EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

The Word Too used before an adjective rarely has a positive meaning. It matters not if the adjective that follows it is a "positive" term such as beautiful or smart and in fact when we tell someone: "Oh, you're too smart!", well, that's far from being a compliment. It is really sarcasm. What about this other: "Don't you try to date her, because she's just too beautiful for you!" I don't think a real friend would say this to his best buddy. Spanish speakers tend to believe that TOO is a positive word perhaps due to its other usage (when it means ALSO). TOO indicates excess (in fact it can be replced with the word EXCESSIVELY) and that can not be good. Let's not forget that both the word EXCESS and EXTREME are considered to be negative because they indicate an exaggeration in every case.

Thie is the teaser poster showing Hugh Jackman as the character that made him famous. Apparently, they have been working in another Wolverine movie which will be out in 2013. Does this one continue the story begun in Wolverine : Origins or is it another reboot?  Wolverine has plenty of stories to make another film and then twenty more since Wolverine himself is a lot older than he looks (he's probably as old as Captain America). The former Weapon X ages quite slowly due to his mutant power, his "healing factor", that makes him immune to most diseases and thus helps Wolverine to stand the ravages of time much better than a normal human being (or a mutant).  In one of his adventures Logan (his real name) once traveled to Japan where he made some of his fiercest enemies and also started yet another sentimental relationship. Well, that's the thing with heroes. They never stop....anywhere.

Jack may sound as a name, and it is, as in Jack Nicholson the star in The Shining. It is also a pet name for John and sometimes also for Jacob (John F. Kennedy was sometimes called Jack). You can also find the word Jack in a children's toy called Jack-in-the-Box. It is a special toy that consists of a clown inside a box. When activated, the box emits a melody at the end of which a clown appears all of a sudden to startle whoever is looking. A Jack is a hero in some English traditions who is a bit lazy but also quite clever in the way he gets out of those problems. Tales that most likely protray him are Jack and the Beanstalk  and Jack, the Giant Killer. A jack is a tool, more specifically a lifting device to help when a car gets a flat tire. A jack-o-lantern is that pumpkin that has been carved a face on it and whose content has been taken out to allow a light inside. Having one in the windows of every house in the U.S. is a traditional thing to do on Halloween. A Jack...

Learning a language implies learning cultural aspects that are unsuspected such as that of the shape of some of the states of the American union. While in most cases the division or the limits is given considering the passing of a river or the presence of a mountain range. In the case of Colorado you can see that is more a square than anything else. And it is not the only one. Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas, all look like squares or even rectangles (Nevada looks like some sort of trapezoid) and obviously there was no creativity whatsoever in marking the limits for those states. Map makers surely are bored when drawing those specific states and surely school students love to simply move their pencils and with four moves finish the map of their own state. In fact, all of us can draw many of states of the Union, especially those that are located in the center.

There is a certain spectacular feeling about court trials and all those who are involved (at least in the U.S.). Mickey Haller is a litigant lawyer who is extremely smart and skillfull. He has all sorts of clients and accepts any case as long as his client is honest to him. Haller (Matthew Mc Conaughey) does not have an office and administers from his car, a Lincoln model. Haller is some sort of antihero since he does not hesitate to pull certain strings to get what he wants, but he is also generous and loves justice in his own way. One day a rich young man hires him claiming he has been set up by a prostitute though all the evidence points at him. Haller uses his knowledge, unique skills and even relationships inside the system to demonstrate his client is innocent (something he also believes in), but is not true. His client is only another millionaire who is also a rapist and a killer and who believes he is above the others thanks to his money. When Haller discovers his client is...

The primary purpose of Tag Questions (or Question Tags as they are also called by the Brittish) is to confirm some specific piece of information. They usually follow a statement from which they are separated by a comma. A Tag question has two components: an auxiliary verb or a modal verb and a pronoun (in that order). There is also a correlation between the statement and the verb in the tag question for if the statement is negative the verb is affirmative and viceversa. Here is an example: You are learning English, aren't you? She is not coming back, is she? They can be expressed in pretty much every grammar tense. The invasion has not been confirmed, has it? They would love to be here, wouldn´t they? John should not be allowed to come back, should he? Their only purpose is not to confirm since they do not necessariñy need an answer: Dave is the best player in the team, isn't he? (I know the answer will be Yes because I know as well as the person I´m talking ...

