May 2011

Aprender ingles gratis con La Mansion del Ingles. Un podcast para mejorar la gramatica, el vocabulario y la pronunciacion del inglés. Una leccion del ingles con ejemplos y ejercicios.

Learn English free with podcasts from La Mansion del Ingles. Improve your grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation. This English lesson contains examples and exercises.

Hello everyone! How are you? It’s good to be back with you again, and thank you for downloading this Mansión Inglés podcast, recorded for May 2011.

Este mes en el nivel básico hemos practicado el verbo to be (ser o estar). Yo odio el hecho que en español tengo que pensar siempre si digo soy o estoy. Nunca puedo entender si es ¿el es? o ¿el esta? En inglés es mucho más fácil porque hay uno solo verbo, el verbo to be:

I am, you are, he is, we are etc. Existen en ingles las contracciones. Normalmente, no decimos I am Spanish, se dice I’m Spanish, or I’m English, I’m Mexican etc.

Escucha y repite:

I’m Spanish – I’m not English - I’m Spanish. Are you Spanish?

Are you married? – I’m single – I’m a student – Is he your brother?

We’re from Chile – You’re very nice – Eres mu simpatico – You’re very nice – It’s expensive

He’s from Argentina – He’s Argentinian – She’s from France – She’s French.

Are you hungry? Tienes hambre? – Are you hungry? - I’m hungry. – I’m very hungry.

It’s hot today. – I’m ok, thanks. – How are you? – I’m fine – Where are you from? - We’re from Barcelona.

I’n the intermediate section we looked at some verb, noun and adjective forms that can be difficult for students.

The adjectives broad and wide both mean ancho or ancha. The meanings are very similar, but the difference is often in the collocation. - the words that they like to go together with.

For example, if you are very awake – muy despierto or despierta, you can say I’m wide awake, but not XI’m broad awakeX.

Las palabras broad and awake no son buenos amigos and they don’t like to go together. Se puede decir We’ve got broadband Internet, but not XwidebandX. But you can say, “I’ve got a wide-screen TV” or “This camera has a wide angle lens.”

Listen and repeat: wide awake – I’m wide awake now – broadband - Have you got broadband at home? – in broad daylight - They stole the car in broad daylight. – a broad coalition – The government formed a broad coalition. – wide open - The competition is wide open.

So, if broad is the adjective. What’s the noun? – breadth. How do you spell it? B-R-E-A-D-T-H. What’s the verb? To broaden. Repeat: broad, breadth, broaden.

What’s the noun of wide? – width. How do you spell width? W-I-D-T-H. So, what’s the verb? – to widen Repeat: What’s the width of this swimming pool? How wide is it? – When are they going to widen this road?

How do we say profundo in English? – Profundo is deep – That’s really deep, man. – Esto es muy profundo, tío. And the noun of deep is……..depth – with a ‘P’, D-E-P-T-H. Do you remember the song How Deep is You Love by the Bee Gees?......So the verb of deep is to…..deepen.

High was the next adjective – H-I-G-H. The noun of high is….height. How do you spell it? H-E-I-G-H-T What’s the verb? – to heighten. Repeat: How high is it? What height are you? We need to heighten our awareness. Awareness is conciencia – to heighten your awareness.

Next is long. What’s the noun of long? – length. How do you spell length? – L-E-N-G-T-H. What’s the verb? To lengthen. Repeat – to lengthen. I need to lengthen the sleeves on this jacket. Sleeves are las mangas. And the opposite of lengthen is……? to shorten. Repeat: Can you shorten these trousers? They’ve shortened my week by 2 hours. What’s the noun of shorten? – shortness. How do you say falta de aliento in English? – shortness of breath

I love strong coffee. I really like my coffee strong. I don’t like it weak. I’m the same with tea. I like strong coffee and strong tea. What’s the noun of strong? – strength. How do you spell it? S-T-R-E-N-G-T-H. And what’s the verb? – to strengthen. What’s the noun of the adjective weak? – weakness. And the verb? To weaken. Repeat: What are your strengths and weaknesses? – the virus he caught has really weakened him.

And the last adjective in this group was deaf – sordo – to go deaf – quedarse sordo. My dad went deaf when he was 75. Repeat: Are you deaf? Are you deaf or something? – What’s the noun of deaf? – deafness. And the verb? To deafen – ensordecer – Repeat: turn down the volume. It’s deafening!

Moving on to the advanced section of this week’s newsletter, Lets practise some health vocabulary.

If you are run down, you feel tired and low on energy. When you’re sick and have the flu (el gripe) or a bad cold you often feel run down. And batteries - Las pilas - also run down when you use them. The remote control isn’t working. I think the batteries are run down. You feel run down if you work too hard and don’t eat properly. How are you feeling? You look a bit run down. – hecho polvo.

Sharp and pain collocate, they go together, so we say “I’ve got a sharp pain in my leg, for example. The noun ache - A-C-H-E - collocates with dull. I’ve got a dull ache in my back.

The preposition that goes with allergic is to. I’m allergic to penicillin. What’s the noun of allergic? – allergy. She’s got an allergy to cats.

