March 2011

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Hello! How are you? I’m great. Thank you very much for downloading this Mansión Inglés podcast, recorded for March 2011. Yes the year is 2011 and not 2010 as I said last month. I’m sorry. Thank you for correcting me in your emails. So, now I know what year I’m in, let’s start this month’s podcast.

En el nivel básico este mes hemos tenido más vocabulario agrupado por temas, por ejemplo el vocabulario de comida – food, la bebida – drinks, la ropa – clothes. Quidado con la pronciación de clothes. No se dice Xcloth-esX, se dice clothes. Repeat – clothes. “I like shopping for clothes.” “I love your clothes.” “Where do you buy your clothes?”  Ok, listen and repeat the vocabulary groups and the words. Escucha y repite los grupos y las palabras:

The first group was days – days of the week – los días de la semana. Listen and repeat. Escucha y repite: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. How do you say martes in English? - ¿Como se dice martes? – Tuesday. - ¿Y jueves? – Thusday. Repeat Thursday. Which day is before (antes) Saturday? – Friday. Which day is after (despues) Tuesday? - Wednesday.

Good! The next group was professions or jobs – las professions – Listen and repeat: nurse, accountant, lawyer, engineer, teacher, doctor, taxi driver, waiter, plumber (fontanero). Hay una lista extensa de las profesiones en la sección de vocabulario en mansioningles.com

Next was the countries group - Italy, Canada, Germany, Holland - and then drinks – coke, wine – there’s red wine and white wine (vino tinto, vino blanco) red wine, white wine – French wine, Italian wine, Chile makes very good wine, and of course the wonderful Rioja wine from Spain. Water can be mineral water or still water – sin gas – mineral water or still water or fizzy water – con gas. Repeat “fizzy”. “I’d like mineral water, please.” – “I’d like fizzy water, please.” and of course beer. A can of beer. – una lata – a glass of beer – un vaso – a bottle of beer – una botella. Can you think of more drinks? What about tea? Or milk – leche. Cold milk - ¿como se dice? – leche fria – hot milk – leche caliente. One of my favourite drinks is hot chocolate, especially in the winter. There are alcoholic drinks: whisky, vodka, brandy, brandy es cognac. Rum – ron, and  gin -  gin is ginebra

The food group – la comida – was next. ¿Cómo se dice queso? – cheese – ¿pan? – bread - ¿Arroz? – rice – ¿huevos? - eggs. What about ¿pescado? – fish – ¿carne? – meat – ¿fruta? – fruit - ¿verduras? – vegetables. La palabra vegetables normalmente lleva 3 silabas. Lo más fuerte es la primera. Escucha: VEGetebles. Repite: VEGetebles - VEGetables.

What’s this Group? - ¿Qué es este grupo? Liverpool, Lyon, Milan, Sydney, Chicago, Shanghai, Rome, Istanbul, Dublin. – they are all cities.

The months of the year – los meses del año – start with…. January. Listen and repeat: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December. Good!

How many rooms in the house do you know in English? - ¿Cuantos habataciones en la casa sabes decir en ingles? ¿Qué es cocina? – kitchen, repeat – kitchen – ¿El cuarto de bañao? – bathroom – ¿El váter? – toilet – toalet en el ingles británico or bathroom en el ingles Americano.

Ropa - ¿Qué ropa puedes nombrar en inglés? What’s camisa? Shirt; ¿camiseta? - T-shirt; ¿pantalones? – trousers . trousers en el inglés británico y pants en el inglés Americano. What’s ¿Falda? – skirt; ¿guantes? – gloves; ¿calcetines? – socks; ¿abrigo? – coat; ¿vestido? – dress; ¿traje? – suit; ¿zapatos? – shoes; ¿chandal? – tracksuit.

The last Group – el último grupo was family. ¿Como se dice madre? – mum or mother; ¿padre? – dad or father – ¿hermana y hermano? – sister and brother. – ¿tio and tia? – aunt and uncle. – ¿sobrino and sobrina? – niece is sobrina repeat niece and sobrino is nephew – nephew.