When we do not use our wisdom in our acts, that is called Foolishness. Therefore,  a person who commits such acts should be called a Foolish, but no, the right term is Fool. In other words, your actions may be Foolish but you are not Still you are called something: You are a Fool. Originally, the word Fool and Foolish were one and the same because the term Fool did not exist, and there was only Foolish. The constant usage of a word ends up creating several interesting phenomena and one of them is this case. Foolish and Fool are still the same because Fool is the short of Foolish yet somehow, somewhen, Fool became a noun and Foolish remained as an adjective. If you do something like getting drunk the night before an important exam that is Foolish (also known as an Act of Folly). Your action was Foolish. If you honestly believe that you can learn English in fifty hours, then you are a Fool. Of course, the problem for us, Spanish speakers, is our ignorance of this situatio...

quaid Meet Quaid, the bored worker in a futuristic company who decides to spice his life by using the services of a company called Total Rekall that creates fall memories in your brain. The problem is that after doing so Quaid is revealed that he is already living a made up life. Everything he knows is a lie. Looking for answers will take him into a frantic race that will probably stop after serious harm is done (harm to him). indcReally, after twenty two years you would expect something better and this Total Recall remake is better only in some minor aspects, two actually. The first is that is closer to the events depicted in the novel on which the movie was based and the second is the special effect that are better this time. That's it. Collin Farrell is the star (apparently he loves remakes: he was already in Fright Night) and though his performance is good is far from convincing.  Without  Schwarzenegger being a good actor, his performance is better thatn Farrell's. ...

What are the real English words? The short words! In order to be able to answer this question more properly we must remember the fact that before the Roman invasion in 43 B.C. the language spoken in Britain was a bit simplistic and its words were mostly either one-syllable or two-syllable words. Longer words were the result of the combinations of those short terms as it is the case of AFTER and NOON that combined to form the word AFTERNOON.   Once the Roman invasion took place (the first of many) words of a greater complexity, which were also longer, began appearing and increased the number of words considerably. Later on when the Normans invaded the British Isles in 1066 A.D. they left even more substantial changes in the language, an influence that would perhaps touch us all from then on.                                                     ...

The word VASO in English is GLASS. We all know that, but there is a problem. Glass is Vaso if it is made of crystal (actually the name is Water Glass) . For us, Ecuadorians, the common perception of what a Vaso is goes beyond the material, so whether the material is porcelain, metal or other a Vaso is a Vasºo if it can be used to drink most liquids. We drink Coffee or Tea in Tazas which in English are called Coffee Cups or Tea Cups. If we are to drink Wine then we use Copas which in English are called Wine Glasses. A Mug is a Jarro but we use those indistinctly for drinking Coffee, Tea, Fruit Juice or Water.  Now imagine calling a disposable cup, a glass. But we do that in Spanish so it is recommendable to make our students aware of this little difference and thus we will spare them the little embarrassment of being told by someone other than us of the distinction between one thing and another.

Decir que el fútbol ecuatoriano está pasando por un buen momento (al menos a nivel de clubes) sería entrar en el campo de lo obvio. En todos estos años no recuerdo que hayamos tenido tantos equipos clasificados a octavos de final de un torneo de la talla de la Copa Sudamericana. Si consideramos que hay dieciséis equipos clasificados eso quiere decir que el 25% de ese total son equipos nuestros. Es más, dos de esos equipos clasificados ganaron afuera lo cual también no es algo común y muestra una clara evolución no sólo en la contundencia del juego ecuatoriano sino tal vez en la actitud del jugador ecuatoriano, pues la verdad antes nos veían la cara. La jornada del Martes pasado fue apasionante. Tal vez Emelec no fue tan arrollador como pudo serlo pero   Olimpia se plantó bien y le hizo un juego difícil. La táctica le resultó en el sentido de que Emelec un pudo vulnerar su arco pero fue a la vez contraproducente pues tampoco ellos pudieron hacerle nada a los emelecistas. L...

"Am I a real tiger or just a group of words? Let's see... eeny, meeny..." O nce we begin learning English we must be aware that we are not only learning a language but also are acquiring all the cultural content that is linked to it. So just knowing the grammar and having a certain number of words to call vocabulary is not enough. There are other things we have to learn. Just ask yourself how many songs in English you know, how many riddles, how many jokes, how many sayings, how many tongue twisters, how many lullabies. Very few or none? Certainly, all that is useless knowledge for ultimately you do not need any of it, but still in terms of understanding what is behind that which is your target language, to have a more complete perfect vision of those who create it, then it is healthy to know. A good starting point is something as trivial as to learn how to say DE TIN MARIN DE DO PINGÚE  (I'm not really sure if it's spelled that way in Spanish anyway). Here two ...

