EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

It is really simple. Rice is prepared with water and salt (without salt in Chinese cuisine)  so the amount of water has to be measured carefully otherwise with little water rice will be dry and a bit crispy. Excessive water will leave it soft, thick and tasteless. That is what we call AROOZ SOPUDO in Guayaquilean Spanish. In English that would be WATERY RICE.  Though there are people who do not mind eating Watery Rice, I personally find it unedible.                                                                                                                                                         ...

Smee is not only the name of the funny guy who is also pirate Hook´s trusted lieutenant. This word is also the name of a game described in a story by the British writer, A.M. Burrage (1889-1956), a game that is heavily based on "Hide and Seek" which we know can be fun but not all the time. The story goes like this: a group of youngsters gather together at night at an abandoned house to plas Smee which is actually another way to write the expression "It's me" (Soy yo). The participants in this game begin playing in one of the rooms. Silently they all receive a piece of paper and only one of those pieces has the word SMEE written on it. At that moment the person who receives that paper becomes Smee but must not reveal his/her identity to the other players. After the papers are given, all of them, without any candle or lamp, have to leave the room and go sseparate ways beacuse first they have to hide from one another. After a while those who are not Smee start...

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) was a Spanish novelist, poet and essayist. He lived during a difficult time time for both Spain and Europe in general fact that was reflected in some of his works. His production was extensive and quite interesting. Some of the works that stand out from the rest are Vid a de Don Quixote and Sancho, Abel Sánchez and  Cómo se Hace una Novela.  There is also Niebla which Unamuno insisted in calling a nivola t o differentiate it from the standard concept of what a novel is. Really when I read it at first I could not see the difference between one and the other though I must say Niebla is a stroke of genius. This work revolves around the life of a young and healthy man called Augusto who falls in love with a girl called Eugenia but is not really corresponded because she is in love with another man. Augusto tries to court Eugenia sometimes opening his heart to her and sometimes helping her with money. In despair Augusto proposes to Eu...

Woody Allen's movies are different. You sit down and if you expect to see the standard fictional piece that tries to imitate fiction you're in for a deception. Woody Allen is not your regular director. He wants his movies to be dfferent and in fact they all are. After filming the outstanding Midnight in Paris he goes onto yet another city, Rome, and tells not one but four stories, each one with that does of surrealism that permeates his stories. They are not told one after the other but as though they were happening at the same time.  In one Leopoldo (Roberto Benigni) is a common man with a common  life who suddenly becomes famous for no reason whatsoever and starts being chased down by papparazis and people in general regard him as someone important. In the second, a couple of newlyweds Antonio and Milly  (Alessandro Tiberi and Alessandra Mastronardi) arrive in Rome from their small town to meet with Antonio's rich family who have offered him a job. Milly decid...

Another comedy starred by Kevin James. In this story he is Scott Voss, a Biology teacher at a school that is meeting poor standards and has economic problems that lead to the supresion of the music program which means that one of Scott's friends will be laid off. In order to help his friend and the school, Scott decides to do something. At night he teaches a citizenship class and one of his students is a former fighter who reveals to him that when losing in fights the contender also gets money. So he asks his student to help him enter the world of fighting since Scott believes that his college experience in wrestling will help him but it never happens completely. Eventually and after many adventures and misadventures there is a new fight that pays the money Scott needs to save the music program, a fight against the UFC top contender.  "Here comes the Boom" (you will understand why it has that title when you see the film) is not a boring comedy, but it is not a movie...

Back in the eighties and early nineties  having in the same film the likes of Stallone, Schwarzenegger and Norris was a dream. But tha dream became a reality with The Expendables and The Expendables 2. In The Expendables we saw Sylvester Stallone (Barney Ross) leading a group of mercenaries made by Jason Statham (Chriistmas), Jet Li (Yang), Dolph Lundgren (Jensen), Randy Couture (Toll Road) and Terry Crews (Hale Caesar) with the assistance of Rourke as Tool. They faced a ficitonaLatin American dictator who was helped by Eric Roberts (Munroe) and Steve Austin (Pane). Scharzenegger and Willis made cameo appearances as Trench, a competitor, and Mr. Church who is Ross's group employer for this mission.  The Expendables 2 has the same roster minus Rourke and with Liam Hemsworth (Billy the Kid) as the sniper of the group. This time we get to see more of Willis and Schwarzenegger in action plus Norris is introduced as Booker though he only appears in a timely fashion. There i...

