EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

You don't because OJALÁ is a word that only exists in Spanish. It all began with the occupation of what now are Spain and Portugal by the Muslims long ago. They remained in that part of Europe until almost the end of the XV century when they were defeated by the combined forces of the kingdoms of Castilla and Aragón. But before they left a considerable number of their words were taken into Spanish which is one of the things that make this language unique. One of such words is OJALÁ which as you can see contains the name by which Muslims know God: Allah (Alá in Spanish). It means "If Allah wishes so." So as there is a bit of irony in the whole thing since every time the very Christian Latin Americans say OJALÁ they are actually mentioning God, in a way similar to how Muslims would. Now there is not an exact word to translate OJALÁ, but there are equivalents. Spanish                               ...

Every time we think of English-speaking countries inevitably we think of two countries: England and the United States. It is like there were no other places where English is the first language. We certainly know of Canada and Australia but we easily forget New Zealand or the Philippines. Nevertheless, there is one country that we cannot be blamed for not remembering because it rarely makes the headlines and in fact very few are aware that it even exists, but it does. Its name is Belize and is in Central America though unlike the other countries in the region this is the only one where English and no Spanish is the first language. How did this happen? The story is an interesting one. It turns out that the British were looking for someplace in terra firma  to extend their empire. They have already taken over many of the Caribbean islands and though not directly they founded a small settlement in a territory that the Spanish considered theirs but had neglected to occupy which is ...

Saying AFTER CHRIST would be the easy way out.  In Spanish that is what we say since DESPUES DE CRISTO means AFTER CHRIST and that's the point: it is what us, Spanish speakers, say but in English they use a different expresion and that most commonly is A.D.  Curiously A.D. is not an English expression because it comes from Latin. A.D. is obviously an acronym with the full expression being ANNO DOMINI. This means IN THE YEAR OF THE LORD clearly alluding to the occidental custom of using the birth of Jesus Christ as a divisory event that separates ancient from modern history. Another difference is that unlike Spanish the placing of this expression is before but not after the year:   Spanish -- 2013 D.C.   English  -- A.D. 2013 (though people these days do it also the other way and is also common to see 2013 A.D.) In order not to make any allusion to Christianity they have coined the acronym C.E. or Common Era so for example you could write: 2013 ...

Ever wondered what happens after the "And they lived Happily Ever After" ending of most fairy tales? Well, it seems that Hollywood producers, always on the look for material to make movies, have as of late found in fairy tales what they were looking for. Proof of that are the recent reinterpretations of  Snow White and Little Red Riding Hood with a Cinderella film announced for 2014.  This year we had the rebellious kids, Hansel (Jeremy Renner) and Gretel (Gemma Artenton) who after defeating the Witch of the house made of candies and cake have grown to become...witch hunters!  I know it sounds predictable but the whole story is very predictable with little or no explanation given about some points such as how these siblings have become so exceptionally skilled at fighting or where they got that state-of-the art weaponry they use to hunt witches. Instead we find them at a point where they are already well-known in their "profession" which is rescue those chi...

ALFOMBRA MAGICA or ALFOMBRA VOLADORA is MAGIC CARPET or FLYING CARPET respectively.  The synonym of CARPET is RUG, however, the word RUG is never used to mean ALFOMBRA MAGICA or ALFOMBRA VOLADORA even though the appropriate term would be RUG and not CARPET.  Why is that? The answer is simple. Though RUG and CARPET are supposed to be the same thing they are not.  The essential difference between both terms is really a matter of size. CARPET is the term most commonly used when these objects cover the floor from wall to wall, and if smaller in size the preferred term is RUG. Nevertheless, most people these days do not pay attention to this detail and both terms are used indistinctly. Now, according to this, we should say Flying Rug but no we don't, and as stated before we say FLYING CARPET. Perhaps it is all about Collocation which is the use of certain words with others but not necessarily all the others. What would Aladdin probably say on the matter?  ...

