Back to school

Hi there!

Yes, it is September again, sorry. Time to go back to work/school and the daily routine. Take a week or two to get used to it and then think that routine could be a great ally while you are learning a language. Try to start using the tips I'm giving you in this blog as part or your daily life. Let's start with something easy, I will review with you few things you can start doing now.

1. Listen English music or the radio while you are driving. That's easy and it takes no time.

2. Try to start watching a TV series in English. Each episode should be around 30 minutes long so you will not get too tired and you can watch it while you are having dinner or before going to bed. Choose one according to your level, if you don't understand every word but you know what are they talking about and what's happening that's the right show for you. Short episodes are the best, I'll give you few examples but choose the one you could really enjoy: The Big Bang Theory, Friends, Scrubs, IT crowd, The young ones, How I met your mother, Two men and a half, Modern Family, The Simpsons, Futurama, Family Guy, the Fresh Prince... 

3. Take notes. Write down everything you want to keep in mind. Don't stop the film, show or the book every time you find a new word but search the meaning of the ones that seem important to you and review them before going to sleep. You will spend less than five minutes in reading them and you will avoid boring studying hours. 

Finally, there are plenty of apps to start a routine that will remind you when do you have to do it and check your improvement. If you are not used to these resources just use a calendar or an agenda. I'm used to write a challenge per week because I can't promise to find time every day because of my job, it is easier to find time between my private lessons and leave few days free to relax during the week. My challenge this week would be try to drink water every day (it is really hard for me, I'm never thirsty!) and read at least the first three chapters of my new book in English. Today it's my birthday and my parents bought me The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

I hope you will be able to turn English in a daily activity so learning it will not be that hard. Before saying goodbye I will add one of my favourite songs with lyrics so you can understand it and play karaoke if you want. That's my way of welcoming September and saying goodbye to a very nice person that left this world few days ago. 

Thanks for reading.

Easy grammar

Some people are used to do mind-maps or tables because they are visual learners, other people need to have something to read so they prefer to summarize the grammar. There are also few people who uses silly jokes or word games to keep something in mind.  Personally, I use everything. I am a visual learner but I'm not able to explain everything with tables or mind-maps so sometimes I need to just summarize part of it. And if I'm studying and I keep on forgeting the same thing again and again I try to find a trick playing on the words. 
It doesn't matter what's best for you, just do it so you will not need to learn almost anything by heart. Our problem with grammar is that we always try to repeat and repeat till we got it, even if we don't understand it, so few days later everything is gone and we end feeling very frustrated. It is better if we stop, take a breath and use this time to read, think and understand what are we learning.  So, I'll give you some advice to use this methods properly, then try and choose what is better for you, it could be one, few or all of them!

Summarize

English grammar can be easily organised in mind-maps and tables but if you prefer a text just explain the mind-maps and summarize the long definitions. Summarizing is important because humans are very visual, we get tired just seeing what's left. If you are in the gym with the music or a TV you will be trainning longer than if you are constantly looking at your watch. The same thing happens when you are studying, even if you know that it is exactly the same amount of grammar, you will learn it faster and happier if you have 3 pages than if you have 10.

To have a perfect summary, rewrite everything in the way you would explain it. It is eaier to learn something that you wrote in your way than something that your brain needs to change every sentence. Even when you can prefectly understand it, if something sounds extrange, change it. That could seem a waste of time but by doing it, you are trying to understand every sentence and summarizing will help you to organize the grammar in your mind. Most of the times by the end of the day you will know everything you worked on without studying it.That will be so much better than repeating again and again.

Finally, remmember that the only person that will read your notes is yourself. So don't hesitate to use shorter words or symbols like if you were sending a text to a friend. Every word is important because one by one your notes will be becoming shorter and easier according to your eyes (and brain). 

Mind-maps and tables

As I said, you will be able to explain most grammar topics by this method; dividing them by gender, uses, topics, tenses... You can also use tables as vocabulary lists, with the new words, the meaning in your own language and, if you find it neccessary, you can add a sentence to include a context. Microsoft Word is quite good for the tables but it puts too many limits to make a proper mind-map. If you are more into that ones I suggest a very interesting (and free) webpage called Popplet. This online tool offers you everything without a registration but you should sign up if you want to print or save your maps. It could be really useful. 

