GIVE DONATIONS, PLEASE

This is for Zachariah, an intelligent and resourceful Deaf student from Kenya, who deserves a helping hand in attending the English Lanuage Institute of Gallaudet University. He has been accepted but his tuition of $27,000, which will be paid directly from us to the English Lanuage Institute must be raised, and he needs money for expenses, such as air fare from Nairobi to Washington D.C.

Source: http://zachs-fundraiser.blogspot.com/      

Hay-on-Wye

Book Fever

Language Level Basic

Standard: American Accent

Source: www.speakup.com.br Ed 252

Why do 80.000 come to Hay-on-Wye, a small town on the England-Wales border with only 1.900 inhabitants, every spring? Certainly, Hay is a pretty town, surrounded by beautiful countryside. It is also famous  for its second-hand bookshops there are 39 of them.

Yet the reason all these people have come here is the Hay Festival, an annual celebration of literature and the arts. This year’s festival runs from May 22^nd to June 1^st.

BIG NAMES

The Hay Festival, sponsored by The Guardian newspaper, invites writers and, celebrities from around the world. Former US president Bill Clinton who came here in 2005, called it “The Woodstock of the mind.” This year’s participants include John Irving, Alan Bennet, Judith Kerr and former US president Jimmy Carter.

THE KING OF HAY

Hay-on-Wye first became famous back in 1977, when an eccentric local character, Richard Booth, declared the town an “independent kingdom” as an elaborated publicity stunt. Booth, who had bought the town’s castle and started its second-hand bookshop industry, appointed himself king with the right appointed Dukes and other nobles.

The British government is currently under investigation for selling peerages: Booth has sold them for years without a single problem! He owns one of the largest second-hand bookshops in the world, and has encouraged many of his assistants to open their own specialist bookshops in the town.

City vs Country

Source: www.elllo.org

Show Text / Hide Text

Joel: So, Michele, you said you are from Canada.

Michele: Yeah.

Joel: What part of Canada?

Michele: I lived in Ontario in a small town called Beaverton.

Joel: Beaverton. And so how big is the town?

Michele: It was pretty small, about seven or eight thousand people I think.

Joel: Wow, that's pretty small.

Michele: Yeah.

Joel: Did you like that?

Michele: I think when I was really little I liked it. It was nice to play outside with your friends and we always felt really safe. When I got older as a teenager, sometimes I thought it was pretty boring being in such a small town, but I think overall

 it was good to live in a small town.

Joel: What would you do for fun when you were a teenager?

Michele: Well, there was actually a movie theater

in our small town so sometimes we'd go to the theater but it wasn't a great one. We usually went outside of the town into the city to go shopping or see a movie.

Joel: And so since then have you lived in any big cities?

Michele: I've lived near Tokyo in Japan, so that's a pretty big city. Yeah.

Joel: So I guess you prefer that then... to your hometown?

Michele: Well, actually I felt that Tokyo was too big of a city.

Joel: OK.

Michele: Yeah, so..

Joel: It's the opposite extreme

.

Michele: Yeah, it's so crowded and the people aren't as friendly so...

Joel: That's probably a big difference between a small town and a big town, huh? Like you know practically everyone.

Michele: Yeah.

Joel: So, you walk into a store. You walk down the street, you can say 'hi' to almost everyone.

Michele: Yeah, well, actually, I've also lived in a really small town in Japan too and I prefered the small town in Japan to the big city like Tokyo. The people in the small town knew my name and were very friendly. If I needed any help then because it's a small town, everybody knows everything about the things in the town so if I needed to find a place or if I wanted to join a club I could easily get the information in a small town, whereas

 in a big city people don't know the things as well, so.

Joel: You also have to be careful what you do because everyone will talk.

Michele: That's true.

Joel: You can't hide.

Michele: In a small town, you don't have as much privacy but I think the friendliness outweighs the privacy issues.

Joel: OK, thanks Michele.

Michele: You're welcome.

Coconut, An irresistible drink Maganews

In the summer months nothing beats  a drink of cold  coconut water to quench your thirst. As well as being delicious and refreshing, it is very good for your health  

The sun, the beach and coconut water – the three ingredients that guarantee a perfect summer for millions and millions of Brazilians.  Nothing beats drinking cold coconut water to quench your thirst. It is such a healthy drink that it should not be left only for summer, but should be drunk year round . Coconut water contains a high level of vitamin C and is rich in minerals. Nutritionists say it is very beneficial to human health. It is good for the skin, and digestion, and is also a kind of natural tranquilizer. During the Second World War coconut water was used as saline solution to treat soldiers injured in combat. 