Besides the fact that the names are similar, there is really very little that differentiates math operations in English or Spanish. So let us begin with that precisely:               Spanish                       English                 Suma                       Addition                 Resta                     Substraction            Multiplicación           Multiplication                División                    Division Now how we express those operations ( meaning how we explain them when we demonstrate a theorem for instance ) implies the use ...

One of the greatest, and perhaps the most original, superhero team of all time is the Fantastic Four. It is comprised by Reed Richards, an eminent scientist; Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm. They all went through an experiment in space that went wrong when some amount of bizarre cosmic energy manfested suring the experiment and altered their genetic makeup forever and giving them different powers. Reed Richards gained the ability to stretch his body unimaginably and is now called Mr. Fantastic. Sue Storm, who would eventually become Reed's wife, gained the ability to become invisible and project force fields. She is know as the Invisible Woman. Her brother can ignite his body without getting burnt. He can also fly and throw fire blows. He is called The Human Torch. Finally, there is Ben Grimm, whose skin is now made up of orange rocks. He is taller than before, invulnerable and extremely strong perhaps only second to the Hulk. He is called The Thing. Occasionally eit...

The Avengers is not the first group of superheroes coming together to save the world, and the Avengers is not the first group of superheroes to jump from the comic book format to the silver screen either. Several years before them we had The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a film based on the comic of the same title, an original idea by legendary comic writer, Alan Moore. The idea was to put together the main characters of several books that were mostly British or somehow related to the British empire. From left to right in the picture those characters are none other than Dr. Jekyll (Jason Flemyng), Dorian Gray (Stuart Townsend), Captain Nemo (Naseeruddin Sha), Allan Quatermain (Sean Connery), Mina Harker (Peta Wilson), the Invisible Man (Tony Curran) and an adult Tom Sawyer (Shane West). Certainly they are not all heroes but their abilities is what makes them interesting. To see these characters interacting, arguing, bickering and then coming together to save the world is...

This is one of the few sci-fi TV series produced in recent years that deserved a better fate (it was cancelled after the season 1 finale).  In the year 2149 mankind has abused of Earth so much that the quality of the planet resources , and therefore life itself, is declining rapidly. As a window of hope a rift in time is discovered and groups of people are sent 85 million years into the past to the time of the Cretaceous period. These "chosen" ones are people carefully selected because of their abilities so for example Elizabeth Shannon is chosen for being an outstanding doctor. She is sent with two of her three children while her husband, Jim who is a former police, remains in prison and her little daughter whose conception was considered a crime in a time when only two children are allowed per couple is left alone. But the Shannons have a plan and  Jim manages to escape and bring their little daughter with him the day they are sent to the Cretaceous, a non-return trip...

Did you know Alaska used to be part of the Russian empire once (when Russia was an empire)? True. Alaska was part of Russia once and it was deemed as an improductive property by the Russians. Not only that: Canada was not independent by then so all of it belonged to the British empire with whom the Russians had recently had armed conflicts, thus Russia was afraid to lose all that land with no economic compensation whatsoever. Another point to consider is that at the time (1867) the Russian empire had several debts to pay and was in urgent need of cash. They offered Alaska to the Americans who had two minds about the acquisition but finally paid for the 1'518'000 square kilometers something like 2 cents per 4.7square kilometer  totalling around seven million dollars. It was one of the best acquisitions ever made, but the Americans did not know and of course neither did the Russians. If the Americans had been hesitant to buy Alaska, that changed after the Yukon Gold Rush ...

