English in Madrid

Source:  Victor Grabarczyk en Unsplash Spaniards tip too much - minister In cases, tips make up half the product's value Spaniards still have not fully got to grips with the value of the euro and often tip too much, according to Economy Minister Pedro Solbes. Over-tipping had added to the sense among Spanish consumers that the cost of living is higher since the euro's introduction in 2002, he said. "People haven't taken on board the value of a euro," Mr Solbes told a political rally in Madrid. Spain's inflation is higher than other eurozone states - at 4.1% last month. "I see people hav ing a couple of coffees and calmly leaving a euro tip," Mr Solbes told a Socialist Party economic forum in the Spanish capital. "That's 50% of the value of the product." Before the euro hit the streets five years ago, leaving a 25 peseta tip was the norm . One euro was then worth 166 pesetas. Source: BBC News   Do...

Source: WhamVEVO (You Tube)   Key words: Wham Last Christmas Last Christmas - Wham Last Christmas, I gave you my heart But the very next day, You gave it away This year, to save me from tears I'll give it to someone special Once bitten and twice shy I keep my distance but you still catch my eye Tell me baby do you recognise me? Well it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me (Happy Christmas!) I wrapped it up and sent it With a note saying "I Love You" I meant it Now I know what a fool I've been But if you kissed me now I know you'd fool me again (Oooh. Oooh Baby) A crowded room, friends with tired eyes I'm hiding from you and your soul of ice My God I thought you were someone to rely on Me? I guess I was a shoulder to cry on A face on a lover with a fire in his heart A man undercover but you tore me apart Oooh Oooh Now I've found a real love you'll never fool me again I...

Subject Questions  are an example of where practice is much easier than the theory. Let me try to keep the explanation short and simple. The majority of questions are  Object Questions  and they follow this form no matter what the tense: Q u estion -  A uxillary -  S ubject -  I nfinitive  ( QuASI ) What   do you do? I am a   teacher . Where does John live? He lives in   London . When are your parents coming? They are coming   on Monday . Who did  you see there?  I saw   my old teacher . How will you get there? We'll go   by   car . Can you see that the   Question Words   are the   object   of the verb? But in some questions the   Question Word   (who, what, which, how many) is the   subject   of the verb. Look at the following examples: Who   teaches you?   Graham   (teaches us). What   happens at the end of the film?   T...

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 ...

Source:  Joshua Hoehne en Unsplash Do you remember these words from last week's class? to spot to give away to get away with to fidget / fidgety to sweat / sweaty to mess around to live off to chat up to date (someone) / to have a date with (someone) to slow down to cheer up to cheat to be in charge of to stumble a liar / to tell a lie rude unusual a colleague a spokesperson a neighbourhood likely This is just some of the vocabulary that you came across during lessons last week. I encourage you to organize your notes well, think how you would use the words and create some sentences with them. Get into a routine of reviewing the vocabulary regularly and send the example sentences to me. Complete the following sentences I have created with a word from the above list. Put the word into the correct tense/form. ________! Surely things aren't that bad. Stop _________ and sit still! It's really _______ weather for this time of year. Normally it...

Source:  Foto de Brett Jordan en Unsplash Here are some mistakes that I heard in the classroom this week. Can you spot them? I won't be here next week. I am going on a travel to Paris for work. I thought about it but I decided not to go at the end. You shouldn't lie. You should always say the true. Richard works in the informatic department. Now he's in charge of maintenance. He used to working in a different area. I'm afraid I'm not agree with you. I have a new about Sarah - she's going to get married. How many were here on Monday? We were three. It's inpolite to ask people how much they earn. People say that the Scots are mean but that is just a topic. Both of my fathers were born in Madrid. The trip to Bilbao by car takes about 4 hours. I don't like my actual job. I preferred my old one. People hasn't much time to study languages. I can't remember; could you say me again, please?

Take a look at BBC Learning English . I can't praise this site enough ; it's great! I suggest you make good use of it . The site is divided into various sections. There are many articles to read, and clips to listen to and watch. There are loads of grammar and vocabulary exercises to do. There is a series called The Flatmates   to keep up to date with . There are quizzes and even a blog ( needless to say , not as good as ours is going to be!). Every section is updated regularly but also has a large store of archives. Source:  Nick Fewings en Unsplash Have a look at the latest addition to the Grammar Challenge section. It is another chance to practice the pronunciation of the tricky -ed endings. It is divided into 4 parts. First listen to the Grammar Challenge programme and refresh your memory of the rules. Then do Practice Quizzes 1 and 2. Finally, go to the Use the Grammar section and read the work of other students.  Once you have done all that, I'd like you to...

When I tell anybody who hasn't toured Scotland I am from Inverness, they reply with a blank look. As soon as I say it is the town next to Loch Ness, there is instant recognition and interest. More often than not , the question that follows is "And have you ever seen the monster...". If only I had a pound for every time I was asked.... And what is my answer to the much repeated question? "Well, one day a few years ago now I ..." Here is an article about the recent lack of sightings of the elusive monster: Source: Wikipedia   Has scepticism done for the Loch Ness Monster? Not so long ago it was impossible to visit Loch Ness without trip ping over somebody who claimed to have intimate knowledge of Nessie. But in the twilight zone of Britain’s deepest freshwater loch, a strange sanity is suddenly prevailing . There have been only two reported sightings so far this year and there were only three in 2006. A decade ago the numbers were consist...