   

 

Teacher help

While you are working on grammar you may need some help with few points. The best option is asking to an expert. So the best way to learn a language is going to a language academy and work at home as I'm teaching you. If you are doing it, ask your teacher every doubt you have. If you are learning on your own because you don't want a teacher or because you can't afford one, don't worry, ask a friend. If you have no native friends, maybe you have one that's is learning English and he/she is in a higher level than you, but remmember that friend could be tired if you have so many questions. If you can't go to a friend, you will always have internet. There are plenty of sites and youtube videos that explain grammar for free. But remmember that everybody can have a youtube account or a website, do not trust in the first information you can find, check it at least in two different places.

Tricks and word games

Finally, if you understand everything but you keep on forgetting the same part of the grammar or vocabulary, try to find a trick. For example, I used to be confused with the words price and prize. It is just a letter but the meaning is completely different, so after having to check it on wordreference before using it more than a hundred times I decided to look for a silly trick to keep it on mind. I didn't find a word game so I played with the letters in a drawing (like the one on the right), it is very simple and kinda stupid but now I'm always sure that prize is an award and price is the cost of the things. 
The easiest thing to do with a list is playing with the first letter of each word. For example if you can't say in orther the days of the week just think a sentence like: MOnica and TUrk WEnt to THailand with FRiends to enjoy the SAnd and the SUn. It is not my best sentence but it could work, sorry I can't think something better right now. You can even make a drawing of them going to the beach if it helps. 
It doesn't matter if it seems silly, the goal is keep the vocabulary or the grammar in mind and stop getting frustrated with the same mistake again and again.

I hope it will help you finding easier your grammar and enjoying your learning proccess. 

Bye bye

Gramática fácil

Hay personas que prefieren esquemas o tablas porque su manera de memorizar es más visual, y otras necesitan leer un resumen para poder entender la gramática. Incluso hay quienes necesitan trucos tontos y juegos de palabras para aprender algunas cosas. Yo personalmente utilizo todo. Reconozco que siempre he sido más visual y un esquema me ayuda mucho pero hay veces que no encuentro el modo de meter la teoría en una tabla/esquema y necesito un resumen. Una vez que estoy estudiando si algo se me atasca, recurro a los juegos de palabras. Da igual cómo sea tu método, lo importante es que intentes entender y asimikar el máximo posible para no tener que memorizar demasiado. El problema que tenemos es que tendemos a intentar aprender todo de memoria sin entenderlo, de primeras cuesta menos esfuerzo pero se hace muchísimo más largo y se olvida antes. Es preferible frenar, reflexionar sobre lo aprendido y practicarlo que repetirlo como loros durante horas. Dicho esto, os voy a dar las claves de todos estos métodos para que intentemos perder el mínimo tiempo posible en estudiar.

Resumir

Casi toda la parte teórica de un idioma se puede organizar en esquemas y tablas, pero siempre hay pequeñas definiciones que hará falta resumir. Si en realidad, prefieres los resúmenes, no te preocupes, con cuatro enlaces podrás explicar cualquier tabla.

Resumir es importante porque el ser humano es muy visual, nos cansamos sólo de ver lo que nos falta. Si estás haciendo deporte distraído con música o la televisión aguantas mucho más que si te propones hacer sólo media hora pero estás mirando el reloj continuamente. Tu capacidad física es la misma pero tus ojos te están diciendo que aún te queda más de la mitad y eso ya te agota. Lo mismo ocurre al estudiar. Aunque tengas que estudiar lo mismo, no lo harás con las mismas ganas si te ocupa 10 páginas que si son 3, créme, da igual que seas totalmente consciente de que al final la cantidad de temario es la misma.

Para hacer un buen resumen, lo ideal es reescribir todo el texto con tus propias palabras. Al leer algo que como tú mismo podrías explicar, se asimila mucho antes que si te suena un poco rebuscado. Esto llevará más tiempo y al principio puede parecerte que lo estarías aprovechando mejor si te dedicaras a leerlo sin más. Error. El tiempo que pasas escribiendo y pensando cómo explicarlo de otra forma, estás esforzándote por entender el temario pues es imposible explicar algo que no se entiende. Esto es muchísimo más productivo que leerlo muchas veces, mientras resumes aprenderás la mayoría del temario, puede que no te quede mucho por estudiar al acabar de resumir. 

