Family Album, part V

Source: Family Album

For more information searching for Family Album USA, I think you watch the series can be useful.

How to Talk About Changes

Useful site, recommend it for Teachers and Students very useful.

Source: http://www.englishpractice.com/expressions/talk/

The words become, get, go, come, grow and turn are all used to talk about changes. There are, nevertheless, a few differences between them.

Become

Become is used with adjectives and noun phrases to talk about changes.

What do you want to become when you grow up?

It is becoming very dark.

Note that we do not use become to talk about changes we deliberately make.

It takes me only around five minutes to get ready. (NOT It takes me only around five minutes to become ready.)

Get

Get is used with adjectives without nouns. It is also used before past participles like lost and broken. Note that it is less formal than become.

It is getting very dark. (Less formal than ‘It is becoming very dark’.)

You are getting younger and younger.

Get is not usually used before nouns with this meaning.

I want to become a doctor. (NOT I want to get a doctor.)

Go

Go can be used before adjectives to talk about changes of color and quality.

She went green with envy.

Leaves go brown in autumn.

Common expressions are: go green with envy / go blue with cold / go white with anger / go red with embarrassment

Note that turn can also be used in these cases.

Leaves turn brown in autumn.

Go can be used with adjectives in some common expressions such as go mad / go crazy / go blind / go deaf / go grey / go bald / go lame / go rusty / go bad / go stale / go wrong etc.

The horse went lame.

The meat has gone bad.

He went grey in his twenties.

Grow

Grow is used before adjectives to talk about slow and gradual changes. Note that grow is more formal than get or go.

Before he knew it he grew old.

When you grow rich you shall not forget your old friends.

Maria Callas, 1923-1977: A Beautiful Voice and Intense Personality

Listen to the podcast and improve your English visiting VOA Special English there are some sections in order to practice grammar structures, texts with audio, excellent for beginners.

Source: VOA SPECIAL ENGLISH

Photo: AP

Maria Callas was one of the best-known opera singers in the world

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FAITH LAPIDUS: Welcome to People in America in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus. Today, Shirley Griffith and Ray Freeman tell about one of the most famous opera singers of the twentieth century, Maria Callas.

(MUSIC: March From "Norma")

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Opera is a play that tells a story in music. The people in the opera sing, instead of speak, the play's words. Opera is one of the most complex of all art forms. It combines acting, singing, music, costumes, scenery and, sometimes, dance. Often there are many colorful crowd scenes.

Opera uses the huge power of music to communicate feelings and to express emotions. Music can express emotions very forcefully. So most opera composers base their works on very tragic stories of love and death. An opera often shows anger, cruelty, violence, fear or insanity. Opera has been very popular in Europe since it spread through it during the seventeenth century. It also has become popular in the United States.

RAY FREEMAN:

AP

Maria Callas sang in her first major opera at the age of 17

Maria Callas was one of the best-known opera singers in the world. During the nineteen fifties, she became famous internationally for her beautiful voice and intense personality. The recordings of her singing the well-known operas remain very popular today.

Maria Callas was born in New York City in nineteen twenty-three. Her real name was Maria Kalogeropoulous. Her parents were Greek. When she was fourteen, she and her mother returned to Greece. Maria studied singing at the national conservatory in Athens. The well-known opera singer Elvira de Hidalgo chose Maria as her student.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In nineteen forty-one, when she was seventeen, Maria Callas was paid to sing in a major opera for the first time. She sang the leading roles in several operas in Athens during the next three years.

In nineteen forty-five, Callas was invited to perform in Italy. This was the real beginning of her profession as an opera singer.  She performed major parts in several of the most famous operas. In nineteen forty-nine, she married an Italian industrialist, Giovanni Battista Meneghini. He was twenty years older. He became her adviser and manager.

RAY FREEMAN: In nineteen fifty, Maria Callas performed for the first time at the famous La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy. She sang in the famous opera "Eida" by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi. She sang the part of Aida, an Ethiopian slave in ancient Egypt.