It has been awhile since Remember Me was released (2010) but for some reason its message resonates after all this time and you will understand why when you see it (if you do). It does not look like a film with great ambition and perhaps its most interesting feature is that is starred by Robert Pattison who plays the role of a young man, Tyler Hawkins, in constant quarrel with his father, a cold and ruthless businessman played by Pierce Brosnan. Looking to move away from everything his father represents this young man lives alone and in constant trouble until he meets a young woman who becomes the love of his life. In the meantime thanks to the only nexus that he still with his father, his little sister, Tyler tries to make amends with the father who truly worships and who also loves him the same. Nothing extraordinary till there but then it is the ending. One day Tyler visits his father's office while his fatjer is out and at the same time his little sister is away in her scho...

There is no second last name in English. Or there is but it is never used. That explains Last Names are called that way: because they are Last. Let's see an example: John Fitzgerald Kennedy John is the First Name (because it comes first), Fitzgerald the Middle Name (because it's in the middle) and Kennedy is the Last Name (by now you know why).  In Spanish the tradition demands to use our mothers' last name as well so for example I am: Luis Humberto Bermudes Rugel  So Luis is my First Name, Humberto is my Middle Name, Bermudes is my Last Name and Rugel is my Second Last Name. What's the problem then? There is no problem with only two names. In both languages we understand one is the First Name and the other is the Last Name such as in Abraham Lincoln or  Eloy Alfaro. The problem occurs when we use our three names, a common practice in English such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt which is also  Franklin D. Roosevelt.  In Spanish many people do what Mario ...

Well, it is not a bathroom if it does not have all the characteristics of a regular bathroom, meaning for example a bathtub. Public places do not have bathrooms but RESTROOMS and schools are in the list of "public places". It is then interesting to hear students asking permission "to go to the bathroom". In order to avoid these situations it is advisable to make our students aware of this little but essential difference. We might as well give them options such as the use of the word TOILET, which is after all more appropriate, or to go for the option Canadians seem to prefer which is the word WASHROOM. WATER CLOSET (W.C.) is another possibility though this term indicates the "room" is really some sort of compartment and in the end you may have your student use the universal term LAVATORY that still in use and precedes all the others chronologically speaking.

Tutear is one of those things that you cannot do in English just because there is not a word to do so. Tutear indicates you are using the personal pronoun TÚ to address somebody, but this is a pronoun to be used only if there is a certain degree of familiarity between two speakers (such as in the case of good friends for example). It is considered disrespecful to use it (tutear) to address someone who is in a higher position (your boss for example) or someone you just met (unless that person is a child).  The pronoun YOU is usually translated as TÚ, but the added value that receives in Spanish (the one used to express familiarity or superiority) is practically inexistent in English. Nevertheless, there is a way to do the same only that not using a pronoun. The formula is simple: if one person believes it is time to stop being formal (if the relation between both began that way that is) then all such person has to do is ask the other if it is Ok to call him or her using his or...

Well, it is not just group of teachers. You can, of course, say the school teachers but that does not really work. We need a word that somehow means "all the teachers in an educational unit" without using the word teachers.  That word is none other than FACULTY. The word Faculty has precisely that meaning (it has others as well) ; so in other words, if you want to say: "Los profesores del colegio se manifestaron a favor de las nuevas reglas..." you should say: "The school faculty agreed with the new rules." There is even a movie starred by Elijah Wood, the title of which is The Faculty where evil aliens impersonate teachers and the ones saving the day are...the students. By the way, there is a word such as Faculty for teachers but there is not a word with a similar function for Students. You just say "The students..."

 That's what he is, a king, though he has also been described as an angel or as a demon. His name after all is a combination of both words. The story behind Mazinger and how it came to exist has to be one of the most well-known`pieces of data of our pop culture. But what is truly interesting is how the series keeps faithful to its Anime roots and brought stories that at times could not be considered stories for kids. I remember that the first time one cartoon character died to never, ever, come back was in  Mazinger Z. The robot was usually repaired by a group of three scientists. One day trying to warn Koji Kabuto, the pilot of Mazinger, of an impeding danger one of those three scientists (Dr. Mori Mori I think he was named) got killed.     Beyond the titanic fights against other giant robots, beyond the veritable battle between good and evil, there are the stories that made Mazinger stand out from other series; stories that made Mazinger and Kabuto multidime...

