Indian summer

Today is the 8th of November. It's autumn and yet the weather is mild: it's sunny and warm (about 24º C), there's no wind... It's not the weather you might expect in autumn. That's what is called an Indian Summer, a term that, originated in the USA and Canada, is becoming more widely used in the UK, where this spell of good weather in the middle of the autumn is known as "All Hallows summer" or "St. Martin's summer" (In Spain we say "Veranillo de San Martín") because it hapens around the Day of St Martin, that is, the 11th of November. So, if it's got a name, it's not so strange to get warm days in November, is it?

Indian summer
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But where does this expression come from? It was first used in North America around the 1770s, but the origin is not certain. Some say that it was the Indians that pointed it out to the European settlers. Others say that during this spell of good weather the Indians renewed their attacks on the settlers. Whatever its origin, the expression is here to stay and it's already in use in other English speaking countries apart from North America.

Indian summer is the title of a song, a film, a festival,..

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By extension, it also means a pleasant period of someone's life, especially when they are older:

• After marrying his new wife at the age of 59, he entered into the Indian summer of his life. 
• She is in the Indian summer of her career.

Apart from Indian summer, there are other proverbs and idioms related to the seasons and the weather. Here are a few:

• One swallow does not make a summer, meaning that because one good thing has happened does not mean that others will follow:  Her latest book was a success, but a swallow does not make a summer. She still has to prove that she is a good writer.
• To buy straw hats in winter is mainly used in the stock market and it means to buy when demand and prices are low in order to sell when the prices are higher so as to make big profit.
• In the dead of winter means in the middle of winter, when it is the coldest:  In the dead of winter, just when it was colder, she came out wearing just a skimpy dress and no coat on. 
• No spring chicken is used to refer to people who are no longer young: Stop doing that. You're no spring chicken!
• To be full of the joys of spring is to be very happy. Look at him, he's full of the joys of spring.
• Autumn years are the later years of a person, especially after retirement: In the autumn years of his life he took up painting.
• Make hay while the sun shines means to make the most of opportunities when they come: Now that the children are at school, I'll set to work in my book. I'll make hay while the sun shines.
• To be / feel under the weather is not to feel well: I won't go out today. I'm feeling a bit under the weather.
• It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. This proverb means that even the worst events can be beneficial for someone: After the fire in the building, many workers were given jobs to repair it. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.
• Come rain or come shine / rain or shine: no matter what the weather is like, in any case: After a long week working in the office we'll go out at the weekend come rain or come shine.

The following presentation can help you remember these idioms. Try to complete them and then remember their meaning. 

In this song by Stereophonics you can hear the expression Indian summer:



In this other song, Frank Sinatra says that he is going to love his sweetheart come rain or come shine; that is, in any case, no matter what life brings about. Enjoy it!

New Year celebrations

Today is the last day of the year and millions of people will be celebrating the arrival of the new year in many parts of the world. However, it will not be new year for everybody: the Jewish, the Muslims, the Chinese... even orthodox christian countries follow a different calendar.
Wherever January 1st is New Year, celebrations typically include big parties, fireworks and champagne. But there are many variations. Today, we are going to see what people in Britain do when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st.

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After a special, copious dinner (at home or out) people get ready for the countdown. Many wear party hats and masks and blow noise makers. Some people go out to see the fireworks display while others prefer to watch them on television.

The fireworks in London are so impressive and so many people want to see them live that the authorities have decided to play it safe by restricting the audience. So, this year, if you want to see the fireworks live you have to pay 10 pounds, and you wouldn't believe it but all the tickets have sold out! If you want to see how impressive this display is, have a look at this video:



When the clock strikes twelve, people kiss each other, then make a circle and join hands as they start singing Auld Lang Syne, which is a traditional Scottish song that has become the hymn for New Year's Eve because it symbolises endings and new beginnings. The lyrics was written by the poet Robert burns in 1788, but the music is much older and its author unknown. The song is written in Scots, a dialect of English spoken in Scotland, that's why it's difficult to understand.

