English in Madrid

Source: albaoilcommunity  (You Tube) Key words: tennents advert This is the advert for a popular lager made in Scotland. The song, a popular one in Scotland, is called "Caledonia" (the Latin name for Scotland and now a romantic or poetic name for Scotland). The man in the advert is a Scot who lives and works in London. He returns to Scotland. Can you tell the story of what happens to the man? How does he feel? Why do you think he leaves London? Describe all that you see in the advert. Then try to complete the lyrics to the song .

Source:   Ryan Wu en Unsplash My worst journey was last Christmas when it took me 50 hours (without much sleep) to get from Madrid to my hometown in Scotland. But it is too long a story to tell here. My worst car journey was from Madrid to Bilbao in February four years ago. A friend of mine was going to Bilbao on a business trip and invited me to join him there at the weekend. He flew there during the week and lent me his car to drive up to meet him. I don't like driving much as I often get stressed out behind the wheel . However, I thought the journey would be worth it because I had never been to Bilbao before. I was looking forward to the weekend. I began to worry after seeing the weather forecast for that weekend. It warned  that there was going to be heavy snow in the north of the country and advised against travelling. But my friend was already in Bilbao so I felt I had to go. I set off , quite apprehensively, early on Saturday morning. The motorway was...

Source: You Tube (Steven Brice ) Key words: Mondays Boomtown I don't like Mondays - The Boomtown Rats (When) The silicon chip inside her head Gets switched to overload And nobody’s gonna go to school today She’s gonna make them stay at home And daddy doesn’t understand it He always said she was good as gold And he can see no reasons 'Cos there are no reasons What reason do you need to be show-ow-ow-ow-own? Tell me why I don’t like Mondays Tell me why I don’t like Mondays Tell me why I don’t like Mondays I wanna shoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oot the whole day down The Telex machine is kept so clean And it types to a waiting world And mother feels so shocked Father’s world is rocked and their thoughts turn to their own little girl Sweet 16 ain’t that peachy keen   Now that ain’t so neat to admit defeat They can see no reasons 'Cos there are no reasons What reasons do you need? Oh Oh Oh Oh Tell me why I don’t like Mondays Tell me why I don’t like Monda...

Source: Wikipedia       "die" (Dutch) - "that one"   False Friends are words that look similar but have different meanings. They can  lead to  confusion and embarrassment. Take for example - actual: Actually there are 100 people on the staff but the company hopes to expand in the near future. (This is incorrect - "actualmente" doesnt translate as " actually") The sentence should read: Currently there are 100 people on the staff but the company hopes to expand in the near future. Depending on the context "actually" can translate as "now", "at present" or " nowadays ". " Actually " is used in a few different ways: Student: This is my teacher, Graham and he's from England. Graham: Actually, I'm from Scotland. Here is an A - Z List of some other False Friends. And here is a list of Fickle Friends ; words that are sometimes used similarly, other times not. Look ...

Photo Sources: Caltagirone Group  (Wikipedia) Michael Vadon  (Wikipedia) Dmitry Rozhkov  (Wikipedia) Mark Freeman  (Wikipedia) VisitCopenhagen  (Wikipedia) Malta Today I bet you don't know anything about the people above but they are in fact famous in their country. Describe their appearance. What do they look like? Can you guess their nationalities? There is an American, an Australian, a Russian, an Italian, an Englishman, an English woman and a Frenchman or woman. How old do they look? What do they do? Among them there is a businessman or woman, a princess, a writer, a politician, a journalist, an actor or actress and a chef. Also three of them have relatives who are much more famous than they are - do you see any resemblance? e.g. The woman in the centre is very pretty. She's got long, dark hair and dark brown eyes. She has a pale complexion . I think she looks French . She looks in her late twenties . She looks like an ...

Source: Mark Rall on Unsplash Ancient Origins Halloween's origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred . On the night of October 31, they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging crops , Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests , to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies wer...

The BBC has created a soap-opera to help English language learners. It's called "The Flatmates" and is updated weekly. Here is episode 37 - "The Interview". There is a short conversation which you can read or hide and listen to. There is a Language Point, which in this episode is the Present Perfect Continuous followed by a quiz which tests your ability to use the tense correctly. In the Talk section, you have the chance to discuss with other language learners a topic related to the episode. This week is episode 115 but you can review all the episodes in the Archives. In this week's   Grammar Challenge  you also have the chance to practice the Present Perfect Continuous !

Source: Hunters Race en Unsplash Source: ShireChic (You Tube)   Key words: Catherine Tate offensive translator Can such humour be offensive? What languages do you find funny ?

Image source: Wikipedia     Catch Me If You Can is a 2002 motion picture set in the 1960s . It was co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg and adapted by Jeff Nathanson loosely from the book by Frank Abagnale Jr. and Stan Redding. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks . Plot: The film begins with an FBI agent, Carl Hanratty Jr. (Tom Hanks), arriving at a French jail in 1969 to meet an imprisoned and sick Frank, who attempts to escape. The scene flashes back six years earlier. Frank's father, Frank Sr. cons   a woman to lend him a suit for Frank Jr., who later guises as a driver for Frank Sr. to get a loan   from Chase Manhattan Bank. When the loan is denied ( due to   IRS tax evasions by Frank Sr.), the family is forced to move from their grand home to a small apartment, with tension building between the family; it also appears that his mother is having an adulterous affair with the bank agent as well. Frank Jr., feeling he will not fit...

I found this article about a liar who has made headlines recently: Suspected bogus 9/11 survivor from Barcelona The sacked   head of a 9/11 survivors network alleged to have invented her experience of the attacks on New York's World Trade Center is of Spanish origin, a newspaper reported Saturday, quoting acquaintances as saying she always sought to be the centre of attention. The Catalonian daily La Vanguardia said Tania Head was better known in Barcelona as Alicia Esteve Head, publishing a photograph of her with colleagues taken when she worked as a management secretary in the city between 1998 and 2000. Associates told the newspaper she often recounted unlikely   stories which put herself at the centre of the action, notably one of a high-speed car crash in which she was badly hurt . Tania Head was sacked from the prominent survivors' group on Wednesday, a day before the New York Times ran a front-page story that said "the pieces just didn't fit ...