Por último, recuerda que la única persona que va a leerlo eres tú, asi que no te cortes en acortar palabras como si escribieses por whatsapp, quitar cada palabra innecesaria o añadir algún símbolo, ¡todo cuenta! Puede que parezca que ahorrarte una palabra y acortar otra no es mucha pero a la larga puede reducir varias páginas de tus apuntes. 

Esquemas y tablas

La mayoría del temario se puede organizar en tabllas o esquemas; dividiéndolo por género, número, usos, tiempos verbales... Además puedes hacer listas de vocabulario sencillas poniendo en una columna las palabras nuevas en español y en la otra en tu lengua materna, incluso puedes añadir otra con una frase en la que aparezca la palabra si lo consideras necesario. Microsoft Word va bastante bien para tablas aunque para hacer esquemas te limita un poco en formas y espacio, para ello te recomiendo la herramienta online Popplet, es gratis pero recuerda registrarte para poder guardar e imprimir tus esquemas. En ellos podrás incluir dibujos, vídeos e imágenes propias o de internet. Puedes usarla también sin registrarte pero no se guardará lo que vas haciendo y para grandes esquemas puede resultar incómodo y poco práctico.

Ayuda de un profesor

Cuando estés resumiendo o haciendo tus esquemas encontrarás partes del temario que no entiendas. Para eso lo mejor es acudir a un experto. Lo ideal sería que estés compatibilizando todo lo que te enseño en este blog en casa con unas clases en alguna academia de idiomas. Si es así recurre a tu profesor para que te explique en persona las dudas que tengas y las veces que te haga falta. Si no quieres o no puedes permitirte un profesor, otra buena opción es pedir ayuda a algún conocido nativo o al menos alguien que tenga un nivel bastante más alto que tú. Pero no todo el mundo tiene amigos que sepan este idioma y si lo tienes pero también muchas dudas puede que llegue a cansarse. Si todo esto falla siempre te queda internet, hay miles de páginas que te explican gratis la gramática de cualquier idioma y muchísimos videos en youtube, seguro que encuentras lo que necesitas. Aunque recuerda que cualquiera puede tener una web o un canal de youtubem no te fíes de lo primero que encuentres y contrasta la información en varias fuentes.

Trucos y juegos de palabras

Por último, si a pesar de que te lo han explicado y que lo entiendes perfectamente, no consigues memorizarlo, busca algún truco para que no se te vuelva a olvidar. Por ejemplo, una cosa muy sencilla que no necesita explicación pero en la que incluso algunos españoles fallan es en el orden del SE. Cuando quieren decir "se me ha caído el lápiz", algunas personas dicen "me se ha caído el lápiz"; puede parecer similar pero en reallidad suena fatal y si caes en este fallo a menudo intenta corregirlo ya. El truco más común es pensar que la SEmana va antes que el MEs. Es una tontería, pero con este tipo de trucos o cualquiera que se te ocurra, dejarás de frustrarte por quedarte siempre atascado en el mismo punto. 

Otro tipo de truco es jugar con las iniciales o las primeras letras de las palabras de una lista que no se te quede. Por ejemplo, si estás aprendiendo los días de la semana (lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado y domingo) y siempre te saltas alguno, crea una frase con un mínimo de sentido para recordar el orden: LUcía MAstica MIs JUdías y VIctoria SAle del DOrmitorio. No es una gran frase porque es lo primero que me ha venido a la cabeza pero si la repites varias veces o incluso haces un dibujo rápido de las dos niñas conseguirás evitarte más de un cabreo con tus apuntes. Al final todo esto se trata de sufrir lo menos posible al aprender un idioma.

Espero haberte ayudado a afrontar la gramática de una manera más práctica y entretenida. 

¡Hasta luego!

Summer

Hello everybody! 

It's 40 degrees in Spain, summer is here! And what could be better for a hot day than listening music and watch videos with the air conditioning on? Come on! Your friends are away, it is too hot to be in the street, just chill and practice some English.

First, I've worked on another song. It is Summer nights, I'm sure you've seen the film Grease and if not, you should! Here you have the video and this song is in Spotify too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW0DfsCzfq4
And with this link you can download the PDF with everything you will need: http://depositfiles.com/files/i320u5lcu
If you have any doubt go back to the guide that I posted, so you will review how to use the PDF. http://nomoregrammarbooks.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Songs

After that, you can work on this vocabulary list. It contains few words, idioms and pharsal verbs to study this summer, please feel free to add as many as you need. If you try to work on them now I'm sure you will keep them in mind while you are enjoying the summer.