would you like to see Batman receive the Animé treatment? If your answer is yes, then this is the right movie for you. It is actually a group of six short films developed in Anime style of the highest possible quality by studios of the stature of Madhouse (the same that produced Vampire Hunter D and Highlander) and others. These films were released in 2005 right in between Batman Begins and  The Dark Knight but they are not necessarily part of the story told in the trilogy that Christopher Nolan directed. With that said it is still undeniable that there are in these films details that demonstrate how heavily Nolan's Batman movies influenced Batman: Gotham Knight  which is the name given to this collection. Some of those details are a Morgan Freeman look alike Lucius Fox, the use of Agent Ramírez who only appears in the movies but not in the comics, or villains who are principally mobsters and their henchmen. And this is another characteristic of this production: classic el...

Let's begin by stating there is no thing such as ABANDERADO in the educational systems of any of the English-speaking countries. A good student is a good student, he or she has the best scores and receives honors accordingly, but as part of that recognition there is no such thing as giving him or her the honor of becoming a STANDARD- BEARER. And that expression is the answer to how we say ABANDERADO in English, though the word standard itself does not necessarily mean bandera since also other emblems (even a torch) can be part of the definition of that word. Then in the specific case being mentioned here, that is the greatest honor granted to the best senior student in a high school, the translation can also be FLAG-BEARER. It is not that there are no ABANDERADOS in the English speaking countries, but they are not students. This honor is usally conferred by military institutions to an outstanding cadet or soldier. Standard-bearers are usually seen in parades or similar even...

It was on a May 24th that an army of brave men led by General Antonio José de Sucre fought the battle against the Spanish troops that were the last representatives of a merciless force that for centuries had subjugated the original owners of this land and plundered its resources in order to quench the thirst for gold of the Spanish empire. Ecuador as such was yet to exist but cities such as Guayaquil and Cuenca were free already and only Quito remained. Sucre was Simón Bolívar's most trusted and valued ally and it was Sucre who was entrusted with the difficult task of taking over the last Spanish stronghold in what would become Ecuador years latter.  Attacking from upward Pichincha mount, Sucre's forces got the upper hand but  it was only after hours of a terrible battle that finally the Spanish soldiers were defeated and Quito was freed. With Quito now a free city, Bolivar could march unopposed to the south in order to expel the Spanish from Peru thus sealing the indepen...

One of the many challenges a teacher has to face is to maximize time.  The term "maximize time" in English teaching mostly means that students are given oportunities to increase their practice time. That time is  important because learning without any ulterior practice is not usually assimilated, or fixed properly.   The problem is for the teacher since he has to find ways to make that practice meaningful and at the same time common to the whole group. One teacher can only interact with one student at a time while the rest of the group listens. But are they all listening? Probably not. It is better if they interact with one another under the teacher's supervision whose role is then to monitor, help out and take notes on each student's performance. Those notes are of great aid for the teacher so he can use that informaion to detect weaknesses and take easures in order to work on those weakesses in the future.  In the picture you can see my A01 students enga...

Once I had my high school students read The Most Dangerous Game, a short story by Richard Connell. Rainsford, the main character, is a professional hunter traveling by ship to his next hunting area, accidentally ends up in an island called Ship- Trap island. When he goes into the island he finds there are two men living in a palace in the island. One of them is a Cossack general and the other, his brutish servant.  The Cossack is called general Zaroff who is also  a game hunter but has become bored of hunting regular game and now uses the island's unique position to capture sailors from shipwrecks. He lets them go first and next after some time he hunts them down. Rainford's arrival who is worldwide famous presents Zaroff with a rare opportunity to find excitement in hunting again by hunting another hunter. Little does Zaroff know that Rainsford is The Most Dangerous Game in the World and hunting him will not be easy at all. My students enjoyed themselves at reading...

If there is one thing to say about this movie that would be the fact that is a Pedro Almodóvar movie, and that should be enough. Still this is a movie that stands out for many other reasons than that. The first is that is an intelligent movie, not told in your regular linear style. At the beginning we see this patient of sorts named Vera (Elena Anaya) completely isolated in a room of a private clinic. All her needs as food or drinks being met by an employee of the clinic, Marilia (Marissa Paredes) who constantly oversees what Vera does using cameras installed in her room. The clinic is owned by a doctor, Robert Legard (Antonio Banderas). Legard has had a tough life having lost his wife and his daughter in unusual circumstances. His wife for instance suffered a car accident and almost died having suffered burns that compromised all of her body. Legard saved her life and during a long time tried to restore her damaged skin until the day she accidentally saw herself in the crystal ...

