Let's sing : Alright by Supergrass

Hello!

My hols have begun but I keep my writing pot rolling hehehe. Well, this week I want to use a song for you to practise your English. It's a bit old but it is catchy and I love it. I'm sure Alright by Supergrass probably won't ring a bell, but if you listen to it, I'm pretty sure you'll have listened to it before. Anyway, as usual I propose some exercises related to the song. Try to do them by yourself and, at the bottom of this post, you will find the answers. I hope you enjoy the song (and the exercises).

1. Listen to the song Alright by Supergrass and complete it with some adjectives / nouns and everyday actions / verbs. If it's too difficult, I'll give you some clues by posting some photos below...

We are _______ (1) , we _______ (2) green, keep our ______ (3) nice and________ (4)

______   _____  _______ (5) , see the sights, feel alright

We _____    ____ (6) , we _____   ____ (7) , smoke a fag, put it out

_____________ (5) , see the sights, feel alright 

Are we like you, I can't be sure?

Of the scene as she turns

We are strange in our worlds 

But we are __________ (1) , we get by, can't go mad, ain't got time

________ (8) around, if we like but we're alright

Got some cash, bought some wheels, took it out, 'cross the fields

Lost control, ________ (9) a wall but we're alright 

Are we like you, I can't be sure?

Of the scene, as she turns

We are strange in our worlds 

But we are ______ (1) , we ______ (2) green, keep our ______ (3) nice and _________(4)

_________________ (5), see the sights, feel alright (Chorus) 

Are we like you, I can't be sure?

Of the scene, as she turns

We are strange in our worlds.

Chorus

  

 

2. Explain the meaning of the following phrasal verbs used in the song:

a) Put out

b) Get by

c) Sleep around

3. Explain the meaning of the following expressions:

a) Smoke a fag

b) Run green

c) See the sights

4. What is this song about?

Answers

Exercise 1:

1. young 2. run 3. teeth  4. clean  5. see our friends 6. wake up  7. go out  8. sleep  9. hit

Exercise 2:

- Put out= Extinguish a fire (in this case, a cigarette)

- Get by= To manage oneself to do something, e.g. get by on €300 a month.

- Sleep around = To have sexual relationships with many different partners

Exercise 3:

- Smoke a fag= Smoke a cigarette in informal English.

- Run green = Sell pot (marijuana) or other types of similar drugs.

- See the sights = Go sightseeing / See the important things in a place

Exercise 4:

This song explores the world of youngster. They are very different from fully adult people and they do some typical teenage-things (sell, drugs, smoke, have sex, hang out with friends...); but, in spite of that, they are fine, they survive and they are good people; they are just different. 

Well, did you enjoy this song? Did you remember yourself being a youngster, hanging out with friends without serious responsibilities? Oh, those days,...What marvelous days they were indeed! Anyway, if you want to keep practising your English with songs, do not hesitate to do so by clicking on the links provided: Supergrass's Alright; The Script's The Hall of Fame; Jessie J's Price Tag; The Police's Every Breath You Take; U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know; Happy Birthday songs.

Easter is practically here, so try to fully enjoy it! 

See you around.

Songs in the classroom: The Hall of Fame (by the Script)

Hello there,
I'm on a holiday spree in Basque Country and, despite that, I managed to keep writing this blog! Well, in fact, what I'm doing today is to reuse a song that I played with my students of Intermedio 1 to deal with the topic of sports, no other than The Hall of Fame. The message of this song is quite clear: you have to make a big effort if you want to succeed in the sports world (or in life). 
Listen to the video and try to do the exercises provided. As usual, the answers are at the bottom of the post :

"Hall Of Fame"
(feat. Will.I.Am)

Yeah, you can be the greatest
You can be the best
You can be the King Kong banging on your (1) _____________

You could beat the world
You could beat the _____________ (2)
You could talk to God, go banging on his door

You can throw your hands up
You can beat the ____________ (3) (yeah)
You can move a mountain
You can break ______________ (4)
You can be a master
Don't wait for _______________ (5)
Dedicate yourself and you gon' find yourself

Standing in the hall of fame (yeah)
And the world's gonna know your name (yeah)
'Cause you burn with the brightest flame (yeah)
And the world's gonna know your name (yeah)
And you'll be on the walls of the hall of fame
(Chorus) 

You can go the distance
You can run the __________ (6)
You can walk straight through hell with a smile

You could be the hero
You could get the gold
Breaking all the ____________ (7) they thought never could be broken

Yeah, do it for your people
Do it for your ______________ (8)
How you ever gonna know if you never even try?

