sábado, 5 de março de 2011

Pro-jovem, part 35, Inglês vip

  
Source: Credits for Inglês Vip you find out more English tips visiting www.ingvip.com

Mariana: 
 Let's start?(1) The first film we can watch is the oldest one(2). It was made(3) in 1964. Then, we can watch this film, made in 2002. After that(4), we can discuss(5) to see which one we think is better(6) or worse(7).
Mariana: 
 What did you think?
Pedro: 
I thought the first one was better than the second one
Julia: 
The second movie was the best(8)!
Lucas: This movie was the longest of all(9)I thought it would never be over(10)
Pedro: We can't watch another(11) movie, Mariana. I'm too tired.
Julia: Yes, and it's getting late(12). If we watch another movie, it's going to get more dangerous(13) for us to go back(14) to our house.
Mariana:  You're right! Let's go! We can watch the last one tomorrow morning(15)
Julia: Hurry up(16), we have to go back faster(17) than we came here. It's safer(18)
 

                                        Vocabulary
 1. 
 Let's start? = Vamos começar?
 2. The oldest one = O mais antigo
 3. Made = 
feito
 4. After that = 
Depois disso
 5. Discuss =
 discutir
 6. Better = 
melhor
 7. Worse = 
pior
 8. The best
  = o melhor
 9. The longest of all = O mais longo de todos
 10. I thought it would never be over = 
Eu pensei que ele nunca acabaria
 11. Another = 
Um outro
 12. It's getting late =
 Está ficando tarde
 13. Dangerous = 
Perigoso
 14. Go back = 
voltar
 15. Tomorrow morning
  = Amanhã de manhã
 16. Hurry up = "vamos logo", apresse-se
 17. Faster = 
mais rápido
 18. Safer = 
mais seguro

Rio de Janeiro, Maganews.


Source: www.maganews.com
Recommend for teachers, visit the website www.maganews.com.br affordable price.
Rain in Brazil
The greatest of all tragedies

Landslides [1] in the mountain region of Rio de Janeiro have killed hundreds of people.  Thiscatastrophe was no surprise. In recent decades, hundreds of cities in several states have suffered from floods [2]  and landslides. There has been a lack of [3] effort to prevent construction inareas at risk


Rain, rain and more rain. Hill-slides [4], rivers bursting [5] their banks. People dying and thousands of homes being destroyed.  These scenes have been repeated over and over in many Brazilian states in recent decades, especially in the summer months. The worst of all the tragedies took place on January 11 and 12, in the mountain region ofRio de Janeiro.  The cities most affected were Nova Friburgo, Teresopólis, and Petrópolis. Up to January 31 the death toll [6] had reached 870 and more than 400 people were still missing [7]. The rain left nearly 30,000 people displaced [8] or homeless 
[94], and caused losses to the region's agricultural production. According to the United Nations (UN), extreme weather events will become more common in the coming years (see full story on the next page).


The root [10] of the problem
The Brazilian population has grown in recent decades.  Cities have grown, but chaotically.   Many people (especially the poorest) have had to build their homes in areas near rivers or hills, which are at risk from landslides and floods. The government has been unable to stop people building their homes in hazardous [11] locations. While cities are expanding, untouched areas [12] have been destroyed by deforestation [13]. It should be remembered that vegetation is vital, to absorb rainwater. According to Greenpeace, the rate of deforestation of the Atlantic Forest [14] has reached 34,000 hectares a year. In Rio de Janeiro, the state hit hardest [15] by the rains, over 80% of the forest has been cleared. Meanwhile, in recent years, the volume of rainfall has been increasing... 


Primeira parte da matéria especial sobre as chuvas no Brasil, publicada na edição de número 59 da Revista Maganews (com áudios de David e Laís Hatton).
Pictures (Nova Friburgo) - Valter Campanato/ABr

Vocabulary
landslide – deslizamento
2 floods – inundações
lack of – falta de
hill-slides – aqui = morros deslizando
rivers bursting their banks – rios transbordando
death toll – número (total) de mortos
missing – aqui = desaparecida (s)
displaced – desalojada
homeless – sem casa / desabrigado
10 root - raiz
11 hazardous – perigoso
12 untouched áreas – áreas verdes
13 deforestation – desmatamento
14 Atlantic Forest – Mata Atlântica
15 hardest – de forma mais dura / intensa 

sexta-feira, 4 de março de 2011

Family Album, USA, part 46



Source: Family Album.

