ON THE 35th ANNIVERSARY OF LENNON'S DEATH

Remembering John Lennon on the 35th anniversary of his murder in New York, with some of his famous quotes. John Lennon was killed 35 years ago at the dorrstep of the building where he lived in New York

ENGLISH VERB TENSE USAGE

Quick reference charts with the basic uses of the different English verb tenses.

TIPS FOR LEARNING A LANGUAGE

Here some more tips for learning a language. Watch the video and the advice these people give.

Video:

SYNONYMS FOR "NICE", "GOOD", "BAD" & "SAD"

Sometimes you keep on using and repeating the same old basic word when there are many other possibilities of expressing the idea with another synonym. Here are some lists of synonyms instead of always using nice, good, bad or sad.

USE OF ARTICLE 'THE'

Here's a chart with the always confusing uses of article 'THE', which don't always coincide with Spanish. Remember that there's also the ZERO article possibility, already seen in a previous post HERE.

INTERNET, EMAIL & SOCIAL MEDIA VOCABULARY

[13th CW] THE HISTORY OF LONDON: THE BIGGEST & THE SMALLEST CITY IN THE UK.

[From Bristoleños.com]

As if it was the Vatican City and Rome, London (UK capital city) has a borough called the 'City', but it isn't a borough, it has a special distinction that sets back a long time ago. Below you can watch a video which clearly explains the main differences between them, but here's a summary of the most important ones:

- More than 8 million people live in Greater London (the grey area of the map above), the capital of England and the UK.

- About 11.000 people live in the City of London (the red area of the map above). It has a totally independent organization from the rest of the country.

- Both cities have different councils, lord majors, police and even laws and collect their own taxes.

- The City of London sometimes acts like Wales, Northern Ireland, Scotland or England, the other countries that make up the UK.

- The organization that rules the City is older than England's.

- The City was founded by the Romans, called Londinium. They built a wall and the city grew within it. After William I, the Conqueror, had united England, he couldn't defeat the City, so he offered the Londoners some privileges that have lasted since 1705 until now.

- Later, William I founded another capital, Westminster, to diminish power from the City. This city grew so much to become Greater London.

- Not all London and England's laws are directly applied on the City. 

- Another curiosity is the tradition that the Queen of England can't enter the City without asking for permission to the Major of London.

Video:

7th Cultural Week 2015: PIONEERS

We'll soon start working for this year's cultural week. Our seventh cultural week will be devoted to: 

That is, people who have become the first to do something important or relevant around the world in some certain field.

Another meaning of the expression in the USA is for all those people in American history who migrated to the west to settle and develop new areas which hadn't been previously occupied and were only inhabited by natives.

From the English Department, we can work on two aspects:

1- Pioneers: the first people to work or become outstanding in a certain issue.

To decide on which character you can work on here are some links. Browse through the different people and choose someone who you consider interesting. 

- with British people. So here's a list: - 100 Greatest Britons.

- and if it's important and difficult to be a pioneer, it's even more if you're a woman, so here are lists of women pioneers:

- Inspirational female pioneers

- Best female pioneers by "The Guardian".

or 2- Pioneers: those first Americans to settle in the West of North America.
Here are some links to search for information:

- Pioneer facts.

- Frontier Legends: Pioneers of the American West.

- Pioneer Life in America.

- Pioneers & Westward Expansion.

Possible tasks:

a- We can prepare different posters of famous British or American pioneers, both male & female. Later prepare a Pioneer Challenge Quiz from all the information collected.

b- Prepare a presentation/poster on the American Pioneers.

TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER

Today's topic is the weather. Here are expressions and structures used to ask about the weather and give explanation of what's it like.

Questions about the weather:

• What's it like out(side)?
• How's the weather?
• What's the weather like?
• What's the temperature?
• What's the weather forecast?  (What is the weather expected to be like?)
• Is it hot or cold?
• Is it sunny?
• Is it raining?
• Beautiful day, isn’t it?

