Practise your listening: women inventors to celebrate International Women's Day!

Hiya!

Today it's Match, 8th, which means it's International Women's Day.

It is crystal clear that we have a long way to go to achieve total equality. Nowadays women still earn less than men;they are worse regarded when it comes to their children's upbringing; they can't roam the streets alone at night without being afraid of what might happen to them; they are somehow forced to tuck their careers away when they become pregnant; and they are -still in the twenty-first century-  battered and killed to death by their jealous, abusive partners, not to mention the hard situations that women in western countries have to endure... What is clear is that women today have to fight harder to gain the exact sale recognition than men; they have to struggle in order to get their place in history.

And here you have a very good example of five outstanding women inventors that need to.be remembered and recognised...

Here you have the exercise I used in the past with my students of B2.

Match women 1-5 to the correct sentence A-. There are some sentences you won't need.

1. MELITTA BENZ

2. BETTY NESMITH GRAHAM

3. MARJORIE JOYNER

4. MARY ANDERSON

5. MARY BEATRICE KENNER

A) THIS WOMAN IMPROVED WOMEN'S SANITARY CONDITIONS
B) THIS WOMAN EXPERIMENTED DIFFERENT COOKING METHODS
C) THIS WOMAN APPLIED KITCHEN STUFF TO ANOTHER FIELD OF EXPERTISE
D) THANKS TO HER, A DRINK WAS IMPROVED
E) THIS WOMAN HID THE INVENTION FROM HER BOSSES
F)  THIS WOMAN GREW INCREDIBLY RICH
G) THIS WOMAN PAID THE TOLL OF TARDINESS
H) THIS WOMAN INVENTED TOILET PAPER



Answers: 1D 2E 3C 4G 5A

To finish this entry, here you have another video about women inventors that will make you reflect a little bit.

See you around!

PRACTISE YOUR LISTENING: RIO DE JANEIRO'S CARNIVAL

 Hiya!

How's your Carnival going? Did you enjoy the Carnival parade? Did you dress up for a Carnival party? Did you make your own costume for Carnival? Last week I wrote an entry on Carnival vocabulary. Today I'm proposing a listening activity related to one of the most famous Carnivals across the world, no other than Rio de Janeiro's Carnival.

The video is a bit old and I used it some time ago in my classes. However, I really like it now, as it makes me become green with envy of the things we could do in the past when Covid 19 hadn't hit us hard...I'm looking forward to living an experience like the ones you can see on the video: binge alcohol, festive mood,...

Anyway, here you have the exercise and I'll post the answers at the end of this entry. I hope you like. 

Have a look at the video https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-latin-america-21421812/rio-rev and fill in the gaps with a maximum  of 5 words. Item 0 is an example:

0. Rio’s Carnival is in full _swing_.

1. The first girl reckons that Rio’s Carnival is everybody’s favourite holiday for the people in _____________.

2. The city is trying to prevent people from ______________________ on the streets.

3. According to the driver, drugs and alcohol make people do  _____________________.

4. _____________ people are in the sambadrome to see the samba schools compete.

5. This year there’s a wide variety of themes including South Korea, the Amazon and ______________________.

6. Hundreds of ________________ have been deployed for the event.

Answers: 1 the bus  2 urinating 3 abnormal things 4 70,000 5 Brazil's soap operas 6 extra police

Here you have yet another exercise to revise the Carnival vocabulary seen in my previous entry:

DOWNLOAD THE EXERCISE HERE

I really hope you have practised your English and enjoyed Carnival.

See you around.

The origin of New Year's resolutions

Welcome to my first entry of this blog in 2019! By the way! Happy New Year! Well, did you get to eat your 12 grapes! Hope so! Have you made any New Year's resolutions? Well, last year I wrote an entry on New Year's resolutions. This year,  I propose I little reading exercise on New Year's resolutions. Beware! This text is aimed at students with B2 level or so ! Here you have the text and you can download the answers at the end. The text in highly interesting, as you can learn lots of new stuff related to the origins of New Year's resolution and why people decided to start this tradition. I hope you like it!

