Thirty days hath November...

"Thirty days hath September..." is a mnemonic rhyme to help remember the number of days in each month. Although there are many versions, this is probably the most common one:

"Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November,
all the rest have thirty-one
except for February alone,
which has twenty-eight or
twenty-nine in each leap year"

Have you ever used the knuckles of your hands to remember them. Do you know how it goes? Read here to find out.

How much do you know about "leap years"? Which was the last leap year? Some people believe that leap years are very special -they're certainly one day longer!! It might be a coincidence but Olympic Games always take place on leap years.

Whenever I speak about leap years I think back of my aunt Elia. I remember when I was a little boy she always looked really young to me, much younger than the rest of the family. One day I asked her what her secret was for looking so young. And she said: "There's no secret, I simply was born on a leap year, on February 29th, and therefore I only have a birthday every four years... that's why I look so young."

Here are some other curiosities about the calendar.

Have a look at this video.

Modals I: can, could, be able to

Modal verbs play a very important role in the English language. Thanks to modals we can express many different notions and perform many functions in our everyday communication.

The use of modals is not easy to master. It is true that they are not a large group, but they are very important and they have their own rules -that is why we need to become familiar with them as soon as possible.

Here is a short video with a basic introduction to modal verbs.

In the next few days we are going to study each one of them separately, beginning today with "can" and "could". Can and could are only used in the present and past; for the rest of the tenses, including the infinitive, we use "to be able to". For further exercises with modals try this excellent Modal Verb Tutorial.

Have a look at this video, I am sure it will help you understand.

Nov 26. Thanksgiving Day

The Wikipedia defines Thanksgiving Day as a harvest festival, a time to give thanks for the harvest and express gratitude in general.

Thanksgiving is celebrated mainly in the USA and Canada, where it stands out as one of the most important celebrations in the calendar. Students come home from university and the family gather together around a table full of delicious food, where the real protagonist is the turkey, roast turkey, in fact.

Find out a bit more about the origin of this celebration, when and how it is celebrated nowadays.

I found this video telling the story of the First Thanksgiving. It has been recorded at a slow pace and using a very accessible language. You should have no problem understanding it. Have a go! Happy Thanksgiving Day!

And perhaps the most important question of all: "What do turkeys think about this celebration?" Well, find out in these two videos:

• I will survive...
• Thanks for...

Nov 25. International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women

Long live butterflies!!

November 25th has been chosen as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. In the following article you will find information about the origin of this celebration and why it is celebrated on this date.

I was really touched when I first read this beautiful poem by Carol Geneya Kaplan called "Another woman".

In 1988, Tracy Chapman wrote an impressive song about gender violence called "Behind the wall". Unfortunately you can see that 21 years later it still sounds terribly familiar. Watch the video clip, it has subtitles.

Have you ever heard of "The 16 Days Campaign"? Read a bit more and see if you would like to back up this initiative somehow. What 16 days do they talk about? What do we celebrate on Dec 10th?

Transport and travel. Crossword

Well, here we go with another crossword. This time we want to revise vocabulary and expressions in the world of transport and travel. Keep in mind that many of the words in the crossword are compounds and in some cases they should not be written together as just one word, ok?

Write down in your notebook three words that you will always remember from now on.

Comparatives and superlatives

Using comparatives and superlatives properly in English can be quite a challenge. However there are some rules which are not difficult to follow if you are careful. Here are some notes that might help you.

Have a look at this pps (remember: powerpoint slideshow) that my colleague Ana has sent us from Estepona (Thank you, Ana) and you will see it all very clearly.

If you want to do some further practice here are some good links offering you lots of exercises. Enjoy yourself!

• usingenglish.com
• englishexercises.org
• better-english.com

Still another pps to go a little further into the comparatives. Don't miss it!

Dido's White Flag: Song and quiz

Listen to Dido's famous song "White Flag", a classic from 2003. See if you can fill in the blanks in the lyrics of the song. There are a few expressions worth taking a look at. Do the quiz and see if you're familiar with them. Once finished you can check your answers. Good luck!

I can do it!

I've just come across these English lessons and I thought you might like to give them a try. They're very clear and have got subtitles in English. In this introductory lesson, Misterduncan in England says that the two most important words to remember when learning English are: practice and confidence. What do you think of it? If that is so... do you think you practise enough? And how confident do you feel to use the English you are learning? Do you take advantage of the situations to use your English as much as you can or are you too shy to do so?

