Essentials 14

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

Validation - An amazing story

"Validation" is a fable about the magic of free parking. Starring TJ Thyne & Vicki Davis. Writer/Director/Composer - Kurt Kuenne. Winner - Best Narrative Short, Cleveland Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Jury Award, Gen Art Chicago Film Festival, Winner - Audience Award, Hawaii Int'l Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Comedy, Breckenridge Festival of Film, Winner - Crystal Heart Award, Best Short Film & Audience Award, Heartland Film Festival, Winner - Christopher & Dana Reeve Audience Award, Williamstown Film Festival, Winner - Best Comedy, Dam Short Film Festival, Winner - Best Short Film, Sedona Int'l Film Festival.
Don't miss it!!

Essentials 13

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

Speak vs Talk

Vaughan Lesson

Speak vs Talk 1. I would like to speak to you.Directo y formal. Según el tono empleado, podría intimidar un poco. 2. I would like to talk to you.Directo y menos formal.Hace falta forzar el tono bastante para que intimide. 3. I would like to speak with you. Da la idea de consultar formalmente con la otra persona. 4. I would like to talk with you. Da la idea de charlar informalmente. El verbo "to speak" significa "hablar" en el sentido de emitir sonidos inteligibles dentro de un lenguaje comprensible. El verbo "to talk" significa " hablar " en el sentido de mantener una conversación. I speak English. I talk English.  He speaks with authority. He talks with authority.  My wife talks a lot. My wife speaks a lot.  I tried to get her to stop talking. I tried to get her to stop speaking. Fíjate en las frases siguientes y cómo algunas suenan absurdas. You need to speak louder. - Necesitas hablar más alto. You need to talk louder. - Necesitas conversar más alto. I'm trying to teach dolphins how to speak. - Estoy intentando enseñar a los delfines a hablar. I'm trying to teach dolphins how to talk. - Estoy intentando enseñar a los delfines a conversar. Speak up please! - Hable más alto, por favor. Talk up please! - (Esta segunda expresión no existe en inglés.) Were you speaking to me? - ¿Se estaba dirigiendo usted a mí?  Were you talking to me? - ¿Me hablabas a mí? Los verbos "to speak" y "to talk" se solapan mucho. Existen muchos casos en los cuales son perfectamente intercambiables. Sin embargo, hay otros muchos casos en los cuales no. Como regla general, siempre considera que "speak" es formal y más en el sentido de "dirigir la palabra a una persona o grupo de personas". El verbo "to talk" evoca una sensación de menos formalidad, más en línea con conversar, charlar o hablar por hablar.

Podcast:Having Cash Flow Problems

Practice your listening skills with this ESL podcast



ESL Podcast 668 – Having Cash Flow Problems

Kylie: I’ve just crunched the numbers and we’re not going to be able to meet payroll next month because of cash flow problems.

Miguel: That can’t be. The cash flow projections from last month showed that we’d be fine.

Kylie: We didn’t anticipate a shortfall in income this month and didn’t set aside enough cash to hedge against a cash flow problem.

Miguel: What can we do? We need a stopgap solution now.

Kylie: Well, we could try to extend our line of credit at the bank.

Miguel: We’re already overextended at the bank. I don’t want to push our luck.

Kylie: The other option is to hold off on paying our suppliers and hope that our income goes up next month, as predicted.

Miguel: Do you really think we can hold them off for that long?

Kylie: I’ll have a talk with our biggest suppliers and give them assurances that they’ll get paid. Let’s just hope they’re not having cash flow problems of their own!


Script by Dr. Lucy Tse

Essentials 12

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

Essentials 11

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

THE ISLAND OF FEELINGS

This is the story that David told us in class last Tuesday. I hope you enjoy this beautiful reflection on love

WORD OF THE WEEK: NAG

Verb [intransitive/transitive] /næɡ/

1 to frequently ask someone to do something that they do not want to do
Stop nagging!
My mum keeps nagging me to tidy my room.
2 to frequently criticize someone, often for qualities or habits that are difficult to change
Larry was always nagging her about her weight.
3 if a doubt, worry, or fear nags you or nags at you, you cannot stop thinking about it for very long
nag at: The feeling that I shouldn’t have given up nagged at me.

SONG: I WILL SURVIVE

NOW YOU CAN SING AND HAVE A GOOD TIME AT A KARAOKE SESSION WITH THIS SONG.
COME ON YOU CAN DO IT!!!

I'll delete you form Facebook

In order to improve your English, you shouldn't miss this song concerning the most famous social network: FACEBOOK. We're expecting for your wise comments.

Essentials 10

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

WORD OF THE WEEK: WEIRD

Ever wondered about weird noises in the middle of the night or encountered a bit of a weirdo on the bus? Tim Bowen explains the history of this wonderfully weird word of the week.
This word has an interesting history. In medieval English it meant ‘controlling the destinies of men’ and was related to the German verb werden, meaning ‘to become’. It appears in Nordic mythology as the representation of fate. One possible explanation for its radical change in meaning to ‘mysterious’ or ‘uncanny’ is its appearance in Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the form of the Weird Sisters. Perhaps later audiences of the play simply interpreted them and their actions as strange or mysterious and the modern-day use of weird stems from this.
Today it can have associations with strange or even supernatural events, as in ‘I heard some weird noises in the middle of the night’, but is more often used to mean ‘unusual’ or ‘odd’, as in ‘What a weird thing to say!’ or ‘This wine tastes a bit weird’. This meaning has also given rise to an associated noun weirdo, used to describe a strange or eccentric person, usually with a negative connotation, as in ‘Watch out for him. He’s a bit of a weirdo’.

Essentials 9

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

Listen & learn - with Mercedes and Richard 2

This is the second part of the interview with Mercedes Milá and Richard Vaughan. Get fun and learn with them!

ONE LOVE,U2

HAPPY ST VALENTINE'S DAY TO ALL THE FOLLOWERS
Have a wonderful day and enjoy one of my favourite songs

Mary J. Blige, U2 - One

Essentials 8

• Listen to this short video everyday for a week and you'll learn all these structures and vocabulary without an effort.

Listen & learn - with Mercedes and Richard 1

Have you ever heard Mercedes Milá speaking English? Here you can listen to her and learn with Richard Vaughan. Enjoy it!

WEATHER QUOTATION

Word of the week: Freak | Onestopenglish

Ever encountered something unnatural or out of the ordinary? Well you may just have witnessed a freak show! Let our resident language freak, Tim Bowen, freak you out with this Word of the week!
The word freak is said to derive from a Middle English adjective meaning ‘quick’. Its current use, both as a noun and an adjective, appears to have little or no connection with its origins. The underlying meaning of freak in modern use generally relates to ‘out of the ordinary’ or even ‘unnatural’, as in ‘He was regarded as a freak at school because he took no interest in sport’. In this sense freak was also used to refer to people with physical deformities, people who appeared in freak shows at circuses or funfairs, for example.
The idea of something out of the ordinary also applies to the adjectival use of freak as in ‘a freak snowstorm in the middle of July’ or ‘she was injured in a freak accident when her dog chewed through the electric cable’.
A relatively new use of freak is to refer to someone who is obsessively interested in a particular subject or activity, as in ‘She’s a fitness freak’ or ‘Alan’s a bit of a health freak’. The verb to freak (often freak out), meaning to be so angry, surprised, excited or frightened that you cannot control yourself, is also a fairly recent, and probably unrelated, use: ‘I just freaked when I saw the police coming’. All in all, quite a freaky (strange and possibly a little frightening) word.
By Tim Bowen