Next we studied asking questions – Luego hemos practicado las preguntas. Escucha y repite las preguntas para practicar la pronunciación y la entonación.

Escucha y repite:

1.      What’s your name?

2.      How do you spell it?

3.      Where are you from?

4.      What’s your address?

5.      How old are you?

6.      Are you a student?

7.      What’s your job?

8.      What’s your email address?

In the intermediate section this month, we studied parts of the body. Listen and try to say the word before I do. Then repeat the word to practise pronunciation:

What do you use when you listen to music and when you hear people speaking? - your ears.

What’s inside your head and is used to think with? your brain.

Ok, these are in your mouth and you use them to bite and chew food. Bite is morder and chew – masticar. The answer? your teeth.

Giraffes have very long ones. Neck

These are thin pieces of skin that cover your eyes when you close them; your eyelids – eyelids.

You use these to smile and kiss someone with. Your lips.

You have ten of these on your feet. These are your toes.

On your hands, you have eight what? Fingers – dedos de mano and two…. thumbs – I think thumb is pulgar in Spanish? ¿Dedo gordo?

OK, what is inside your mouth and you use it to taste food? your tongue. The spelling of tongue is strange; T-O-N-G-U-E – tongue.

The organ inside you which pumps blood around your body is your…. heart.

The two joints that connect your feet to your legs are your…. ankles. Don’t confuse ankle – tobillo with uncle – tío. Repeat; ankle – uncle.

These two joints are in the middle of your legs and they are your knees, with a silent ‘K’ repeat – knees.

The two joints in the middle of your arms are your elbows. and finally, the part of your body where you would wear a watch is your wrist.

Also in the intermediate section, there was a word formation exercise.

We can take a root word, for example the adjective definite - definitivo, seguro and change it by adding prefixes (prefijos) and suffixes (sufijos). A prefix changes the meaning of the word. So if you add -in to definite you get the opposite – indefinite. You change the word family if you change the suffix. So, the adjective definite becomes an adverb if you add –ly. Definitely. “I’ll definitely see you tomorrow.”

The verb to increase means to go up. Property prices are increasing. What’s the opposite of to increase? It’s to decrease. Prices are decreasing. They’re going down. Many adverbs are made by adding –LY For example slow – slowly; beautiful – beautifully; dangerous – dangerously. Increase is the same. “It’s becoming increasingly more difficult to find a job.” “She’s playing increasingly well.” An experienced player has experience. What’s the opposite of experienced? – inexperienced.

Short is an adjective; a short film, a short holiday. The verb of short is to shorten with -en. To make something shorter you shorten it. “My mum shortened my new trousers.” Deaf D-E-A-F is an adjective and the verb is to deafen. We were deafened by the noise. Sharp (afilado) is another adjective that adds -en to make it a verb, so to sharpen. “This knife isn’t very sharp. You need to sharpen it.”

What’s the English for the adjective fuerte? – strong. This coffee’s a bit strong. What’s the noun of strong? It’s strength. How do you spell it? S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H. So, the verb is to strengthen, in Spanish fortalecer o reforzar. “This piece of wood will strengthen the table.”

To recognise in Spanish is reconocer. “I recognised him from the party last week.” What’s the noun of recognise? - recognition. – and the adjective? recognisable – the opposite of recognisable is unrecognisable. “So many years had passed since I’d seen her that she was totally unrecognisable to me.”

What’s avoid in Spanish? – evitar – “I saw her in the street but she avoided me.” What’s the adjective? – avoidable. “It’s an avoidable situation. You can avoid it.” And the opposite of avoidable is…. unavoidable. “I’m sorry I was late for the meeting. It was unavoidable. I was unavoidably delayed.”

The opposite of expensive is…. cheap or inexpensive. “We had quite an inexpensive holiday. The flights were really cheap.”

Response is a noun. A response is a reply or a reaction to something - una respuesta. What’s the verb of response? To respond - and the adjective? – responsive. “There is a very responsive operating system in this mobile phone.” So, what’s the opposite of responsive? – unresponsive. Responsibility is also a noun. To take responsibility. “I took full responsibility for the mistakes in the report.”