Do it for your country
Do it for your ____________ (9)
'Cause there's gonna be a day when

(Chorus)

Be a champion, be a champion, be a champion, be a champion
On the walls of the hall of fame

Be students
Be _____________ (10)
Be politicians
Be ______________ (11)
(Yeah)

Be believers
Be______________ (12)
Be astronauts
Be champions
Be truth _____________ (13)
Be students
Be ______________
Be politicians
Be _____________

Be believers
Be leaders
Be astronauts
Be champions

Chorus

(You can be a champion...) Repeated and mixed with chorus

Standing in the hall of fame

Exercises 
1. Fill in the gaps of the lyrics of the song. If it's too difficult, choose the right answer:

1. a) chess                   b) chest                       c) church                     d) checks

2. a) war                     b) word                       c) world                      d) worst

3. a) crock                   b) cock                        c) cork                         d) clock

4. a) crocks                 b) rags                         c) racks                       d) rocks

5. a) look                    b) lack                         c) luck                         d) lark

6. a) mare                    b) mire                        c) mile                         d) mine

7. a) seconds               b) rackets                    c) records                    d) rates

8. a) ride                     b) pride                       c) proud                      d) fide

9. a) name                   b) vein                        c) cane                        d) plane

10. a) features             b) teachers                  c) T-shirts                   d) tickers

11. a) seekers              b) features                  c) preachers                d) teachers

12. a) leaders              b) livers                       c) leathers                   d) litter

13. a) siders                b) sitters                      c) seekers                    d) shitters 

2. Find three superlative forms in the lyrics of the song

3. Find a relative clause where the relative pronoun has been omitted

4. Explain the meaning of the following expressions:
a) beat the clock
b) break a record
c) hall of fame

5. Find an example of an onomatopoeic word

Answers :
1)
1b; 2c; 3d; 4d; 5c; 6c; 7c; 8b; 9a; 10b; 11c; 12a; 13c

2) Greatest, best, brightest

3) Breaking all the records (that/which) they thought never could be broken

4) Beat the clock : Perform a task quickly. In sports, perform a sports task in better time.
    Break a record: To perform a given task at a better degree than the one currently known.
    Hall of fame: A kind of ranking containing particularly industrious, hard-working, record-breaking sportspeople in different categories. 

5) The word 'bang' is onomatopoeic since it reproduces an explosion-like noise. 

Well, don't you enjoy learning English with songs? I'm sure that's the perfect way to advance with your English learning process? If you're interested in polishing your English with songs, do not hesitate and click on the links below. See you next week!
The Script's The Hall of Fame; Jessie J's Price Tag; The Police's Every Breath You Take; U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know; Happy Birthday songs.

Let's sing : Price Tag by Jessie J.

All right, back to my writing job yet one more week ! 

I'm teaching my students of Intermedio 1 some lexis related to money and we're discussing the importance of money in today's world. To illustrate this subject, I propose you a catchy song, no other than Price Tag by Jessie J. In this song that everybody was humming not long ago, she points out the over-importance of money in our society and she proposes some other ways of entertaining like music. Her message is quite clear : "forget about the price tag". Money is not the most important thing in our lives. Anyway, if you want to improve your lexis on money, click on the link. 

Now, listen to the song and do the exercises provided. As usual, the answers will be down below. Enjoy it :

1. Listen to the song and fill in the gaps with the appropriate words (choose a), b), c), or d)

2. Then, scan the lyrics to find all the words related to money

Jessi J. (Price Tag)

OK.

Coconut man.

Moonheads and pea.

You ready?

Seems like everybody’s got a price,
I wonder how they sleep at (1) _______.
When the (2) _______ comes first,
And the truth comes second,
Just stop, for a minute and
(3) ________
Why is everybody so serious!
Acting so damn (4) ________
You got your shades on your eyes
And your heel so high
That you can’t even have a good time.
Everybody look to their lefts (yeah)
Everybody look to their rights (ha)
Can you feel that (yeah)
We'll pay them with (5) _______ tonight
It’s not about the money, money, money.
We don’t need your money, money, money.
We just wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the Price tag
Ain’t about the (ha) Cha-Ching Cha-Ching.
Ain't about the (yeah) Ba-Bling Ba-Bling
Wanna make the world dance,
Forget about the Price tag.
We need to take it back in time,
When music made us all (6) _______!
And it wasn’t low blows and video hoes,
Am I the only one getting (7) _______?
Why is everybody so (8)________?
Money can’t buy us happiness
Can we all (9)______down and enjoy right now
guarantee we’ll be feeling
All right.

