Watch TV and learn English

Click on the image and follow the link.

The Internet is full of websites that can help you to learn English, many of them with videos that can be interesting and great fun at the same time.
Here you have some links:
BBC Learning English a classic website. Also in YouTube .

Ted Talks  Listen to some of the world’s most inspired thinkers and feel free to discuss and debate these ideas with some other people. If you do not understand, don't panic! they are subtitled in diferent languages (Of course, English too) and there is a transcription of all talks.

British Council  another classic website.
Learn English and feel good  is a website where you can watch a video and do some comprehension exercises.

Simple English videos  explore the different levels.
ESL video songs and documentaries with quizzes.

And if you want to review your grammar, try one of the English Grammar Games by Woodward English.

Babe a polite sheepdog

Babe is a nice pig who wants to become the perfect sheepdog, you can see that it is hard for Babe to lead the sheep, and the success comes when Babe moves the sheep with no force but politeness.

A request is asking another people to do something, if you do not want to be a rude person when you talk in English, you must try to be nice and polite when you make a request.

Here you have some nice ways to ask your friend to do something:

Can you Will you Could you	pass me the dictionary, please?
would you mind	helping me with my luggage ?

Click to listen to some examples by the BBC.
You usually use a modal verb to make a request: check the video by the British Council.
Watch this talk by Matt Cutts called "try something new for 30 days".
It is one of Ted's talks.


Would you like to try a new activity for the next 30 days?

The English alphabet

Image Source

Where do letters come from? Follow the link to learn about the origin of the English Alphabet.

Learn about its history here or go here.
How do they sound? check here, or  here if you prefer.
And the phonetic symbols for English. Remeber that Phonetics is the study of sounds. Here there is a wonderful website by Cambridge English..
Or transcribe your text into phonetics here.
And some tips about pronunciation by the BBC.
Some of you think that learning English is boring, watch the video by Mister Duncanand get some fun.

Friends and phrasal verbs

A Phrasal Verb is a phrase that consists of a verb with a preposition or adverb or both, the meaning of which is different from the meaning of its separate parts.Definition source:Cambridge dictionary online.
break down ( verb and adverb) or break in (verb and preposition) are examples of phrasal verbs.



Some Phrasal verbs can be transitive because they can take a direct object:


Some of them are separable, that means that you can separate the verb and the preposition but you must separate them when using a pronoun:
They pulled the house down and built a new one or they pulled down the house and built a new one.

They put the meeting off or they put off the meeting.
I paid you back.
You can see the direct objects above in bold face letters.

Some Phrasal verbs are intransitive, because they can never take a direct object so you can never separate them.
They got up early.
Now enjoy the video:

Words, words, words

"The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." 

  Wittgenstein

Click on the above picture to go to the game

Macmillan English Dictionary is a great dictionary online with a website worth to be explored. Above you have the game about irregular verbs, take care because it can be quite addictive, as the one on phrasal verbs.

I am sure that you want to explore the Lexipedia, give it a try and have fun.

Click on the above picture and follow the link

The visual dictionary above is a fun way to learn new vocabulary although it is not the best option for beginners.

Youngest students will prefer the photographic dictionary. 

Click here to visit the dictionary with easy definitions that you can understand.

Bright student spots wrong label

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Tesco is a big chain of supermarkets in the UK and Albert Guildford is the name of the 15 years old boy who spotted a grammar mistake in his package of orange juice.

"I was eating my breakfast and noticed it said ‘most tastiest’ and I don’t like bad grammar so decided to write to Tesco".Albert said.

Image source

'Most tastiest'? Surely not? It could be 'most tasty' or simply 'tastiest', but never 'most tastiest'," the schoolboy said.
So the package with the grammar mistake will be changed, as Tesco has apologized:

"I've told our team about this and they will correct the error when the packaging is reprinted."
Review the superlative adjectives, if you feel like:

Superlative adjectives: explanation.
Exercises.
More easy exercises.
Compare
A quiz.
And a video:

Cronuts craze

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Are you fond of sweet things? then you will love cronuts. But what is a cronut? this fashion started in New York:



You can say that a cronut is a cross between a doughnut and a croissant, with a creamy filling in its layers of pastry and with a sweet top.
Dominique Ansel is the name of the pastry chef who makes them, and cronut has become a trademark of Ansel too.
Now the craze has crossed the ocean and you can taste this delicatessen in  London. The fashion is here and it seems, it will stay for long.

they say that Dominique first invented the cronut when he wanted to make a snack for his staff and decided to mix the doughnut recipe with that of a croissant and, before he knew it, there were queues of people outside his bakery waiting to buy a cronut,  and that happens two hours before it opens!
Cronuts popularity is  increasing each day, they are the awesome snack, and , believe it or not, there is a black market of cronuts with people trying to sell them at a really high price!
It seems that cronuts are the first of a trend of new food and new words.
Click to read and listen to the podcast about cronuts in London from PRI.

Where does English come from?

this is one of Ted's ideas worh spreading watching this video you can learn a lot about the history of English language.

The Britihs Library: An interactive timeline of the English Language.
Beowulf: Click the audio to listen to old English.
Modern English words with Anglo Saxon origin: Take a look.
See here English words with French origin.
And The Telegraph: Some English words with surprising origins.

European Day of Languages:Talk to me

How many languages do you speak? and how many would you like to speak?
How many languages are there in the world? do you know that they are more than six thousand?
The European Day of Languages takes place on each 26th of September, when we celebrate language learning and what fun that learning can be.

What is the European Day of Languages? Click and learn.
Click to play with languages.
Do you enjoy learning a new language?



Celebrate this day saying "Hello" in a different language:



Do you know how many languages are used in official administration and paperwork in the UE? they are 24 and you can read and/or listen to all of them following this link.

Enjoy some more games: Play with languages or learn a bit of Chinese.
Essencial phrases in sixty languages with the BBC.
Enjoy!

English in ten minutes

From the Open University this great video with everything you need to know about English language in just ten minutes.I hope you enjoy it.