EnglishisEasy/Elinglésesfácil

Well, one thing is for certain:  the word is not BOMBER. The word to be used is FIREMAN or FIREFIGHTER which is usually defined as a person who puts out or prevents a fire.  A BOMBER is something entirely different. A BOMBER is a person who sets or drops bombs as a terrorist. The problem for Spanish speakers who are also EFL learners is that firefighters are called BOMBEROS in their language. The most logical thing is to relate the word BOMBER with BOMBERO when they are not the same at all. The right translation for BOMBER in Spanish is BOMBARDERO, but it usually refers to an airplane whose objective is to drop bombs on enemy targets. It does not refer to individuals in any manner, in other words, there is not a word for the person who sets bombs as an act of terrorism. For us that is only a TERRORISTA.  ...

What's an Oxymoron? It's the combination of of terms with opposite meanings to reinforce an idea. e.g.   Brave mouse        Living Dead        Honest politician Oxymorons are not central but still an integral part of Extremely Loud Incredibly Close.  It is a movie that tells the story of Oskar Schell (Thomas Horn) , ayoung boy whose father died in the attack to the Twin Towers. That event marked Oskar who idolized his father. One day Oskar finds a key that had the word Black on it and this event leads Oskar to believe that the key was one last search his father left for him (searching for clues to mysteries his father invented for him was Oskar's favorite hobby besides creating oxymorons) In the search that takes most of the movie the boy meets all the Blacks in New York  and is incidentally aided by an old man who later on Oskar figures out it is his grandfather. In the end Oskar finds the owner of the key and lear...

Whoever said comics are for kids only is truly enormously wrong. Take this page for example, the last in a story called "Star Light, Star Bright...". It appears in Action Comics 14 and reveals that in the new redefined DC universe Superman is making every possible effort to discover the right location of Krypton so he has been consulting a real life astrophysicist, Neal DeGrasse Tyson. Apparently, DeGrasse urged by Superman has found a red star in the Corvus constellation and  that star is Rao.   For those who don't know that is the name of the red sun that was the center of the planetary system to which Krypton belonged. Using all the data collected the astronomer and his team aided by Superman manage to see images of Superman's birthplanet but it happens that because of the distance the images they get to see are those of the final moments of Krypton.  Sad, isn't it? But also amazing! (Don't forget to read the page)

Yesterday it was Bram  Stoker's birth anniversary. You may not recognize his face and perhaps his name doesn't ring a bell to you either but actually we owe him a lot. If you like the protagonists of the Twilight saga (all of them vampires) and the story itself, then you have a lot to thank this Irish novelist born on a November 8 in 1847. Though there had been other stiories with characters that were dead and did not remain in their coffins at night, it was Stoker who created a work that garnered attention and recognition so as to remain in the minds of the readers and eventually long enough to become a classic.  Dracula the aristocrat, the man who is a monster, the one who can talk to you one minute and attack you the next. What is so appealing in him that so many other characters have tried to imitate him? Perhaps it is this inconfessable desire to play with fire that we all have or maybe it is true there is a dark side in all of us and that darkness calls us in i...

Once the bell rings I collect my things to proceed to another classroom and another class. One day, D interrupts me to let me know about something. D: Mister... T: What? I'm leaving D, can we talk some other time? D: Mister, venga vea. T: In English, D, in English. D: Come and see this, mister. T: All right, what is it? D (s miling as though she were a malicious child ): Here, where R is. T: R? What did he do this ti...? ( I stop when I see R profoundly asleep. Somehow R has managed to spend the whole class asleep without me noticing) Oh no, not again. Somebody wake him up, please. There are other kids around us who are there to have fun with the situation. One pushes R briefly but firmly. R opens his eyes to see me standing in front of him. He emits a gasp and stands up all of a sudden. R: ¡Uy, mister! No vaya a pensar mal. T. Easy R and talk to me in English please. R: In English? Yes, yeah...eh...mister, what book are we going to use? the Grammar or t...

Obama four more years. I must confess I like the idea. Every time a Republican rises to power some conflict follows somewhere in the globe and since this world is growing smaller and smaller (that's an oxymoron of sorts) somehow the rest of us is affected at some level. Democrats are better in that aspect. Anyway, this article is not about U.S politics, but ethnic related terms: Let's begin with President Obama who claims to be African American and he is or at least he looks African American but in the end he is not, not completely at least. His father was from Kenya, Africa, but his mother was from Kansas, U.S. and she was white. Thus, the word is Mulatto ( a person born from a black parent and a white parent). In order not to sound racist is that in U.S. legal documents certain races are not called as they are called in Spanish for example (where a white man is just a white man and a black man is just a black man) and thus members of the white race are called Caucas...

Again another James Bond movie and again it doesn't disappoint. James Bond: Skyfall has lots and lots of action with, in my humble opinion, the opening sequence being the the best. It all begins with Bond and a feminine agent  called Eve chasing an enemy spy all over Istanbul. As usual if Bond never quits neither do his enemies and this time Bond ends up riding a motorbike on the continuous roof of the Grand Bazzaar of the city that once was called Constantinopla. Those  scenes with the view of the imponent Hagia Sophia in the back are simply breathtaking.  The mission ends up in a failure with Bond accidentally shot by Eve and falling into a river seemingly dead. Then, the clip by Adele sets the mood for the rest of the movie. We are then taken to London where MI16 headquarters is under attack and M, leader of the secret service, is being questioned for the failed mission. It happens that Bond is alive and there is a mastermind orchestrating M's fall: an old agent ...