EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

If you can´t recognize him then you have been living under a stone for like forever, This is Charles Chaplin (1889-1977) impersonating  The Tramp, a character he created which he used in most of his movies.  Chaplin, born in London at the end of the 19th century, had a hard life from the beginning. His father was never there for him and his mother had mental problems. Chaplin struggled to become the man he eventually became. His greatest stroke of genius was precisely the creation of The Tramp, a poor man who always had to fight the odds, had a heart of pure gold but in the end was always left empty handed. His best productions belong to the time when movies were silent and  black and white so the action and the gestures were extremely important to convey the attention of the audiences. Chaplin relied heavily on Slapstick (comedy based on physical sequences). When films made the jump to include sounds Chaplin resisted the new trend and insisted in making movies the ...

There is a mountain with human faces, four of them in fact and it is called Mount Rushmore in the United States. It is perhaps the most well-known natural elevation in the States without being the highest, and that is surely for those four heads which were modeled after four oif the most cherished preseidents in the history of the U.S. and they are from left to right George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Thedore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. One of the most surprising facts about this monument is that it was carved in rock but not with simple chisels. Controlled dynamite explosions were used in its creation which says a lot about the commitment to this project by its creators. If you want to visit this monumental marvel you have to travel to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota, right in the Midwest of the U.S.

It depends on where you live. If you live in the United States of America then May 1st is Loyalty Day. It is a holiday created around 1958 when Americans reaffirm loyalty to the American way. Curiously many people in the U.S. do not know anything about this holiday that is though observed in certain places but not everywhere. In other words, May 1st is not observed in the U.S. May 1st is Labor Day in most countries, not the U.S., though curiously enough it all began with events happening in Chicago at the end of the nineteen century when workers claimed for eight-hour workdays which did not exist at the time. The protesters were shot by the  Police sent to control the situation. As a way to pay homage to all those workers Labor Day was instituttionalized  only not in the States. There is a Labor Day in the U.S. calendar though and it is celebrated on the first Monday in September. It is believed that the idea to separate that day and celebrate it as Labor Day was done ...

The answer is: when that verb is really a noun. How is that possible? In English there are two ways to make this happen. a. By using the infinitive form ot the verb (to go, to drink , to underestimate are some examples of verbs in infinitive form). To think of defeat is unthinkable. To give in before desperation is just the wrong way to go. b. By using gerunds. A gerund is a verb using the ing form and is therefore a noun. For all intents and purposes a gerund has all the functions a noun has: it can be the subject of a sentence or it can an object and it can even be the name of something. Working can be a glorious a deed or a great bore. Jennifer hates waiting and prefers to be waited instead. Swimming is the best thing to do if you want exercise. We know Swimming as the name of that skill that allows us to move about in the water. Is there another name for that? In order not to confuse Gerunds with the verbs plus ing used in the Continuous tenses we must use the co...

What a great movie this is. I saw it and truly before it began my expectations were many. One in particular was if IM3 would be capable to stand out beyond The Avengers. I was also curious about The Mandarin, a character that ever since the beginning, at least in the comics, was Iron Man’s nemesis. He was really powerful but also politically incorrect since it was Chinese and thus considered an expression of racial prejudice. How come were they using it now? Perhaps not the way many, me one of those, expected. In fact this is really not the Mandarin that should be and for those who expect the opposite seeing the truth behind him will be a bit of disappointment. I have to say that at first I felt that way but then it all made sense and for one reason only: this Iron Man is our Iron Man, one that is more realistic, more believable and much more in tune with the realities of our time. After all we cannot forget that having a genius businessman building a fighting techno-armor to defe...

Out of the four basic forms of the verb in English the simplest is the Base form which is similar to the Infinitive form but without the particle TO. For example:    To Eat (Infinitive)  -  Eat (Base) The Base form has two primary functions: The first is to serve as to give orders, e.g. : Listen to me! or Stay where you are ! The second is to serve as the Subjunctive form. The easy part here is forming the Subjunctive and the hard part is to know how to use the Subjunctive properly. Use the Subjunctive after these verbs:  to request,  to suggest,  to urge,  to ask,  to command,  to demand,  to desire,  to insist,  to propose,  to recommend and a couple of others. Here are some examples: The teacher advised Mark study harder in the future. Bertha recommended John sleep long hours. My Dad propose my Mom spend less money. Expressions such as It is important, It is essential, and It is...