DOWNLOAD DOCUMENT

DOWNLOAD ANSWERS TO THE EXERCISE

Reading exercise: why learn languages?

Hello there,

We're at the  very end of September and I just didn't have time to celebrate the European Day of Languages with you, as I did two years ago. In case you didn't know, the European Day of Languages took place on September, 26th. Last year I wrote an entry on the advantages of speaking English. Today I'm bringing you a very interesting reading exercise stating the importance of learning foreign languages. Do the exercise and, as usual, you can the answers down below. 

From : https://www.pinterest.es/pin/373798837804734409/

Read the text and match the paragraphs (1-6) with the headings (A-I) that best correspond to each text. There are two extra heading. Item 0 is an example:

A) A language is linked to its culture

B) No languages, no job

C) Languages will improve your physical strength

D) Live a better and longer life thanks to languages

E) Make  your life more interesting !

F) Speaking a language means becoming independent

G) Languages may improve your working conditions

H) Travelling is easier !

I) Less effort with the next language

J) You’ll feel lonely

Why learn languages ?

0.  __A__

Learning a foreign language implies getting to know other cultures. As the Canadian singer Buffy Sainte-Marie once expressed : "language  and culture cannot be separated." The language reflects the culture of the country and, in the same way, the culture of the country is reflected in the language.

1. _________________________________________________________

Learning languages makes your brain more flexible. It has been proved that people who learn more languages live longer than people who can't speak foreign languages !  Charlemagne once predicted this by saying : "to possess a second language is to possess a second soul." Poetic, isn't it ?

2. _________________________________________________________ 

 Languages play an important role in today's job market. Speaking several languages will certainly make a difference in your résumé, especially in big busy cities with a lot of tourists from different countries ! So, if you want to get that promotion you were looking for, or simply... get a job, you may wanna think about learning a foreign language. Otherwise, you may get  a job,... but getting it will be a difficult and slow process. 

3. _________________________________________________________

 The more languages one speaks, the more countries one can visit and, what is more important, understand everything. Plus, if you don't want to sound like outsiders in the country you visit and enjoy your trip and understand everything, speaking languages will help you ! 

4. ___________________________________________________________

By learning a language you can travel overseas, study abroad, get to know native friends and become more open-minded. No need for mummy and daddy, it’s just you out in the world doing things by yourself.

5. _________________________________________________________ 

By becoming a speaker of different languages, you see the world in another way. You can understand things more easily, boost your self-confidence and ease your decision-making process. In addition, people will surely be impressed by your skills. Before learning a language, your life was boring !

6. _________________________________________________________

Learning a language is not the end of the road. Once you’ve learnt a foreign language, it will be easier for you to learn another one. By learning two languages, it is much easier to learn a third one and so on.

As promised, here you have your answers. I encourage you to learn foreign languages! Go to a nearby school and get started!

Answers :

TEXT	TITLE
1	D
2	G
3	H
4	F
5	E
6	I

Exercises on Greek loanwords

Howdy!

Did you read my post about Greek borrowings in the English language that I wrote last week? Today I'm bringing you some exercises that will challenge you and hopefully will reinforce your knowledge of Greek loanwords. As usual, the answers will be at the bottom of the post. Ready?

1. Write the name of the following things. Pay attention to your spelling! All the words come from Greek! Clue: all the words have the [f] sound.
a)  b) 

c) d) 

e)   f) 
g)  h) 
i)  j) 

2. Spell the following words from its phonetic transcription. All of them come from Greek:

a) [‘a:kaɪv]
b) [eɪk]

c) [kəˈtæstrəfi]

d) [kəˈrɪzmə]
e) [kaɪˈmɪərə]
f) ['saɪkɪk]
g) ['ekəʊ]
h) ['ɑːkɪˌtekt]
i) ['ɔːkɪstrə]