Everybody look to their lefts (yeah)
Everybody look to their rights (ha)
Can you feel that (yeah)
We'll pay them with _____ tonight.

(CHORUS)
Yeah yeah
Well, keep the price tag
And take the ____ (10) back
Just give me six strings and a half stack.
And you can keep the cars
Leave me the garage
And all I..
Yes all I need are keys and (11) ________
And guess what, in 30 seconds I’m leaving to Mars
Yes we leaving across these undefeatable odds
Its like this man, you can’t put a price on the life
We do this for the love so we fight and sacrifice every night
So we aint gon stumble and fall never
Waiting to see, a sign of defeat uh uh
So we gon keep everyone moving their (12) ______
So bring back the beat and everybody sing
(CHORUS X2)
Yeah yeah
Oo-oooh
Forget about the price tag.

1. a) Fight                   b) Night                      c) High                       d) Right

2. a) Male                   b) Sale                        c) Shake                      d) Whale

3. a) Smile                  b) Mile                        c) Say hello                 d) While

4. a) Serious                b) Genius                    c) Mysterious              d) Malicious

5. a) Hugs                   b) Love                       c) Mob                        d) Cash

6. a) Blight                 b) Nite                        c) Unique                    d) Unite

7. a) Tried                   b) Tied                      c) Tired                       d) Died

8. a) Obsessed          b) Sexed                     c) Oxen                       d) Obsess

9. a) Low                    b) Slow                       c) Lower                     d) Glow

10. a) Mash                 b) Crash                      c) Cash                       d) Crunch

11. a) Mars                 b) Ghettos                  c) Guitars                    d) Taps

12. a) seeds                 b) Teeth                      c) Beet                        d) Feet

Answers :

1b, 2b, 3a, 4c, 5b, 6d, 7c, 8a, 9b, 10c, 11 c, 12d

Words related to money : price, price tag, sale, cash, money, pay.

P.S. If you want to keep practising your English with songs, click on the links below. Jessie J's Price Tag; The Police's Every Breath You Take; U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know; Happy Birthday songs.

Second blog anniversary II : Happy birthday songs

Hiya fellow bloggers ! 
Today's my birthday and I turn 29... yee ! 30s are just around the corner ! Two years ago, I wrote an interesting entry about birthday expressions. I also happen to celebrate the second blog anniversary. My blog has been visited by 16179 people so far, I've written no less than 118 entries and I'm fiercely proud of that, so... in order to render both my birthday my blog's anniversary significant and meaningful, I decided to write an entry on happy birthday songs to somehow honour both events. 


1. The so-called traditional version with a catchy choir

2. Best birthday song (quite optimistic by the way)

3. Cardwell's Birthday Present

4. Happy birthday song with hilarious animation !

5. Happy birthday : reggae style

6. For he is a jolly good fellow...

7. Happy birthday : fast song !

Well, it's been a pleasure to celebrate my birthday and my second blog anniversary with you guys ! I hope we can celebrate more of these events together ! See you next week with my blog's catalogue updated !

P.S. If you want to keep learning English with songs, click on the links below : The Police's Every Breath You Take; U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know; Happy Birthday songs.

Let's sing ! Every Breath You Take

Well well, the summer is gradually fading off and half of my holidays are about to finish. What better way to celebrate the end of July than singing and practising your English ? 

Today's song is surely going to be familiar to you : Every Breath You Take by The Police. One of the world's most famous songs ! With this song I intend that you practise your English collocations, in this case, verbs that collocate with some nouns. For example, in English, you don't raise a flag or put a flag up, but rather you hoist a flag. Why ? Simply because the verb 'hoist' collocates with the noun 'flag'. Amazing, isn't it ? 

What you have to do is try to fill in the gaps of the song before listening to it and then, listen to it and see if your predictions were true. Finally, have a look at the solutions and learn some collocations. Ready, steady, go !

Before listening try to predict the missing verbs in the song Every Breath You Take by The Police  Then, listen and check

"Every Breath You Take"

Every breath you ________ (1)
Every move you ______ (2)
Every bond you ______ (3)
Every step you ______ (4)
I'll be watching you
Every single day
Every word you ______ (5)
Every game you ______ (6)
Every night you _______ (7)
I'll be watching you

O can't you see
You belong to me
How my poor heart _______ (8) with every step you _____(4)

Every move you _____ (2)
Every vow you ______ (9)
Every smile you fake
Every claim you _______ (10)
I'll be watching you

Since you've gone I been lost without a trace
I dream at night I can only see your face
I look around but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby please

Every move you _____ (2)
Every vow you _____ (9)
Every smile you fake
Every claim you _______ (10)
I'll be watching you

* Bond [bɒnd]: A feeling shared by the same people that make them feel together.