(MUSIC: "Ritorna Vincitor" from "Aida")

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: During the nineteen fifties and nineteen sixties, Maria Callas sang in about forty major operas in the most famous opera houses in the world.

AP

Maria Callas sang in about 40 major operas.

In nineteen fifty-six, she appeared for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. She sang the lead in the opera "Norma" by Italian composer Vincenzo Bellini. She was a great success. Norma, a religious leader in the ancient city of Gaul, became one of her most famous parts.

(MUSIC: "Casta Diva" from "Norma")

RAY FREEMAN: During the years, Maria Callas often had problems with her voice. Critics said some of her performances were not her best.  Sometimes she had to cancel performances. Her relations with the officials of major opera companies often were tense.  Many harmful stories were written about Callas. The stories suggested that people she worked with thought she was difficult.  However, many people who worked most closely with her denied this.

When she was not singing in operas, Callas was making recordings. She made more recordings than any other singer of her time.

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: In nineteen fifty-nine, her marriage to Mister Meneghini ended. Maria Callas became the lover of a rich Greek businessman, Aristotle Onassis. Callas suffered more problems with her voice. So she sang less. In nineteen sixty-five, she sang in the opera "Tosca" by Italian composer Giacomo Puccini. She was Floria, an Italian singer. It was a part she had sung many times.  It was the last time she appeared in an opera.

(MUSIC: "Vissi D'arte" from "Tosca")

RAY FREEMAN: Now that she was no longer singing, Callas wanted to marry Aristotle Onassis and have a child. However, in nineteen sixty-eight, Onassis suddenly said that he was leaving her. He had decided to marry Jacqueline Kennedy, the widow of the murdered American president, John Kennedy.

AP

Maria Callas at the La Scala opera house in Milan, Italy

Three years later, Callas decided to teach young opera singers. In the early nineteen seventies, she taught twelve classes at the Juilliard School in New York. Parts of these classes were released as records. Terrence McNally wrote a play about Maria Callas and her opera students called "Master Class."

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: Maria Callas sang in many cities in Europe, the United States and East Asia in nineteen seventy-three and seventy-four. She performed with opera singer Giuseppe di Stefano. Critics said she was not able to sing as well as she had when she was younger. It is not known if Callas's troubles were caused by a physical problem or because she had not spent enough time training her voice.

Maria Callas died of a heart attack in her home in Paris in nineteen seventy-seven. She was fifty-three.

RAY FREEMAN: Many experts say Maria Callas influenced opera more than any other singer of the twentieth century. They say she had the deepest understanding of the traditional Italian opera. Her beautiful voice and intense feeling increased the effect of an opera.  One expert said: "Callas sees and hears in the great operas the poetry of music. Others sing notes. She sings meaning. "

People who heard Maria Callas sing say they will not forget the experience. Her voice lives on in the many recordings she made. Some experts say Maria Callas is as popular now as she was when she was performing around the world.

(MUSIC: March From "Norma")

SHIRLEY GRIFFITH: This Special English program was written by Shelley Gollust and produced by Lawan Davis. I'm Shirley Griffith.

RAY FREEMAN: And I'm Ray Freeman. Join us again next week for another People in America program on the Voice of America.

Do and Make differencies

Well as you can see I love blogging and searching on the net, then by accident I found out this excellent site http://www.englishpractice.com/ I recommend you visit and improve your English there. 

Source: English practice

The general purpose do has several uses. It is sometimes confused with the verb make.These words have similar meanings, but there are also a few differences.

Uses of do

Do is commonly used with the words thing, something, nothing, anything, everything etc.

He did something strange.

I like doing nothing.

He did nothing.

We use do when we talk about work and jobs.

Would you like to do this job?

I don’t like to do any work.

Uses of make

Make is used to talk about constructing or creating.

Let me make some food.

I will make you some coffee.

When we want to sound casual about an activity we often use do instead of make.

