Summer holidays

Hi guys, with this last post I want to wish you happy holidays.....

.... and dedicate this video too:

NEVER GIVE UP ! You don't need to win the race to be GREAT CHAMPIONS! 

Wishing you all the best for your future! 

Past continuous...or progressive!

As I said this morning, I'm posting something about the Past Continuous/Progressive.
It's a very easy tense! First, here's a mind map for you...

Then... when we have to use it!

As always, I'm also posting a video and for Federico's happiness.... here's Alex again!

Try to find some examples of PAst Continuous in the following song:

Don't forget that there are a lot of videos and images in the internet that can help you.. .

First conditional songs

This morning I was listening to the radio when I realized that the song I was listening to had the first conditional in it and that you might have liked it (vi sarebbe potuta piacere)! I really love it!

Actually, there are lots of songs with Conditional! Here  some examples of 2nd Conditional:

IF + PAST SIMPLE, WOULD + BASE FORM

Why don't you try and find other songs with Conditionals?

Conditional clauses

As yesterday we talked about the contional clauses, I thought to post something about it. I hope it will be useful!

Let's start with the ZERO CONDITIONAL: it is used to talk about facts, habits or actions that always have the same outcome (risultato). This include scientific facts and general statements (affermazioni).

If you heat water to 100 °C , it boils.

If it doesn't rain, the road doesn't get wet!

As you can notice, the tense (tempo verbale) in both parts of the sentence is the Simple Present.

And now the FIRST CONDITIONAL, that's the one we took a look at in our last class! 

We use it to talk about possible situations and their consequences in the future...

You can also take a look at the following videos!

Homework... again

Write a letter to one of your friends or relatives about your last school trip.
Here a list of questions you can use to write it.

• When did you leave?
• Who did you leave with?
• How did you get there?
• How was the trip?
• Where did you go?
• Where did you stay? 
• What did you do on the first day?
• What about the second one?
• What did you like the most?
• What did you like the least?

Remember:

• your address
• the salutation
• use the connectors I gave you today
• use the sentences I gave you to introduce the topic and to end the letter!

P.S. (For those who didn't go to Liguria.... just make it up /inventare! ) 

Homework: Letter

On a recent visit to London, you stayed with an English friend. Write your friend a letter thanking him/her for his/her hospitality. Comment on:

• how comfortable the accomodation was
• how his/her hospitality made your stay convenient
• an example of your friend's kindness
• something that impressed you during your stay

End the letter by inviting your friend to come and stay with you.

Will or Going To?

A very confusing concept is when to use WILL and when to use BE GOING TO when we refer to the future!
There is a slight (lieve) difference between the two though (sebbene) in most cases they can be used interchangeably with no difference in meaning. Even if (anche se) you misuse (usare in modo sbagliato), a native speaker is going to understand you without any problems.

Here are two charts (tabelle) you can use to understand their differences:

Here a mind map with all the future tenses:

A very easy to understand video:

... and since I know how much you like songs:

❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀❀

And last but not least.... here's a list of  verbs followed by infinitive or gerund:

Comunicazione di servizio per la gita:

Ragazzi per favore oltre alle eventuali intolleranze mi fate scrivere due righe sul libretto delle comunicazioni dai vostri genitori se vi autorizzano o meno a ritornare da soli al rientro venerdì (si rientrerà verso le 21!). Per favore avvisate tutti gli altri che non riescono a leggere il blog! 

Relative pronouns and relative clauses

We use a relative clause (proposizione relativa) to give extra information about the nouns (sostantivi/nomi) in the main clause (proposizione principale) , without starting a new sentence.

The relative clause goes immediately after the noun it relates to and it is introduced by a relative pronoun (pronome relativo).

Relative pronouns are:

Examples:

The man WHO works at the Post Office is veery kind.

Tina has a bunch of flowers WHICH is friend bought.

The blue jacket THAT she is wearing belongs to her friend.

The man THAT lives upstairs is a doctor.

That is the house WHOSE owner is my uncle.

The hotel WHERE we slept was excellent.

That was the day WHEN my sister was born.

Tell me the reason WHY you are here! 

Here's a map for you:

And here a couple of videos:

And now the best part of this post:

For our next lesson on Monday you have to:

• study the rules of relative pronouns on your textbook (p. 89 D)
• do p. 15 ex. 7 (libro) - 8 (quaderno)
• do p. 92 ex 7 (l) - 8 (l)
• write 10 sentences using the relatives pronouns and going to

Have a nice weekend! =)

Happy Easter

Even though I'm a little bit late... I wish you all a very Happy Easter!