Finally, here you have some videos about these season, try to understand everything and pick paper and a pen to write down every new expression or word. All of them are from youtube so I should say that I'm not the author, but the vocabulary list and the pdf with the Summer nights exercises are mine. Feel free to use and share my work.

This one is the easiest one because it is a song written for kids and the video has subtitles. Start with it even if you are an adult, don't feel bad! It has a lot of difficult words that will increase your vocabulary.

Friends, do you need another reason to watch it? Okay, just in case, I should say that these fun scenes happen in a hotel and they have a problem with their booking, they will have to pay again! Enjoy this video while you learn practical expressions to talk in a hotel.

Black Books is a great British TV series that should be more famous because it is very fun and the actors are great. Don't worry about spoilers if you haven't seen it because it is a sitcom so in each episode they start and finish a story. In this episode the three friends are taking a trip together for the first time.

Finally, if you feel brave enough, here you have a monologue about summer. He speaks quite quick and I couldn't find it with subtitles (sorry) so don't worry if you don't understand everything. If you catch few jokes and have fun it is enough.

HAVE A NICE SUMMER!!

Pulp Fiction

I've just come home, I've been in the cinema watching my favourite film: Pulp Fiction. I know, it is an old movie, but it si so good, so unbelievable, that it is on the cinemas again to celebrate its 30th anniversary. And of course, as a perfect nerd I went there without hesitating it and I will keep the ticket as a treasure. But the point is that I was watching the film and I decided to post something about it in this blog as my own tribute and to make you watch this amazing artwork.

If you've watched it before, I'm quite sure you will not have any problem with watching it again, this time in English, of course. If you haven't seen it, you are already late, go! You'll thank me later. It plays with the time during the whole movie using flashbacks and flashforwards every few minutes so maybe if you watch it the first time in English you will not get anything. Try with English subtitles, it will help you with spelling too. If you still can't watch it, do it with your own language subtitles and watch it properly again in few days. I would not want you to destroy your first time watching Pulp Fiction to learn English, you'll have time to do that but watching if for the very first time... it happens only once. 

Tarantino's scripts are wonderful, enjoy them. Take notes of the words that get your attention and search theis meaning after the film. Don't stop it, if you miss an important common word it will come again during the movie or in another place. Don't worry if you don't understand everything, pick paper and a pen and try your best. 

That's all, watching a whole movie is hard enough to have extra homework. We don't want to get too tired and stop watching movies in English. If you take some notes to learn few new words and you understand what's happening in every scene it is a success! 

If you are thinking that you have no time, here you have two of my favourite scenes because of its dialogues as non-sense as brilliant. Please, don't watch them if you didn't watch the movie before, I would hate to make a spoiler in a film like this one. Enjoy.

  

PS: I have post it also to learn Spanish (I know, it is an American film but it feels unfair to me to recommend this film only to the English learners) so if you want to watch this scenes in Spanish click here.

Pulp Fiction

Acabo de llegar a casa, he estado en el cine disfrutando de mi película favorita: Pulp Fiction. Lo sé, es una película antigua para estar en los cines, pero es tan buena, tan increíble, que la han vuelto a poner en la cartelera para celebrar su 30 aniversario. Por supuesto, como una friki más he ido sin dudarlo y guardaré esta entrada como un tesoro. Pero el caso es que viendo la película he pensado en ponerla en el blog como homenaje y para animaros a ver la película.

Si ya la habéis visto no creo que tengáis ningún problema en verla una vez más, esta vez en español, claro. Si no la habéis visto, ya estáis tardando, ya me lo agradeceréis. Personalmente, me gustan mucho las películas en versión original y esta vale la pena verla muchas veces en todos los idiomas posibles, pero es cierto que el español le da otro toque pues en variedad de insultos y palabrotas es difícil ganarnos. Pero podéis verla primero en vuestro idioma si no os véis capaces de entenderla y disfrutarla por primera vez en español. La verdad es que juega mucho con el tiempo haciendo flashbacks y flashforwards continuamente y no me gustaría que el verla en español y entenderla a medias os fastidiara la película.

