More photos from the Thursday performance

Grammar points (V) on Houses (I)

Hey guys!

I'm back with comments on some of the posts on the topic of houses. I can see you like this topic because you have written many things on it, thanks a lot! For this reason I haven't been able to comment on all posts  yet, but I'll try to do so over the following days. Thank you all!

Vocabulary: mistakes

Lifes – lives

Confortable – comfortable

Geranius – geraniums

A countryside – The countryside

Much flowers – many flowers

Vocabulary: cool words!

Retreat

Nosy

Cozy

Hey María José! Thank you for your lovely comments! Towards the end there is a mistake that deserves mentioning. When you say “The most beautiful house I have ever visited it was a big house next to the beach,” you repeat the subject by adding “it” after the present perfect + superlative structure. There is no need to do that (in fact it’s a mistake) because “The most beautiful house I have ever visited” is already the subject. So the correct version would be “The most beautiful house I have ever visited is a big house next to the beach.” This is the same mistake I found in Noemí’s sentence “The most beautiful house I have ever visited, It was in Sevilla,” which should be “the most beautiful house I have ever visited is in Seville.” Also, because you are using the present perfect "is" seems to me a better choice than "was."

Hey Cristina! Very good grammar in general! There is one sentence where I find most mistakes, it is the one that goes “I have been to in another more humble houses and I feel very well, I want to say, that house are important but the people that live in there, they are really important because we can make that a humble house seems a palace.” First there is a confusion with prepositions at the beginning. You should say “I have been to other humbler houses” (remember that “other” is the form you should use with plural nouns and “humbler” is the comparative form of “humble,” although “more humble” is also in use). When you say “I want to say,” I understand what you mean but a native speaker would say “I mean.” Then there’s the slight problem with relative clauses I have pointed out to you elsewhere, you tend to repeat the subject when you work with this type of sentences (which of course is a logical mistake, but you have to try to avoid making it ;-D), remember that you should say “the people who live there are really important.” And then “make” is a special verb in the sense that it works with bare infinitives, you should say “make a house seem a palace” and not “make it seems.”

-Hey Noemí! Your use of the words “retreat”and “nosy” is excellent! Well done! Remember that when you speak in general you tend not to use articles, so you should say “I like big houses” instead of “the big house” and “Life in a flat is very comfortable” instead of “The life.”

-Hey Fátima! Remember that you use “will” for specific cases only. If you speak about things in general, you tend to use the present, particularly at this point when you haven’t seen conditionals yet (you will see them soon ;-D). So I suggest starting those sentences in your post which start with “will” with verbs in present simple instead (“I want to wake up...,” “I want to find...”). And avoid very complicated sentences when possible. When you say “I’ll like don’t very big,” I think you mean “I like not very big houses,” which in Spanish means “me gustan las casas no muy grandes” and not “no me gustan las casas grandes” which in English is “I don’t like very big houses.” Of course you can say this better by using conditionals ("I would like it to be not very big” or “I wouldn’t like it to be very big,” respectively) but that’s far too complicated for the time being.

- Hey Ángeles! Thanks for your post, it is very good! Just a couple of points: You should say “I don’t have my own house” instead of “I haven’t a own house,” remember that you should use the verb “have” as a normal verb, and use the auxiliary “do” when you want to make a negative sentence with it. Remember also that the order of adjectives is not affected by the fact that you use them in their comparative or superlative forms; this means that you should say “I haven’t seen the most comfortable house I can think of” instead of “I haven’t seen the house more comfortable.” Also, “houses in the countryside seem very beautiful to me” is the correct version of “The houses in the countryside I seem very beautiful.”

Thank you all, I'll be back with more comments soon!

New discussion topic: Houses

Houses are very important in life. Our houses represent us, demand a great share of our lives and give us space to enjoy some of our happiest moments in return.
What is the house of your dreams like? What do you prefer: living in the city or living in the countryside?
Are you happy with the house you live in now? What is the most beautiful house you have ever visited?

Enjoy the discussion!

Grammar points on different subjects, part IV

Thank you Ángela, Loly, Benito and Ángeles for participating! I will be back with more comments soon!


Ángela, remember that "to be" and "to have" don't mean the same. At school you had many friends and you had more boy friends than girl friends (not "was") :-). You can also link the sentences "I remenber a teacher, she hit on your head" by using a relative clause: "I remember a teacher who hit you on your head." Remember also that adjectives never have a plural form ending in -s (you say "different kinds" instead of "differents kinds").