Let's talk about.... the future!

Yesterday we talked about the use of "be going to"  and the Present Continuous... and I know it was  a little bit confusing for you! But don't worry! I found out (ho scoperto) that it's confusing for native English speakers too! =) I'll try to give you some hints (aiuto, suggerimento) in this post!


Let's start by saying that these two forms are both (entrambe) used to talk about future plans, but there are, however, some differences between them!

The present continuous is used when we say what (ciò che) we have planned or arranged (organizzato) to do at a specific time in the future. These are fixed plans with definite time and/or place.

Jill is starting university in September

Sally is meeting John at seven o'clock this evening in a restaurant downtown (in centro)

Do you remember its structure? If you don't... just take a look below!

____________________________________

• We use "going to" to express the future when we intend to do something or we have decided to do something but did NOT ARRANGE it. It is just an INTENTION.

Mary: The windows are dirty

Suzie: Yes, I know. I'm going to clean them later

 (Suzie has decided to clean them, but she hasn't arranged to clean them)

• We can also use "Going to" to make predictions (previsioni).

Watch out! You're going to break the glass.

It's cloudy! I think it's going to rain

Take a look at the structure:

Maybe the following video can help you more! I think he's very clear in explaining... what do you think?

Have a nice weekend guys! 😎

Let's have some laughs! =D

You just took a test, so I thought you would need a laugh!

At the beginning of this year, when we started this blog, Francesca told me she usually follows an English TV show, Jimmy Fallon (if I'm not wrong).. and I thought about another show I usually follow that always makes me laugh a lot.

The anchorwoman (presentatrice) of such TV show is Ellen Degeneres, one of America's most well-known  (conosciuta/ famosa) comedians. She also provided (dato) her voice to Dory, in the animated film "Finding Dory".

In the second video, she was with Kristen Bell, who gave her voice to princess Anna in Frozen!

Like Fallon, she sometimes interviews different famous people, but she does it in a funny way...

...or she makes parodies of song videos or films! Look here (try to watch them with subtitles)

And finally look at her playing Taboo with Katy Perry

I think she's great and hilarious! What do you think? Would you like to watch some more videos with her? Do you watch videos in English sometimes ? What kind of videos do you like to watch?

St Paddy's Day

Did you know that yesterday it was Saint Patrick's Day?

St Patrick's Day occurs annually on March 17 in observance of the death of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.

What began as a religious feast day in the 17th  century has evolved into a variety of festivals across the globe celebrating Irish culture with parades, special foods, music, dancing and a lot of green!

If you don't remember the history of Saint Patrick's Day... here is a funny video for you!

But St Patrick's Day is not celebrated just in Ireland: indeed people of Irish heritage celebrate it all over the world!

In Chicago they even colour the river in green!

Ehm... poor dog!

Can you think of a similar celebration here in Italy?

Transportation phrasal verbs

Here you are! I found it! 😎 

In this video, you can clearly understand the difference in the use of verbs such as "get on, get in..." and so on! Enjoy it and see you tomorrow...

Comparison

As I promised, I'm posting a couple of pictures about comparatives formation.

Here you can take a look at the structure (moreover you can also see how to form the superlative... that we're going to learn next week!):

Such as in the previous posts (come nei post precedenti), I'm posting some videos too!

When in the summary it says C+V+C... it stands for ( sta per) Consonant + Vowel + Consonant


In the next video, instead, you have some songs with examples of comparisons:

As in one of the songs we listened to...

.... don't give up with English: what doesn't kill you, makes you STRONGER!😉

Have a nice weekend!

Just a few things....

Today's post is a sort of revision of what we studied in the last unit!

First of all (prima di tutto), functions! Yesterday someone told me he/she was still confused about the use of CAN, COULD and MAY when asking for permission, so, if you didn't get it yet,  here you have a video about it.

In the video, Alex adds "Do you mind"... He says that it's even more (ancora più) formal than MAY, it would be our "Ti dispiace se..."

Another issue (problema) is the use of MUSTN'T and DON'T/DOESN'T HAVE TO....