The adjective unlikely means improbable, poco probable “They’re unlikely to agree.” – es poco probable que acepten. Collocations include highly and most. For example: “It’s most unlikely – it’s highly unlikely” – es muy poco probable. Repeat: It’s highly unlikely – “It’s highly unlikely he’ll sign the contract.” Es poco probable que aparezca ahora – “It's unlikely that he'll turn up now.”

Gratitude is a noun. What’s the adjective? grateful. “I’m very grateful for your help.” Do you know the opposite? – ungrateful. “She’s the most ungrateful person I know.”

Last month, on Facebook, Knelitaz (I hope I pronounced you name correctly) asked about the difference in pronunciation between sang and sung – the 2^nd and 3^rd forms of the verb to sing – cantar. Well, the 2^nd form, sang, has the /a/ sound like in cat, hat, sat etc. The 3^rd form, sung, has the /u/ sound like in cut, up, cup etc. Repeat: sing sang sung.

There are other irregular verbs that have the same sounds. Listen and repeat: nadar – to swim – swim, swam, swum – llamar - to ring – ring, rang, rung – beber – to drink, drink, drank, drank – cantar – to sing – sing, sang, sung – empezer – to begin –begin, begin, begun – hundir – to sink – sink, sank, sunk. Thanks very much for your question Knelitaz, and I hope I’ve pronounced your name correctly.

The advanced section this month practised money vocabulary and words connected to lies and deception. Don’t forget that in English we say to tell a lie not say a lie. If you tell a fib F-I-B it’s a small lie and if you tell a whopper it’s huge! If you are taken in by someone you’re fooled by them – engañado. ‘I was completely taken in by her.’

A hoax is an engaño. “The whole situation that John described turned out to be a hoax”

A con is timo in Spanish. A conman or con artist in Spanish is estafador or timador. – ‘They thought he was a Wall Street genius but he was really a world class con artist.’

On the subject of money, if a person is rolling in it they have a lot of money – and I mean a lot of money – ‘He’s absolutely rolling in it’, and this expression implies a touch of envy.

When you want to save, you put money aside or to one side. “I’m putting some of my salary to one side for my daughter’s 16^th birthday party.”

If you’ve got money to burn, you’ve got so much money that you can waste some of it and spend it on silly things. ‘I’ve got money to burn.” (I haven’t really!)

If you save up for a rainy day, you save for a time in the future when you might need a bit of extra cash. “I’ve got a couple of thousand put aside for a rainy day.” Notice the “up” in save up. “What are you saving up for?” - “I’m saving up for my Christmas holiday.”

In the business section there were some telephone expressions. For example, devolver la llamada a alguien can be to phone someone back, or to ring someone back or to call someone back. Call someone is more common in American English and ring or phone someone is more common in British English.

Also on the telephone, we say “This is…” not X”I am”X. ‘Hello, this is Simon’, or “Simon speaking.” You can also say “It’s..”. - “Hello, it’s George, is Maria there?”

To connect someone on the phone is to put them through. If you phone a large company, you may hear, “Just a second please, I’m putting you through.” Or “Hold the line please and I’ll put you through when she’s free.” To hold the line means to wait – esperar. You may hear, “Please hold” or “Please hold on”. You can say “Can you put me through to the manager?”  or “Please put me through to the sales department.”

A salary is usually paid every month by bank transfer, and a wage is often paid in cash weekly or even daily. For example. builders, manual workers and workers who don’t pay tax are often paid cash wage. Fee F-E-E can be honorarios, a doctor’s fee or a lawyer’s fee, or el precio de entrada. “How much is the entrance fee?” And when you register for a course you pay a fee – una matrícula o inscripción. – “Have you paid the course fees yet?” “Are the fees expensive for a private school?”

Charge is cargo or precio in Spanish. – “There is no charge for the service” - no se cobra por el servicio, el servicio es gratis. – “Free of charge” or “Without charge”- , gratis, sin cargo – “At no extra charge” - Sin cargo adicional

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Thanks again and we’ll see you next month. Bye!

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The music in this month’s podcast was by Revolution Void, the album was The Politics of Desire and the track was Outer Orbit.