happiness

EXPRESSIONS WITH TAKE

Take is one of the most frequently used words in English. Needless to say, nearly fifty expressions in current use incorporate the verb take.

Take something / somebody for granted

There are two meanings for this expression.

To take somebody for granted is to benefit from their help without bothering to acknowledge it.

• Children often take their parents for granted. (= Children benefit from their parents’ help but they do not always acknowledge it.)
• You can’t take her for granted. She has no obligation to help you.

To take something for granted is to assume that it will happen.

• In a democratic system, we take many things for granted.

Take it as it comes

To take things as they come is to deal with them in order.

Take it lying down

To take it lying down is to suffer insult without protesting.

• She is an independent woman. Don’t expect her to take it lying down.

Take it on the chin

To take it on the chin is to boldly accept a difficult or bad situation without complaining.

• Although her latest book was panned by critics, she took it on the chin and started working on the next.

Take it out on someone

To take it out on someone is to give vent to your frustration by being unpleasant to someone.

• If he has a bad day at work, he will take it out on his wife.

Take one’s breath away

If something takes your breath away, it is extremely beautiful.

• Her beauty took his breath away.

Take someone to the cleaners

To take someone to the cleaners is to deprive them of their money or valuables.

• They took me to the cleaners.

Take someone for a ride

To take someone for a ride is to deceive them.

• I lent him $100 without realizing that he was taking me for a ride.

EXPRESSIONS WITH GO

go on a diet

Start eating less and eating more healthily so that you lose weight (start something)
e.g. "I'm so fat! I need to ____ ____ __ ______."

go home

return to your house (move to a place)
e.g. I normally _____ _________ at five o'clock.

go off something

stop liking something you liked before
e.g. I used to like chocolate but I've ___ _____ it now.

go for a walk

e.g. I really enjoy ______ing _____ _ _______ when it's sunny.

go for a meal

go to a restaurant to eat a meal
e.g. When I was little, we used to _____ ______ __ ______ for my mum's birthday every year.

go for a drink

go to a pub or bar to have a drink
e.g. In the UK, people normally ___ ______ _ _______ after work on a Friday.

go for a pizza

go to a restaurant to eat pizza
e.g. When I can't be bothered to cook, I normally ____ _____ _ _________.

go for a coffee

go to a coffee shop for a drink
(NOTE: we can't say 'go for a tea')
e.g. Do you want to _____ _____ _ ________ after class?

go grey

for your hair to change from coloured to grey/white
(become - with this meaning, it is usually used with colours or 'better/worse')

e.g. Most people ____ _______ as they get older.

Go wild

Go very excited.

COLLOCATIONS WITH CATCH

The word catch is used for the action in the picture above – to receive a ball (or another object) that someone throws to you. 

However, there are a number of other meanings and expressions with the word catch – here are some of them!

catch a cold

To get sick with a cold .

“Why weren’t you at the soccer game on Saturday?”
“Oh, I caught a nasty cold, so I decided to stay home and rest.”

catch your breath

To try to breathe normally after hard exercise.

“I stopped running to catch my breath.”

catch fire

When something comes into contact with fire and starts to burn.

“Keep those papers away from the candle, or else they’ll catch fire.”

catch someone red-handed / catch someone in the act

To discover someone doing something wrong or illegal at the moment they are doing it.

“I caught my daughter red-handed trying to take money out of my purse.”

“George was flirting with another woman at the bar, and his wife caught him in the act.”

catch someone’s eye

To make eye contact, or to attract attention.

“I caught her eye and smiled.”

“This painting caught my eye because of its bright, lively colors.”

good catch

If someone finds a mistake, you can say “Good catch!” to mean, “It’s good that you found the error!”

If you describe a person as a “good catch,” it means he/she is a good person to date or marry:

“Bob’s hard-working, sensitive, funny – he’s a good catch!”

Catch you later!

This is a very informal way to say “See you later!”

“Hey, it was nice talking to you, but I’ve gotta go pick up the kids from school.”
“OK, catch you later!”

I didn’t catch…

This is a way to say “I didn’t hear/understand what you said.”

“My home phone is 314-555-0307 and my office phone is 314-866-1294, extension 1352.”
“Sorry, I didn’t catch your home phone number – could you repeat it?”

What’s the catch?

