Just in case you miss me!

Remember that I told you We won´t hve our lesson on April 1st and 2nd because I’m going to a National School Of Languages Conference, but you have to do some revision on your own.

Our last lesson was a bit tough because we had to do some grammar work. You know, these structures that make a difference between elmentary, intermediate and advanced students…

You can check what we did now and, do please do some practice. Here are just a few examples of exercises. We’ll be doing some work on conditionals when we come back to our lessons, but then you will have to show thet they are no longer a problem for you and you have them under control.

View this document on Scribd

Here’s just a selecion of exercises for you to do:

conditionals: 3 exercises

a wide selection of exercises

mixed conditionals exercise

And just by googling conditionals, you will find many more…

Unreal past tenses

Just click here and you’ll find a clear explanation dealing with unreal uses of past forms.

And here you’ll also find a clear explanation on how to express wishes.

If you finally want to do some more practise here you’ll find some audio and quizzes to practice WISH.

I wish you enjoyed it!

BBC LEARNINGENGLISH is great!

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY

Although there is a widespread custom of celebrating April Fools’ Day (April 1st) – exception made to Spain and Spanish America, which have their Día de los Santos Inocentes on December 28th – Anglo-Saxon people seem to be the ones who  most enjoy this date, marked by the playing of practical jokes.
They take this day tricks so seriously, that even mass media succumbed to temptation of committing hoaxes on their public on April 1st. If you don’t believe, just take a look at internet and you’ll find a large list of well-known pranks carried out by radio and television stations, magazines, newspapers and websites in the last fifty years.
Behind one of the most famous April Fools’ Day hoaxes of all time was BBC, the successful, trusted and respected British news channel.
Well then, on 1 April 1957 BBC fooled the nation broadcasting a program called Panorama, in which Richard Dimbleby, its famous presenter, narrated a documentary about spaghetti crops in the borders of Switzerland and Italy.
Despite the doubts about credibility such piece of news would certainly prompt in current minds, a combination of factors made that television program quite reliable, convincing people about the goodness of that tree. Apart from being still a novelty then, television, as BBC itself says, “has gone down in broadcasting folklore”.
Moreover, in the aftermath of two wars, the world was rather a patchwork of countries shut off from the others, when British people barely knew the Swiss or the Italians, their countries, ways of life and economic activities, including what they used to grow in their fields
In addition, most people had just eaten tinned spaghetti – pasta, which were then still in its infancy in the UK, was considered by many as an exotic delicacy – and they didn’t know how it was produced.
The spoof documentary was idealized by a BBC cameraman who had a teacher in his school in Austria who used to mock her pupils for being so foolish, that they certainly would believe if they were told spaghetti grew on trees.
As a result of the transmission – which was watched by some 8 million people when in Britain 7 million homes had television sets – hundreds called the channel the next day to ask about the truthfulness of the story or to tell them they had enjoyed the joke (someone complained that spaghetti didn’t grow vertically, it grew horizontally). But others were interested in obtaining more information about spaghetti cultivation, because they wanted to have their own spaghetti trees. The BBC went on fooling these ones by telling them to “place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best”.
Although BBC had been criticised for the trick, more than half a century on, “Spaghetti Trees” remains one of the UK’s most famous April Fools’ Day jokes.
Watch the documentary at Youtube:

By Helga Maria Saboia Bezerra

Wish you were here Pink Floyd

Wish You Were Here is a concept album by Pink Floyd. Recorded at Abbey Road Studios between January and July 1975 and released on 15 September 1975 (see 1975 in music), the album would later be regarded as one of Pink Floyd’s greatest albums and was ranked 209 on Rolling Stone‘s 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list. Its lyrics, written by Roger Waters, concerned the music industry, and questioned the market-oriented record companies’ lack of understanding and interest for musicians. The album also pays tribute to Syd Barrett, Pink Floyd’s former guitarist and chief songwriter, especially with “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” and the title track itself.

Information  & picture taken from WIKIPEDIA.

Listen to the song. I hope you enjoy it. It’s part of history.

It’s Already Spring!