Friday the 13th

Every year has at least one Friday the 13th, and a maximum of three, like 2009 for example (February, March and November). But why is Friday the 13th an unlucky day? It has always been an unlucky day in Britain, but when I was a little boy the "unlucky day" in Spain was Tuesday the 13th, not Friday. Probably after the great influence of the film Friday the 13th, in 1980, this date became more popular also in our country.

This Friday 13th November is also very special because it is our colleague Alex's birthday... Happy Birthday, Alex!!

Some more curiosities about Frinday the 13th on the Wikipedia.

By the way... can you count to 13? Time for revision... watch the video.

Why don't you post a comment sharing with us any "strange" experience that you might have had on a Friday 13th. Are you superstitious? Do you believe in this sort of things? We are looking forward to reading your comments and opinions. Come on!

Strong Adjectives. Crossword

Well, I'm back as I promised, and not as sleepy as I was last night.

I've just prepared a very attractive crossword about strong adjectives. Lots of new vocabulary. Have a go and see if you know them all. Have a happy weekend.

Strong adjectives

When we speak or write we can make a story more dramatic by using strong adjectives (exhausted instead of tired, delighted instead of pleased). We can also make adjectives even stronger by adding an adverb (absolutely, very, really), e.g. The weather was absolutely freezing! (Careful how we use these adverbs!!)

Here's a silly game that will help you to remember some of the most common strong adjectives. Try this link for further practice. How about a pps (powerpoint slideshow) to test how much you have learnt about strong adjectives?

I promise a crossword for the weekend. Too late now. Good night!

Remembrance Day. Poppy Day.

Once again, like every year since 1918 Britain celebrates Remembrance Day. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month marks the signing of the Armistice, on 11th November 1918, to signal the end of World War One. This is what we know as Remembrance Day.

Remembrance Day is celebrated in many other countries whose young soldiers died in World Wars I and II. Read about the celebration in Canada.

You can listen to The Last Post, a bugle call used at Commonwealth military funerals and ceremonies commemorating those who have fallen in war. Many people wrote poetry about their friends fallen in war. Probably one the most famous poems is "In Flanders Fields", by John MacCrae.

Remembrance Day is best known as Poppy Day. Find out here why a poppy and why people wear a poppy on this day.

Watch this video on Remembrance Day in Canada.

20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

Tomorrow, November 9th 2009, it is celebrated the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. For over a quarter of a century, since 1961, this terribly famous wall, also known as The Iron Curtain, divided Germany -and Europe- in two parts.

The BBC reported the event in this article.

Here's a historical video document of what happened those days when the wall was finally pulled down.

Maybe you would like to have a look at John Kennedy's speech in Berlin during his official visit in 1963, which ended with the famous sentence: "Ich bin ein Berliner".

Last October 31st the leaders of Germany, the United States and the Soviet Union in 1989 gathered in Berlin to take part in the celebration marking the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall which put an end to the European Cold War.

What for?

People very often confuse the purpose of an action (what for?) with the reason why we do it. If we look carefully we will realize that they are two different concepts. In simple words we could say that the "purpose" looks ahead and generally has to do with ourselves, with our personal intentions or objectives, while the "reason" usually looks back and often has to do with other people's impositions upon us.

Today we are going to study purpose clauses and very soon we'll study the clauses of reason. Here you will find a good explanation on how clauses of purpose work, a set of exercises and a few sentences in Spanish to translate into English. Good luck! Remember the teacher is always around to help you if you need it.

Here's a short poem by horror writer Kristy M. Tallman called "Why & what for..."

Happy Birthday, Charo!

Today is my wife's birthday. With the passing of time her age has become a "national secret", but nevertheless we wish you a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY from our blog, Charo!!!

Every year my mother-in-law proudly repeats the story of how she got up very early that day and prepared a delicious omelette for her husband, who worked in the market, before delivering that beautiful baby who weighed nearly six kilos upon her birth.

Money. Crossword.

Earn, win, save, waste, invest, spend, blow your money? It's not quite the same, is it? You'd better learn the difference if you want to handle your own money successfully. Have a go at this crossword: you'll find plenty of adjectives, verbs and nouns related with money.

Have you ever seen the rain?

Many students find it difficult to see the difference between the Past Simple and the Present Perfect. The next few days in class we will focus on the correct use of both tenses, so important in the English language. Here you have a couple of documents that will help you to see the different notions and functions that we can express with these two tenses.

• We use the Present perfect to talk about life experiences, duration lasting until the present, completion and recent events...
• We use the Past simple to express isolated actions in the past, duration in the past, past habits and routines...

Listen to CCR Creedence Clearwater Revival singing "Have you ever seen the rain?"