Singing Auld Lang Syne
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In the following video you can read the original lyrics and a translation into modern English:



And talking about Scotland, the New Year celebrations there are called Hogmanay, and they stretch for two or three days. For the Scots, it's as important as Christmas. Hogmanay, whose roots go back to the old celebrations of the winter solstice before christianity reached these lands, is celebrated in different ways in each city or town of the country. In the following video we can see how they celebrate it in the capital, Edinburgh.



It goes without saying that after Auld Lang Syne, the music, dancing and champagne (or Cava) drinking goes on for hours till the early morning when you can see groups of people going back home to sleep it off.
And, like Ella Fitzgerald, I'll ask you: "What are you doing New Year's Eve?"

Happy New Year!

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In, on or at the corner?

According to the dictionary, a corner is "a point where two converging lines meet, forming an angle, either external or internal". (In Spanish we have two words for this: the internal angle is called rincón, whereas the external one is esquina).

Which preposition goes with corner: in, on or at? The answer is the three o them can precede this word. However, the three expressions have different meanings:

• When corner means an interior angle formed by two meeting walls, we use the preposition in. A piano was in the corner of the room. 

Hover your cursor over the Image

In the corner

• On the corner means "occupying the surface". For example, the shop in the picture is on the corner of the street. You can also say that a person is standing on the corner because they are occupying a space.

Image by Jackie Bird 
On the corner

• At the corner means near or adjacent to a corner.  For example, you can say "Let's meet at the corner of my street". But you can also say that the shop is at the corner of High Street and Station Road, that is, when you give the name of the two streets that intersect each other, at is used instead of on because you don't refer to the surface but the point of intersection.

Here's a tip that can help you remember this: in is used with the idea of being inside a volume; on when there is an idea of surface, and at when we just mean a point or being near something.

Another preposition that can be used with corner is around.  He went around the corner, which literally means that he turned around the corner. However, this can  also have an idiomatic meaning (see below).

Other expressions with corner:

• Out of the corner of the eye: you see something but not clearly, because you see it sideways rather than directly. He saw something move out of the corner of his eye.
• Blind corner: a street corner that you cannot see around as you are driving. Never overtake on a blind corner!
• Corner shop: small local store. I'll pop in the corner shop to get some milk.
• Just / right around the corner: very near either in space or in time: Exams are just around the corner. My boyfriend lives just around the corner.
• The four corners of the earth /world: many different parts of the world. People from the four corners of the world gathered for the event.
• A tight corner: a dangerous or awkward position from which escape is difficult: His lying got him into a tight corner.

Spring is just around the corner!
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How about an exercise to see how much you can remember?

Corner

In the following song by "The Script", a man is waiting for his lover on the corner of a street. He says he's not moving, he's going to stand his ground until she realizes that she is missing him and so goes to the corner where they first met. Isn't it romantic? 

Music vocabulary

Today we are going to have a look at words related to music, not from the point of view of the musician but from that of the listener. In the next presentation, we'll revise the musical instruments, types of music, musicians and equipment needed to listen to music, as well as adjectives related to sounds and a few idioms that will be very useful for the learner of English.

Let's look deeper into the adjectives for sounds, as I think they need further explanation:
Sounds can be loud (strongly audible) or soft (quiet and pleasant to listen to). Synonyms for loud are: earsplitting (extremely loud), deafening (so loud that you can hear nothing else because it makes you deaf!), piercing (loud and unpleasant) or shrill (high and unpleasant).

Ear-splitting sound
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Synonyms for soft are: quiet (making very little or no noise), muffled (not easy to hear because it is blocked), inaudible (difficult to hear).
According to the pitch, a sound can be high-pitched (like the cry of a baby) or low-pitched (like a tigers growl)
Sounds can also be lively or energetic if they fill you with energy, or soothing, calm and relaxing if they make you less nervous.
Finally, they can be melodious or tuneful if they are pleasant to listen to, or tuneless, if they are unpleasant, catchy if they are pleasing and easily remembered or bland if they are uninteresting.
Let's see some examples:

• He lowered his voice so much that it was almost inaudible.
• We coud hear muffled voices from the next room.
• The noise of the machine was deafening.
• I love listening to soothing music when I come back home from work.
• "Call me maybe" by Carly Rae Jepsen is a catchy song.