This is an easy one.  By far the city that Hollywood loves the most has to be New York. Just think of the films you have seen by now. How many of them are set in New York? As I write I'm going to make the exercise of remembering at least five in less than a minute (can you do the same?): Gangs of New York Cloverfield Home Alone 2 Spider Man (all of them) Oedipus Wrecks These came to my mind randomly, but I'm pretty sure I could mention many more given more time.  How can this interest be explained? The answer should be obvious since New York is by far one of the most iconic cities in the world. Heck, when somebody says the words United States instantly most people picture in their minds an image quite similar to the photo I have added to this article. Of course those are usually people who know what they know about the United States thanks to what they see in the movies or on TV. See my point now? New York has so much to offer: Manhattan, Central Park, the ...

That is what is for real. The name of this god is Janus and is not Greek but one of the few examples of a god that was only Roman. Most of the gods on the Roman pantheon were originally Greek whose names were changed when they became part of the Roman culture (Zeus became Jupiter, Ares became Mars and Hermes became Mercury) Janus was an important god, usually represented as having two faces but not side by side: one of his faces looked into the past and the other into the future. Because of that double condition Janus was highly regarded among Romans which is why one of the early rulers of Rome named the first month of the year with the god's name since he was after all the god of beginnings, war and peace, time and many other things.

This item should be called a STUFFED BEAR really since that is what all the other toys of similar kind are called such as Stuffed Lions, Stuffed Giraffes, Stuffed Elephants and so on. Believe it or not a U.S. presisdent is responsible. Theodore Roosevelt was famous for being a passionate hunter and loved to go hunting large animals such as Grizzly Bears that once were more common in the American soil than they are these days. It happened that one day for some unclear reason he refused to kill one of these bears.  Inspired by that incident a toymaker created a toy that resembled a bear cub and apparently even got official permission to use the name of the president himself for his creation. Since most U.S. citizens called Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy (he was quite popular), that is precisely what the toy was called originally: Teddy's Bear . It became an instant hit and even after all these years (this all began around 1902) the toy is a favorite though its name has somewhat ch...

True, they are from Ecuador. The how and when they ended up being called PANAMA HATS is nevertheless connected with Panamá and... Theodore Roosevelt. These hats are made of a special material called Paja Toquilla (Toquilla Straw). Hence the real name in English should be TOQUILLA STRAW HAT which is Spanish is SOMBRERO DE PAJA TOQUILLA which is what we call them in Ecuador. In order to export these hats to Europe or Asia these hats were first sent to Panamá and then sent to their final destinations. It was there that they renamed the hats according to the place they were sent from and that was Panamá. All of this happened before the construction of the Panamá Canal which started at the beginning of the twentieth century. It was then that Thedore Roosevelt came to Panamá to oversee the works and was photographed wearing one of our hats. It was then that the name Panamá was attached to the Paja Toquilla Hat and so it has remained until our days. TOQUILLA STRAW HATS  are not...

There is a Royal Academy of Music (the building in the picture is where that academy is), but there is not a Royal Academy of the English Language and probably there will never be. For some reason the British never showed any interest to create one and if there was, this idea did not prosper. The Americans have quite often considered the necessity to create a governing body, some sort of regulator of their language in the same style as Spanish that has La Real Academia de la Lengua, (French and Italian are governed by similar institutions), but in the end that notion has always been considered antidemocratic: a few selected would make decisions that everyone else would have to comply with. English is really worked out by the speakers themselves and then if there are modifications of great importance, if permanent and trascendental, then those changes are collected by the dictionaries who somehow make that official. This is the way that English has evolved through all these years ...

Believe it or not the answer is NO. But of course you must know when and how to use the term PERSONS if you are going to use it. The widely accepted plural form of PERSON is PEOPLE, but it was not always that way. In the past the only plural was PERSONS.  Originally, PEOPLE was only used to design the group of individuals that together were the population of some place or nation (what in Spanish we call EL PUEBLO) and it was only as time passed by that the use of PEOPLE  as the plural form of PERSON became permanent.  PERSONS is used in legal contexts mainly, also in poems or in very specific situations when the number of individuals involved is really limited, e.g. I heard voices like two persons were talking outside. So, there you are, it's not the word but how you use it.

In a time when vampires and werewolves have turned into romantic icons it should come as no surprise that zombies can...feel love and also be loved back.  At least that is the premise of  Warm Bodies,  a 2013 film based on the novel by Isaac Marion. Apparently, the zombie state caused by the virus  is basically a new stage in life one that can allow human beings to endure beyond the traumatic event we call Death, but because it is a relatively new condition little is known about what to do to those who are infected with the virus and the only way to deal with a zombie is then to put a bullet in his or her head. The very few living humans have built a fortress and live in a city inside. They are heavily armed and always on the look to eliminate all zombies. One day, a girl called Julie (Teresa Palmer) accidentally meets and befriends a young zombie who calls himself R (Nicholas Hoult). This relationship triggers in R the transformation back to being human, a p...

