Author: andreaalthoff

What’s the difference between near and close?

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When you are talking about PHYSICAL DISTANCES, you can use either word:

  • The hospital is near.
  • The hospital is close.

Both these sentences are correct and mean the same thing, a SHORT DISTANCE.

NEAR and CLOSE have also this same meaning when referring to TIME:

  • Summer is near.
  • Summer is close.

When close has this meaning, it is pronounced /kləʊs/.

And notice that close is often followed by the preposition to:

  • The hospital is close to the park.
  • The hospital is near the park.

Be Careful! Don’t confuse the adjective close with the verb close /kləʊz/. If you close something, you move it so that it fills a hole or gap.

Close near

Now, when you are talking about something that deals with ABSTRACT IDEAS OR QUALITIES, like RELATIONSHIPS, you use CLOSE instead of near:

  • My friend and I live in different countries, but we are very close.

Here, I am saying that my friend and I are not in the same physical area, but we are emotionally connected. We are good friends.

However, if I say, “My neighbor and I live in the same apartment building, but we are not close,” I mean we occupy the same physical area, but we are not emotionally connected. My dog tried to bite his dog once, and he has never spoken to me again!

You can refer to someone you know well as a close friend.

  • Mike and I are very close friends.
  • His father was a close friend of my father.

You can refer to someone who is directly related to you as a `close relative.

  • She had no very close relatives.

You can also refer to someone as a `near relative, but this is less common. 

You can say:

  • They’re a close family.
  • My dad was closer to his brother than to his sister.

Close is also used in the following collocations:

  • a close encounter
    The mountaineer Joe Simpson has had several close encounters with death.
  • a close race
    After a close race, Obama won the election.
  • a close finish
    It was a close finish – only a tenth of a second separated the two runners.

Near close

  • a near miss
    The asteroid passed 27,700 km from the surface of Earth – a near miss.
  • in the near future
    The volcano could erupt in the near future, according to scientists.
  • in the near distance
    We could see someone in the near distance.

https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/english-usage/what-is-the-difference-between-near-and-close

Near vs. Nearby

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Near and nearby both mean close. They are just used differently in the sentence.

Here are some guidelines:

Use NEAR as a preposition that states the proximity of something to something else – where something or someone is in relation to another thing or person.

It is what a PREPOSITION does. A preposition is a word that shows the relation of one word in a sentence to another word.

  • There is a beach near my house.  (this means that there is a beach close to my house)
  • He worked in a restaurant near the station. Not: He worked in a restaurant nearby the station.

NEARBY can never be properly used as a preposition, although you may hear someone say it occasionally:

  • The book is nearby the table. (it is not considered correct)
  • The book is near the table. (near means close to the table)

Use NEARBY before a noun, as an ADJECTIVE, meaning ‘not far away’:

  • We can meet at a nearby beach.
  • Luckily, the nearby buildings weren’t damaged by the fire.

Or use NEARBY, meaning ‘not far away’, near whatever is being mentioned, as an ADVERB, to say that something is close wherever what or who is being mentioned is:

  • The beach is nearby.
  • Does Paul live nearby? 

Remember that an ADVERB is a word that tells us more about a verb, an adjective or another adverb. It describes or modifies these words.

So, note that NEARBY can appear either before or after a noun that it describes, but NEAR can normally appear only before the noun, and even then, only when referring to time:

  • We slept at a nearby motel. (nearby + noun)
  • We slept at a motel nearby. (noun + nearby)
  • I hope to visit you in the near future. (near + noun, and near=close in time)

So, NEAR can mean close in time (=soon), as well as close in distance, but nearby cannot, as shown below:

  • Summer is near. [near=close in time]
  • May is nearby.  [nearby cannot mean close in time]

According to Practical English Usage by Michael Swan, near to is also possible with the same meaning as near, but it is less common.

  • There is a beach near (to) my house.
  • I came near (to) hitting him. (prep + verb + ing)

Online or face-to-face?

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Todos sabemos como a tecnologia favorece a comunicação.

O online representa conveniência e flexibilidade.

De acordo com o Cambridge Dictionary:

​ONLINE, adjetivo, UK  /ˈɒn.laɪn/ US  /ˈɑːn.laɪn/ , aquilo que está relacionado a um computador, ou está disponível através de um computador ou uma rede, sobretudo a Internet.

an online clothing store / uma loja de roupas on-line

ONLINE advérbio

You can book your tickets online. / Você pode reservar seus ingressos on-line.

FACE-TO-FACE advérbio, adjetivo, /ˌfeɪs.təˈfeɪs/ em pessoa, encontro cara a cara no mesmo lugar.

We’ve spoken on the phone but never face-to-face. / Falamos ao telefone, mas nunca cara a cara.