Bien, este es un partido que no tuve la oportunidad de ver en su totalidad debido a que estaba impartiendo un taller en ese momento y solo pude ver unos segmentos en diferido. Por lo que vi Ecuador jugó bien y lo mismo hizo Uruguay. Tal vez Ecuador jugó sin presión lo que no fue el caso de Uruguay que jugó completo con Forlán y Suárez a quienes el gol les fue esquivo.  Siempre será difícil ganarle a Uruguay en su casa así que el empate es un buen resultado y de hecho es el primer punto que Ecuador obtiene fuera de Quito en estas eliminatorias, un punto que tal vez esperábamos obtener frente a Venezuela o Bolivia. ¿No fue acaso bueno obtenerlo frente a Uruguay? Para Ecuador ese es un punto de oro y por supuesto debe ganar sus partidos en Quito. Si eso pasa ese empate es el que decide todo a larga.  Es verdad que se le pudo ganar a Uruguay pero como ya se dijo antes no es tan simple ganarle a este equipo en su casa y el hecho de que el árbitro se equivocó, para variar, no a...

How do you say PIERNAS in English? The answer is LEGS. How do you say PATAS in English? The answer is LEGS. As you can see in English there is no difference between the anatomical structures of locomotion of human beings and those used by animals or the ones used to support ( in numbers of three or four) standard pieces of furniture such as chairs or armchairs. In other words, English uses the same word for all three cases whereas in Spanish we say that people have PIERNAS while animals and objects have PATAS. Whether this is an indication of a greater sense of practice or just a sign of arrogance, it´s something that I cannot tell, but I can say that this particularity may be another source of confusion in English learners.

   The greatest science fiction series ever made just turned one year older last Friday, September 7. The story of Star Trek spans for centuries in the future and gives us a somewhat slightly optimistic vision of our fate as a species, describing the existence of a Federation of Planets to which Earth belongs to. A civilization that has learned of the tragedy and pain caused by past mistakes and lives now under a strict code of respect to whoever and whatever is different. It is a society that has successfully made the transition to spacefare and regularly sends starships to explore the universe with the Enterprise being the most important of those. Each version of the Enterprise (there have been more than one)  has accopmplished great deeds thanks in no small part to the crews that have worked in each one, some of them legendary like the crew of the original series. Names such as Captain Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty and others are now part of the pop culture. There ha...

There was a time that if something was to be published in a Spanish-speaking country and that something was in English, all of it had to be translated including the names of cartoon characters. Some of these names were quite silly and have been mercifully replaced with their real versions in English. There are also the others that do not sound so silly and even to this date remain in use. Here are some but not all:                                 English                                   Spanish                             Mickey Mouse                        El Ratón Miguelito                  Goofy           ...

¿Qué puedo decir que no se haya dicho hasta ahora sobre este partido? En lo particular pienso que es una demostración de que el futbol tiene una belleza de la que otros deportes carecen y por la cual héroes se vuelven villanos o viceversa, o por la cual simples momentos se vuelven de complejidad extrema casi gloriosa Comenzaré diciendo que en realidad el primer tiempo  de este encuentro estuvo bastante aburrido. Era claro que Bolivia había venido a defenderse y lo estaba haciendo muy bien además de que a Ecuador le faltaba hacer ataques efectivos. Además el segundo tiempo comenzó con el mismo ritmo de manera que si me hubiesen preguntado como iba a terminar el partido tal y cual estaban las cosas hasta ese momento habría dicho que en empate. Es más, si los bolivianos se hubieran aprovechado de la apatía de los ecuatorianos con un contragolpe bien jugado hacían un gol y Ecuador hubiera perdido el invicto en casa.  Pero no fue así. Los  ecuatorianos empezaron a llegar ...

Whenever I ask my students if they know the parts of the body they usually respond with a firm "Yes!", but do they? Most students know what they have learnt from books which is, as we all know, usually very limited. What most student know is the names of the most "apparent" or "visible" parts of the body meaning Arms, Hands, Mouth, Hair and so on. Amazingly, their interest to know more is unexistent. The reason might be that students tend to enter a "zone of safety" that they themselves create when they feel some learning is happening. But perhaps that learning is insufficient and that "zone of safety" is only a dellusion. For example: do our students know how to say AXILA, FOSAS NASALES or OMBLIGO? What about VEJIGA orTRAQUEA? In my own experience they do not most of the time, and they are usually surprised when I bring that to their attention. Do they really need to know? Is it something that perhaps they should do by themselves? T...