The Chesterbelloc's political ideas were also expounded in the Eye Witness, a weekly political and literary journal edited by Belloc, which became one of the most widely read periodicals in pre-war England. Belloc attracted as contributors such distinguished authors as Shaw, Wells, Maurice Baring, and Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch. In addition, he and his subeditor, Cecil Chesterton, involved the Eye Witness in a political uproar in 1912 when they uncovered the Marconi Scandal, in which several prominent government officials used confidential information concerning impending international business contracts in order to speculate in the stock of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. Although Belloc continued to contribute articles and occasionally edit the periodical, the Eye Witness eventually passed to Cecil Chesterton's editorship as the New Witness, which, after Cecil's death in World War I, came under his brother's supervision, becoming in 1925 G. K.'s Weekly, the principal organ of the Distributist League. By then, Belloc had established himself as a polemicist who could write forceful and convincing essays on nearly any subject, in a prose style marked by clarity and wit. His reputation as a polemicist reached its zenith in 1926 when, in A Companion to Mr. Wells's "Outline of History," he attacked his longtime opponent's popular book as a simpleminded, nonscientific, anti-Catholic document. A war of mutual refutation ensued, fought by both writers in the pages of several books and essays. Ironically, although much of the scientific community now affirms Wells's biological theses as presented in the Outline, during the 1920s the preponderance of evidence supported the findings of Belloc, who, in the minds of some observers, bested Wells in their exchange of polemical broadsides. 

You can continue reading  clicking  here

We used the poem to learn synonyms or near synonyms.

Buddies /friends   delicious / tasty   novels / stories   frequently / often  

hurried / ran        gradually / slowly  initially/ first        told /informed

We didn’t have time for more, as we were trying to work out the viewing of the blog!

See you on Wednesday!

Modal Verbs

Wednesday 14^th January,

Hi Isabel,

So, we started the course as we finished it, with modal verbs!

It’s very important to understand the uses of modal verbs. Separate them into two groups according to what they express: obligation /prohibition or speculation/possibility.

Modal Verbs can express:

ability	He can’t ski.
advice	You should stop smoking.
obligation	You must stop at the crossroads.
	You must see the film.
permission	Can I go to the party?
probability	He must be rich.
	It might rain.
	It’ll be a good party.
willingness	I’ll help you.
unwillingness	I won’t help you.

We also have some related verbs:

ability	manage to / be able to
advice	had better / Why don’t you
obligation	have (got)to be required to
permission	be allowed to
probability	be bound to be supposed to be likely to
willingness	promise to
unwillingness	refuse to

We studied modal verbs for obligation, prohibition, permission and advice.

Obligation	Must (I must, when you impose the obligation yourself)	Have to (usually for rules  or laws)
Prohibition	Mustn’t /Can’t / isn’t- aren’t allowed to
No necessity	Don’t / doesn’t have to
Advice / recommendation	should / shouldn’t ought to / ought not to

We’ve gone through the different uses of Modal verbs. Here’s the summary:

+	-	Modals of probability ( present and future)
Will	won’t	They express what we strongly believe to be true about the present. Based on our knowledge of people and things: routine, character etc.	Is that the phone? It’ll be John. He said he’d ring around now.
Must	can’t	Must is used to express what we infer or conclude to be the most logical or rational interpretation of events. (less certain that “will”) / “can’t” is the negative of must.	- Look over there! That must be Jon’s new car. - She can’t have a ten-year-old daughter! She’s only 25!
Should	shouldn’t	It expresses what may reasonably be expected to happen; also that we want that whatever is predicted to happen.	- Our guests should be here soon. (If they haven’t got lost) - This homework shouldn’t take you long.
May	may not	It expresses the possibility that sth will happen or is already happening.	- We may go to Greece for our holidays. We haven’t decided yet. - We may not have enough money to go abroad this year.
Might	might not	It expresses possibility bur in a more tentative way.	- It might rain, but I doubt it. - I might not be back in time for supper, so don’t wait for me.
Could	might not	is used in a similar way to “might”	- It could rain, but I doubt it. - It looks like it could rain, but it might not.
*The negative “couldn’t” has a similar meaning to “can’t,” only slightly weaker. She couldn’t have a ten-year-old daughter! She’s only 25!
Can		We use it to express what it is generally and all-time true. It cannot be used to predict future possibility.(Will be possible or will be able to)	Cycling in town can be dangerous.
Modal  auxiliaries in the past
All the modal verbs given above are also used with have + past participle to express different degrees of certainty about the past.

·         You met a man with a moustache? That would have been my uncle tom.

·         It won’t have been Peter you met at the party. He wasn’t invited.

·         It must have been Simon. He looks like Peter.

·         It can’t have been a very interesting party. No one seems to have enjoyed it.

·         Where’s Henry? He should have been here ages ago!

·         He might have decided not to come. He could have had an accident.

·         He can hardly have forgotten to come.

·         “Can have” is only used in questions or with “hardly, only or never”.

·         Where can he have got to go?

·         They can only have known each other for a few weeks.

I hope it helps! See you on Wednesday!