At least it has not been its official name since 1995, year when the name was changed to Mumbai which is the one it has these days. The reasons why this city was called Bombay are not that clear. One source indicates that it was a Portuguese phrase (something like Bon Baim) meaning Good Bay. The other was that actually it was an English word coined because of the impossibility of the English of that time to pronounce Mumbai correctly. Whether this is right or not the truth is that Mumbai has had at least ten different names ever since its foundation (which has never been recorded). It has been the capital of now forgotten empires and always the connection between India and the nations of the Middle East since it is actually a seven-island archipelago on the Arabian Sea. This city is the largest in population in India and the most important in terms of economy and commerce, full of temples and modern buildings, full of spiritualism and dynamic trade.

This is one of the most recent TV series, with Spiderman as a protagonist, after Marvel was bought by Disney.   Though he is still the same wise-cracking hero and his background story has been respected this Spiderman indeed has a lot of the Marvel spirit but now also Disney's. Peter Parker is still Peter Parker, Jonah Jameson is still Jonah Jameson, Mary Jane Watson is still Mary Jane Watson but certain aspects have been emphasized on purpose. Peter is and looks much more a teen than he did in previous series and so are some of the other characters such as Mary Jane. His aunt is now a modern woman that spends most of the time outside home which is convenient for Peter and his secret identity. Also it is Peter who narrates the story in every episode and the audience now can get to see  humorous renditions of the comment Peter or any of the other characters makes (such as when Peter claims that Spiderman is a singer in his class and we get to see that image on...

I love the Star Trek universe. I think it is one of the greatest efforts to bring a comprehensive portrait of what mankind can achieve if they do things right because in this future reality man is still on Earth but has managed to make contact with other races and has been able to organize a community of planets and diverse races into an entity called the United Federation of Planets. There is no longer war or avarice, or hunger and poverty. Mankind looks at the stars and sees new places to explore, not to conquer. In order to do that it is that the starship Enterprise was created: to seek out new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. After several movies and five series, nothing was happening with this franchise. With a fanbase that has proved once and again to be the most faithful, you could have expected  some interest to revitalize it but it was until J.J. Abrams came and helmed a new project that the Enterprise would rise again. I must ...

If you haven't recognized him, the actor in the photo is none other than Johnny Depp soon to appear in the Lone Ranger movie as the Indian who is the Ranger's trusted partner. In Spanish we do not call this character Tonto. That would be disrespectful for a very single reason: Tonto in Spanish means FOOL or DUMB. Since Tonto is an Indian it would not only be disrespectful it would probably be considered quite biased. It was then quite a wise decision that of the original translators of the series (it was a radio serial at the beginning back in the fifties) not to use the name Tonto and instead they called him  TORO which means BULL in Spanish. Tonto does have a meaning in an Indian language (Pottawatomie) and that would be "Wild One"- Kemosabe, what Tonto calls the Lone Ranger, means "Trusted Friend" or "Trusted Scout". Tonto and the Lone Ranger was a great a series, hopefully the movie will be the same or even better.

Well though the answer sounds kind of difficult, really it is not. The problem is that we, Spanish speakers, would expect the answer to be somewhat different, something like this:"What is There to Do?" which is not necessarily the same.  When we say: "¿Qué hay qué hacer?" in Spanish what we actually ask is if something is broken and needs to be repaired. Then the correct answer should be: "What Needs to be Done?" which is what you ask in English when gently you offer your services if something needs to be repaired at home. That if it is a minor thing, but if it is something else the  most advisable thing to do is to call a professional. And usually that is what needs to be done.

