Let's Get Things Finished so as to Start a New Lesson!

Week 10^th - 12^th March

Hi again! How do you feel?

I think you feel happy, excited and looking forward to Thursday!

Yes, you’re lucky. This week is shorter for you. You’re having a long weekend.

Do you have any plans? Are you going away (travelling)? Are you going to ‘Fallas’?

What did we do last week?

We finished the song ‘I just called to say I love you’. The message of the song is that it doesn’t have to be any special day to say ‘I love you’ to the person you love.

“No New year’s Day” 1^st January

“No chocolate covered candy to give away” 14^th February (People give away= give as a present, chocolates on Saint Valentine’s Day)

“No first of spring” 21^st March. (Although this year is going to be 20^th March)

And so on (etc.) during all the year…

We finished practising business phone conversations.

We learnt how to make polite questions.
Is that possible?	Is that alright with you?
Would it be possible?	Shall I call him back?
Would that be possible?	Do you want me to call him/her back?

And we reviewed the pronunciation of the –ed suffix.

DON’T PRONOUNCE “e”, ONLY AFTER “t” OR “d”

Want   wanted   land  landed   wait   waited

                   /ɪd/                  /ɪd/                  /ɪd/

 When the verb does not end in “t” or “d”, “e” is never pronounced. Sometimes it sounds like “d”; sometimes it sounds like “t”. Don’t be lazy and try to read it in Spanish because native people won’t understand you and it sounds awful (terrible!)

This was all! See you on Tuesday!!!

Business & Informal Telephone Conversations

Week 3^rd- 5^th March

Hi everybody! It’s a nice weekend.

What’s the weather like? It’s warm, nearly hot and sunny! It’s a wonderful spring Sunday, although it is still winter!

Today is the International Women’s Day!

We started the week talking about madness! Why? I ‘m not sure.

Madness is the noun. Adjectives: mad, crazy. More colloquial expressions: to be nuts, to have a screw lose, to be as mad as a hatter. It seems that this expression comes from the hatter’s (people who make hats) job. Hatters used strong chemical products and those made them have hallucinations or act strangely.

And very informally (slang) ,we say that somebody is ‘cuckoo’. And that is the reason why the Spanish translation of ‘Somebody flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ doesn’t refer to the bird but to an institution for the mentally ill!

Don’t confuse sane /insane with healthy/unhealthy. Health refers to the physical state and sane to the mental state.

We went on (continued) with ‘movies’.

Remember the differences between ‘tell’ and ‘say’.

·         Tell + object pronoun

·         Say that+ S+V

He told me he went to the cinema every weekend.

Elizabeth said that she hated sport.

After that we listened and practised passing on telephone messages.

We use the structure: ‘want somebody to do something’ you can also use ‘ask’ with the same structure and in this case ‘ask’ means pedir, and it’s more polite. And even more polite is ‘would like to’.

·         The director wants the accountant to pay the client.

·         My boss wanted us to pick him up.

·         The engineer would like you to set a new date.

·         Mr. Lang asked the lawyer to sign the contract.

And we finished with a song! A classic! ‘I Just Called to Say I Love You!’

Enjoy the rest of the Sunday.

See you on Tuesday!