Loly, when you say "the other kids doing jokes" the verb is wrong, and this makes it difficult for me to see what you actually meant. Remember you say at school, and that you can't change verb tenses without a grammatical reason (you should say "I began to smoke, I sometimes didn't go to school" instead of "I began to smoke, sometimes I wasn't going to class"). When you speak about the different periods of your life, you tend to use "times" instead of "age" ("I think those were good times") :-)


Hey Benito! Remember that when you work with the "have to" structure, you use the auxiliary "do," so you can't say "I hadn't to wear a uniform;" the correct version is "I didn't have to wear a uniform."


Ángeles, you have to find the right English translation for your job, whether it's a branch of engineering or a form of technical training, don't translate directly from Spanish. Also, when you say "my future so professional" I think you mean "my professional future." 

Interesting vocabulary lists from the 'Back to School' Topic

Guys! Have a look at this interesting list of words/ expressions/ mistakes!

Handmades  Handicraft
Draw  Art (school subject)
Six or seven points on ten  Six or seven out of ten
Success  Happen
A trousers  Trousers
I have wore  I have worn
Lyrics  Humanities/ Arts
Public college  State school (UK)
More easy  Easier
Memories  Memoirs (autobiography)
Professional Formation  Occupational/ Professional Training
University teacher  University professor
School professor  School teacher
Psychological  Psychologist

Some interesting words/ expressions:

School emblem
Long sleeve shirt
Plaid skirt
Average
Marks

New grammar points on the 'Back to School Topic' (III)

Hey guys,

I'm back with more grammar points. Here we go!

-REMEMBER: WEAR / WORE / WORN !!!!!!!
-REMEMBER: My uniform was/ my clothes were; education was/ classes were

-When you want to say you would like to do something, remember that the "to infinitive" is obligatory. So Daura, don't say "I would like be back" but "I would like to be back."

-In Spanish you can say "yo recuerdo" and "eso me recuerda" using the same verb (recordar). Not in English. In English you remember, but other people, or things remind you. So Nacho, you should ask other people not to "remind you of your school days," (you wrote "don't remember me my school days") because the memory doesn't stem from you, but it is evoked by other people. And remember that you don't "meet" secondary school or university. You go, you attend, you start... but you don't "meet."

-Hey Idaira! Remember that in the "have to" structure, the only verb in past tense is "have." So you can't say "I only had to wore it;" the correct way to say this is leaving the verb wear in infinitive form: "I only had to wear it."

-Remember that the order of the elements of the sentence when you work with adverbs of frequency changes depending on whether the main verb is "to be" or not. So Noemí, you should say "I was always a good student" instead of "I always was," because adverbs of frequency should be placed after the verb if the verb is "to be."

-Hey José Luis B! At secondary school you study science and humanities subjects or science and arts subjects (not "lyrics," Miqueas :-D), be careful with spelling. You wrote: "my average was a few low for I could to study engineering." Now, remember that the word "few" is either an adjective or a pronoun, so you can't place it before an adjective like "low." Also, be careful with translating subordinate clauses following Spanish grammar - "for I could to" is impossible in English. So the correct version would be: "my average was too low to study engineering."

- Hi Cristina! Be careful with subordinate clauses when they are part of the subject. They make the subject longer and thus you may lose track of the right syntax. You started your comments with the sentence "the first school when I went, it was horrible." You use a subordinate clause to specify the school you refer to, but you make a mistake with the pronoun. The subordinate clause gives you the impression that what you have just written is a complete sentence, but it's only the subject. This means that you can't repeat it by saying "it." To sum up: the correct version is "The first school I went to was horrible." You tend to repeat subjects when using subordinates, like when you say "I had a teacher that she forced me to write" when you mean "I had a teacher who forced me to write." Remember that you expel someone from a place, and your parents did not decide to "change you the school," but rather, they decided to send you to a different school :-) Also, about what the referee (coach?) told you, it was probably "you can train with the team but you will never play a match."

- Hey Juan Pedro! You don't say "professional formation" but "professional/ occupational training." If something scares you, you feel terrified of, not to ("terrified of English").

-Carlos, "decide" and "need" are verbs that take "to infinitive," so you say "I decide to study," not "I decided study" and "I need to learn" not "I need learn." The word "college" usually means university, not "school." You go to primary and secondary school. A Spanish "colegio público" is a "state school" in the UK, not a "public school." This is the same mistake I found in Deli's comments. Again, Carlos, If you use "because" to link two sentences with the same subject, you have to use a pronoun in the second sentence. You should say then: "I study English because it is an unresolved matter for me" (although I don't like very much that "unresolved matter" bit... I'd recommend something like "I study English because I could never learn to speak it properly at school" or something like that). Outside your country is abroad, not "in the foreign."

-Olivia, remember that you use the past continuous to specify that one given action took longer than other/s in the past. So in the sentence "I was a good student and I was doing exercise" there is no such need. The best option is using the past simple in both cases: "I was a good student and I did exercise." Also, when you compare, be careful because structures become more difficult. I think that what you mean when you say "the children are best forms" is "children are better educated today." Deli, comparing, as I say, is not easy in English. In your sentence "there are many possibilities for the students now than fifteen years ago" I think you used "many" instead of "more." The correct version would be: "there are more possibilities for the students now than fifteen years ago."

