domingo, 17 de agosto de 2014

Comparatives

They are like special forms of adjectives. We use them when we want to compare two or more things. Basically they tell us some differences about the things that we are talking, we can set one is bigger than the other one, or smaller or prettier, etc.
It's important the use of than when we compare two or more things.
Some comparatives are different than usual:

Better - Best
Bad - Worst

In normal forms we use them like:

Big - Bigger/est
Small - Smaller/est
Pretty - Prettier/est

So here are some examples:

The cat on the left is prettier than the cat on the right.



That Chiguagua puppy is smaller than the other dog.



The big guy is the best in that sport



Here is a video song about comparatives:




sábado, 16 de agosto de 2014

The Emphasis

I found a lot of forms to add emphasis to what i am saying by using certain words in our speech.

First of all, we have the inversion which is used to emphasize the adverbial phrase in a sentence.

Structure of the Inversion:


(Never, nowhere, not only, etc.) followed by auxiliary verb + subject + verb. For example:
  • Not only does he play football, but he also plays tennis.
  • No way am i going to sing in public.


Then i learned some words very useful to add emphasis:

  1. Own: to intensify possessive adjectives
  2. The least bit/at all: emphasizing negatives
  3. Actually, by no means, even
  4. Do - did: Auxiliary verbs
And two important cleft constructions for emphasis are:
  • It clauses: It was Mario who asked...
  • What clauses: What you need is a cup of coffee...

Compound Adjectives


  1. The compounds adjectives are mostly use to describe people.
  2. They have to has a hyphen (-) between the words.
This is important because some people doesn't know that the compound adjectives use the hyphen, i was one of those person that used to think that that little line wasn't necessary. 

Some examples of compound adjectives and their structures are:


Here i show you a video that explains the compounds adjectives and how to identify them:



viernes, 15 de agosto de 2014

Vocabulary for Travelers

If you are a person that enjoy so much to travel like me, here i will show you some vocabulary that will help you a lot:

Give advice/ make recommendations about places:

Saying it's good:

  • it's a must see
  • It's a good value for the money
Saying it's not so good:
  • It's a little bit overrated or overpriced
  • It's not all it's cracked up to be
Recommending:
  • If i were you, i'd go to
  • Don't miss or make sure to go to...
  • You should try...
Warning:
  • Watch out for
I found this vocabulary very useful, because i am a person that not just travel a lot but i like it so much, so when a person ask me about how was my trip and what things or places they don't want to miss, i would be able to answer them correctly and more precisely.





Passives

This is a very common element in the english speech, even in spanish we also use it.

This is mostly use for when a statement is not our own opinion or a personal opinion for example:
  • It was reported that Felix Hoffman had invented aspirin
The most common passives are:
  • It is said that
  • It is believed that
  • It is claimed that
  • It appears that
  • It seems that



Prepositions

I am going to start with an image for a better understanding:



Prepositions are words that show the relationship between a noun or a pronoun and some other word or element in the rest of the sentence.

There are two prepositions that always have been difficult for me to learn and use them: in - on.
So here is an example:

A phrase is a group of words. A prepositional phrase is one that begins with a preposition, such as at, before, beside, between, by, during, for, from, in, over, under,with. You get the idea. If you find a word in a prepositional phrase for example: in the doghouse, across the street or under the table, it can't be the subject.

Here is a song for a better learn of the prepositions: 










About the Course

Everybody knows that english is the global language, we all should know at least the basic because it will be an advantage for our future in the work or even if we like to travel.

So this course help us to get away our fears and speak more in public, that's the best element to have in mind. I like how the teacher get us the course, how she learned from us and how we learned from her, i like her style, her patience, and her proactive personality. 

In four months we learned a lot of things, for some people new and for some others they were just another topic. But the experience that this course gave us, was amazing. I hope to take all of that knoweldge with me and put it in work.

So this is it, a really helpful course, in which i made a lot of friends, in which i take away my fears of speaking n public and in which i learned tons of new things.