Showing posts with label English. Show all posts
Showing posts with label English. Show all posts

Thursday, December 14, 2017

English Classes Diary

Hi everyone and welcome back!

After more than a half a year of not giving English classes I'm back again to continue. Here is the picture I've made from one of my Spanish student. We made an interesting exercise for speaking: I've asked him to paint his own Pokemon (right), because the boy is very interested in them, and at the same time I painted mine (left). We talked what kind of powers each of them has, what they can do, what their weaknesses are and little stories about where they live. Student's pokemon is called Comodoro and mine has name of Racoony. Two powerful guys with extraodinary abilities and unbelievabale life story!


Awesome class and a good time spent together! 
If you want a class with me, don't hesitate to write me!

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

False Friends English - Spanish #2

Hi everyone and welcome back!

Today's post will be about two false friends that English and Spanish have and so many times Spanish speakers have made mistakes with these words. I remember one day, when one of my student sent me a message in Whatsapp telling me: "Sorry, Denis, I don't feel well today and I'm constipated...". Of course, English speaker will think, that she might have this, as you can see on the right picture.

But I understood her, that she literally translated the Spanish word constipado into constipated, and these two words are similar, but their meanings are absolutely different!

If I say "I'm constipated"(Estoy constipado) in Spanish. it means that I have flu, I'm sick, I've got cold and don't feel well, as on the left picture. But the same phrase in English has absolutly different meaning. If we say "I'm constipated", it means in Spanish "Estoy estreñido".

So sometime literal translation from Spanish into English can be a little bit dangerous, because we can missunderstand you!

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

False Friends English - Spanish #1

Hi everyone and welcome back!

Having so many Spanish students, I've noticed that almost all of them like to include some words that are absolutely identic but have different meanings in English and Spanish. Sometimes it was even very confusing, because I missunderstood a person, I couldn't even imagine what that person meant. Now I'd like to make it a little bit clear by preparing this posts about False Friends in English and Spanish. So let's begin with the first group of false friends!

The Menu VS El Menú

The word "menu" in English means "la carta", so basically it´s the list of the food that restaurants offer. In Spanish the same word "el menú" refers to the first plate, second plate and dessert. So this idea of "menu" doesn´t exist in English, sometimes you can find something like a "set menu" which includes things described in "el menú".

                                  The Menu                                                                      El menú

 


Monday, February 6, 2017

English Listening #5 - Prince, Panama Case, Olympic Games 2016

Hi everyone and welcome back!

For today's English Listening Episode I'm going to present you 4 audios related with Putin and Trump, USA and Russia, why Miss Obama called Americans like children and we will see what's happening right now in the world with the technology in USA (Amazon) and India.

Enjoy it!


Questions:
1. Why the cyberattack happened in USA?
2. What are the consequences of this attack?



Questions:
1. Why Miss Obama called Americans like children?



Questions:
1. What is Amazon Go? How does it works?
2. What is the main problem in grocery market?
3. How does Amazon see its future in this new business?
4. Is there any opened Amazon Go store?



Questions:
1. What is the main purpose of a new monetary reform in India?
2. Why did Mr. Modi want all people to use electronic money?
3. Who does Mr. Modi want to participate more actively in this initiative?


Reference of a student. Sergio - approved university English exam

Sergio is a student of University Carlos III de Madrid and my friend. He needed to pass an English exam at his university in order to finish successfully his Law Degree, it is an obligatory exam for all students of this university, so soon or later he needed to do that. After the exam Sergio had some doubts about his exam and wasn't sure if he passed or not. Fortunatly, Sergio did pass the exam and got B1 level, the maximum level you can get in this exam.

Click on picture to see the text:


Monday, January 23, 2017

Student's reference from Jose. Approved TOEFL exam

Here I live you guys another reference from on of my student, Jose!

Jose contacted me on the last week of the December, exactly before the New Year. He needed to prepare in 2 weeks his TOEFL exam, because he needed to achieve at least 80 points to be enrolled in an English speaking university, he's studying engineering and he sees himself working abroad, that's why he wanted to achieve the needed score in TOEFL. For 2 weeks, until the 7th of January of 2017, we had been having classes every day in order to prepare Writing and Speaking of Jose. The things is that Jose had already done this exam before but he couldn't get enough points, so he needed to do it again if he wanted to study abroad. At the end, we have achieved the goal and Jose got his 80 points!

Click on picture to see the text:


Friday, January 6, 2017

Idioma Online - electronic library

Hi everyone and welcome back again!
In our Idioma Online web we´ve created a library with the materials that you need for your English studies. It´s quite difficult to find materials in the web to study languages online, so we decided to open our own library with the materials that usually people need to learn foreign languages, in particular, English.


We added books for official exams and for specific parts of English: grammar, listening, reading, writing and speaking. As well, we added some books for kids.

Check this out here: http://idiomaonline.com/english-library/

Is this a Future?

We all live in the postmodern era or better to say in informatic era according to some sociologists. I think it's true somehow, because I just found out this:


Watch seebotschat on www.twitch.tv
Basically, two Google Home robos are talking between them about anything. While I was writing this post, they had already said that they had loved each other and decided to marry. Their conversations are just so deep and dumb at the same time!

That's a good practic for you of English, I think so :)

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Idioma Online and working processes

Penultimate week before the New Year and this is what we´ve got after leaving an ad about job opportuniteis with us in Idioma Online.  Now it´s time to answer them all and try to find the best professionals. 


Saturday, August 6, 2016

Launching my new language school

Hi everyone and welcome again!

I have a good news, guys! With my partner we're launching now a language school of English language. That will be an online language school, that I wanted to create before.