John Lomu, A Rugby legend


Source: Speak Up
Language level: Advanced
Standard: British and American


A Rugby Legend

Jonah Lomu has been described as rugby’s first superstar. A member of New Zealand’s legendary national team, the All Blacks, his performance in the 1995 World Cup was stunning. He seemed bigger and faster than all the other players on the pitch and, in a game against England, he looked like an adult playing against children. After the match the England captain, Will Carling, described him as “a freak.”

Lomu’s performance was so impressive that he even received offers to join teams in American football’s NFL, but he stuck with rugby. Sadly, his career was interrupted by a serious kidney disorder, but he has made a series of comebacks and his latest in with the French club Marseille.

In September 2009, Lomu took part in an amateur bodybuilding contest in Wellington, and finished a surprising second in two categories. He continues to play for Marseille Vitrolles Rugby.

Lomu talked about how he started playing rugby. He broke a record in 1994 when he made his All Black debut a few weeks after his 19th birthday. What is less well known is that he had only begun playing the sort five years earlier:

Jonah Lomu:

(New Zealand accent)

I actually grew up in a very violent part of South Auckland. I used to, I guess, hang and roll with gangs in South Auckland. And my partents sent me to boarding school, to…to get me out of trouble, and I just fell in love with the game of rugby. I guess it’s…for me it was more making friends, camaraderie with friends, but also I liked the physical contact of it.

He was then asked what had been his most memorable moment in rugby:

Johan Lomu:

Still the first time playing for New Zealand, very first test. I guess it’s a dream for every New Zealand male to play for the All Blacks, it’s the highest and biggest honour that you can have, to represent New Zealand.

Jonah Lomu is generally considered an incon. He was asked how he felt about this:

Jonah Lomu:

To tell the truth, I still don’t…I try to set a good example, but, as an icon, I still find it very hard how because, for me I play rugby because I love the game and I don’t like to make myself fell that I’m any different from anybody else: if I can help somebody…in anyway, or set a good example, then I would.

quinta-feira, 3 de março de 2011

Celebrities Pen names


Alberto Pinchele

Daniel Defoe

WHAT’S IN A NAME



Pen Names

Source: Speak Up
Language level: Lower intermediate
Speaker: Justin Ratcliffe
Standard: British accent

Many of the most famous writers in history have used pen names. Why?

SIMPLICITY AND STYLE

Eric Blair thought George Orwell was “a good round English name.” Daniel Foe, author of Robson Crusoe, decided Defoe sounded more aristocratic.  Vampire novelist, Anne Rice, changed her name early in life: her mother bizarrely named her after her father, Howard O’Brien. The famous Japanese haiku poet tried 15 pen names before settling on Basho, which means banana plant. Some choose simplicity. Georges Remi reversed his initials (French pronunciation) to become Hergé, author of Tintin. Joseph Conrad sounds reassuringly English, compared to Jozef Konrad Korzeniowki. Wilhelm Albert Vlademir Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky is less memorable than Guillaume Apollinaire, Ettore Schmitz became Italo Svevo because he “felt sorry for the one little vowel surrounded by all those fierce consonants;” it also sounds less foreign.

Not only are these pen names clear and memorable, they also look great on book covers. (Like pen names, authors often use their initials – from T.S. Eliot and D.H. Lawrence to J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling – to create a memorable brand). Some pen names are a kind of homage. Neftali Bosoalto put together Paul Verlaine and Czech writer Jan Neruda to become Nobel poet Pablo Neruda. Samuel Langhorne Clemens chose Mark Twain because it reminded him of his beloved Mississippi River.

GENRE AND GENDER

Writers may use pseudonyms for different for different genres. Math professor Charles Lutwidge Dodgson invented the playful name Lewis Carroll for Children’s books such as Alice in Wonderland. (Lewis is the French versionof Lutwidge; Caroll come from the Latin for Charles, Carolus.)

Pen names also disguise who you are for example, a woman. Mary Ann Evans did not want readers to assume her novels were romances, so she wrote as George Eliot. Amantine Aurore Dupin became George Sand, while the Brontë sisters (Anne, Charlotte and Emily) initially published as Actor Bell, Currer Bell and Ellis Bell.

CONCEALMENT AND DISGUISE

There are other reasons to hide one’s identity. Isak Dinesen was the pen name used for Out of Africa, the disguised autobiography of Baroness Karen Blixen. Because Irish civil servants were not allowed to publish books, Brian O’Nolan wrote novels as Flann O’Brien and articles as Myles na gCopalleen. Respected critic Anne Desclos wrote erotic best-seller, the Story of 0, as Pauline Réage. Stephen King published four novels under the name Richard Bachman to find out whether people bought his books for his name, rather than his writing.  Crime queen Agatha Christie used the pen name Mary Westmacott to write romances, exploring her own psychology n a way the Poirot and Miss Marpie novels could not.