The Milky Way is the name of a galaxy, our galaxy, and yes it is also the name of some chocolate bar. But why of all posssible names is it called like that? the story goes all the way back to the times of the ancient Greeks with their stories and legends. The chief god in their pantheon was Zeus who had recently become the father of Heracles, a future Greek hero, but as Zeus was a god Heracles was only partially a god because he was also human. He was what we call a demigod. Looking for a way to increase his divinity, Zeus took the baby and put him next to his wife, Hera, who had also recently given him another child (Hera was not Heracles's mother). The baby took the nipple and began suckling. Soon after that Hera woke up and in horror she noticed that the baby next to her was not hers but Heracles (she hated Heracles) and quickly got up away from the child who had not finished. The immortal milk left a trace which is what we see at a clear night as a somewhat white and ir...

I know that Land is an important concept for several reasons with being the sustain of all nations and the place where people dwell among the chief reasons. But here we are not exploring that aspect in particular which is better left to the politicians who believe they know more about the land and how to administer its resources properly better than the most seasoned farmers out there.  I prefer to divert your attention to a more simplistic yet fascinating aspect of that word and that is its constant presence in the English names of so many countries, especially those sharing a common Celtic heritage. And those countries, and in some cases also regions or islands, are in no specific order: EngLAND IreLAND IceLAND ScotLAND FiNLAND PoLAND SwitzerLAND New ZeaLAND GreenLAND (an extensive island that belongs to Denmark) NewfoundLAND (name of a Canadian island) HolLAND The only exception to this group would be ThaiLAND which is in Asia and SwaziLAND in Africa....

If you like Salma Hayek then you will like this movie. Frida is the story of an intellectual painter, a Mexican woman called Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) who was in many ways a revolutionary herself. Frida was a free spirit who liked to go against the conventionalisms of her time and society (the Mexico of the beginning of XX century) so she dressed up as a man, and danced with other women and had Communist ideas. Two events marked her life: a car accident that forever left her with consequences (walking problems, internal pain, constant medical supervision) and meeting Diego Rivera, the famous Mexican muralist who is played by the always excellent Alfred Molina. Rivera was the man of her life, her husband, her best friend, her lover and her colleague. I must confess that I did not know much aout Kahlo before this movie and the little I knew was only a few references of her work I had when I last visited the States since she is known not only in Mexico but also in the south of the ...

As the picture clearly shows we say Mother's Day and not Mothers´ Day.  Does this mean that saying Mothers' Day is grammatically incorrect? The answer is NO.  In fact it makes more sense to say Mothers' Day than Mother's Day. Really this problem is similar to that when we say Merry  Christmas, but  not Happy Christmas. Both are correct but everyone says "Merry Christmas".       In the case of "Merry Christmas" we could say the explanation is that Collocation decides so (Collocation indicates that some words can only occur with certain words and not with others, e.g. set a price  but not establish a price ). The case of  "Mother's" is different because it does not happen due to Collocation.. Apparently, the person who started it all, back in 1908 in the U.S., Ms. Anne Jarvis, wanted a celebration that sparked the family spirit so each mother in every family would be truly the center of this celebration and not all the mothers ...

The word is actually two in one: CHICKPEAS. It is a case similar to that of the name DRAGONFLY which is not the name of some type of fly other than the common type we all know. A Dragonfly is actually another insect, not another type of fly. CHICKPEAS are not really peas for that matter. Chickpeas, also known as Garbanzo Beans, are actually legumes whereas Peas are actually seeds and considered by botanists as to be fruits (cooks are the ones who refer to Peas as vegetables).                                                                                                                                                   ...

It is not very bright and it is not very large. It' s not even visible to the naked eye, but it's there somewhere floating around the orbit of the Earth.  It is a satellite, a nanosatellite, called Pegaso (Pegassus in E nglish), one among thousands of other satellites, some active and most inactive. Its sole function is to scan the space and transmit videos (not only photos) back to Earth or more especifically to Ecuador. It will be up there for a year before its usefulness is up and ceases operating. After that it will approach the planet orbit, just close enough to fall back into the planet surface somewhere in the sea. What makes this satellite special if it does not do anything special? It is different because it is  the first Ecuadorian satellite ever sent to space. For us Ecuadorians a real landmark, one perhaps that heralds many more to come. The name of the man who pushed for this to happen is Ronny Nader, our only cosmonaut so far. This man managed to get th...