Right now we're adjusting everything on the web, as you can see we're ding it on Blogger as well. Very soon we will present you new teachers and start to give some classes through our web.

Meanwhile I want you to see some pictures of the process:


Sunday, July 10, 2016

Reference from student #8. 9.5 points on English exam

Hi everyone and welcome again!

Here you have a new reference of one of my students who is now n her vacation time but we will continue with our classes in September:

Lucia and Natalia are two school girls who are preparing for FCE this year but before that exam Lucia had the Selectividad (Spanish state exam for all students who want to continue their studies at universities) and thanks to our classes she obtained 9.5 points in English exam! Congratulations, Lucia!


Thursday, May 19, 2016

Reference from student #7.

Hi everyone and welcome again!

Here you have a new reference from one of my student, Jose, who has had 1.30 h classes with me for 4 months one time per week. We stopped for a while with classes because right now he is involved in some important projects in his company and works quite hard to finish them. This is a brief story about his experience with me:

Jose needed to improve his business English since he works in an international company and one of the goals was to make his speech fluent and improve writing skills. He was very worry about his writing but after we saw some of his job emails I was pretty impressed by his English, it was a very professional language so I exaplained him that there is nothing to worry about his writing, it's perfect. But we did need to work on his speaking to make him talk as well as he writes. Right now we stopped for a while with classes, because the job in a big international company sometimes requieres a lot of effort and Jose is involved right now in some important projects in his company. Good luck Jose! See you soon!

If you want to see more references from my students you can click HERE

Click on picture to see the text:

reference
Jose's reference

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

English Listening #4 - Prince, Panama Case, Olympic Games 2016

Hi everyone and welcome again!

Today I prepared for you new listening exercises to do. The topics I have chosen are related with current news. The death of the famous Prince, Amercian musician and singer, the news from Brazil about the Olympic games in Rio de Janeiro and the Olympic torch and problems that the country has to face and at the end the biggest scandal in Iceland in relation with Panama Papers and Prime Minister's company.

I'm waiting for you answers below, in comments, let's see who is correct! Enjoy it!

Questions:

1. Who was a Prince?
2. When did he died?
3. What kind of rewards did he get during his career?




Questions:

1. When will the Olympic torch arrive to Brazil?
2. How many cities will the torch visit in Brazil?
3. What is the problem with Brazilian president?




Questions:

1. What was the source of information about Iceland Prime Minister’s wife company?
2. What did the Prime Minister ask from the President?

Tuesday, April 19, 2016

FCE-CAE exercises

Hi everyone and welcome again!
Today I prepared for you some exercises that I use with my students to prepare for First Certificate and Cambridge Advanced exams. Very soon all students are going to do these exams and it's necessary for them to practice a lot. So here you have some exercises to do.
Enjoy it!

Easy English #10 - Scottish independence (2014)

Hi everyone and welcome again!

The Scottish independence referendum is already past 2 years ago but people still discuss about this topic and there is no better way to understand the problem than listen to Scottish and there opinion about that referendum. As you know, Catalunya also wants to be independent from Spain, so I think this is an interesting topic also for Spaniards who wants to disuss it in English.

Enjoy the video and what's your opinion about the Scottish independence referendum? Write in comments below!

Conditional sentences. Part #1

Hi everyone and welcome again!

conditional sentences
I love to share my teaching materials that I prepare for my students. Today I present you some explanations about Conditional sentences. I think, this is one the most difficult part of English grammar for Spanish students because of different tenses and logic that are used in English conditional. Each time we learn this topic, students always have some doubts even after the explanation. 

To begin with, here you have my written materials of conditional types, I prefer to use 4 types inculding zero conditional as a specific type but very related with the first one. I like to use schemes to explain briefly and at the same time completely things and ideas. Tomorrow we will see with you specific cases and on Thrusday we will learn about Mixed conditional. Enjoy it!

The Conditional Type:

0      Zero Conditional
Nature: The condition is possible (natural, physical, scientific facts)
Time: present (simple)
Structure: If + Present Simple/ Present Simple
Example: If you heat water to 100 degrees, it boils.

1      First Conditional
Nature: Open condition, what is said in the condition is possible.
Time: present or future time
Structure: If + Present Simple/ will + inf / present tense / imperative
Example: If he is late, we will have to go without him.
If my mother knows about this, we are in serious trouble

2      Second Conditional
Nature: unreal or improbable situation
Time: the tense is past, but we are talking about the present, now
Structure: If + Past Tense/ would + inf
Example: If I knew her name, I would tell you.
If I were you, I would tell my father.

3      Third Conditional
Nature: unreal situation (no chance)
Time: the tense is past, we are talking about what could be in the past
Structure: If + Past Perfect Tense/ would + have + (past form of verb –ed or 3rd)
Example: If you had warned me, I would not have told your father about that party.(But you didn't, and I have)

Morning pictures - Imagine if you're immortal

Good morning, folks!

Any plans for this day? Let's start the Tuesday with a sense of humor!
matrix memes
Imagine all your loved ones are dead and you keep on living

Friday, April 15, 2016

Phrasal verbs #1 - BACK

Hi everyone and welcome again!

From today we begin our first post about Phrasal Verbs in English. This is quiet problematic topic for all sutdents in the world when they learn English language. Also my students ask me quetions when we read texts or do some exercises. So, to begin with, let's watch this informative video about phrasal verbs with the verb "Back". You will see different combinations of phrasal verbs and their meaning.

In the future I'm planning to write my own videos and add my own information about phrasal verbs to make it more clear and with some tips and hints.But beofre that I recommend you to see the next video.

If you have some questions about phrasal verbs, don't hesitate to ask me in comments!
Enjoy it!