Audio - David Brien

Photo – Davi Carriel (Ag. Vanderlei Alvarenga)

Vocabulary

1 nothing beats – exp. idiom. = nada melhor do que

2 cold – aqui = gelado

3 coconut water – água de côco

4 to quench – dissipar (to quench one’s thrist = matar a sede)

5 year round – o ano inteiro

6 saline solution – soro fisiológico

 

---

 Health and well-being

Cigarettes more addictive for women than for men

Research carried out in SP concludes that women find it harder to quit smoking than men

Women have more difficulty quitting smoking than men. This is the conclusion arrived at by research carried out amongst 6,000 people in São Paulo. The study was coordinated by psychiatrist Célia Lídia da Costa. “Most men only smoke for pleasure . On the other hand, depression affects many more women than men. Many women smoke cigarettes to forget the negative symptoms of depression and anxiety. This means women are psychologically more dependent on cigarettes than men are”, Costa says in an interview published by Folha Online. According to Costa, when men and women look for medical help to quit smoking, men manage to quit in less time. Men take an average of three months to quit, while women take a year.

Áudio - Alline de Paula

Vocabulary

1 to find it harder – encontrar mais dificuldades

2 to quit – abandonar / parar de

3 smoking - fumo

4 pleasure – prazer

What Difference Does a Preposition Make? We'll Get Back at You

Source: http://www.voanews.com


AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on WORDMASTER: Prepositions for the perplexed. 

RS: The other day, our colleague Julie Taboh told us about a friend of hers, a non-native English speaker. It seems he once tried to tell someone that the person should expect to hear from him again. But instead of saying "I'll get back to you," he said "I'll get back at you." The wrong preposition sent the wrong message. To get back at someone means to take revenge. 

AA: Julie had no idea that we had just gotten off the phone with a retired English professor in Canada. David Thatcher has written a book called "Saving Our Prepositions: A Guide for the Perplexed." Actually it's an e-book which you can download free of charge at savingourprepositions.com.

RS: David Thatcher says he thinks the misuse of prepositions is an increasing problem, but it's a problem with a long history.

DAVID THATCHER: "I think it's been pointed out by grammarians for about two hundred years that people don't know how to use them properly."

RS: "Well, what are they?"

DAVID THATCHER: "They're a part of speech. Let me give you some examples first and perhaps make it easier for you: around, at, before, past, upward, up, in, on. And their job in a sentence is to link or relate one part of a sentence to another. And so you can see them as the connective tissue of language. If you say 'I went the cinema my friend the evening the twenty-fifth,' it resembles a pile of loose bricks."

AA: "It sounds like a text message, actually."

DAVID THATCHER: "That's right, for brevity. But when the prepositions are added -- 'I went to the cinema with my friend on the evening of the twenty-fifth' -- the bricks are fastened together."

RS: "Why have they been such a problem?"

DAVID THATCHER: "I think people, perhaps they don't read as much or they are careless about their use. Let me take an example that you've probably heard of. People now say bored of."

AA: "Instead of?"

DAVID THATCHER: "Instead of bored -- the older prepositions were bored by or bored with. You see, what will happen is that bored of will probably get established. To people of my generation it sounds wrong, it sounds incorrect."

RS: "How do you go about learning the correct use of prepositions?"

DAVID THATCHER: "I think one way might be to read the good writers, who will rarely make an error of this kind. And a bad way is to listen to interviews with athletes and sports people or even sports commentators. They are very careless about the way they use these terms. And people just simply copy what they hear."

AA: "Now for people learning English, prepositions create a sort of a special challenge because of phrasal verbs and the fact that a term, let's say, like to set up, set down, set aside, all mean completely different things."

DAVID THATCHER: "That's right. You just have to learn what the speakers use. The phrasal verb might be to fall out with somebody, which means to quarrel or to disagree. 'I would put up with that' means to tolerate. Or to stand up to somebody is to resist somebody and so on. To turn something down is to refuse. All these have to be learned independently without any rules to guide you."

AA: "And then there's also context, because these phrasal verbs tend to be more informal, more casual -- "

DAVID THATCHER: "Yes, I think so. And I think one should make the distinction between written and spoken English, so that what would be unacceptable in written English would be perfectly allowable in speaking."