Wounded is usually used when a person has been hurt is a war or armed conflict. “How many soldiers were wounded?”. It can also be used figuratively; You have wounded me emotionally.”

To be hurt is more general, but you usually say this when you can't do an activity because of an injury, or when you feel emotional pain. You’ve hurt me deeply.

You say you are injured when you have problems with joints or bones.

Repeat: Was anyone hurt? He was badly wounded in Iraq. I had an accident and injured my back.

Damage can mean dañar, hacer daño a algo, but when speaking about health it can mean perjudicar. Smoking can damage your health.

If you feel drowsy, tienes sueño. I felt really drowsy during the meeting. This wine is making me drowsy. And if you drink too much wine, it can also make you tipsy or achispado o  bebido. I feel a little tipsy.

And to feel dizzy – D-I-Z-Z-Y is estar mareado. If you turn around quickly 4 or 5 times, you start to feel a bit dizzy.

A bandage is venda, so to bandage is vendar. They wrapped a bandage around his leg. – Le vendaron la peirna.

Stitches – S-T-I-T-C-H-E-S are puntos, the verb is to stitch, so if you cut yourself badly you’ll probably need to have stitches. I went to the hospital and I needed stitches.

A sling is un cabestrillo. So, to have one's arm in a sling is llevar el brazo en un cabestrillo.

Boils, blisters and blemishes were our next three words. A boil is un furúnculo, I hope I’ve pronounced that right.- furúnculo – furúnculo-  and a blister is what you get on your feet when you’ve walked a very long way or when you buy new shoes and they rub against your skin. Blisters are ampollas.

A blemish – B-L-E-M-I-S-H is an imperfection. If a person has a blemish on his reputation, pues tiene una mancha en su reputación. You can have a blemish on your skin.

The verb to dislocate is similar in Spanish, so it shouldn’t be a problem. Dislocarse. He dislocated his shoulder. To sprain is hacerse un esguince. – I think I’ve sprained my ankle – creo que me han hecho un esguince en el tobillo. I can’t play tennis tomorrow, I’ve sprained my wrist.

A pulled muscle is un tirón muscular. I’ve pulled a muscle in my leg.

And our final three words in this exercise were bruise, rash and warts. Well, bruise is un moretón and it’s also a verb to bruise magullarse. Careful of the spelling of bruise B-R-U-I-S-E – Same pronunciation as cruize - bruise. I bruise easily. I banged my leg on the dinning room table and a big bruise has come up on my leg.

A rash – R-A-S-H is sarpullido o erupción. We can say that he came out in a rash – Le salió un sarpullido – He came out in a rash or he broke out in a rash. To scratch is rascarse, so if you come out in a rash, you shouldn’t scratch it. It might get worse.

And finally a wart is una verruga. He’s got a wart on his face.

Moving on to this month’s Business section, there were some useful phrases you could use in a business context, or just to be polite.

In some situations where you need to be formal, maybe for example if you don’t know the person you are speaking to, well in Spanish you use the usted form, or in French the vous form.

English doesn’t have a polite form for the 2^nd person, so we use different language. We say, “I would like…” or “I’d like….” and not I want. Or “Would you mind giving me” and not give me, or “could you” instead of can you. And of course lots of “pleases” and “thank yous”. But perhaps more importantly, we use polite intonation. Listen and repeat:

Please could you help me?

Would you like to leave a message?

How can I help you?

Thank you very much for your time today.

Thank you for your quick response.

What would you like to know?

I would be grateful if you could attend our presentation.

I'm afraid I don't know where the entrance is.

Use should to offer advice to someone. Repeat:

You should forward your request to personnel.

You shouldn’t phone her yet. You should wait a couple of days.

You should get in touch as soon as possible.

You should ask for a raise in salary.

You shouldn’t work so hard, you look a bit run down.

Must is often used for things that are compulsory and mustn’t for things that are prohibited.

You must finish the report by Tuesday.

Employees mustn’t smoke in the building.

On the phone you can ask to be connected to someone or to a department by saying “Could you put me through?”

Repeat: Could you put me through to the sales department, please?

Hello, Could you put me through to Mr. Jenkins.

Please put me through to Mrs. Smith.

You may hear a secretary or receptionist saying “Just a moment, I’m putting you through” or “Please hold the line and I’ll put you through when she’s free.”

And remember, when you answer the phone, say “Hello, David speaking” or “This is David here”. Don’t translate from Spanish, because “I am David” sounds very strange.

Well, that’s it for this week. Thanks to all of you for listening. If you want to contact us you can find us on Facebook. Just search Facebook for La Mansión del Inglés and join our growing community of over 11,000 fans. Or send an email to [e-mail]. And you can also follow us on Twitter. Our Twitter name is MansionTwit.

Until next month then, take care and keep practising English! Bye!

Puedes ver el cuaderno mensual de mayo aquí. 

Puedes ver todos los cuadernos anteriores aquí 

Puedes recibir gratis nuestro Cuaderno mensual de Inglés aquí. 

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