This is a phrase that is used to mean, “What’s the disadvantage?” or “It sounds good, but are there any hidden problems?”

“I’ll sell you my car for just $500!”
“Oh really? What’s the catch?”

catch sight ofsomeone/something

To ​see something only for a ​moment:I ​caught ​sight of someone with ​red ​hair and ​knew it was you.

Catching a bus describes the process of getting to a stop/station, waiting and boarding.

Taking a bus describes the entire process, including the journey itself.

Much of the time, the distinction isn't important. For example:

"How did you get to work today?"

"I caught a bus." (The listener infers that having caught the bus, you stay on it)

"I took the bus." (You have described the journey)

However, it could be relevant:

"I read a book while I was taking the bus" (yes: reading while the bus is moving)

"I read a book while I was catching the bus" (unlikely: reading while stepping onto the bus, paying the driver, etc.)

It is a similar meaning to catch as catching a fish, or catching a ball. You and the bus are apart, and then you bring yourself into contact with it through your own effort. If you try to catch a bus, and fail, you miss it.

One other thing, you catch a bus at a specific place:

"You can catch the bus to Coventry on Smith Street"

But you take the bus from a place:

"You can take the bus to Coventry from Smith Street"

Inglés en Navidades

Estas Navidades promuevo una iniciativa solidaria para los niños o adolescentes  que quieran reforzar su Inglés durante estas vacaciones sin coste alguno.

Si lo necesitas contacta conmigo en este blog o a través de mi página de facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/I-love-languages-Jaime-les-langues-941737375882698/?ref=ts&fref=ts

Estas Navidades me apetece compartir mi pasión con los niños o adolescentes que realmente necesiten ayuda en la materia porque les cuesta o porque les gusta.

Esta iniciativa la llevaré a cabo del 23 de diciembre al 7 de enero  domingos y festivosno inclusive.

Feliz Navidad/ Merry Christmas.

Phrasals with put

 Put away

1: Guardar o poner algo en su sitio. Es un phrasal verb separable.

2: Encarcelar a alguien durante un tiempo determinado. Es un phrasal verb separable.( lock away)

·         Put your things away.

·         The girl didn´t want to put her things away.

·         I didn´t see you put them away.

·         They are going to put him away for 30 years for the crime he commited.

Put in

Meter o poner algo dentro (o en un sitio/lugar). Es un phrasal verb separable.

Put money in

To make a financial contribution

·         Put it in the pocket.

·         Put the mobile phone in my bag.

·         How much time did you put it in? ( invertir tiempo)

·         Let´s not put too much time into it.

·         The cost of driving to Paris and back is €400 so we all need to put in €100.

            

Put off

Posponer o aplazar algo. Es un phrasal verb separable.

·         Put it off until next week.

·         They put off the meeting.

·         Why are you always putting it off?

·         Don´t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.

Put on

1: Ponerse ropa. Es un phrasal verb separable.

2: Poner algo sobre una superficie o un lugar. Es un phrasal verb separable.

3: Engordar

·         Put the jacket on.

·         Put the book on the table.

·         I always put on weight during Christmas.

·         Put my father on the phone.

Put out

1: Apagar algo que se está quemando o que está ardiendo.

2: Sacar algo fuera.

·         Put out the cigarette in the ashtray, please.

·         Put the clothes out to dry.

·         It took them two hours to put it out.

·         The firefighters put out the fire in five hours.

Put back

1:Return an object to the location where it came from.

The opposite of “take something out”

After you’re done using the dictionary, put it back.
(put it in the bookshelf, in the location from which you originally took it)

 2:To move to a later time or date: the wedding was put back a fortnight.

3:To delay or impede the progress of: the strike put back production severely.

A PIECE OF PAPER

http://www.rong-chang.com/nse/se/nse005.htm

To drop: Caer una cosa al suelo. Verbo regular: por lo tanto pasado "dropped".

To bend over : inclinarse : Verbo irregular. Pasado:  "bent" 

To Pick up: recoger algo : Verbo regular. Pasaso "picked"

To put: poner

wakeboarding

A pupil told me about a "wakeboard" this morning,

Apparently it is an sport which is getting more an more common around.

So today we dive into the world of the "Wakeboarding"

This is a fun sport for the watersports .

