BEST MASTER YODA QUOTES:“DO OR DO NOT. THERE IS NO TRY!

This morning I had a beautiful conversation with a friend, about the power of fear, mainly fear of losing and of being oneselves, and she read to me a few Master Yoda quotes. 
“Fear is the path to the dark side…fear leads to anger…anger leads to hate…hate leads to suffering.”
Amazing! I had never cared to take seriously the Star Wars Saga, let alone the character of Master Yoda, but she made me see I was applying his words to my own life! 
Another quote is:  “You must unlearn what you have learned”,  so from now on I'll try to ensure I don't judge things until I know them!.  Consequently, I now feel I owe an apology to my dear friend and follower who's a fan of the Star Wars Saga for not having listened to him seriously when he mentioned this fact: I'm sorry, you were right! Thank you for introducing me to this character! 

WHAT WERE YOU DOING WHEN YOU TOOK THE PHOTO?

Watching old photos or videos is a great way of bringing back memories as well as practising the past tenses.
Moreover, if you practice with a friend who speaks English too, then,  you can speak about the old times and the fun will be double!
But first you need to warm up with this activity:
Read the theory 
Do exercises:
Exercise 1        Exercise 2         Exercise 3           Exercise 4              Exercise 5               Exercise 6
Test 1   and Test 2
Now you are ready to try this activity talking about what you were doing and what your life was like when you saw a favourite film, for example, this scene from Grease:

LEARNING VOCABULARY OF YOUR CHOICE WITH A CLICK!

Talking about my student's hobbies is always a great source of pleasure because I see they are delighted to share their favourite experiences. Don't be shy and search the web for vocabulary of your choice!
For example, I've been talking to a young student about her passion for horses and this has been the excuse to practice the comparative and superlative of inferiority, less and least
As an experienced rider, she knows far more words in English related to these beautiful animals than me, so I've learnt a lot of new vocabulary that I want to share with you:.
words for horses, in this website there are not only words, but also, phrases and great quotes!
My favourite is "A good horse makes short miles. -George Elliot", while my student chose: 
"A good rider can hear his horse speak to him, a great rider can hear his horse whisper, but a bad rider won't hear his horse even if it screams at him. -Unknown " when I heard it I immediabely remembered the famous film: really useful to improve your English, enjoy!

LEARN VOCABULARY, USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND HAVE FUN!

Studying vocabulary may seem a terribly boring activity, however, if you use your imagination, you can make it into a funny experience.
Watch this video to see how:

WORLD POETRY DAY!

😊Poetry well deserves a worldwide huge celebration, that's the reason why the UNESCO holds a World Poetry Day every year!

So, to celebrate this event with me, I invite you to choose just one poem, you can use the web poemhunter.com and read it, or you can read and listen at the same time if you search, you'll find lots of famous poems read with their texts on YouTube!

PRESENT PERFECT SIMPLE

When you study the "Present Perfect simple" for the first time, you may feel a bit discouraged.
On the one hand, you must remember to combine the present of the verb to have in the correct form, on the other,   you should use the correct past participle ( is the verb regular or irregular?)   :(   :0) !
What's more, it's really difficult to remember the correct order of the words!, plus the corresponding adverbs (yet, for , since, already, just.....) so just take it easy!
Remember Bob Marley's words: Don't worry, about a thing, cause every little thing's gonna be all right!
While you are listening to the song Three little birds , read the theory and do the exercises at the bottom of the page (if you feel like a child, you can sing along with the lyrics of this video):

Theory and Practice 1

HOW FAR IN TIME COULD WE GO AND STILL UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?

Good question! If you are a student of the History of English or you's simply interested, watch this video and your questions will be answered with plenty of good examples:

A DICTIONARY OF FALSE FRIENDS FOR TRUE FRIENDS!

True friends are a treasure! Even when you can't see them, you know they will always be there, won't they?  But sometimes, relationships are not what they appear to be, like "false friends" in a language.
Be careful! Always keep an eye on words which seem too similar, like for example "fabric", which doesn't mean "fábrica", here's the meaning if you click on the word.
So, from now on, with this dictionary of false friends, you have a new tool to find out the real meaning of words seemingly equal, you can even copy and paste a text to identify the "intruder".
Moreover, here's a video, where the Spanish Dude gives funny examples!

EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION? SOMETIMES

In spite of what we saw in my previous post, communication is sometimes far from being that efficient, therefore, when the Conversational Maxims are flouted, the situation can turn quite problematic or really amusing, like  our Big Bang favourite characters show us in this video:

COOPERATION IN CONVERSATION TO ACHIEVE EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION!

In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations, that is, how listeners and speakers must act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. As phrased by Paul Grice, who introduced it, "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (read more .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle)

Here's how the lingspace channel tells us the details: 

DEICTIC WORDS: HOW CAN YOU BE I AND YOU AT THE SAME TIME?

Depending on the speaker, you can be I (when you speak about yourself), you (when someone else speaks to you about you or he/she, we and so on...) Don't worry, it's not a case of multiple personality!, the reason is just the fact that pronouns are deictic expressions. What's a deictic expression? Here's the answer from the wikipedia: 
In linguistics, deixis (/ˈdaɪksᵻs/)^[1] refers to words and phrases, such as “me” or “here”, that cannot be fully understood without additional contextual information -- in this case, the identity of the speaker (“me”) and the speaker's location (“here”). Words are deictic if their semantic meaning is fixed but their denotational meaning varies depending on time and/or place. Words or phrases that require contextual information to convey any meaning – for example, English pronouns – are deictic.
And now  feel like child again and watch this video where Glover and Herry, from Sesame Street explain the difference between here and there, and please, please, no matter what life brings to you, be yourself! 

ENGLISH, iOS, ANDROID APPS AND LOVE :) X

Two days ago I was talking to a student, a nice young man who's now in his early thirties, about how useful mobile apps are to improve his English, I agree with him that if you are seriously interested in improving, practice plays a fundamental role and this is where mobile phones come in a handy and useful tool, here is a list of the 9 Most popular iOS and Android apps with comments.
"What's more"- he said- in my vocabulary application there's a section with expressions you can use when your intention is flirting", and he read a few expressions to me. How nice did they sound!. "Why not?"-I thought- if English is the language of global communication, why not use it to extend the circle of your relationships and who knows?, even find true love.
In the last few days, I've been talking a lot about relationships with good friends and relatives who are either having problems or have broken up and started new ones. A topic which can throw our emotional life into so much pleasure and turmoil deserves attention, so if you are interested in a new view on relationships,watch this Ted talk, where Esther Perel, a Psychotherapist, changes the conversation of what it means to be in love.

LISTEN TO WHAT OLD ENGLISH SOUNDED LIKE WITH THIS POEM!

In his  An Ecclesiastical History of the English People, the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) records that Caedmon was an illiterate farmer working for a monastery who at first avoided singing. "Therefore, at feasts, when it was decided to have a good time by taking turns singing, whenever he would see the harp getting close to his place, he got up in the middle of the meal and went home" (25). Modern commentators presume that Caedmon actually "concealed his skill from his fellow workmen and from the monks because he was ashamed of knowing 'vain and idle' songs".
So take a journey in time with me and thanks to Bede, enjoy this shy singer's poem!
  

LAST WEEK OR THE LAST WEEK?

When we are studying English we often have lots of doubs about how some words should be used, in this website, called perfectyourenglish, you can find a quick and clear answer to most of your questions.
What about next and the next? Let's look at the answer!

Really useful!

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN QUITE AND RATHER

The use of these two words may seem confusing but I found a really good explanation from perfectyourenglish  that you can read with attention in order to understand better their use.

And now you are ready for some more practice.

THE MOST DANGEROUS ANIMALS IN THE WORLD! (REVISION COMPARATIVES AND SUPERLATIVES)

REVISE THE COMPARATIVE AND SUPERLATIVE FORMS:

Step 1: Remember the theory with this explanation

Step 2: Do this exercise

Step 3: And now this one

Step 4: If you are not sure about your progress, do more practice with lots of exercises from agendaweb.

Finally, you are ready to read this amazing article about the 25 most dangerous animals in the world!