-Deli, be careful with difficult structures. To say what I understand you mean when you write "other thing is if we want to use them" I think you need elements you haven't seen in class yet. The best solution I can give you is to try to adapt what you want to say to what you can say now. The correct version of that sentence would be: Whether we are willing to make the best of these advantages or not is an entirely different matter."

Some quick grammar points on the last comments on music

Guys! I will try to post more grammar points tomorrow, this time on the "Back to school" topic. For the time being, here you can find some on-the-go points on the last comments some of you have been posting on the topic of music. Thank you for joining and see you in class!

Prepositions/ adverbs/ expressions:

- You say depend on, not “depend of.”

- Things happen to people, they don’t “happen people.”

- When you want to speak about your mood, you can speak about your “frame of mind” – but don’t forget to include the preposition “of” J

-You don’t say “over all” when you mean “especially;” you say “above all.”

-You don’t say “previous the song” but “before the song.”

Be careful with “it” as a subject:

Rafa, when you say “music in general is very important, is an art,” remember that you have to repeat the subject in the second sentence, because it is a separate sentence: the correct version would be “music in general is very important, it is an art.” You can also contract (“it’s an art”). I find the same mistake in Sole’s sentence “I can’t define what kind of music is” – it should be “what kind of music it is.”

Thank you guys for these lovely comments. I'm very glad you're participating so much!

Back to school!

I have always been a very good student. I guess I shouldn't say this myself, but it's true. I love learning (and now teaching) and discovering things. Because of this I remember my time at school and university as fantastic periods of my life. I still try to learn new things and keep studying. And I absolutely love books! 

Which was your favourite subject when you were at school? Did you have to wear a uniform? Do you think classes were more difficult when you were a child? Discuss your ideas, opinions and memories of your time at primary and secondary school.

Enjoy the discussion!

New grammar points (II)

Hey Guys!

I’m glad to see you’re participating so much. Thank you all! Special thanks to José Luis B, Magda, Carmen Luisa, Loly, Cristina, Juan Pedro, Maico and Juan Luis for writing!

Time for some grammar!

- Guys! Remember that you always listen TO music!!!

- You can hear music and listen to music, but these two activities are not the same. You listen to music on purpose, like for example when you play a CD at home or some songs on your Ipod. If you hear music, that often means that you can perceive the sound even if you don’t want to, like when you're walking down the street and you hear music coming from a car. It’s not your intention to hear it; it’s simply there, and you hear it. So José Luis B, in your room you listen to music, because you decide to do so, and Juan Pedro, when you were younger you probably listened to your sister’s record, you didn’t “hear” it. And José Luis B, remember to be careful with Spanish! In English you organize or have a party, but you can’t “ride” it :-) You "ride" a motorbike, or a horse. :-)

- There are many verbs followed by prepositions in Spanish which don’t take prepositions in English or which, when they do, they don’t mean the same. In Spanish you often see “to” a person and you know “to” a person. But in English, you don’t; you “see someone” and you “know someone.” So Magda, remember, if you know Elvis, you don’t “know to him,” you simply know him. It’s the same type of mistake I have found in your comments, Juan Luis, you don’t “ask to people,” you simply ask people.

- Jose Luis B, you have given me the chance to introduce a really cool word that’s widely used in America. You told Alex that you had a “dude,” I think again translating from Spanish. The correct word would be “question,” like in class. Now of course the word “dude” exists in English. It is used in America in the same way you use the Spanish words “tío” or “tipo” – a colloquial term to say “guy.” It is a very cool word and many young people use it all the time. You can greet each other by saying “Hey dude!” :-D  It’s very funny.

-Hey Carmen Luisa! Remember that musicians like Verdi or Puccini are composers, not compositors :-)

- When you speak about music from a certain decade, there is a specific way to refer to those years.

Loly, music from the 80s is music from the eighties, not “of eighty age” :-) Also, when you want to speak about a given musician’s work, you speak about music by, not of (“I like some songs by Eminem”).  You can also say this using the Saxon Genitive: “I like some of Eminem’s songs.” This is the same mistake I found in Juan Pedro’s comments – you say “songs by Elvis,” not “songs of Elvis.”

-Cristina, Spanish ONGs are called NGOs (“Non-governmental organizations”) in English. Don’t forget the adverb in the sentence “I don’t know how to write ONG in English." Remember that you go to concerts, not of concerts, and be careful not to forget the preposition when you use the present perfect in sentences like “it was the best concert that I have ever been to.”