It’s already springtime! Like Fridays, enjoyed for being the weekend’s lobby, spring is partly loved because it precedes summer. It’s a sort of prelude to the most pleasant and agreeable time of the year, when temperatures increase, days get longer and people, being in their best mood, begin to go out more often.
I come from a southern hemisphere country, where spring – austral spring – begins in September. Anyway, before coming to Spain I had never enjoyed the four seasons, since I lived all my life in the northeast of Brazil, where we just have wet and dry seasons, like weather is commonly described in the tropics.
Actually, in my native land we boast about having 360 days of sunshine, an everlasting summer. For those who enjoy the beach and being at the seaside, this is usually an interesting feature. As for me, it tires me out.
What I really like is to feel the different seasons and their special characteristics. This is one of the most beautiful things I find in living in Spain and since summertime is something I am fed up with – for the exhaustion caused by extreme heat in my home country –, spring is the season I most enjoy.
It’s a time of birth, growth, youth and life. Christians celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection at this time of birth and renewal and even since pre-Christian times, people commemorated Easter – named for Eôstre, the German goddess of dawn and who symbolized the plentiful fertility commonly found during spring – at this time of the year.
Springtime brings multicoloured and fragrant flowers blossom. The animals mate and breed and the soil has a special smell that invite us to go for long walks and to be in touch with nature. Poets even say that spring is the time when people usually falls in love. True or false, this is something beautiful to believe in…
Spring is a symbol for the start of better times as testifies the terms “Prague Spring” and “Pekin Spring”, both referred to short periods of political liberalization in communist regimes.
It has also been subject for many marvellous artistic works. Italian painter Sandro Botticelli called one of his paintings “Allegory of Spring” and his fellow countryman Giuseppe Arcimboldo painted an original “Spring” in which he represented a human face made of flowers. Who doesn’t know Vivaldi’s “The Four Season – Spring” and Beethoven’s “Spring Sonata”?
Regarding poetry, I must quote my favourite Spanish poet, Antonio Machado, who wrote: “la primavera ha venido, nadie sabe cómo ha sido”. “Spring has come, nobody knows how it’s happened.” Is there something so simple and beautiful at the same time?
Even in gastronomy we can find allusion to this season in the Spring Rolls, those delicious crispy vegetables prepared by Asian cuisine…
What about Elvis Presley’s “Spring Fever”? “Spring fever, spring is here at last, / Spring fever, my heart’s beating fast, / Get up, get out spring is everywhere!”

Spring has sprung! Enjoy it!
By Helga Maria Saboia Bezerra

THE WONDERFUL GERMAN LANGUAGE

As an appendix of his book “A Tramp Abroad” (1880) – in which he related his travels through Europe in the late 19th Century – Mark Twain wrote “The Awful German Language”, an amusing short essay written after his two and a half month stay in Heidelberg, Germany, during the springtime of 1878.
In that paper the American writer puts a special effort into telling his experience in achieving his “art” of speaking German. He describes a hard, difficult and annoyed language, sharpening reading’s curiosity by saying that “a person who has not studied German can form no idea of what a perplexing language it is.”
I first came into contact with that text when I was in the beginning of my German course. Aware, by such a man of letters, of the difficulties I would have to face, I almost gave up studying Goethe’s language.
Nevertheless, the essay is full of humorous and funny passages inviting you to go on reading just to have the chance to enjoy the clever comparisons he makes between the easy English and the “so slipshod and systemless, and so slippery and elusive to the grasp language” German is.
Not only vices of this language were shown. Twain pointed out its virtues, as well, and because of it and of the fact I am a stubborn person, I succeeded in keeping my intention intact and put my mind to it.
Mark Twain finished his writing saying that “a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in thirty hours, French in thirty days, and German in thirty years.”
Well… I suppose a person has to be really talented to learn English in thirty hours and French in thirty days, but I agree that German is a highly demanding language.
Never mind! I think I can take the risk of learning the third one, although it could take up all my life. After all, I enjoy learning and since languages are a window to another world that allows travelling through books and movies, I think I’m going to have a really good time. Just as happened to Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn’s father, who, being a great adventurer, surely enjoyed very much this exciting journey on German learning.
The whole writing – in English, of course! –, can easily be found in:
http://www.crossmyt.com/hc/linghebr/awfgrmlg.html
Viel Glück!

By Helga Maria Saboia Bezerra

Practising your Cocktail Making Skills

Related to the post David wrote about cocktail below, here’s a game to practise this skills…

“http://www.offuhuge.com/files/fce812ace920.swf“

How to “Put your foot in it”

Putting my foot in it is something I’m really good at. Actually, it hasn’t been something I’ve had to practise in order to improve at it, but a quality I was born with.

What do you need to Put your foot in it?

First, you must be able to say everything as soon as it comes to your head. Don’t waste your time thinking about what you’re gonna say. This is maybe the most important thing you need to know.

Then, you should have a big self-esteem because you’re going to lose a little of it when you put your foot in it.

You must be prepared to feel embarrassed and humiliated when you put your foot in it. People will probably laugh at you, but they might get mad at you indeed. You will be able to regret and say sorry but you might also want to repair the damage and put your foot even deeper.

What can you do to Put your foot in it?

Try to be kind and funny at the same time, then say something funny (and maybe in appropriated) about the guy/gal you’re trying to be kind with and he/she will take it badly.

When doing something, think about anything but the thing you’re doing. This way, you will slip and fall down, break something, hurt someone (physically or emotionally) or say something that people consider wrong.

Another thing you can do is not to listen to the teacher then he/she says what exercises you’re going to correct and stand up as a volunteer for the exercises you haven’t done…

These are some qualities and actions you need for putting your foot in it, but there are millions more. If you want to find out more, just try to put your foot in it… It’s easier than it seems…

by Fernando Neira