Mistakes

''What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!''

 - Alfred Adler

All kind of birds!!!

Hi, little friends, how are you?

I was going to talk about our last class, but I forgot my book in home, so I decided to share this wonderful picture I found on Facebook. What do you think? This pic got me a thought. Once, a friend of mine said she had dreamed in English. And she told me that she was happy because when this happens it means your learning is finally achieving your brain in an unconscious way. Why did I think of that?  Well, because when you are reading a text, you don't know what some words mean, but you can understand them by context, right? I said that because I don't know what hatchling, nestling, fledglin and dromaeosour mean, but it's possible to infer from their definitions. In other words, you don't have to look at a dictionary everytime. We're close to a level where we can learn more and more by inference as we do in Portuguese. And that's a sign that you're in a great step of your goal which is to speak English well. Congratulations, fellows! ;)

Must and might

Hi!

Look at this answer I got from a Facebook's page. I join this page on Facebook where there are students of Portuguese and English from different countries. And I asked there if they could help me with this doubt. I hope it helps you too. Pay atention what the guy answered when I asked if he would mind about to put his explanation here: "I would not mind". These modals are really important! Lol!

Review

Hi, guys, how are you?

At this class, teacher made a review about perfect modals. As it isn't an easy issue, I thought that would be nice to share with you this site I've found. You'll see some good explanations that agree what our teacher said. I don't know, maybe to think everytime in their definitions isn't the better way to learn. I rather to read many examples and try to memorize their contexts. Well, that's my way to study, of course. I never saw anyone to use 'might' meaning 'poderia' in the present perfect. It's often to use it as 'pode'. That simplifies its understanding, you know. Because, when it's necessary to say 'poderia' you probably have to use 'could' instead of 'might'.

For instance, see the explanation given at the end of this page. An user asked the difference between possibility and probability and the page's moderator answered that when you use 'must' you're sure about your conclusion and when you use 'might' you're thinking of something like "Well, that's possible too".

See these examples:

1. "They might have arrived now."
2. "They may have arrived hours ago."

In the first example, it's pretty weird to think that the sentence means: "Eles poderiam ter chegado agora.". If you wanna say it you probably would say: "They could have arrived now." Right? So, the first sentence means: "Eles podem ter chegado agora."
The second one is similar. If you wanna say "Eles poderiam ter chegado horas atrás." you need to use 'could' instead of 'may'.

Well, that's what I think about it. If you think different, please, tell me. See you.

Adjective clauses

Hi,

at this class, we've studied adjective clauses. It's a clause that qualifies a noun. It always needs a relative pronoun who or that. For instance,

• "The clothes that I used to wear were very expensive."
• "The man who I was talking to is my father."

It's necessary to know if the qualified noun is a subject or an object of the adjective clause. That's because when it is an object it's normal to be omitted. And, if the noun is a thing, you can't use who. Who is a relative subjective only for people.

If you read the grammar booster, you're going to see a tip to identify when it's a subject or an object. You have to split the main and adjective clauses. Ex.:

1) The nurse is a beautiful woman.
    The nurse gave me a shot.
    The nurse who gave me a shot is a beautiful woman.

2) I bought the food.
    The food was aweful.
    The food that I bought was awful.

See? When you split the clauses it's easier to know if it's a subject or an object.

In the first one, if you omit the relative pronoun the sentence changes and gets awkward.

"The nurse gave me a shot is a beautiful woman."

In the last one, that doesn't happen.

"The food I bought was awful."

Well, that's it!

See you!
   

How do we say it?

Hello, guys! How are you?

I want to share with you something I found really interesting. You know that we have some words in Portuguese which have same pronunciation even though they are written in a different way, right? Well, they exist in English too. What differentiates them in the speaking is the context. Here it comes a list.

• You have to speak aloud. /  You can't go into the office. You're not allowed.
• I ate eight apples.
• Write in the board "I am bored!".
• When the serial-killer have breakfast, does he eat cereal?
• I can't see my eye at the mirror.
• I flew with this flu. What could I do?
• Was the e-mail sent by a male or a female person?
• When you meet him, did you eat meat?
• You didn't write correctly, right?

Well, these are just some examples. If you have more, please, leave a message.  :)

First kiss

Did you see that?

The idea is amazing but it seems a little weird, don't you think? I mean, I think they have never met before, but they weren't totally uncomfortable.

I've read in a comment: 'It's usual to see that in the night (yes, I used to go out many years ago and I saw couples doing it a hundred times!) but it doesn't mean that it wasn't a good video.'

Did you note that there were two guys that didn't kissed each other like the rest? Their kiss were shy and after they hold each other. It was like they had an affair and had just broken down. Like, 'it was good, but I have to live my life and you have to live yours and goodbye!'

I understood almost everything they say, but there are a couple (she looks a little older than the guy) that I could not understand. Could you? If you did, please, tell me.

Well, nobody can deny that the song is awesome! It's called 'We might be dead by tomorrow'. Its name attracts my attention for two reasons: a) the use of 'might'. It was used just like a possibility, a speculation. And, b) the 'by tomorrow'. If I have to translate its title from Portuguese to English, something like 'Podemos estar mortos amanhã.' I probably would do it 'We might be dead tomorrow' not 'by tomorrow'. Anyway, this is the kind of stuff we can't learn without practice, right?

See you!  :)