Now, cover the lyrics and complete the collocations with the appropriate verb

1)      _________ your breath

2)      __________ a move

3)      ___________ a  bond

4)      My heart _____________

5)      __________ a game

6)      __________ a vow

7)      ___________ a night

8)      __________ a step

9)      __________ a word

10) __________ a claim

Any problems? Have a look at the verbs in the box

break (x2)           take (x2)      play       ache          say           stay        stake             make  

Solutions of the ten collocations 
1) Take your breath, for example, the views from the Empire State are breathtaking. 
2) Make a move (not 'do')
3) Break a bond (the opposite is 'make a bond')
4) My heart aches
5) Play a game
6) Break a bond (the opposite is 'stick to a vow')
7) Stay a night
8) Take a step (in Spanish we say 'give')
9) Say a word (not 'tell' or 'speak'). 
10) Stake a claim

Well, collocations are really important to check that you're progressing in English and that you are not thinking in Spanish anymore ! I hope you have learnt some good collocations today and that you have enjoyed this marvelous, catchy song. Anyway,if you want to keep improving your English with songs, click on the following links : The Police's Every Breath You Take; U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know.

See you in August ! My second blogaversary is approaching !

Songs in the classroom : Just The Way You Are

Now that the heat is definitely here, or so it seems, I think it is a pretty good idea to finish the month of May and combat the sweltering heat by listening to a catchy song, no other than The Way You Are by Bruno Mars. Anyway, listen to this easy-to-understand song and do the exercises I propose. 

1. Fill in the lyrics with the appropriate word :

Oh, her _______ (1) , her ________ (1)  make the stars look like they're not shining

Her hair, her hair falls perfectly without her trying

She's so beautiful

And I tell her every day.

Yeah, I know, I know when I compliment her, she won't believe me

And it's so, it's so ________ (2)  to think that she doesn't see what I see

But every time she asks me do I look okay?

I say

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

'Cause you're amazing

Just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

'Cause girl, you're amazing

Just the way you are

Her ______ (3) , her _______ (3) , I could kiss them all day if she'd let me

Her laugh her laugh, she hates but I think it's so ________ (4)

She's so beautiful

And I tell her every day

Oh, you know, you know, you know I'd never ask you to change

If perfect's what you're searching for, then just stay the same

So don't even bother _______ (5) if you look okay

You know I'll say

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

'Cause you're amazing

Just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

'Cause girl, you're amazing

Just the way you are

The way you are

The way you are

Girl, you're amazing

Just the way you are

When I see your face

There's not a thing that I would change

'Cause you're amazing

Just the way you are

And when you smile

The whole world stops and stares for a while

'Cause girl, you're amazing

Just the way you are.

Yeah

2. Transform the following sentences in the song into reported speech :

a) But every time she asks me do I look okay? : Begin with she asked me...

b) I say : "when I see your face there's not a thing that I would change, because you are amazing just the way your are." Begin with I told her...

3. Rephrase the following sentence with the words provided in brackets

There's not a thing that I would change 

(nothing)

(anything)

4. Decide if the relative pronoun 'that' can be replaced by which and omitted in the sentence : "There's not a thing that I would change."

5. Give possible synonyms for the following words in the song :

a) Compliment :

b) Amazing : 

c) Stares : 

d) Searching for : 

Answers :

Exercise 1:

(1) eyes

(2) sad

(3) lips

(4) sexy

(5) asking

Exercise 2:

a) She asked me if I looked OK.

b) I told her that when I saw her face, there wasn't a thing that I would change, because she was amazing just the way she was. 

Exercise 3:

There isn't anything that I would change.

There is nothing that I would change. 

Exercise 4 :

The relative pronoun 'that' can be replaced by which but it can also be omitted because it doesn't work as a subject : there's not a thing I would change. 

Exercise 5:

a) Praise, say good things about a person

b) : awesome, wonderful, incredible

c) Look deeply or attentively.

d) : Looking for 

______________________________________________________

This is it. I hope you have enjoyed with this catchy song. If you want to keep improving your English with songs, click on the following links : U2's I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For; Bruno Mar's Don't Give Up; The Cure's Friday I'm In Love; Smash Mouth's I'm A Believer; Michael Bublé's It's A Beautiful Day; songs related to peace; Cold Play's Paradise; Christmas carols; Christmas carols II; Tracy Chapman's Fast Car; Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know