Molliére hid his name (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) because the theater was shameful. Most touching, when he was just 16, future American politician Benjamin Franklin invented middle-aged widow Silence Dogood to get his satirical letters published in the newspaper printed by his brother.

Would you write books under your own name? Use your initials? Or would you prefer a pen name, to hide your identify or to be more memorable?

PEN NAME
REAL NAME
Alberto Moravia
Alberto Pinocherle
Anne Rice
Howard Allen O’Brien
Anthony Burgess
John Burgess Wilson
Boz
Charles Dickens
Daniel Defoe
Daniel Foe
Eltery Queen
Freeric Dannay and Manfred B. Lee
Flann O’Brien
Brian O’Nolan
George Elliot
Mary Ann Evans
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair
George Sand
Amandine Dupin
Guillaume Apokinaire
Vilhelm Albert Vladimir
Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky
Hergé
Georges Remi
Karen Blixen
Isak Dinosen
Italo Stevo
Ettore Schmitz
John Le Careré
David John Moore Cornwell
Joseph Conrad
Józel Teodor
Lemony Snicket
Daniel Handler
Lewi Carroll
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin
Pablo Neruda
Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto
Richard Bachman
Stephen King
Pauline Réage
Anne Desclos
Saki
Hector Hugo Munro
Stendhal
Marie-Henri Beyle
Voltaire
François-Marie Arguet

American History: How the Depression Hit Foreign Relations


Source: www.voanews.com

Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, in 1929
Photo: loc.gov
Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry Hoover, in 1929

 