In the following presentation there are several questions. See how many you can answer correctly. 

Did you pass that test?

Finally, let's listen to this song about music by Abba.

Christmas Down Under

The traditional idea of Christmas is that of a cold, snowy day in which families get together around a fireplace, but, although Christmas is celebrated all over the world, not everywhere is it winter at this time of year. While in most countries in the north it's freezing cold, in the southern hemisphere it's summer, and instead of warming up near the fire, people are getting a tan under the sun.

Christmas Day on Bondi Beach, Australia
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One of these countries in which people bask in the sun at Christmas is Australia, or Down Under, as it is widely known. Due to the weather, their Christmas is a bit different from that of northern countries, but not that different, as they still have Santa, Christmas trees and stockings. However, you will much more easily see Santa on a surf board rather than a sleigh!

Santa surfing
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 Let's have a look at this presentation to see how similar or different Christmas in Australia is.

Christmas in Australia from Angela Ruiz Montero

In the following video, Brian Sutton sings about a typical Christmas Day in Australia. But before watching it, let's see the meaning of a few words you may not know, as they are Australian slang words:

• Billabong: a water hole in a dried up river.
• Coolabah: a eucalyptus tree and a brand of wine.
• Esky: a cooler, a portable, insulated container for keeping food and drinks cold. It's a shortened version of the trade name "Eskimo Box".
• Barbie: barbecue (or BBQ).
• Aussie: Australian.
• Stubbie: a small short necked bottle of beer.

You can look up more Austalian slang in http://australiandictionary.net

Can you answer a few questions on Christmas Down Under now?

Whether in Australia or anywhere else in the world, I wish you a very happy Christmas!

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Between or among?

Between, betwixt, among, amongst, amid, amidst are all prepositions and their meanings are  quite similar, that’s why students of English are often confused about their use.

Between and among are the most widely used, as the others are more formal (amid) or even archaic, that is, they are no longer used by speakers, and can only be found in written or literary texts. That's the case of betwixt, which is the same as between.

Between two legs.
 Image in:http://pixdaus.com/pics/1321124354kxjhGNP.jpg

We say that something is between two things if the things are on either side of it: I was sitting between my mother and my father. (Note that the root of this word, “tw”, is related to number two). Between is also used when there are more than two things but each one is clearly distinct from the others: Luxemburg lies between Belgium, France and Germany.

However, we say that something is among (or amongst) a group of things when these things cannot be told apart, that is, a collection of things we do not see separately: 
They used to live in a little hut among the trees. 
She grabbed the title among a total of 20 competitors. 
I saw him walking among the crowd.

If something is among a group of similar things, it is one of these things. In this case, it means “included in”: Among the collection of pictures there is one by Picasso.

Poppies among lavender.
 Image in: http://pixdaus.com/pics/1225922721p2nsG8a.jpg

Amid or amidst is very formal and is mainly used with ideas and abstract nouns:

The politician finished his speech amid tremendous applause.
The law was approved amid a great deal of controversy.
It can also mean “surrounded by”: The house was in a beautiful position amid vineyards.

Vineyard in Greece by Spiro Anaxos.
 Image in: http://pixdaus.com/pics/1313681910cfTIcPE.jpg

Idioms:
To be sandwiched between... is to be so close to two people or things that there is not enough space to move. My poor little car was sandwiched between a Rolls Royce and a Mercedes.
To read between the lines is to discover a meaning in something that is not openly stated: He is not going to say what he really feels, but you can read between the lines and guess that he isn’t happy with the situation.
Between you and me, or between ourselves are used to mean that something is or should be kept a secret. Now between ourselves, for this is strictly confidential, I'm quite alarmed at the prospect.
If you are between the devil and the deep blue sea, you must choose between two unpleasant situations. We seemed to be between the devil and the deep blue sea: it didn’t matter which way we went.
To come between two people is to disrupt their relationship. You have a nice example in Sade’s song “Nothing can come between us”.