The sport combines elements of surfing, waterskiing and snowboarding and sees participants riding a wakeboard over the surface of the water usually towed behind a motorboat travelling at speeds of up to 25mph.

There are a number of different types of wakeboarding to try including boat and cable wakeboarding.

For further info visit the attached link: http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/get-inspired/33148167

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxGvTL_gqdU

Don't keep emotions bottled up!!


Emotions have an important role in your life.


Watch the video and judge by yourself.

CPE USE OF ENGLISH- GAPS

CPE

http://www.examenglish.com/cpe/cpe_use_of_english_part1.htm

Men and women are often considered to be completely at odds with each other, in terms (1)  their attitudes and behaviour. Not so when they are in love, new research has discovered. As far as their hormone levels are (2), when men and women are in love, they are more similar to each other (3)  at any other time.

It has (4)  been known that love can (5)  havoc with hormone levels. For example the hormone cortisol, (6)  is known for its calming effect on the body, dips dramatically when one person is attracted to (7) , putting the love-struck on a par with sufferers of obsessive compulsive disorder.

But a new study has found that the hormone testosterone, commonly associated with male aggression, also falls when he is in love. In women, it's quite the (8) . Testosterone levels, which (9)  to be lower among females, rise towards (10)  of the male.

Donatella Marazziti of the University of Pisa, Italy, (11)  this down to nature attempting to eliminate the differences between the sexes. (12)  doing so, they can concentrate fully (13)  reproduction.
This suggestion seems to be supported by the fact that (14)  couples in a long (15)  relationship, nor participants in the study who were single at the time of the experiment, exhibited such changes.

Good preparation leads to success in ballet dancing.

Good preparation leads to success in ballet dancing.

This is an article written by a former classical ballet dancer where she explains what ballet training actually involves. (Hard work and Hardship).

"What we ballet dancers do is instinctive, but instinct learnt through  a decade of training. A dancer's life is hard to understand, and easy to misinterpret. Many a poet and novelist has tried to do so, but even they have chosen to interpret all the hard work and physical discipline  as obsessive. And so the  idea persists that dancers  spend every walking hour in pain, bodies at breaking point, their smiles a pretence.

As a former dancer in the Royal Ballet Company in Britain, I would be to question this. Ballet technique is certainly extreme but it is not, in itself, dangerous.

With expert teaching and daily practice, its various demands are easily within the capacity of the healthy human body. Contrary to popular belief, there is no need to break bones or tear muscles to achieve ballet positions. It's simply a question of sufficient conditioning of the muscular system.

Over the course of my dancing life I worked my way through at least 10,000 ballet classes. I took my first at a school of dance at the age of seven and my last 36 years later at the Royal Opera House in London. In the years between, ballet class was the first thing I did every day. It starts at an early age, this daily ritual, because it has to.
It takes at least a decade of high- quality, regular practice to become an expert in any physical discipline.
But for a ballet dancer in particular, this lentghy period has to come before the effects of adolescence set in, while maximum flexibility can still be achieved.

Those first classes I took were remarkably similar to the last. In fact, taking into account the occasional new idea, ballet classes have changed little since 1820, when the details of ballet technique were first written down, and are easily recognised in any country. Starting with the left hand on the barre, the routine  unrolls over some 75 minutes.

No one avoids this: it is ballet's great democtatiser, the well established members of the company working alongside the newest recruits.
Even the leading dancers have to do it.

These classes serve to distinct purposes: they are the way we warm our bodies and the mechanism by which we improve basic technique. In class after class , we prove the old saying that practice makes perfect"  Through endless tries at the usual exercises and frequent failures, ballet dancers develop the neutral pathways in the brain necessary to control accurate, fast and smooth movement.

And it is also this daily  repetition which enables us to strengthen the muscles required in jumping, spinning or lifting our legs to angles impossible to the average person.

The human body is designed to adapt to the demands we make of it, provided we make the carefully and over time. The principle is identical in the gym- pushing yourself to the limit, but not beyond, will eventually bring the desired result.

In the same way, all those years of classes add up to a fit-for -purpose dancing machine. This level of physical fluency doesn't hurt; it feels good.

As technology takes away activity from the lives of many , perhaps the ballet dancer's physicality is ever more difficult for most people to imagine.

But they should not be misled: there is a difference between hard work and hardship. Dancers have an everyday familiarity with the first. Hardship it isn't".