What is Creepypasta? It  seems to be another one of those phenomena that have become part of what we can run into when we use the Internet. As the name clearly announces it is not necessarily “nice” material, nothing that could be easily digested. They are a group of short horror stories told or introduced as though they were real, and it is that desire to make them look real the reason why these stories go around the Internet without anyone taking credit for them. A good example is those stories that focus on hypothetical and bizarre experiments always led by Soviet scientists during the forties or fifties (the titles always begin with the words The Russian Experiment ...). I particularly liked The Russian Experiment on Sleep because it sounds as a good idea and could easily be translated into a horror movie but because it is a piece of fiction it lacks technical details and the end is a bit forced and far-fetched. They are not only stories, also videos have been hacked o...

In general, all birds that are domesticated to be eventually consumed are collectively called POULTRY. In Spanish to refer to the same idea we use three words AVES DE CORRAL for lack of a single term. POULTRY includes Chicken, Duck, Goose, and Turkey mainly with the addition of other birds such as Pigeon or Pheasant and even Ostrich in specific regions. The consumption of Chicken is common in Latin America but  not that of Goose. Duck and Turkey are less common but they are part of Latin American Poultry.  It is obvious that in this context English proves again has richer vocabulary.                                                                                                               ...

If you mean a competititon such as the one shown in the picture then the word is RACE.  Now depending on who or what participates in the race then we have Car Races or Horse Races if the competition requires cars or horses respectively. When the participants are human generally those races receive their names according to their length so a race that takes a hundred meters is the One-Hundred-meter Race. or a Two-Hundred-meter Race if it takes two hundred meters to complete. The term Human Race does exist but it is another way to refer to Mankind so here the meaning is other than CARRERA. Now if we mean what one person studies as his or her profession then that is another term: CAREER. I you want to become a lawyer then you pursue a career in Law.

True, BOTHER is usually translated into MOLESTAR in English, but there are several ways in which we use MOLESTAR in Spanish. In general, it means to give trouble to someone else.       Elaine was bothering me for some money. (In this case  BOTHER really means IMPORTUNAR) It is also used when you take the time to do something.       Michael came and bothered to put everything in order.     Don´t bother. It is imposible to reason with Paul. (In this other case BOTHER means MOLESTARSE EN HACER ALGO) If we mean that something upsets us or perhaps worries us then BOTHER means MOLESTAR.         His stupidity truly bothers me.         It bothers me when I'm busy with something and someone calls to just chat.  

Who says teaching Level One (of any English program) is easy?  Really, it is one of the most challenging things especially if you have zero beginners. Zero beginners are a rarity since most students who decide to study English are not real beginners: they have already received some instruction in English either in kindergarten or in elementary schoool or just by being exposed to our own alienated culture. In other words, our level one students are usually false beginners. They already know some English and that gives teachers an advantage. Still with that advantage and  everything teaching level one is not a walk in the park. There are many indications to be made, advice to be given and the material taught has to be constantly reinforced because this level is fundamenta| for what is to come. Imagine if you only had zero beginners in your class! In Ecuador it is uncommon to have a class full of zero beginners, but that surely would be a challenge, perhaps a good one. ...

This story is set in the near future when apparently people have a lot of time to spend. One of the greatest forms of entertainment is playing as a character in a virtual reality game called Sword Art Online. The very first day thousands of people log in and soon they they find it is impossible to log out. The only way to log out is precisely to finish the game anf for that it is necessary to go through one hundred different levels, each one protected at the end by a "boss" more powerful than the previous one. Since the player's conciousness was inside the reality of the game the real player also remained asleep and besides disconnecting him or her from the machine that allowed the interface would mean instant death. One of the players who has taken the name Kirito is quite skilled and si determiend to beat the game. In his quest he falls in love with a girl called Asuna. it is thanks to her that Kirito discovers that Kabaya Akihiko, the creator of SAO (Sword Art Onli...

There is no way to deny it: Cinderella is the most popiular story ever written. It tells you to what happens to a young girl after her mother dies and her father marries again this time to a woman that is the closest to a witch without powerswho in turn has two horrible daughters that are not better at being stepsisters. When her father dies the young girl is left at the mercy of her stepmother and stepsisters who dilligently reduce the girl to a simple servant to whom they call Cinderella. One day, the king of that nation decides to find a suitable bride for his son and organizes a great ball to which all girls in marrying age are invited. And the stepsisters go but not Cinderella. It happens though that the girl has an ally, her fairy godmother, who grants her wish to attend the ball and for that she gives the girl a carriage, a beautiful dress and a pair of glass slippers. All these gifts would magically disappear as the clock strikes twelve. At the ball the prince and Cindere...