MARIO RITTER: Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English.
The stock market crash of nineteen twenty-nine began a long and difficult period for the United States. President Herbert Hoover struggled to find solutions as the nation sank into the worst economic crisis in its history.
But the Great Depression was not the only problem demanding answers from Hoover. The president also had to deal with a number of foreign policy issues.
I'm Mario Ritter with Chris Cruise. This week in our series, we look at how the Great Depression affected relations between the United States and other countries.
(MUSIC: “Hard Times (No One Knows Better Than I)"/Ray Charles)
CHRIS CRUISE: There were revolutions in South America. Japan launched a campaign of aggression in northeastern China. And the economic situation in America created serious problems in relations with Europe.
Hoover succeeded in some areas of his foreign policy. But he failed to solve America's economic troubles. And, like most Americans, he failed to recognize the importance of political changes taking place in Japan and Germany.
MARIO RITTER: Herbert Hoover's foreign policy was marked by his desire to make friends and avoid war.
Like most Americans, the new president had been shocked by World War One. Hoover had seen the results of that terrible war with his own eyes. He led the international effort to feed the many European victims of the fighting. The new president was also a Quaker, a member of the Religious Society of Friends. Quakers oppose war.
Hoover shared the wish of most Americans that the world would never again fight a major war. To him, the bloody bodies at Verdun, the Marne and the other battlefields of World War One showed the need to seek peace through negotiations.
CHRIS CRUISE: Hoover worked toward this goal even before he entered the White House.
Following his election, he had several months before becoming president. Hoover used this time to travel to Latin America for ten weeks. He wanted to show Latin American nations that they could trust the United States to honor their rights as independent nations.
Hoover kept his word. The year after he took office, his administration announced that it would recognize the governments of all Latin American countries, including governments that the United States did not like.
Hoover told the American people that he would not follow the Latin American policies of President Theodore Roosevelt.
Teddy Roosevelt decided in nineteen four that the United States had a right to intervene in Latin America if it disagreed with the actions of governments there. Hoover said this was wrong. He told the country that it was more important to use friendship than to use force.
(MUSIC)
MARIO RITTER: Hoover withdrew American forces from Nicaragua. He also arranged to withdraw them from Haiti. And he showed restraint as some fifty revolutions shook the nations of Latin America.
Some revolutionary governments opposed the United States. They refused to pay debts to American companies, or they claimed ownership of foreign property. But Hoover refused to advance American interests by force. He wanted to prove that the United States could treat Latin American nations as equals.
That policy was quite successful. Relations between the United States and Latin American countries generally improved under Herbert Hoover's leadership.
CHRIS CRUISE: The situation in Europe was much more difficult and much more serious for the United States. The problem was simple -- money. The Great Depression did not stop at America's borders. It moved to Britain, Europe and beyond. And it brought extremely hard economic conditions.
In Germany, the value of the national currency collapsed. Inflation forced people to buy goods with hundreds, thousands, even millions of German marks. They lost faith in the system. And they looked for some new leader to provide solutions.
The economic crisis also put great pressure on the international circle of debt that had been created after the war. Suddenly, American bankers could no longer make loans to Germany. This meant that Germany could not pay back war debts to France and the other Allied nations in "the war to end all wars." And without this money, the Allied nations could not repay money that they owed American banks.
The circle of debt fell apart.
(MUSIC: "Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?"/Bing Crosby with Lennie Hayton and His Orchestra)
MARIO RITTER: The situation grew worse and worse throughout the early months of nineteen thirty. Hoover finally had to announce that all nations could delay their debt payments to the United States for one year.
Hoover's action did what he wanted it to. It put a temporary stop to the international debt crisis. But it caused great damage to private banks. People lost faith in the banking system.
Throughout Europe, people withdrew their money from banks. As a result, the European banks could not repay more than a billion dollars that they had borrowed from private American banks.
CHRIS CRUISE: This was not the only problem. Nations throughout Europe were also forced to take their currencies off the gold standard. This meant their money no longer could be exchanged for gold.
The economic situation grew worse. And, as it did, serious political tensions began to threaten peace in Asia and Europe.
MARIO RITTER: The threat in Asia became clear first.
Japan had defeated Russia in a war in nineteen five. This victory gave Japan control over the economy of the southern part of what was then called Manchuria, in northeastern China.
As years passed, Japan began to feel threatened by two forces. First, Chinese leader Chiang Kai-shek was trying to organize all of China under the control of his Nationalist forces. Second, Russia was extending the Chinese Eastern Railway to the Russian port city of Vladivostok.
Japan's army took control of the government in Tokyo in late nineteen thirty-one. The army was fearful of the growing threat to Japan's control of Manchuria. So it moved Japanese troops immediately into several Manchurian cities. And it claimed political control of the whole area.
President Hoover and most Americans strongly opposed Japan's aggression. But they were not willing to take any action that might lead to another world war.
(MUSIC)
CHRIS CRUISE: Japan's military leaders knew that the people of Europe and America had no desire to fight to protect China. And so the Japanese army marched on. It invaded the huge city of Shanghai, killing thousands of civilians.
Western leaders condemned the action. American Secretary of State Henry Stimson said the United States would not recognize Japanese control in these areas of China.
But, again, Hoover refused to consider any economic actions against the Japanese. And he strongly opposed taking any military action.
The League of Nations also refused to recognize Japan's takeover. It called Japan the aggressor in Manchuria. Japan reacted simply. It withdrew from the League of Nations.
MARIO RITTER: Most Americans were not happy about Japan's aggression. But they were not willing to fight force with force. This was less true, however, for Secretary of State Stimson.
Stimson was a follower of the old ideas of President Theodore Roosevelt. He believed a nation could only have a strong foreign policy by being strong and using its military power in times of crisis.
But Stimson's voice was in the minority. Most Americans did not believe Japan really threatened the security of the United States. And they were not ready to risk their lives to help people in China.
Opinions changed only after Japanese planes attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December of nineteen forty-one.
CHRIS CRUISE: The same story was true in Europe. But France was worried about the rising power of the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy and Spain. France proposed the creation of an international army.
Hoover opposed that idea. He called for all nations to reduce their weapons. He believed that negotiation, not force, was the way to solve the problem.
But the new leaders in Germany and Japan would listen much more closely to the boot steps of marching troops than to the high words of peace.
(MUSIC)
MARIO RITTER: Our program was written by David Jarmul. You can find our series online with transcripts, MP3s, podcasts and pictures at voaspecialenglish.com. You can also follow our series on Facebook and Twitter at VOA Learning English.
I'm Mario Ritter with Chris Cruise. Join us again next week for THE MAKING OF A NATION -- an American history series in VOA Special English.
_

This is program #17
8

quarta-feira, 2 de março de 2011

Geotrilhas, Chapada Diamantina's Expedition



Special expedition GEOTRILHAS/RN Chapada Dimantina 2010 3º Episode. For more information you should follow up the Day 3th. Today's programme, watch the images of Cachoeira da Fumaça (Smoke's Waterfall). Geotrilhas is a group of friends and blogger's partner I had a pleasure to meet them here in my town. Next posting I'm going to talk about Carnaúba's expedition. Lazaro & Cia we had a good time here. See you around and visit the weblog: http://wwwgeotrilhas.blogspot.com