Now you can check what you have learned by doing this exercise:

http://focus.olsztyn.pl/en-exercises-prepositions-test-9.html

Holiday or vacation?

The end of June is, for teachers in Spain at least, synonymous with the beginning of the summer holidays. The last few weeks are usually hectic, with classes in the morning and meetings in the afternoon and evening, followed by dinners out with fellow teachers or students, and it's only when you finish the last class that you come to realize that “this is it”, the holidays have started.

Holiday on the beach
Photo in:

    http://inanutshellenglish.blogspot.com/2009/07/holidays.html

The word holiday comes from old English haligdæg from halig meaning “holy” or “sacred” and dæg meaning “day”. So, originally, it meant a religious festival and also a time for recreation. Today, we use this word in British English to mean the period of time when you are allowed to be out of work or school, and also, the time spent in another place or country for rest and enjoyment.

In the USA, the word vacation is used with these meanings. This word comes from French, and originally from the latin verb vacare, which means “to be empty, free or at leisure”.

Both in the UK and the USA the word holiday is used to mean a day when everybody is officially allowed to be away from work. This day can also be called public holiday or bank holiday in Britain, and legal holiday in America. The school will be closed on Monday because it's a holiday. A national holiday is an official day to celebrate an important national event. One national holiday that everybody celebrates in America is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving parade
Image: 'The famous Macy's Turkey' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11080385@N05/3064244803

When Americans talk about the holidays or the holiday season, they mean the time in December and early January that includes Christmas, Hanukkah and New Year. The film was a summer release, but was so popular it ran through the holiday season.

To make things more complicated, the British use the word vacation to mean the period when university is officially closed for students. But, apart from this meaning, vacation is mainly a US word.

The word holiday is used in the singular when we mean a short period of one or two days, whereas for longer periods we usually use the plural holidays. We've got a holiday next Monday. We are going to Italy for the summer holidays. But we always use the singular in expressions like “two weeks' holiday” or “on holiday”.

In an informal context, it can be shortened to hols: On our summer hols last year we camped at a lovely site by the beach.

Holiday can also be a verb meaning “to spend a holiday somewhere”. She was holidaying with her family in Morocco.

Image: 'Moroccan Textures' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/96777571@N00/75963207

Holiday or vacation can be found in expressions such as:

• To go on holiday/vacation
• To take/have a holiday/vacation
• To be on holiday/vacation

Note that we always use the preposition on with these two words.

Finally, the people who are on holiday are called holidaymakers or vacationers.

Have a nice holiday if you are as lucky as me, and if not, don't despair, you will soon have one!

Listen to Madonna's song "Holiday" and fill in the gaps.

New Year's Day

Even though it's titled War, U2's third album has been described as “the record where the band turned pacifism into a crusade”. Of all the songs in the album, two stand out particularly: Sunday Bloody Sunday and New Year's Day. The first one is about a terrible incident in Northern Ireland in which a group of civil rights defenders were shot by the British Army with a result of fourteen dead people. The other song, New Year's Day is about the Polish social movement Solidarity, which in the early 1980s started a fight in favour of workers' rights against the communist government.

Almost 30 years later, this song can still be heard without losing any freshness and can rightfully be termed as a classic.

Enjoy listening to New Year's Day on New Year's Day!

Boxing Day

The 26^th of December is known in Britain as Boxing Day. There are several theories regarding the origin of the name, but it's probably called so because from remote times, servants and other workers used to receive boxes full of food and gifts as a present for the Chistmas period.

Boxing day is also St. Stephen's Day (which is how this festivity is known in Ireland), and legend has it, it was on this day when “Good King Wenceslas” went out to help a poor peasant. You can hear the story of this Bohemian saint, who was not a king but a duke, in this popular Christmas carol.