JAYWALKERS are those who believe street signs are too complex to be understood so they choose to ignore them.  We could also say that Jaywalkers are people who have a secret death wish that they stupidly try to hide behind their reckless behavior. The problem with Jaywalkers is that they believe their moves are a manifestation of their intellect and not a sign of  their innate stupidity. Also Jaywalkers are usually the descendants of other Jaywalkers. In fact it is likely Jaywalking is embedded in their genetic makeup! Of course by now you know that Jaywalkers are basically all those careless pedestrians that crose streets anywhere else but in the zone destined to pedestrians thus endangering not only themselves but potentially everyone else. I know my words are not kind to Jaywalkers but that is because I know they can be dangerous (especially when it is raining) . And then again I know what I'm talking about when I mention Jaywalkers, after all, Guayaquil, my b...

The history of the United States of America is basically a list of things to do if you want to become big, and the first leaders of the American Union were the makers of that list. From the beginning they were looking for a way to be in the rank of the first powers but felt that the presence of colonial empires in America such as Spain and France were a potential threat to their still young nation.  Originally, the American government (Thomas Jefferson was president at the time) wanted to gain control of New Orleans city that still nowadays has a strong French influence because they were once the most prized possession the French had in the American continent.  Napoleón Bonaparte, who had recently come to power, eventually understood that having  two territories to defend was impractical, plus he also needed money so when the opportunity arose and the Americans sent a delegation to make an offer for New Orleans, they were actually offered the entire Lousiana territory...

New York is called NEW because there ia another city with that name, an Old York if you please. This other city is not called Old York but only York and is in England. It is also a very old city ( apparently it was founded by the Romans in 71 A.D.). Why did the English called it NEW York instead of coming up with a new name? Maybe they did it out of nostalgia. Maybe they did it to pay homage to who was the Duke of York at the time (a title that the British royalty uses even these days). Maybe they did it to continue the trend since New York was originally named New Amsterdam   (the Dutch were the first owners of that settlement) The same way there is a New York, there is also a  New Jersey and there is even a New Berlin. This old practice shows a lot of common sense but very little originality.  Can you imagine your city called NUEVA? Something like Nueva Guayaquil or Nueva Quito. Of course there are cases such as Nuevo México;  and even in my own country we h...

The states that were the territory where the pilgrims from England arrived back in 1620 and later on colonized in the form of the Plymouth colony are collectively called New England. They are Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Some of the smallest states of the American Union can be found there.

This is one dollar bill you will probably see only in a picture. That is the one where you can see Woodrow Wilson's face. Most people have seen Benjamin Franklin "in the                                                                   flesh" since he appears in one of the faces of the one-hundred dollar bill but that as far as you can get. I have never seen Mc Kinley or  Madison (Mc Kinley appears in the 500-dollar bill and Madison in the 5,000 dollar bill). They exist but they are not for common people. Those bills are to be used in bank transactions only ( a bank sending money to another bank) or international business, since numbers are and require higher figures here.  And it is Ok: can you imagine losing 100,000 dollars at once?                       ...

Amazingly enough there is not really a word in English to say GOLPE DE ESTADO. English takes from French for this one with the term being COUP D' ETAT. Of course, it begs the question: Why is that? Why does English have to borrow from another language? The answer is perhaps in History. If we read the History of the U.S. for example, we will find no attempt to take over the country and by extension any other English-speaking country- Other related terms: Coup, Overthrow and Peutsch.

There are at least three different ways to say SEGURO in English, each with a somewhat different meaning. SEGURO is SAFE if we mean that somehow something or someone is not likely to be injured or receive any other kind of harm.                                                                                     SEGURO is SURE if that means Free of Doubt and Reliable, SEGURO is INSURANCE if we mean the document that legally promises a special amount of money in case of death or just accident though not to you in the case of your demise, but to your dearest ones.                                                             ...