Remember:

• MUST expresses obligation imposed by the speaker, while HAVE TO expresses external obligation

Teacher: "You must complete this essay by Friday"
Student: "We have to complete this essay by Friday"

•       It's more common to use HAVE TO in questions instead of MUST 

                Does he have to do the test tomorrow?          

•       Use HAD TO instead of MUST in the past tense      

                 I had to pay a fine (multa) two days ago.                                          

For their negative forms you can have a look at the picture below:

And last but not least (in ultimo ma non per importanza): house cleaning vocabulary! Did you tidied up your room this morning?  I did! 🙋


Alex will teach us some of the most common verbs and nouns used to talk about house cleaning:

Did you find this post useful (utile)?

Love is in the air....

In a few days it will be the most
romantic day of the year...
St. Valentine's Day!




I know the boys of the class will react like this...

... but we don't care girls, right? 😉

Everyone knows it is celebrated on February 14th  , but how did St. Valentine become associated to love and romance? Let's watch this video to find it out (scoprirlo)!

So... can you answer  to the following questions in the comments?

1. When did St. Valentine live?
2. What strange law did the Emperor Claudius make and why?
3. How did St. Valentine break the law?

Did you know that in the UK they spend about £503 on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts for Valentine's day? But that's not the only interesting fact about this day that you should ( dovreste) know!

In Japan, Valentine's Day is a day when women give dark chocolate
to men. While (mentre) the rest of the world's men are expected to give presents to their special ladies, it's the other way around (tutto al contrario) in Japan!
Don't worry though (tuttavia) because men are expected to give gifts of white chocolate to women on March 14th. This is known as White Day!

People are increasingly (sempre di più) buying Valentine's Day presents for their pets! Americans spent about  $700 million on presents for their petson Valentine's Day in 2015. 

In Finland, Valentine's day is more of a day for friends. It is a time to get together with your friends, have a small party and enjoy each other's company. people also give cards and small gifts to their friends but this doesn't have a romantic meaning. It shows you care about your good friends. 

And finally, love is deeply (profondamente) related to music.... 

do you agree (siete d'accordo)?

According to you, what's the most romantic song ever? 

Asking for and giving directions

As I said in class, in this post I'm going to show you some videos that you can use to practice the function "Asking for and giving directions".
In the first one, you'll find some useful (utili) prepositions.

The second one will show you a practical situation: a guy is asking for an ATM (bancomat) and a Pizza Restaurant! Pay attention to the senteces (frasi) he uses to ask for directions and the way people answer him!

And the last video is the one some of my students created a year ago... there are some mistakes (errori)... Let's see if you are able to spot (individuare) them!

Hope you had fun watching them! 😏

Blue Monday!

Do you know today's "Blue Monday"?

According to popular belief (credenza popolare), today's "Blue Monday", the most depressing day of the year!!!! 😲

Blue Monday falls (cade) on the third Monday in January when you are apparently most likely (con molta probabilità) to find yourself cold, poor, miserable and fantasising about a week in the sun...

The phrase Blue Monday was actually coined (coniata) in 2005, as part (come parte) of an ad campaign for Sky Travel, which claimed (ha affermato) to have calculated the date using an equation!

There's also a song entitled "Blue Monday", but actually I found it... a little bit depressing! 😁

Keep calm and wait because they start singing after a while (dopo un po')!

What do you think about it? Did you like it? 😅 But above all (soprattutto) what do think of Blue Monday? Is it real? Did you feel particulary sad today?  According to you, why did they choose this particular time of the year?

And just to stay in theme  (per rimanere in tema) below you can find 10 different words you can use to say sad in English!

Indefinite pronouns and its compounds...

Hi guys! Another rule we will find in the unit we're studying is related to (si riferisce a) SOME, ANY and NO compounds (composti).I'm sure "everybody" has read or listened them in songs or other kind of texts, but, just to be sure, let's revise (rivediamo) the indefinite some, any and no first.

We form the compounds by adding -one, -body, -thing, -where to some, any and no as you can see in the picture below!

We use them exactly as their "parents" some, any and no

There is someone  (qualcuno) here > positive

I won't tell your secret to anyone (nessuno) > negative

Is there anything (qualcosa) to eat? > question

Nobody  (nessuno) was at home when I called > negative meaning with positive verb

It's very easy! 

You could also find interesting taking a look at this video! Enjoy it!

Anyway (comunque), don't worry... we'll see them together in class!