Today, many employers give their employees a Christmas bonus that can be money, gifts or even a vacation-type incentive. Besides, householders give some money or gifts to the tradesmen that regularly visit the house, such as the milkman or the dustman.

Traditionally, families get together on Boxing Day to watch sports, play board games or even go out for a walk in the countryside if the weather is not too wet. It's also a day devoted to outdoor sports and fox hunting (though it's now forbidden to kill the fox in Scotland, England and Wales, there are some places where this tradition is still alive).

'Vale of Clettwr Hunt'
Image in Flickrcc:http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2721/4215856346_8171ac308d.jpg

In recent years, people tend to go shopping on this day because it's the opening of the sales period and there are big discounts in clothes, shoes or electrical items, and it's becoming traditional to see big crowds gathering at the entrance of department stores waiting for the doors to open and pushing and fighting to get the best offers.

Image in: http://garywiram.wordpress.com/

Don't get too carried away by the sales!

Merry Christmas!

The Christmas holiday is drawing near and everywhere there are lights and decorations that cheer the dull winter evenings. Santa Claus movies are back on television and Christmas carols can be heard in supermarkets and malls. There's hardly a festive season that is more widely celebrated all over the world than Christmas.
Cheering up is what we need during exam time and if there is a feelgood Christmas song that can make you dance, that's Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is you". Enjoy!

Remembrance Day

You probably have seen many people wearing paper poppies on their lapels these days.

Photo: "Lest We Forget" 

The red poppy stands as a symbol of remembrance: by wearing it on our chests, close to our hearts, we remember those people that died at war. But, of all the flowers, why the poppy? Because it was the only plant that grew in the barren fields of northern France and Flanders after the great battles of the First Workd War, in which so many soldiers were massacred.

These poppies are mainly worn from the end of October up to Remembrance Sunday, which is the second Sunday in November, that is, the nearest one to Remembrance Day (November 11^th).

Remembrance Day used to be called Armistice Day because it commemorates the signing of an armistice that put an end to the First World War. The date was declared a national holiday by many countries and today, not only the soldiers that died during that war are remembered, but also all those that lost their lives at any armed conflict.

Poppy wreath

On Remembrance Day, special services are held at war memorials and churches throughout most Commonwealth countries. In London, Queen Elizabeth II lays a wreath of poppies at the Cenotaph in Whitehall.

The Cenotaph at Whitehall, London

So many lives lost, so much blood spilled... what for? What is war good for?

^{.
Photos in FlickrCC}

Singing in the rain

Meteorologists say this has been the rainiest winter in southern Spain so far since records started, and I guess they must be right. Just have a look out there: it's still raining! We are not used to so much rain, but let's look on the bright side: there won't be any restrictions on water consumption next summer!! Don´t be under the weather because every cloud has its silver lining. Pay heed to Gene Kelly, who is so much in love that he doesn't care if he gets wet under the rain.



After you watch the video, you can do this exercise.
And what about looking for an equivalent expression in Spanish to the bold ones in the text?

New Year's Resolutions

Well, it's that time of year again when you make resolutions to improve your life. You know, the kind of thing like: "I will do more exercise", "I will eat less sweet things", "I'll learn English"...

We are really determined to get our goals by the first of January, but unfortunatelly, it doesn't last long. Be sensible and try to set goals that you can achieve. What are your resolutions for 2010? If you're short of ideas, have a look at this site. Blog your comments!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

A CHRISTMAS CAROL. SING ALONG!

1- Partrige in a Pear Tree
2- Turtle Doves
3- French Hens
4- Calling Birds
5- Golden Rings
6- Geese a laying
7- Swans a swimming
8- Maids a milking
9- Ladies Dancing
10- Lords a Leaping
11- Pippers Pipping
12- Drummers Drumming

Learning English with songs

One of the best ways of learning English (or any other language) is listening to songs and then try to uderstand what we have just heard.

Surfing the net, I came across this fantastic webpage where you can find thousands of videos of songs and their lyrics. Besides, many of them feature exercises to work further on them.

Click on the following link and you'll see that I wasn't exaggerating when I said it was "fantastic".