British versus American English (module 7-unit 2)

Here you are some practice to see the difference between American and British English. Although the text we use is British, the influence of American English is getting more and more spread all over the world, especially thanks to the internet. Let's have a look the main differences:

• Vocabulary: here you have an exercise with a list of words. Click here
• This is a list of exercises with both kinds of English. Go to this page
• The British Council has this exercise with a link. Click here
• This last link is pretty complete. Click this

If you want to practise with listening, here you have some links:

• this a video about both pronunciations and vocabulary. Your can click here or click  here
• this one is about vocabulary connected to cars 
• this is about the difference in general with a person showing the principal differences. Click here

Just for fun, here you have two more videos about American and British English; they are rather difficult but I think they worth a visit:

• Eddy Izzard's video
• Hugh Laurie's video

English language

This information will be helpful for That's English! students of module 7 - unit1. Here you have some information about English as a language:

• history of English: click here
• this link is about history as well, from the BBC
• this is a video about RP pronunciation: click here

See you in class!

Using YouTube to learn English

Here you have some videos to learn English. Some are series, some others are just for pleasure or funny and some others are for learning English especifically. Here you have some examples:

• Just for fun: what would happen if your friends acted as dogs or cats? Click here for the answer.
• For learning English: apart from the video bar you already have on the blog, you can find some people who have their own classes on the internet. Some examples:

1. Learning English with Misterduncan: watch this simple lesson about greetings but there are lots of lessons. He even has a channel for his videos.
2. Learning English with Jennifer: an American teacher with interessting vieos like this one about pronunciation of vowel sounds. There are loads of videos about grammar, pronunciation and so on.

There are plenty of videos in Youtube. You'll be able to find many if you use the topic or the tense and you add +ESL (English as a Second Language) on your serching.

See you!

Exchanging conversation in Alcala and Madrid

I was sent this link about exchanging conversations and experiences with other students in Madrid and some student asked me about the topic. I'm not sure they are still in use or active. They have events and some meetings to talk to other people. I don't know much but abut it but you can have a look into it and then you'll tell me how it works.

• http://www.bemadrid.com/

Another possibility is here in Alcalá but just for university students I gess but I don't know if it works well. The links are:

• http://www.uah.es/servicios/servicios_ayudas_prestaciones/asociaciones/erasmusnetwork/bolsa_idiomas.shtm
• http://www.uah.es/estudios/otros_estudios/idiomas/clases_conversacion.shtm#clases

There are also some places for exchanging conversation in English in Alcala:

• THE GREEN IRISH PUB  C/ Empecinado nº 7. 
• WHELAN'S is another Irish pub where you can meet foreigners to exchange conversation and I think they meet on Tuesday evening.

In Madrid there is a group for exchanging conversation called Multilinkual. . They meet on Tuesdays at O'Neill's (c/ Príncipe 12 - metro Sevilla o Sol) and on Thursday at Beer Station (Cuesta de Santo Domingo - metro Callao). The group is open so you can go whenever you want and if you need help you can ask David, the responsible there, to help you. You'll find people from everywhere and you can exchange English or other languages because many people are foreigners.

Peace in the world

A friend of mine sent me this video about a citizen form Israe talking about what Iranian people mean for him. I thought it was very interesting because of the message and because you can see a non-native speaker using English as a foreign language. The link doesn't have subtitles but I think you'll be able to understand it pretty well:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYjuUoEivbE

Connected to this topic, I found this other video with the typical speech of Charles Chaplin in the film The Great Dictator. His English is perfect but I've used the link with subtitles because the message is fantastic as well.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBpX0pkWKDY

To finish with, I'd like to share this link with the song Imagine by J. Lennon. I hope you'll enjoy this post; my intention was to show you that no matter you use to learn English but from my point of view it's much more attractive when you use things that mean something to you.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yseQLDzf-rk

See you at school.

An example of how to pronounce Perfect Conditional

Some time ago I explained how difficult  it was the ponunciatiion of the perfect conditional due to the contractions, that is, WOULD HAVE DONE is pronounced /wudv/. There is a good example of how to pronounce it in this link of Hablarmejoringles. If you click here you'll revise it.
However, I think it'll be funnier if you listen to Adele'S in song Rolling in the Deep, especially when she says: We could have had it all. You have two links to see what I try to show you but the second link is interesting because you have the lyrics in English and the subtitles in Spanish in the same version, but it's a bit fussy to read both at the same time so here you have both links:

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3bzXdW-7AQ : just the lyrics, as a karaoke, to start with
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSokMPNiums : this is the version with lyrics and translation into Spanish

Enjoy this wonderful song! See you at school.

Modal verbs and idioms

Here you are a page with a good explanation of the difference between the most common modals: CAN - COULD - MAY - MIGHT. It's in Spanish and it's also quite clear, with a few examples, so you can have a look to check your knowledge of English modals. There is a list of idioms or common expressions which are quite interesting as well. To go to the link, click HERE. Once you've read this, try to do some exercises like the ones you can find here:

• exercise 1 : quite easy but it's some practice
• exercise 2 : some more exercises
• exercise 3 : this page is to go further in your practice and more modals are included. There is a tutorial and exercises. It's quite useful. 

As you can see the level is not so high but it's worth revising simple things from time to time to check you still do them properly.

See you in short time!