Jurassic Park is about to be re-released, this time in 3D format. Many people see this already as  another attempt to capitalize on what was a blockbuster film when it was first released, and maybe they are right. I prefer to see it as Spielberg's way to keep fresh in people's minds this fantasy and also introduce it to the new generations that did not go through the experience of watching this jewel in a cinema theatre.  Why would Spielberg do such a thing? Spielberg is a dreamer and all great things begin with a dreamer's dream. And what is this dream? Well, precisely what we see in the film. The achievement of technology that can one day show us these titans from the past: what they really looked like, how they behaved, and ultimately why they died. There is so much we can learn from them. Of course, it should happen with a lot more common sense and respect to nature than the one showed by the creators of the park in the movie. Fear for what can result of the exp...

|| Well, there is not a word to express exactly what we mean in Spanish when we say MUEBLES. There is one that comes quite close though, and that is FURNITURE. Really FURNITURE is JUEGO DE MUEBLES since it rarely refers to only one piece. It is an Uncountable noun and as such is always used in singular though its translation will make it a plural: The furniture in this room seems to be of great quality --> Los muebles de esta habitación parecen ser de gran calidad. If you want to say in English things such as "Muebles de Sala" or Muebles de Oficina" you have to use the term FURNITURE, like this: Muebles de Sala --> Living Room Furniture Muebles de Oficina --> Office furniture Muebles para un Salón de Clases --> Classroom furniture. By the way, AMOBLAR is to FURNISH. Apartments in big cities are sold or rented FURNISHED  or UNFURNISHED (con o sin muebles). Though it is more expensive renting a furnished is more practical especially in the long ...

This is an activity that focuses on Speaking though there is also Listening and Writing involved.  First of all , you need a video. Make sure it is a video that can be understood easily in terms of what happens in the sequence. The video should not be too short or too long and if possible it should be a hilarious one. Then run the video with the sound off. Second, organize your students in pairs. One of them faces the video images and tells his or her partner what is happening while the other takes notes writing  what is being described to her or to him.    When the video is over they exchange places and roles. It is  a good idea to have another video for the second  group so neither student has the same material.  Last but not least, at random have your students report on what was "dictated" to them and next all of you watch the two videos (with the sound on this time) and enjoy yourselves.             ...

It depends really. While in Spanish we say GRITAR in every situation you raise the tone of your voice, it's not as easy in English.  If you are terrified you usually SCREAM (there is even a  series  of  movies with that title). If you want to draw someonet's attention and this someone is at a distance then you SHOUT. If you are upset and raise the tone of your voice then you YELL.  This requires a preposition if it is used with an object. For example: Fred was upset and yelled AT me. We know CRY is LLORAR but is also GRITAR  if a desire is expressed out loud. Warriors who wanted to begin their endeavours CRIED for battle. If someone kills a person who is dear to you then you CRY for vengeance.  You can also CRY for freedom or independence.  When CRY is only raising the tone of your voice is usually accompanied by  the particle OUT. The phrase "FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!" is quite common and it shows exasperation.      ...

This is the story of Jack and the Beanstalk reimagined to make it a motion picture, with a lot more details than the original tale of course. Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is a young farmer who is down on his luck. One day a handful of magical beans come into his possesssion, but he doesn't know how to use them. At the same time the princess of the kingdom (Eleanor Tomlinson) takes pleasure in wandering away from the formalities of her position . During a rainy night she has no other choice but to seek refuge in Jack´s house. Both like each other and both know the old story of a legendary land of giants that can be accessed only thanks to the awesome appearance of a gigantic plant sprouted from  magical beans. Little does Jack realize that his beans are those beans mentioned in the legend and accidentally he has dropped one that soon,|thanks to the rain, begins growing in a way that cannot be stopped. Due to that extraordinary event Jack loses his house and the girl he feels in love ...

This activity is called Dictation on the Run  for lack of a better name. Probably you may know it under a different name, but really what name it has is irrelevant. I learned it long ago and I use it whenever I have a class with students who were in the previous school year parts of different groups and have decided to stay as separate units though they are now memebers of a different group.  First, explain the activity to your students. As you can see in the picture on top you will need the lyrics of some song (preferably one they know already). Paste the lyrics somewhere outside the classrooom and then divide the class in two groups (in alphabetical order so they have to work with those they don't usually mingle with. Choose two "secretaries" per group who will remain inside the room while the others go outside. Their task will be to write down everything the other members of his or her team dictate. The others will form two lines outside the class. Each one has...