There is a couple of ways to say EXTRANJERO in English. The first and most well-known is FOREIGNER. A person from a FOREIGN country is a FOREIGNER. There is another word, which many find insulting, and that is ALIEN. Ever since the premiere of Alien, the Eighth Passenger , directed by Ridley Scott, the term ALIEN has been used as a synonym of an extraterrestrial monster, and in fact, not so long ago the expression used to refer to International Affairs was Alien Affairs. In Spanish we know the word Alien and it means EXTRATERRESTRE (Extraterrestrial).  A synonym of that is ALIENIGENA. The strong influence of one society over another is called ALIENATION which is translated without major changes but mostly used in its adjective form: ALIENANTE. As I right this I am in another Spanish speaking country. Am I an alien? I’m definitely from another planet, but I’m definitely a FOREIGNER. 

This one that depends on several things. Land or earth in general is GROUND so that is the word to be used in the broad sense of what SUELO is in Spanish. SUELO, if it is artificial then is called FLOOR, that is the surface within a room on which we walk. In this situation we also use the word PISO. If we mean the SUELO CULTIVABLE the word to be used is SOIL. In a more poetic, or patrotic manner, this is also the word to be used so when we talk about EL SUELO PATRIO we should say SOIL. Any part of the Earth surface not covered by water is LAND. Though it is  also SUELO we prefer to say TIERRA in this case. EARTH is dry land and is more a synonym of SOIL. In other words land of a desert is not earth but the land of a forest is earth. Expression such as "to give the floor to" or "to gain ground" do not make much sense in Spanish which probably demonstrates the importance of LAND in the Anglo-Saxon culture, and thus the existence of more words that refer...

This is a novel written by the great John Steinbeck (1902-1968). It tells the story of Kino, a pearl diver, who finds an enormous pearl. Since his little son was sick and he has no money to pay for the doctor he decides to use the money he obtains for selling the pearl. The problem is that the people around him, their own neighbors in the small village where he lives, become exceedingly greedy. One first obstacle they put is to agree in not paying a decent price for the valuable pearl, so Kino and his wife want to go to the capital to get the price they want. Still they find it nearly impossible because they are being chased by those who want to take the pearl from them. In despair, Kino defends himself and his family and after one attack his little son gets killed. Tired of all the bad luck the pearl had brought upon him, Kino, along his wife, go to the point in the sea where Kino found the pearl and returns it to the sea.  It is obviously a story that explores the themes of...

One of those fascinating movies produced in 2011 was this movie directed by none other than Martin Scorsese. Hugo is a movie set in the Paris of the mid-twentieth century, or at least an idealized version of the Paris of that time. Hugo Cabret (Asa Butterfield is an orphan who hides and lives in Montparnasse train station. As he is twelve he manages to steal to survive and takes parts from a toymaker (Ben Kingsley) in order to continue his hobby which is to put together an automaton that belonged to his father and make it work. He is about to conclude his work but needs a special heart-shaped key to make it function. Looking for a way to activate the automaton he is caught by the toymaker who takes a notebook that was Hugo´s father´s, full of notes on how to repair things. Willing to recover the notebook at any cost, Hugo befriends the toymaker's goddaughter,Isabelle (Chloe Grace Moretz) who agrees to help him recover the notebook, but that becomes unnecessary when Hugo discove...

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A Tall Tale is a story full of exaggerations that is humorous in essence. It usually tells the story of some character able to perform deeds no other human being can. Mostly there are American Tall Tales but Canada and Australia have also tall tales to offer. There are not examples of tall tales in  other English speaking countries and the reason is that tall tale characters are usually rural people who have to deal with the problems that Nature poses. As a consequence these characters show their superhuman skills by  changing the course of mighty rivers, eating awful quantities of food or building railroad lines faster than anyone else. All of them, the U.S., Canada and Australia are countries with extensive territory that have not been urbanized yet. Some of those Tall Tale characters are Pecos Bill, a cowboy who was able to lasso tornadoes and used snakes instead of lassos. Pecos is said to have created the Río Grande when he was lost in the desert and felt thirsty ...