‘What shall we eat?’ ‘Well, let me just do an omelette.’

Do is used in the following fixed expressions

Do good

Do harm
Do business
Do one’s best
Do a favor
Do one’s hair
Do one’s duty

Make is used in the following fixed expressions:

Make a journey
Make an offer
Make arrangements
Make a suggestion
Make an attempt
Make an excuse
Make a mistake
Make money
Make a phone call
Make peace
Make war
Make a bed

Words and Their Stories: Money, Part 2

Source: www.voanews.com

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Many people believe that money makes the world go around. Others believe that money buys happiness. I do not agree with either idea. But I do admit that money can make people do strange things. Let me tell you about a person I once knew who liked to play card games for money. He liked to gamble.

My friend Bob had a problem because he liked to gamble at all costs. He would play at any time and at any price. To take part in a card game such as poker, my friend would have to ante up. He would have to pay a small amount of money at the beginning of the game.

Bob always played with cold, hard cash -- onlycoins and dollar bills. Sometimes my friend would clean up. He would win a lot of money on one card game. He liked to tell me that one day he would break the bank. What a feeling it must be to win all of the money at a gambling table!

Other times my friend would simply break even. He neither won nor lost money. But sometimes Bob would lose his shirt. He would lose all the money he had. He took a beating at the gambling table. When this happened, my friend would have to go in the hole. He would go into debt and owe people money.

Recently, Bob turned to crime after losing all his money. In his job, he kept the books for a small business. He supervised the records of money earned and spent by the company.  Although my friend was usually honest, he decided to cook the books. He illegally changed the financial records of the company. This permitted him to make a fast buck. My friend made some quick, easy money dishonestly.

I never thought Bob would have sticky fingers. He did not seem like a thief who would steal money. But, some people will do anything for love of money.

Bob used the money he stole from his company to gamble again. This time, he cashed in. He made a lot of money. Quickly he was back on his feet. He had returned to good financial health. His company, however, ended upin the red. It lost more money than it earned. The company was no longer profitable.

It did not take long before my friend’s dishonesty was discovered. The company investigated and charged him with stealing. Bob tried to pass the buck. He tried to blame someone else for the deficit. His lie did not work, however. He ended up in jail. Today, I would bet my bottom dollar that my friend will never gamble again. I would bet all I have that he learned his lesson about gambling.

(MUSIC)

WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, in VOA Special English, was written by Jill Moss. I’m Faith Lapidus.

I swear All for One

I swear I'll never give up to struggle against the poverty, for a better and safe place. I swear I'll never give up my dreams. I promise I will always be there, struggling for the poor and to live in peace and love. I dedicate this song for those friends, teachers and students that take part of my blog, thank you and have a wonderful Sunday

I swear: All 4 One

Idioms and phrasal verbs with take

Idioms and Phrasal verbs with take, for more information visit http://www.englishpractice.com/vocabulary/idioms-phrasal-verbs/ recommend friends

Take something for granted: accept it as true, certain to happen

We take so many things for granted – like pure water to drink and good food to eat.

Take after somebody: resemble in looks

The baby takes after its father. (= The baby resembles its father.)

Take something down: write down notes etc.

The teacher asked the students to take down the notes.
Did you take down that number?

Take somebody down: lower his pride

Take somebody in: receive him / her as a guest

The hospital staff said that they won’t be able to take in any more patients.

Take somebody in: get the better of somebody by a trick

I can’t believe I am taken in by him. (= I can’t believe that I have been tricked.)

Take something in: understand

I couldn’t take in what she was saying.

Take somebody for: consider to be, especially wrongly suppose to be

He was taken for an Englishman.

Take off: start a flight; ridicule by imitation

Take over: succeed to the management or ownership of

When does the new manager take over?

Take to: adopt as a habit or practice

He took to gardening on retirement.

Take to: conceive a liking for

I took to the old man at once.

Take to one’s heels: run; try to escape