This is another one of those personal sports-centered movies where aging but experienced actors, such as Clint Eastwood, fit perfectly well. The story is about a baseball scout called Gus Lobel (Clint Eastwood) who still has great skills to discover talent when he sees him and that is the problem: his eyesight is failing and he does not want anyone to know since he still canuse his other senses to help him out. Eventually his frind and boss (John Goodman) and his daughter, Mickey, (Amy Adams) find out about his problem so  Mickey decides to aid her father in his job and find a new baseball star together.  Ever since her mother´s death, Mickey has had a strained relationship with Gus because she felt he wanted her away from him. Still she loves her father and also loves baseball though she is pursuing a career as a lawyer. Gus has a secret that won´t reveal to his daughter until later on  in the movie. The experience of helping Gus will also help Mickey to put her ...

Will there be an Iron Man 4? I very much doubt it.  If there is it would be a mistake. Time and time again we have seen that a good story may need more than one installment to be told but not four or five. Very few characters have that potential. How many other characters besides James Bond do you know that have five or six films to tell his or her exploits? Not many, right? Characters such as Rambo or Indiana Jones are proof of that, And the thing is that actors age (and rapidly) but fictional people do not. I´m not saying that Iron Man does not have that kind of potential but perhaps it is better to look at something else for him to do.  What could be wrong with that? A fourth film would be perhaps more of the same and such a great character does not deaserve that. All in all I´m looking forward to the next Iron Man movie but not only for the character but for what could be revealed during and after the movie.   Are you not curious as well?

There are similarities and there are differences between the English alphabet and its Spanish counterpart. Both include consonants and vowels. The English alphabet has twenty six letters: 21 consonants and five vowels. The Spanish alphabet has also five vowels but we have an extra consonant, the torch bearer of the Spanish language, the Ñ (pronounced like enye ) so Spanish has twenty seven consonants really. There used to be more, but not so long ago LL and CH are no longer considered letters. If only for that I would say Spanish is richer but then there is something to consider about English and that is the number of possible sounds some of its letters have. Let´s take as an example the vowel U which in each of the following words has a different sound: Umbrella, hUt, ThUrsday, sUperman, University.   There are probably more than thirty five independent sounds without even considering diptongs. In other words, English has one letter less but it has more sounds, and...

Another is not just another Anime series since it is actually based on a novel of the same title by Japanese writer, Yukito Ayatsuji. It tells the story of Koichi Sakakibara who has recently transferred to a new school where he befriends a mysterious and lonely girl called Mei Misaki who wears a patch on where her left eye should be. It turns out that the class where both study, the 3-3, has for long been victim of a "calamity" that began when in 1972 a student of that class, Misaki, died horribly. This fact impressed his classmates who were not only shocked by that awful event but also by the loss itself since Misaki was truly loved by them. In a way, to keep his lost friend in their lives they began acting as though Misaki were still alive. This strange bahevior was somehow accepted and imitated by everyone else even teachers and authorities, but this was not without consequence. Soon untimely and awful events led to the unexplained deaths of other students and those wh...

April Fool's Day is "observed" in most Anglo Saxon countries always on April 1st.  It is not a holiday in any of those countries, however, there are ways to "celebrate" it.  The most usual way is by playing practical jokes on other people, or better said, on one another (the term practical joke indicates the joke is physical in nature and not written or verbal). After someone falls into that joke it is common that the one who created the joke shows up calling his or her victim: " April Fool!" There is nothing certain on how the tradition originated but many believe it stems from some Roman festival (one of the many Romans had), a time when the common Roman, or plebeian, along with the high class, celebrated impersonating other people, or having fun according to their conception of what having fun was. Spanish speaking countries have a similar tradition only on a different date: December 28th. It is called Día de Los Santos Inocentes. Though ...

This is a sequel to the 2009 film G.I Joe: The Rise of Cobra. Some of the  actors returned but not all the characters did. It begins with Zartan (Arnold Vosloo)  who is now impersonating the president of the United States (Jonathan Pryce). In that position he first sends Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee) to disguise as Snake Eyes (Ray Park) and kill the president of Pakistan. Then Zartan accusses the Joes to have an agenda of their own and sends a surprise attack on the G.I. Joes killing most of them including their commander, Duke (Channing Tatum). The only survivors, Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Flint (D.J. Cotrona) and Lady Jaye (Adrianne Palicki) plus Snake Eyes who has been joined by Jinx (Elodie Yung) decide to take revenge and for this they seek the help of the original Joe, Joseph Colton (Bruce Willis). In the meantime, Zartan manages to release Cobra Commander and with him they finish Zeus, a satellite system that is capable of destroying any point of the planet surface...