Volviendo al idioma, lo mejor es verla en español y con subtítulos en español para aprender más y relacionar lo que escucháis con la palabra escrita. Si os resulta muy difícil, podéis intentar poner los subtítulos en vuestro idioma pero os recomiendo verla una vez más un poco más adelante con los subtítulos en español. Al ser la segunda vez en poco tiempo no os costará tanto.

Los diálogos de las películas de Tarantino son una maravilla, disfrutad de ellos y empapáos todo lo que podáis. Apuntar las palabras que os llamen la atención y buscadlas cuando acabe la película. No estéis parándola continuamente, tampoco es necesario que entendáis ni apuntéis cada palabra. Pero si alguna se repite mucho u os llama la atención, siempre está bien ver la película con un cuaderno y un boli a mano.

No hay más tarea, las películas suelen durar mucho y no merece la pena recargar más el ejercicio con tarea escrita extra o te dará más pereza ver la siguiente. Con que estés atento a alguna palabra nueva y en general entiendas lo que ocurre en cada escena, habrá sido un éxito. 

 Para los que no tengáis tiempo, os pongo dos escenas que me encantan por sus diálogos tan absurdos como brillantes. No os recomiendo que los veáis si no habéis visto la película, odiaría haceros spoiler en una película como esta. Disfrutadla. 

PD: También he hecho un post similar para los que están aprendiendo inglés así que si quieres ver estas escenas en inglés, haz click aquí. 

The Young Ones

Hi everybody!

If you are looking for a new TVseries to watch in English that's your post. I'm sure you've heard about Friends or How I meet your mother, they are great. But today I want to speak about The Young Ones, it is not very famous but it is one of my favourite ones.

This show is a British comedy with their typical sense of humour. There are no clever and complicate jokes, just awesome scripts and some clown style in their acting. It didn't deserve an Oscar but the laughs are guaranteed. What else would you ask while you are learning English? It was recorded in the 80's so you should be prepared to some revolutionary mood against Margaret Thatcher or anything that means an estrict order and some random scenes that doesn't say anything in the chapter but completes it with more fun staff. That style was very common in that decade. I hope it is your style, if it is too silly for you leave it.

The accent is quite easy, very British, it will reming you to the listenings from your old school book. Some scenes go quick but you should understand almost everything. And as I said before, they have a clown style in their acting so you will understand what's happening even if you can get too many words. The episodes are very short so try watching two or three and you'll see how it is not so difficult. Try not to stop it too much, you don't need to understand or take notes of every new word. But if it is a disaster even with subtitles you can stop and rewind whenever you need. And if you don't like it after three episodes, stop and watch something else. Remember that if you are not having fun you will not want to watch the next episode and you'll be frustrated and hating English again. That's about avoiding that feeling. According to that, another great point is that it is very short so you will not get tired of it. There are only two seasons and the episodes are around 20 minutes long. You could watch everything in a long weekend! Call me a nerd, geek, freak... whatever you want, but I finished it (the second time) in three days.

 So, let's see what is it about. Don't worry, I promise I'm not doing any spoiler, everything I will tell you about is shown in the first episode. It is about four students who start the university, despite you will never see them going, and become flatmates. They are completely different to each other so you can imagine that there are plenty of funny misunderstandings and fights in that flat. Vyvyan is a punk guy who loves to destroy everything in his way, he is not very clever but he  always manages to solve his problems in a weird complicate way that usually involves some violence. Rick is the most annoying person in the flat, he is always talking about poetry and anarchy but it doesn't mean anything because against this values he is the most selfish and arrogant boy who doesn't take a no as an answer. He is always feeling like he is over everyone and that cause him a lot of problems. You will learn how to love it because it is like a spoilt child, but nobody will like him as a flatmate. Neil is the saddest and the most negative hippie in the world history, he has not a strong personality so everybody take an advantage on him. He is the one cleaning and cooking and nobody will ask him how does he feel. And the last one, Mike. He is a mystery because he is always keeping secrets and pretending (or not) that he is a very important and dangerous person. His personality is between the lost child of a high-class family, a mod who lost his scooter and the Godfather from Coppola. Everything mixed with

amazing music and some famous guest who play music during the episodes like Madness or Motörhead, you can't miss it.

Enjoy!