Some answers to describe weather:

• Today it is warm and sunny out.
• It’s so cold out there!
• The sun is very bright today, you might want to take sunglasses.
• It’s not raining, but it is cloudy.
• It is! I’m so happy the sun is shining.
• They’re saying blue skies and hot!  
• It's freezing outside!
• It's a bit chilly. Wrap up warm.
• It's Arctic out there.
• It's quite fresh - take a jumper.
• You can see your breath in the air.
• It's below zero.
• It must be minus five or more.
• It's pretty frosty today.

Structures for talking about weather:

One common mistake learners make when talking about the weather is mixing up the noun, adjective and verb forms of weather words.

Example: 

What's the weather like?
It is sun. Incorrect
It is sunny. Correct
The sun is shining. Correct

"WHITE LIGHTS": THE CORRS ARE BACK

"WHITE LIGHTS"

is The Corrs' new album released yesterday.
The Corrs are an Irish pop-folk group made up by four siblings: Andrea, Sharon, Caroline and Jim Corr. 
After a ten year break, they're back with a new album "WHITE LIGHTS". And here's their new single "BRING ON THE NIGHT" for you to listen to and understand with the lyrics on screen audio. You can also watch and listen to an interview they've given about their comeback.

For more on The Corrs: +info.

Video "BRING ON THE NIGHT", The Corrs:

Audio of "BRING ON THE LIGHT" with lyrics:



Video interview:

BLACK FRIDAY 2015

Today is this year's Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving in the United States... but not only. Black Friday has become bestselling date throughout the world. Even here in Spain we start hearing about "Black Friday's offers and sales".

+ info:
- BLACK FRIDAY 2015 info from The Telegraph.
- IF YESTERDAY WAS THANKSGIVING DAY IN THE U.S.A., TODAY'S BLACK FRIDAY, previous post from this blog.

Video:

HAPPY THANKSGIVING 2015

Today's Thanksgiving Day in the USA (always the 4th Thursday in November).

(In Canada it was 12th October, always the 2nd Monday in October).

Link to previous Thankgiving posts on this blog HERE.
And a new one @ Oxford Culturemania
Thanksgiving: A brief history

ED SHEERAN'S PHOTOGRAPHS

Ed Sheeran is back on this blog with a new song that comes with its official music video made up of a collection of real videos from his own childhood. The song is called "PHOTOGRAPH".

Video "PHOTOGRAPH", Ed Sheeran:

Video on screen lyrics:


For Spanish translation subtitles go to the song page on this blog.

HELLO, IT'S MISS PEGGY.

 (The Muppets' Miss Peggy covers Adele's "HELLO")

The Muppets' character Miss Peggy covers Adele's hit "HELLO" doing her own video version of the song. As you might all know Miss Peggy broke up with Kermitt, the Frog, in September last year, after nearly a 40-year relationship. Now Peggy uses Adele's song to call back on Kermitt. Very funny!

Video:

To watch the real Adele, click HERE:

TERRORIST VICTIMS AROUND THE WORLD

After last week's terrorist attacks in Paris and Mali, here's a map that shows the number of victims in terrorist attacks last year around the world, according to the Global Terrorism Index released last Tuesday.

Boko Haram is the most dangerous terrorist group in the world. Set in northern Nigeria, this group killed more than 6.600 people last year. The IS group came second killing a little more than 6.000 people. Both these terrorist groups are responsible for more than half the deaths (51%) by terrorism in the most deadly year in history, with an 80% rise in comparison to the previous year.

32.654 people died last year in terrorist attacks, (nine times more victims than in 2000). 80% of these attacks occur in only five countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria & Siria.

+ info: Global Terrorism Index 2015.

Galician version of this post @ ArquivosDoTrasno.

PARTS OF SPEECH

To start with a poem and some basic charts explaining the different parts of speech and their functions in English.

CONFUSING QUANTIFIERS: ENOUGH, SO, SUCH & TOO

Another confusing group of quantifiers. In these charts above,  you can see the difference in their use and word order.