If there is a problem when explaining Future Continuous and Future Perfect that is precisely establishing what is different between both tenses and how and when they are used. The best thing to do in these cases is to explain all these concepts using a timeline centered in the development of one event that has not happenened yet.  In the context exposed on the board in the picture the event is "My University Studies" which for the hypothetical subject of this example begin some time in 2014 (it's 2013 when I write this). In the year 2016 those studies are still unfinished so if someone wants to refer to that specifically the tense to be used is the Future Continuous: In 2016  I'll be studying university. If we choose to refer to 2018 then the Grammar tense is Future Perfect since by then the "Studies" being referred to are over : I'll have finished my studies by 2018. Re-explain, give some more examples and then have students practice amon...

Obviously there was one Sherlock Holmes and that was the character created by the British writer called Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887. But if we mean a character that used reasoning as his main tool to solve a mystery. This character that preceded Sherlock Holmes was created by none other than Edgar Allan Poe and appeared for the first time in a story called The Murders in The Rue Morgue published in 1841. He was named C. Auguste Dupin, and it is the archetype of all detectives to come. He was a detective even before the word detective existed, and in the construction of this character and his world that you can see how much conan doyle took out of this character to create his Holmes. Dupin uses his intelect and his power for deducing things to get to the bottom of things. He is not rich but lives comfortably with a friend, again just like Holmes and Watson lived together, for a while. And again this friend, unnamed in the case of Dupin's, is the narrator of his stories just like...

Spartacus is a series produced by the cable network Starz that tells what happened when a Thracian warrior is made slave by the Romans when Rome was only a republic. His wife, Sura, is separated from him and taken somewhere while he is sold to a gladiator house. The owner of the house renames the Thracian and calls him Spartacus.  Baliatus, now the owner of Spartacus, cannot control him so he makes a deal with Spartacus offering to seek Sura and bring her in in exchange of Spartacus's services. With that offer in his mind he works and becomes an idol of the arena. Later on Spartacus discovers that Batiatus knew all along  where Sura was and in fact he managed to have her captive knowing that his deal with Spartacus would be over  the moment he reunites with Sura. In order to keep Spartacus, Batiatus had arranged Sura to be delivered to him but in state of near death. After that Baliatus had apologized to Spartacus for "not being able to rescue Sura earlier". Feelin...

DC Comics is a publishing company that mainly publishes comic books. Its parent company is the giant Time Warner. DC (short for DC Comics) is the house; so to speak, of characters such as Superman and Batman among many others.  As a subsidiary company of the Warner corporation DC also looks for ways to keep its properties visible, that is constantly in the minds of the public they usually aim at. As part of the aforementioned effort there is a branch of DC devoted only to produce films and TV series in the animated format. One of the earliest works they put out was Superman: Doomsday, the first in a long line of animated films that have had as main protagonists Superman or Batman (sometimes both) and ocassionally other DC characters. These films target a somewhat older audience than just kids though there are productions that mainly aim at young kids and children. Superman: Unbound tells us about the first confrontation between Brainiac and Superman. Brainiac is a superinte...

This one is easy. The word is FAIL, a term that has become somewhat popular among Internet users to represent a situation where something has gone or is about to go wrong. Used in that context Fail is really an adjective but it can also be a verb.    "I FAILED Math" means  I could not fulfill the requirements needed to pass that subject in particular. FAIL in general means that you have been unsuccessful to comply so if you made a promise and you did not keep it then you have failed. In the same context someone can deposit his or her hopes on you and then you are unable to deliver as expected, that person then would tell you: "You FAILED me" which in Spanish would be "Me FALLASTE". QUE UN PROFESOR TE ASIGNE O DE UNA MALA NOTA can also be expressed with this verb: "Mr. Ramírez FAILED me in Spanish", though of course the score has to be so low that there is really very little to do on the matter.