Do You Really Hate Weekends?

Week 4^th -6^th May

Hello! How are you?

What did we do in our last lessons?

We continued describing symptoms and giving advice.

·         Good morning. What’s the matter?

·         Last week I was enjoying in the park when I got a terrible sore throat. At home, I was surprised to see that my eyes were very red. It isn’t a cold, but I don’t feel right.

·         It sounds as if you have hay fever and are allergic to the pollen from trees and plants.

·         Stay inside and keep the windows shut.

  ______________________________       

·         Good afternoon, doctor.

·         Good afternoon. What’s the matter?

·         I have a headache and a backache. In fact, all my body aches.

·         Do you have a temperature?

·         Yes, I think so.

·         You may have the flu. I’m going to write you a prescription for some tablets.

·         Stay in bed, drink a lot of water and take these tablets three times a day for one week.

 You can practise some listening exercises clicking here. Listening - Health issues  

Can you believe that some people hate the weekend?

It’s true, some people do!

Marco, a waiter from Brazil. He never goes anywhere and he never does anything except work. On Friday and Saturday nights they’re usually full. They don’t leave the restaurant until1.30 a.m. They close on Sunday after lunch but when he gets home he’s so tired that he doesn’t want to see anybody or do anything!

Kirsten is a German housewife. She says that now she has more things to do at the weekend that the rest of the week. During the week she has somebody to help her. They would like to relax at the weekend but nobody can relax with two children around. Their flat is small so there’s nowhere you can go for peace and quiet.

Steve is a football coach from the UK. The weekend is more stressful than the week because it’s when they have their matches. His friends know it; that’s why nobody invites him out on a Friday. He usually has something light to eat and goes to bed early. If his team won, they go out to celebrate. If the team loses, they’re too depressed to go anywhere.

	PEOPLE	THINGS	PLACES
	-body /-one	-thing	-where
SOME	Somebody/someone	something	somewhere
ANY	Anybody / anyone	anything	anywhere
NO	Nobody / no one	nothing	nowhere
EVERY	Everybody / everyone	everything	everywhere

1.    Use ‘some’ and its compounds in affirmative sentences.

·      I saw somebody at the station and I thought it was him!

2.    Use ‘any’ and its compounds in negative and interrogative sentences.

·      Did you buy anything at the shop?

·      Have you been anywhere last weekend?

3.    Use ‘no’ and its compounds mainly for short answers.

·      Who did you see in the shop? Nobody.

·      What did you find in the market? Nothing. Nothing interesting, actually.

Remember that in English it is incorrect to use a double negation.

I saw nobody.

I didn’t see anybody.

I didn’t see nobody.

And to finish the class and the week, we read and listened to the story of a man who was trapped in a lift during a whole weekend! Dani told us about his experiences of being trapped in a lift! Yes, more than once! Luckily he isn’t claustrophobic and he wasn’t trapped more than one hour!

Irritating Illnesses

 Week 27^th - 29^th April

Hello! How’s everything? Are you enjoying the weekend?

This weekend is full of events to celebrate, isn’t it?

Yesterday was International Labour Day.

Today is 2^nd May, an important date for the Community (this is used to name some administrative division of the Spanish territory). People from Madrid and surroundings fought to keep independent from the French.

   

And tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Have you bought the presents for your mother, yet?

After this festivity introduction, let’s go into business (let’s start working)

Last week we talked about illness.

We use “To have (or to have got) a ----ache” with

Headache – toothache – earache – backache and stomach ache.

When other parts of our body ache, we use:

To have a pain in _________ or my ________ hurts / aches.

I have a pain in my arm or my leg hurts.

Remember to use possessive adjectives with parts of the body.

You can have a pain in your neck.

But somebody can be a pain in the neck! (or in another part of our anatomy which sounds less polite!) when they are really annoying!

With throat and eyes, we use the expression

To have sore /sɔ:/ throat or sore/sɔ:/ eyes.

We can also:

Have a cold / have a temperature / have a cough and sneeze.

When we have the flu, we usually have a temperature and all our body aches!

When we have a cold, we usually cough and sneeze!

More vocabulary on illness     Listening - At the doctor's

We reviewed the difference between “-ed” and “-ing” adjectives.

Somebody feels “ed” because something or somebody is “ing”. In other words,  “-ed” is how you feel and “-ing” is the reason why you feel like that.

She is bored because the film is boring.

·        What do you think is the most exciting sport to watch?

·        What music do you listen to when you feel depressed?

·        Have you ever been disappointed by a birthday present?

·        What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

And that was the end of our week!

See you on Monday! Have fun!

Decide, Decision, Decisive, Indecisive, I May, I Might...

Week 20^th- 22^nd April

Hello! How’s your weekend going?

I don’t really like rainy days. Oh, this reminds me of a sentence from an old song. It is called ‘I like Chopin’. You can listen to it in here. It’s also practice 
for ‘use to +infinitive’ referring to past repetitive actions that are no longer true.

Last week we finished talking abot conditionals zero, first and second. Here’s the summary:

   Zero conditional. (Real situation/ facts)

 if + present simple >>>>>present simple

 If you begin the sentence with “if”, you have to use a comma.

·First conditional.

·  Possible and very probable situation
 if + present simple >>>>will / won’t + infinitive

If it doesn’t rain on Saturday, we’ll go for a walk.

·  Instructions

 if + present simple >>>>>>>> imperative

 If you can’t attend to the meeting, email us in advance.

·        Second conditional.

·Unreal situation
If + past simple >>>>>>would / wouldn’t + infinitive (Present conditional)
If I were you, I wouldn’t wear these shoes with that suit.
(You can use ‘were’ with all person of verb ‘to be’ in 2^nd conditional clauses)

·  Possible but very improbable situation
If + past simple>>>>>> would / wouldn’t + infinitive (present conditional)
If I won £5,000,000 on the lottery, 
I wouldn’t tell anyone, except my family.
 Second Conditional 
More exercises on second conditional 

Then, Mónica asked about the differences among these connectors: although, though, even though, despite, in spite of.

There’s no difference in meaning because they add contrast. Their meaning is the same as ‘but’. The difference is grammatical.

·      We use although, though, even though with a clause, that is S + V. Though is more informal and usually goes at the end of the sentence. It’s more frequent in speaking than in writing. Even though is more emphatic.

Although it was raining, we went out. We went out although it was raining.

We went out even though it was raining.

It was raining. We went out, though.

·      After despite and in spite of, you can use a noun, pronoun or verb +ing never a clause. If you want to use a clause after them, you’ll have to add despite/in spite of the fact.

We went out in spite of/despite the rain.

We went out in spite of/despite being raining.

It was raining; we went out in spite of/despite it.

We went out in spite of/despite the fact that it was raining.
We finished the week talking about decisions.

Are you indecisive?                                                                 

Do you find difficult to make decisions?

Do you have problems deciding…

… what to wear when you go out?

…what to eat in a restaurant?

…where to go on holiday?

Do you often change your mind about something?

We use may, might, could to express possibility.

·         I may wear (it’s possible that I wear) the long black dress to the party.

·         She might not go (it’s possible that she doesn’t go) if she doesn’t know everybody.

·         Take the umbrella. It could rain (it’s possible that it rains) late this afternoon

And we finished with a ‘word building’ exercise. We built nouns from verbs.

VERB	NOUN	VERB	NOUN
Invite	invitation	educate	education
Organize	organization	communicate	communication
Imagine	imagination	Elect	election
inform	information	Confuse	confusion
translate	translation	Decide	decision

And that was all! See you tomorrow