One thing that surprises me about Norman Rockwell is how little is known about him in Latin America or at least in Ecuador. We know Botero, Guayasamín, Rivera and others, but not much about U.S. painters or, in this case, Norman Rockwell who has been called "America's most beloved painter"  Could it be that his art did not offer that subjectivity other artists were offering at the time and that has led to that movement that produces all those "pieces of art" no one understands? Really, if you see Rockwell`s art the first thing one experiences is this sense of awe he could transmit by paying attention to every detail to the point his pictures look like real photos (such as the one above). His "simple and clean" style is actually an overwhelming display of skill that confers new dimensions to the everyday things he loved to portray. The American culture owes a lot to this man born in New York in 1894 (he died in 1978) because the scenes he painted ...

This is not a riddle but a cultural thing. We know MAGAZINE means REVISTA, and yet though all magazines are revistas not all revistas are magazines. A magazine is a periodical publication including pictures, articles and sometimes fictional works. Usually magazines devote their content to one aspect such as news, hobbies, politcs, travel and so on.  Nevertheless if a magazine is devoted to the adventures of a fictional character and the story is told through comic strips then it is a COMIC BOOK not a magazine. If a magazine targets a very specific audience such as neurobiologists, lawmakers, teachers (all of them learned groups) then the term to be used is JOURNAL, e.g. Canadian Journal of Higher Education. Of course, the word Journal has other menaings since a newspaper can also be a journal and a diary, especially if used for scientific purposes.  In Spanish all of those are only MAGAZINES. So if you want to read a Batman magazine ask your retailer to give you a Ba...

The correct term is not Telenovel. That does not exist. In English a novel is a story, usually still in written format and not necessarily a romantic one. Of course, novels are usually made into TV series, or movies but it is not that then they are called Telenovels. They are just a series or a movie. In Spanish pretty much a novel is the same as in English: a long story in written format, a book if you will. The difference is that the average Latin American hears the term novela and usually associates that with TV productions that in English are called SOAP OPERAS.  In Spanish a Soap Opera is a TELENOVELA and it is always a romantic story that sometimes drag on forever: some may have more than three hundred episodes and they are quite popular not only in Latin America but also in other parts of the world. SOAP OPERAS are called like that because these productions were first made in the United States, not in Latin America.Since the beginning these productions used this unbel...

Well, an Ecuadorian movie for a change (though I have already talked about Pescador a movie by perhaps the best Ecuadorian  film director, Sebastián Cordero). Paco and Luis are two brothers whose parents are rich. Their entire lives are spent in drinking, smoking and having sex, but while Paco, the oldest, is a little more balanced, Luis is truly a loose cannon. Luis is a rock singer and a drug addict who cannot control himself. He si not even living with his family because his parents are fed up with his actions. One night, in order to get money for his addiction, Luis returns home expecting his parents not to be there and tries to steal a small but valuable sculpture of a horseman, but his parents arrive earlier than expected. Their father gets awfully mad and in the ensuing fight something happens (the film does not show it but apparently they cause their father's death somehow and involuntarily). From then on is just one thing after the next. Paco is in love with Lucía wh...

This is one that English wins for sure and it is easy to explain. Let's remember that languages are richer if they can express more with less. Here is an example: in Spanish we say CUERO CABELLUDO, but in English you say the same in one word, SCALP. You can find examples of that in Spanish such as MADRUGADA usually translated as DAWN, but it's not quite the same because Madrugada is also the time before the Sun rises, so a more accurate translation would be the EARLY MORNING. In English there are FINGERS and there are TOES. In Spanish there are DEDOS DE LOS MANOS y DEDOS DE LOS PIES. Using one word is always the most practical thing to do. And it gets worse, or better, depending on your perspective. To say UÑAS DE LAS MANOS in English you say FINGERNAILS and to say UÑAS DE LOS PIES we say TOENAILS. There are other cases, in some cases Spanish wins and in others English wins.  ...