- Juan Luis, in your comments you wrote “I use it to rest and thinking about my things.” Both “rest” and “think” are subordinate clauses that depend on the main sentence, and this means they need to have the same form. The correct version would then be “I use it to rest and to think about my things.”

- Hey Maico! Remember that when you speak about things you always do, or things in general, you use the present simple, so you say “music is more than something I sometimes listen to,” and not “something we listening to” (apart from this, remember that an "–ing form" can’t work as the main verb on its own). Also, in Spanish we often don’t have to specify the subject in the sentence other than in the verb ending (you can say “para mí es parte de mi vida” instead of “para mí eso es parte de mi vida”). But in English you always have to include the subject. So be specially careful with this type of sentence, because you can make mistakes as a consequence of thinking of the Spanish version. In English it would be “for me, it is a part of my life”). You make the same mistake later when you write “for me is a way of live” instead of the correct version: “for me it is a way of life.” When you say “once” you can’t add “time” after it, because “once” means “one time.” And when you do something once a year, you don’t say “all the years” in English but “every year.” Remember that “men” is a plural word (“hombres”) as well. What you mean is probably another “man.”

Thank you all and enjoy the new discussion topic I'll post later!!!

Thank you all! First grammar points!

Hey guys! Thank you Maico, Nacho, José, Alex and Miqueas for commenting! Noemí, thanks for signing up! I hope you write something soon too! I'm glad you find this new tool useful. Here you can find some comments:

- Usually, you try an activity, not "with" an activity. So Alex, if you think Elvis wouldn't be satisfied with your version of his song, he would probably tell you to "try basketball," instead of "with basketball" (but I believe Elvis will be delighted with our cover :-D)

-When you speak about something in general, you don't use a determiner ("the"); you like music, not "the" music; you listen to music and not to "the" music. And if you do it on the radio - then it's "on." You do the same when you speak about "water" (you say "music is as important as water" not as "the" water). Miqueas, remember that you don't use the verb "like" in English in the same way you do in Spanish. So you can't speak about a kind of music that "may like me" (which means that music has an opinion about you!), you speak about kinds of music that you may like. By the way, it is so surprising to me to read that you have never bought a CD! I have tons! :-P The same happens with José's sentence "all music don't like to everybody forever" For the same difference between English "like" and Spanish "gustar" the correct version would be "Everybody doesn't always like the same music.

- When you emphasize comparatives, you don't use "very" but "much." So I agree with you, Alex, when you say that we all have a dark past (:-D) and that we listened to different artists when we were much younger.

-José, in a sentence like "I believe that the music is and it will be something very important in ours life" you don't have to repeat the subject; so the correct version would be "I believe music is and will (always) be..." Remember the difference between possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. You should say "our lives" instead of "ours life," because the noun should be plural and because, having a noun, you can't use a pronoun ("ours" is a possessive pronoun and "our" is a possessive adjective).

Guys, I hope these comments are useful. Keep writing and enjoying the discussion! See you guys!

Hey guys!

Here I am at last! This is going to be the place for you to discuss, share ideas and practise your language skills. As you know, I teach two levels (pre-intermediate and intermediate), but many of the activities and topics I will post are suitable for both, so feel free to interact! Please don't hesitate to post as many comments as you wish, remember that you must practise, practise and practise!

Have fun!

The song you have to learn by heart

Yes, by heart. You have to learn this song by heart. Why? The answer is simple: because you have to make questions in English correctly, and this song contains an interesting list of questions of different types. Making questions in English may be a bit difficult, so I think you can try to learn this beautiful song and try to keep the structures in that way (and by the way, yes, I know it by heart myself). And you can also test your singing skills!

Take it seriously because I'm giving you an exam next month! I'll give you a copy of the lyrics in class.

See you guys!

First discussion topic: music

Considering that I have asked you to learn a song by heart, I think music is a good starting point for our weekly discussions. I think music is very important in our lives nowadays. I personally can't imagine my life without it. I like many, and very different kinds of music and I really enjoy going to concerts, shopping for CDs and watching music videos. One of my favourite bands is Metallica (you know I love metal bands...) but I also love composers like Brahms and Mahler, and of course, great figures like Michael Jackson and Elvis. What can you tell me about music? What kinds of music do you like? How important is music for you? What is the best concert you have ever been to?

Enjoy the discussion!

Even the greatest find lyrics hard to remember!

It seemed funny to me that just when I ask you to learn the lyrics of a song by heart, one of the most famous voices of America, Christina Aguilera, messes up the lyrics of the American National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner," at Super Bowl 2011! Here's the video:

And these are the real lyrics. Tell me if you can find the gaffe:

"Oh, say! can you see by the dawn's early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming;
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there:
Oh, say! does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?"


Oops! Not her best day! Nice singing, though.