EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

"We all came for the free snacks and T-shirts." I t depends. The word people is usually used as the plural of person so in that context to say PEOPLES is incorrect. Nevertheless, the word people also means a nation or an ethnic group (as in the Ecuadorian people for example) and in that context, it is correct to use such a word and make it plural. So for example the phrase "Pueblos del Mundo" can be translated into "Peoples of the World"  BTW, the word people is used as the plural of person, can we say PERSONS? It is possible, only in certain legal contexts, but other than that the safest thing to do is not to use it .

A fly is not a fly  when is a butterfly or a firefly or a dragonfly. Three different insects who are only related to the common fly by name. How is this possible? Well, English may be complex sometimes but most of the times is the opposite, simple and practical. Thus, there are several insects, not connected with flies, that have the word "fly" in their names. The same does not happen in Spanish, so for example a Dragonfly is called Libélula, a Firefly is called Luciérnaga and a Butterfly is Mariposa.

Seeing the Transformers clash against titans such as Superman and wonder Woman is among any fanboys' greatest dreams, only in this case is a nother fanboy’s dream that, at least for now, will never come to be. Recently, Phil Jiménez, a professional comic artist revealed to the community that once he was approached by DC (the company that publishes Superman and Batman) and IDW (the company that publishes Transformers) to pencil a colossal encounter the likes of which will never get to see.   Why? The reasons might be many and among them a lack of agreement on how much each company would receive. All these are unimportant speculations by now. What perhaps matter now is to dream with what we missed: - The Decepticons’ new scheme to take over the world (the DC version of Earth that is) - The reveal that both the Batplane and Wonder Woman’s Invisible Plane are actually Transformers in disguise. - The introduction of the newest member of the GL Corps, Optimus Prime! Amazing, ...

Quite often words have more than one meaning. This sometimes is determined by the role they are given so for example the word FAST means QUICK as an adjective and as a verb it means TO ABSTAIN FROM FOOD. There are nevertheless words that have other types of meanings which are not part of their formal usage but come attached with significant informality. Then we say that a word is "loaded" because these other meanings are first used with an intention they did not have originally. So, words have denotations which are the formal meanings commonly used and accepted and that can be found in most dictionaries; but those  same words may have connotations that are precisely "those" meanings that are conferred by popular use. Connotations can become so strong that eventually they become also another denotation of the term in question and even its primary meaning. As an example there is the word GAY that originally meant HAPPY. This is so true that an old carol such as ...

  In English there are at least three different ways to say PUNTO.   The very Spanish PUNTO is PERIOD when it is one of the several punctuation marks used when writing (also called FULL STOP when it is placed at the end of a paragraph). That’s one. If it is used as a decimal separator then PUNTO is POINT as in “40.5” for example, which is read “forty point five” (notice that in the same situation Spanish speakers use commas not points). That’s two. Then if it is used in an electronic address we don’t say PERIOD or POINT but DOT so for instance www.hotmail.com is read “www dot hotmail dot com”. And that’s three. In all three cases we use the word POINT in Spanish and so it begs the question: Does this indicate that Spanish is sometimes more practical than English or is it another proof that English is richer than Spanish?

I recently led a TOEFL iBT training course for Ecomundo teachers along other teachers of schools such as Naciones Unidas, and Delfos. The course was offered by Librería Guayaquil who asked  Copei for qualified trainers for this workshop. This educational event ran from August 20th to 24th, five hours every day. We essentially covered the Reading and Writing sections of the test, but also saw the other two sections though briefly. It was marathonic but also a rewarding experience as it should be since most of the participants were seasoned teachers; meaning these teachers were very demanding. They wanted a quality course and that is what we gave them (Copei sent me and Librería Guayaquil provided all their technical resources). Thankfully , I had a co-trainer Ms. Vanessa Avellán, who was simply terrific. Now, Ecomundo has given the first step in the right direction foreseeing how much more important the TOEFL iBT will become in the future. I wonder how many other schools wil...

Simply put, there are more words in English. Is it that English is older than Spanish? Not really. It is difficult to date exactly the origin of a language, but English as we know it, probably was already in use in the 16th century whereas modern Spanish was already being used (due to the fact that Spain consolidated as a major power decades before than England did). But for some reason English ended up having more words than Spanish and other languages as well (around 240,000 words aside technical terms).  Why is this? Perhaps one reason is that English is much more dynamic since there is no institution around that regulates its development. There is a Real Academia de la Lengua Española that officially admits new words into Spanish and discards the ones that, after exhaustive studies, are deemed to be no longer in use. If you want to know if a word has "officially" been admitted into English then you have to consult the most important dictionaries such as the Merriam-W...