3. Underline the word which is correctly spelled. Sometimes, more than one option is correct. Then, identify the Greek words

a) festival / phestival
b) dolfin / dolphin
c) phantasy / fantasy
d) psyquiatric / psychiatric
e) Fiona / Phiona
f) Filip / Philippe 
g) corus / chorus
h) archaic / arcaic
i) dichotomy / dicotomy

j) Christian / Cristian 
k) carp / charp
l) fetus / phetus 
m) caracteristic / characteristic
n) crocodile / crochodile
o) physics / physich / fysic
p) fenomenon / phenomenon

4. Guess the meaning of the following Greek loanwords from their components (prefixes, suffixes, words...)

a) microphone
b) photophobia
c) monolingual
d) hypothermia 
e) hypercorrection
f) polysyllabic 
g) theology
h) politics
i) amphibian
j) octopodes

5. Give the plural form for the following words coming from Greek:
a) Polyhedron
b) Trauma
c) Oasis
d) Climax
e) Criterion
f) Metamorphosis
g) Analysis
h) Phenomenon
i) Appendix 




Answers:
1. a) Photographer b) pharynx c) microphone d) elephant e) sphere  f) pharaoh 
g) geography h) pharmacy (chemist) i) trophy j) phoenix

2.  a) archive b) ache c) catastrophe d) charisma e) chimera f) psychic g) echo h) architect i) orchestra

3. a) festival b) dolphin c) fantasy and phantasy (the option with <ph> is not very common); d) psychiatric e) Fiona and Phiona (the option with <ph> is unusual); f) Philippe g) chorus 
h) archaic i) dichotomy  j) Christian k) carp l) fetus m) characteristic n) crocodile o) physic 
p) phenomenon.

b), c), d), f), g), h), i), j), m), o) and p) come from Greek. 

4. 
a) microphone = Micro (small) +  phone (sound). A device that produces a small sound.
b) photophobia = Photo (light) + phobia (fear). Fear to the light.
c) monolingual = Mono (one) + lingua (language). Speaking one language.
d) hypothermia = hypo (under) + thermos (heat). Below normal temperature
e) hypercorrection = hyper (over) + correction. Correct someone more than necessary
f) polysyllabic = poly (a lot) + syllable. A word having a lot of syllables (more than three).
g) theology = theo (God) + logos (study). The science that studies God.
h) politics = polis (city) + tikos (related to). The science that studies the city. 
i) amphibian = amphi (both) + bios (life). An animal that can live both in the water and in the ground. 
j) octopodes = octo (eight) + podes (feet). An animal with eight feet (the irregular plural of octopus).

5. 
a) Polyhedra
b) Traumas /traumata
c) Oases
d) Climaces (climaxes)
e) Criteria
f) Metamorphoses
g) Analyses
h) Phenomena
i) Appendices (appendixes)  

Well, I hope that words from Greek won't be a mystery for you at this point. 
See you around. 

Freshen up with this summery vocab

Good and sweltering day!

As you can experience by yourselves, summer is here with a heat wave all across Spain. I am in Málaga myself at the moment trying to cope with this blistering heat... Anyway, to make your summer a little bit more refreshing, I have decided to prepare a presentation on summer vocabulary, including typical summer objects, activities, food and clothes. This way you can get refreshed and at the same time enlarge your English lexis, isn't it cool?

What you are expected to do as the presentation says on slide 1 is basically, type intro, have a look at the image, try to guess the word in English, and then type intro again to see if your guess was right. There are no less than 72 slides in the presentation, so I'm pretty sure you'll get to learn a lot of new words and expressions. Before starting, you may want to revise some old posts of mine dealing with holidays: it smells of holidays; summer is finally here; frolicking in the water; hot weather. Now that I expect you to have revised my posts, good luck with the vocab!

How many new words did you learn? Do you know any other words or expressions worth appearing in my presentation? Post them in a comment and I'll include them. Enjoy the summer and don't get sunburnt.

If you want it, live it

Dear all,

I've been very busy to keep up my writing lately, but today I found an excuse to keep writing. An old acquaintance of mine, Jelena Golubovic, who I happened to meet in a Latin contest some years ago,  has given a life-changing speech in a TED talk, yes, you heard right. In the video she comes up with a good idea. When you have a goal you want to attain, you have to live as though you have just attained that goal. Well, anyway, I found her video so fascinating that I prepared an activity for my students of Advanced 2 for them to practise their listening.

