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!  :)

Played and Tried

Do you remember why we write 'I played' and 'I tried'?

Well, I didn't. So I've searched and got the explanation:

 When the word ends in a consonant plus 'y', you need to change 'y' in 'i' before add 'ed' in the past form. The same to create superlatives and comparatives: easy/easier,easiest. Or plurals: city/cities, etc.

When the word ends in a vowel plus 'y', there is no change!

3rd class

Hello,

at this class we learned about perfect modals.

1. When you regret or want to judge someone, you can use:
   should have + past participle;
   'I should have arrived sooner.'
   'You shouldn't have said that.'
   
   In both cases, it sounds pretty much as their translations to Portuguese.
   'Eu deveria ter chegado antes.'
   'Você não deveria ter dito isto.'
   
   
2. When you want to express a possibility or to speculate, you can use:
   may have, might have + p.p
   'The car might have broken down.'
   If, for instance, you're waiting for some friend and he didn't arrive yet, and never answer his cellphone, like me :)
   You are speculating because there is no evidence that his car has broken down, but you think that is a possible reason.
   
   
3. When you are sure about a scenario that didn't happen but it could have happened, you can use:
   would have + p.p.
   'I would have been a great chef.'
   But if you have some doubt about it, you use:
   could have + p.p.
   'I could have been a great chef.'
   
   It is pretty close but there is a little difference. The first one means you know you would be a great chef. On the other hand, the last one means you have no guarantee.
   
   
4. At last, there is the 'must have'. The book says it is used when you want to do a 'draw conclusion'. It can be confused to know when to use 'must have' or 'might have'. Actually, I don't understand it very well, but I've searched and found this definition.
   
   "Drawing conclusions refers to making an inference based of several bit of information. Usually, all the information available is considered before one draws a conclusion."
   
   So, after to think about the examples given by the book, I believe that if you have no information, you use the 'might have'. Otherwise, if there is any tip use 'must have'.
   To be clear, using the example above:
   
   'The car might have broken down'.
   My friend didn't tell me his car had problems. But, since, he didn't arrived, I speculate it.
   But if I say:
   'My friend said yesterday that his car wasn't good. The car must have broken down.'
   

Well, that's what I understood. If I'm wrong, please, let me know. :)

2nd class

Hi,

at this class, we saw the future in the past. How to talk about an expectation you had? It's close to our 'futuro do pretérito' I think, like:

Eu faria, Eu iria fazer

The book says it is possible to say 'They said they were going to arrive before noon.' instead of 'They said they would arrive before noon.'

But, you can't say: 'She would be a nurse'. It's better to say: 'She was going to be a nurse'.

As the future in the past is 'often used for plans that changed or weren't achieved' there are a list of excuses you can use to express why you couldn't achieve your goals.

You can say:

1. I wanted to be a astronaut but my taste/s changed;
2. I was going to be a musician but it's hard to make a living as a musician;
3. I thought I would be an archtect but I didn't pass the exam;
4. I wanted to become a politician but my wife talked me out of it;
5. I was going to  live abroad but I just changed my mind.

So there are many ways to describe why you decided to do something else. :D

Hello, everyone!

Hello, guys! I'm back to write about our classes. I know I've written a lot of wrong things here last semester :) but it was very good to me because I could practice what I learned and that is the most important to me. I so recommend you try to do something like this.

Well, our dear new teacher has already spoken about many things so far and I'm a little late but, you know, I'm a procrastinator. Lol! I'm going to try to remember what she said until now.

First of all, I missed the initial class. I didn't attended it but I think she started from chapter 6, right? If I'm right, probably she spoke about "life plans" that it's the main issue of the chapter.

There are some expressions or idioms like 'pick someone's brain', 'make one's mind', etc. I tried to do the exercises (Ex. C, p. 63 ) by my own and I think that the answer is: 1d, 2c, 3b, 4f, 5a and 6e. If I did it wrong, please, tell me.

So,  that's it! See you.

The Final Test

Hello, people,

At this class, we had our final test. I hope we were good!

See you in the last class, next Tuesday!

:)

3th class before the end

Hello, guys, how are you?

At this class, we learned plenty of things. But, before that, Teacher has corrected some exercises from the Work Book.

Well, the current chapter (5) is about Natural Disasters. We started with the grammar in lesson 1 that teachs us how to do indirect speechs. The affirmatives are easier, but the negative ones brought me some difficulty because it's unusual. In English, many times you have to change word's order that it's normal to us. Like that:

If you wanna pass this to the indirect speech: Daddy said, "Do your homework!".

It would be like this: Daddy said to do my homework.

or

Daddy said, "Don't go outside"! -> Daddy said not to go outside.

Teacher also told us how to use this terms when we are supposed to change a sentence to indirect speech:

here -> there;
this -> that;
these -> those;
now -> that time, imediately;
tomorrow -> next day, the day after;
yesterday -> previous day, the day before;

It's better to know that frequently we must to modify the verb. For instance,  if we have the following sentence:

They said, "The painting is terrific!". -> They said that the painting was terrific.

or

Norah said, "The show had some problems!". -> Norah said that the show had had some problems.

So, when the verb is in present it changes to the past; and, when the verb is in past, it becomes past perfect.

She said something about "deitics" but I didn't understand to write about it. If someone can help me, it would be great!

4th class to the end

Hello, people,

at this class, I did my little speech about Science Fiction. I liked so much! And you? If you wanna know more about it, I so recommend this book. It's awesome!!

Also teacher has corrected some exercises from the WB.

See you.

6th class before the end

Hi, people,

last class we had great speechs about many issues. They talked about internet writers, publishers and the beautiful Eastern Island.

7th class before the end

Hi, everyone,

At this class, we attended many speeches. We've discussed about table maners, homeopathy, floral medicines and other interesting stuff. It was pretty good!  I liked  it so much, and you?

Next class, I'm going to do my speech.

See you.

8th class before the last one.

Hello, guys, i'm back. :)

As I didn't appear for a couple of weeks I don't know what class is this, so this will be the eigth class before the end, ok? lol

At this class it started the presentations. It was pretty interesting! We learned about a lot of taboos and about japanese gestures. It was awesome!

See you!

Page 32 answers

hello, guys,

Lena asked me to put these answers but I forgot. Sorry. :)

Page 32.

A) Identify supporting details. 1, 3, 4

 

B) Activate language from a text: 1) 1) reasonable, 2) helpful, 3) profissional, 4) reliable

See you.

15th class

Hi, everyone,

at this class, Teacher taught us the uses of have, get and make to ask people to do something. The only different is the get because it needs the to. We can't forget that when we use make there is an obligation.

I'm going to looking for some examples to put here.

See you.

14th class

Hello, people, at this class, Teacher told us about the test. What we did wrong and the right way to do it. Also we started Unit 3 and I found out I'm a little procrastinator, but who doesn't? Right? We saw how to ask things for people and not to be rude. It's common to start with "I could get ..." or "Can you get ...". At the end of the class, we were supposed to make up a polite sentence like "Could I get the exercises done now?"

I'm used to watch this video-classes on Youtube. The videos are pretty short and  teach us how to act in an indirect way.

Well, I think that's it. If you want to add anything else, please, be my guest.
See you! :)