AA: "In a meeting or in a ... "

DAVID THATCHER: "A meeting, that's right, or off the cuff. I mean, many of these mistakes occur -- and perhaps I'm being too strict sometimes because people make these mistakes when they're speaking off the cuff, without preparation and so on. But if they're writing, they should have time to think about what they're putting down on paper and to revise it, or to show it to somebody else for a second opinion, and so on and so forth. So there should be ways of eliminating mistakes of this kind.

"Can I ask you a question? Do you say you congratulate somebody on something, or do you congratulate them for something?"

AA: "I say on -- yeah. 'Congratulations on your promotion'? I mean, that sounds ... "

RS: "Congratulations for your promotion?"

AA: "I'd say on."

DAVID THATCHER: "What you will hear a lot is congratulations for. For is one of these cuckoo prepositions that come in and disturb all the other birds in the nest and knock them away."

AA: "Wait, so what do you say?"

DAVID THATCHER: "I would say that on is the standard way, but there's no doubt that for is elbowing its way in and might replace on in the course of time. So only time will tell whether on will disappear. And that happens many times, that words that were acceptable at one time have ceased to be so."

AA: David Thatcher in British Columbia, Canada, has written "Saving Our Prepositions: A Guide for the Perplexed." It's a free book that can be downloaded at savingourprepositions.com. 

RS: And that's WORDMASTER for this week -- archived at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

The spectacular life in Pantanal

Ecological  Paradise

Source: www.maganews.com.br

The spectacular life in Pantanal

Stunning [1}  landscapes [2] and lots of species of birds [3], fish andmammals [4].  These are some of the attractions of Pantanal, one of the world’s most beautiful regions

The dream of any tourist going to Pantanal is to see a jaguar [5] and, if possible, take a photograph - but this is a very rare event. Jaguars live in hiding [6] in the forests [7]. However, many other animals can be seen up close [8], such as alligators [9], tapirs (antas), capivaras and otters (ariranhas).  Bird spotting is also easy for tourists. Birds such as the macaw (arara), toucan and stalks (tuiuiú), which is the symbol of Pantanal. The beauty of this region is also evident in the rivers, lakes, lagoons, and the great variety of plants, trees and other forms of vegetation. Tourists can see the beauty of the region in a traditional boat [10] from the area, called a “chalana”. Pantanal also has fantastic places to go fishing

and horse riding [11]. 

Where this ecological paradise is

     

This lush [12] region covers over 200,000 square kilometers [13], with twelve cities, and is between the States of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. Up until the 1980s, Pantanal was not a very popular tourist destination for Brazilians. The main economic activity in the region is based on fishing and cattle farming [14]. As of the [15] 1990s, Pantanal became more popular with tourists from all over the world.   

Interesting facts about Pantanal

Birds and Fish – There are more species of bird in Pantanal (656) than in North America (about 500), and more species of freshwater fish (263) than in Europe (about 200). The best known fish are “dourado”, “pintado” and “pacu”.

Wet and Dry – Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter – the four seasons. But for those who live in Pantanal there are just two seasons, “Wet” [16] and “Dry” [17].  The rainy season is from November to April, when the rain is more intense and constant. The dry period is from May to October, when it rarely rains.

Climate – The summer is hot and humid. Temperatures get very high – easily over 40ºC. But the cold and dry weather comes in the winter, when there is a possibility of frost [18] and temperatures plunge to 0ºC.

World Heritage Site – The variety of plant and animal life is so great that Pantanal has been declared a World Heritage Site by the United National Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and is a permanent natural reserve, protected by several laws.

Matéria publicada na edição de número 46 da Revista Maganews.

Vocabulary

1 stunning – impressionante / maravilhoso

2 landscape – paisagem

3 bird – pássaro

4 mammal - mamífero

5 jaguar – onça

6 to live in hiding – viver escondido

7 forest – floresta / mata

8 to be seen up close – ser visto de perto

9 alligator – jacaré

10 boat – barco

11 horse riding - cavalgada

12 lush – deslumbrante

13 square kilometers  - quilômetros quadrados

14 cattle farming – pecuária

15 as of the – a partir de

16 wet – aqui = chuvoso / cheias

17 dry – seca

18 frost – geada

Fotos – Bolívar Porto / Embratur (araras) e Rui Faquini / Embratur (vista aérea)

Filling a form, podenglish lesson 47