I'm going to share with you both the video and the exercise. As usual, the answers will be down below. Thanks Jelena, I'll follow your wise advice from now on.

Fill in the gaps with a maximum of five words:

1. She was so poor that she wore dresses made of ______________________.

2. At 14, she was _______________ by some men.

3. Today when Oprah speaks the world _____________________________.

4. She had to pay €20,000 for __________________________.

5. She got the last €10,000 because ______________________ sponsored her.

6. Oprah spent her days _____________________________.

7. The person looking for the girl of his dreams was at that point _____________ in a job he hated.

8. After a year and a half he ______________________ to quit the job.

9. She enjoyed watching herself become faster, ___________ and _____________.

10. The future ‘you’ has ______________________ you have yet to develop.

Answers:
1. potato sack  2. molested 3. takes notice 4. tuition expenses 5. mother's clients 6. interviewing her dolls 7. stuck 8. mastered the courage 9. better and stronger 10. developed habits.

What do you think about this amazing TED talk? Have you been encouraged to actually change the way you see things. I hope so. 
See you around. 

Exercises related to idioms

Hiya!

Here I am again willing to show you the quirks of English, only this time I'm a homework-bringer, so instead of writing a lengthy article about the fascinating English quirks, I've decided to prepare some exercises for you to revise some idioms. As you know, over the last weeks and months I wrote two entries on the contrast of idioms between Spanish and English I and II. Today, I'm just simply going to put your knowledge of these idioms to a test. Are you ready?

1. Name the idiom that pictures are representing

a)   b)

c) d) 

e)  f) 

g)  h) 


2. Now match each idiom to 1-8 to their correct meaning A-H

1. To be a pain in the neck
2. To bring home the bacon
3. The straw that broke the camel's back
4. The early bird catches the worm
5. To hit the books
6. To shoot yourself in the foot
7. To kill two birds with a stone
8. It costs an arm and a leg

a) Something is outrageously expensive.
b) To study hard.
c) To earn money to support the family.
d) The sooner you get up, the better things happen to you.
e) To do something that unexpectedly harms you.
f) This idiom refers to someone very annoying.
g) To get two benefits with one single action.
h) The last situation that made me get really angry.

3. Fill in the gaps with the idioms in exercise 2. Conjugate the verbs if necessary.
a) Wow! 15 euros for a pencil. ______________________________.
b) I'm having four exams next week. It's time ___________________.
c) In my family, it is my mother that _____________________, not my father. 
d) I'm a morning person. I use mornings to do a lot of things. You know, ____________________.
e) I went to class at university and on my way back I bought some groceries. I _________________________.
f) Had I known that revealing that secret would get me into trouble, I wouldn't have done so. I ____________________.
g) In the end, he committed suicide. Losing his house to the bank was __________________________________.
h) Peter is overly annoying. He is always correcting me. He ____________________.

Answers :
Exercise 1
a) The early bird catches the worm.
b) To kill two birds with a stone.
c) To shoot yourself in the foot. 
d) It costs an arm and a leg.
e) To bring home the bacon.
f) The straw that broke the camel's back.
g) To hit the books.
h) To be a pain in the neck.

Exercise 2
1f; 2c; 3h; 4d; 5b; 6e; 7g; 8a

Exercise 3
a) It costs an arm and a leg.
b) to hit the books.
c) brings home the bacon
d) the early bird catches the worm.
e) killed two birds with a stone.
f) shot myself in the foot.
g) the straw that broke the camel's back.
h) is a pain in the neck.

Thanksgiving must-watch videos to practise your listening

Hello there ! Are you here listening to my blog or, rather, are you shopping for bargains on this Black Friday ? Over the last two years, I wrote two posts about Thanksgiving : one about Thanksgiving traditions and another one with Thanksgiving material for you to improve your English.  Today I'm bringing you two hilarious videos related to Thanksgiving that will put your listening comprehension to a test. Each video has different questions that you need to answer and, as usual, you can see the answers under the questions. Are you ready? Here you have the first one. It's the history of Thanksgiving told and dramatised by some innocent children. A must-watch video !

1. How does the first boy describe the pilgrims ?
2. According to the girl, why did the pilgrims go to America ?
3. How did they get to America ? What's the name of the transport they used ?
4. According to the children, how long did they take to cross the ocean ? (3 answers)
5. They were really cold, what did the forget to bring to America ?
6. How do you say corn in American English ?
7. What did the Indians teach the pilgrims ? And according to the children ?
8. What does the the chief of the Indians say ?
9. What did they have in the banquet? 

Here you have the second video. This one is related about the quirks of Thanksgiving.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9NDuxL4WA4

Listen to the video and choose the right answer a), b) c)

1. The First Thanksgiving feast :
a) lasted one day
b) included eating and other activities
c) celebrated the Indian's first successful harvest

2. In the first Thanksgiving menu : 
a) didn't include cranberries
b) included turkey
c) included deer provided by the Indians

3. Thanksgiving :
a) was celebrated every year until 1789
b) wasn't celebrated in subsequent years
c) immediately became a national holiday

4. Some traditional Thanksgiving dishes such as stuffing are due to :
a) a writer's idea
b) an idea established in a diary of a pilgrim
c) to historical reasons : Pilgrims would often cook those dishes

5. Thanksgiving is celebrated on the fourth Thursday :
a) because Franklin Delano Roosevelt did so in 1939
b) as was established by Abraham Lincoln 
c) as a result of different protests

6. One of the quirkiest traditions is :
a) turkey pardoning
b) turkey slaughtering
c) saving turkey farms

Answers to the first video :
1) "The pilgrims was a bunch of people that wore belt buckets on their heads."
2) They came to America because they wanted to go to a church, but the king of England wouldn't let them. 
3) They got to America onboard a ship called the Mayflower. 
4) 8 days / 4 months / 100 days.
5) They forgot to bring blankets.
6) Maize
7) They taught them how to grow crops, how to hunt and how to dance. According to the children they also taught them how to grow stuff like flowers, how to learn race bicycles and how to shop. 
8) he says :" I bet there won't be problems between the Englishmen and the native American ever again."
9) They had turkey, fruit and vegetables, deer and pumpkin pie. 

Answers to the second video : 
1b; 2c; 3b; 4a; 5c; 6a

To finish this post and to connect to the second video, here you have a video of president Trump pardoning first first turkey. Don't miss it !

St. Patrick's day and the Simpsons listening exercise

Hello to you all ! 

As you know, yesterday it was St. Patric's Day, the day where Ireland paints the town red - or rather - green ! It's a huge massive celebration that involves a big parade, tons of alcohol, people wearing green, massive Guinness consumption and lots of fun ! If you want to learn more about St. Patrick and Ireland, read my last year's post about St. Patrick's. For now, I propose you a short, but hilarious exercise of listening comprehension starring the Simpsons and St. Patrick. Watch the video and try to answer the questions ! The answers, as usual, are at the end of the post. Enjoy it :

Watch the video and answer the questions :
- Why does everybody pinch Bart ?

- What time is it when Homer is waiting at Moe's Tavern ?

- Today, everyone is a bit Irish except of course the ___________ and  the ____________.

- Why do they stop the celebration ?

- What does Homer say in Moe's Tavern?

- What does Bart say in front of the camera ?

- Marge doesn't want to look ___________________________.

Answers :
- Everybody pinches Bart because he isn't wearing anything green on St. Patrick's Day.
- It's about 9 o'clock. Homer : "It's been St. Patrick's day for ages and I'm still not drunk yet. Oh, it's never going to be nine o'clock !"
- Today everyone is a little bit Irish, except of course the gays and the Italians.
- They stop the celebration because Bart is drunk. "That small boy is drunk."
- In Moe's tavern, Homer says : "look at me ! I'm the Prime Minister of Ireland !
- In front of the camera, Bart utters the words : "What are you looking at ?"
- Marge doesn't want to look the world's worst mother. 

A little bit late, but you know, better late than ever. Happy St. Patrick's Day for everyone !