Mas a prática durante o recente período de pandemia, mostrou-nos e ainda nos tem mostrado, que a comunicação face a face, uma aula face-to-face, não precisa necessariamente ser feita por pessoas no mesmo espaço físico.

Os benefícios do face-to-face também podem ser alcançados através de um ambiente virtual, numa aula online.

Muitos têm compreendido o face-to-face, a comunicação face a face ou frente a frente, além do que o dicionário define, ou seja, apenas como poder ver a outra parte ou partes em uma conversa.

No entanto, devemos concordar, que a comunicação, a aula face-to-face no mesmo ambiente, permite uma troca ainda mais rica, quando tanto o falante quanto o ouvinte, são capazes de ver e interpretar linguagem corporal e expressões faciais, um do outro.

O encontro face-to-face presencial, envia uma mensagem antes mesmo da pessoa dizer uma palavra.

Ambos, falante e ouvinte, professor e aluno, que devem alternar-se nessas posições, se enriquecem, podendo calibrar suas entregas com o que percebem através de tom, inflexão de voz, emoção e linguagem corporal.

Cada um pode ver, perceber melhor, e assim responder melhor, às reações do outro.

Na minha experiência, observo que é mais fácil enfatizar as principais mensagens de uma fala ou explicação, reiterar e expandir ideias, incentivar feedback e engajamento contínuo, gerar e manter o foco, na aula face-to-face no mesmo ambiente.

O encontro, a aula, face-to-face no mesmo ambiente, pode ser o antídoto para nossa era digital de ritmo acelerado, e demasiada interferência de equipamentos entre nós, quando o grande número de canais de comunicação disponíveis nos leva à sobrecarga de mensagens ou desconexão.

Mantenhamos abertas as possibilidades e os esforços, para aproveitarmos o melhor que ambas as experiências, virtuais e presenciais, podem nos oferecer.

Governos, escolas, universidades, empresas, efetivamente sairam da pandemia com alguns modelos de encontros, que em inglês são:

  • fully virtual;
  • hybrid, blended model or schedule;
  • in-person teaching with remote students;
  • teaching online and in-person simultaneously.

A seguir, as muitas combinações possíveis, para nos referirmos aos seguintes temas relacionados à educação:

COURSE

  • in-person, face-to-face, in-class, classroom, classroom-based, traditional, presential, on-campus / online, remote COURSE

CLASS

  • in-person, face-to-face, traditional / online, remote, and remote live CLASS

CLASSROOM

  • in-person, traditional/virtual, remote, online CLASSROOM

EDUCATION

  • in-person / online, virtual school
  • online, distance EDUCATION

LEARNING AND TEACHING

  • in-person, face to face, classroom-based, *traditional / virtual, online, remote, distance / blended *LEARNING/TEACHING

STUDENT

  • in-person/ remote, virtual STUDENT

SCHEDULE

  • hybrid, blended MODEL or SCHEDULE (under)

INSTRUCTION

  • remote, online, and hybrid INSTRUCTION

FORMAT

  • being taught remotely, online or in a hybrid remote/online FORMAT

Veja também as lições Remote classes, Computer problems, e A ‘dead’ battery?

The seasons

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Do you know how to answer these questions?

What/which season is it now?

  • It is …
  • We are currently in …

What is your favorite season? Why?
My favorite season is _____ because _____.

The four seasons, as shown above, are:

  • spring
  • summer
  • autumn or fall
  • winter

Fall is used in American English.
Autumn is used in British English.

IN + Season

We use the preposition IN before a season.

  • People go to the beach in summer.
  • It rains a lot in winter.
  • There are many flowers in spring.
  • Leaves fall from the trees in autumn.

Listen to You’ve Got a Friend, sung by James Taylor, in which he mentions the seasons.

Work on the lyrics while playing the game, and have fun!

Blumenau’s birthday or anniversary?

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Blumenau is a Brazilian city in the southern state of Santa Catarina, where it’s believed that 30% of the city’s 400,000 residents are of German descent.

Since 1984, Blumenau hosts an Oktoberfest which is seen as the second biggest beer festival in the world, surpassed only by the original festival in Munich.

September 2 was Blumenau’s 172 anniversary.

BUT, BIRTHDAY OR ANNIVERSARY?

Na língua inglesa, essas são as duas palavras a serem usadas quando queremos nos referir à aniversário.

Há um consenso entre os professores de inglês brasileiros, que se for o aniversário de uma pessoa, usamos o substantivo birthday pois, como o próprio nome já diz, refere-se ao dia do nascimento (birth significa “nascimento” e day significa “dia”).

E que usamos anniversary para referir-se à data em que um evento importante aconteceu, como aniversário de casamento, aniversário da cidade, ou a data da fundação de alguma empresa ou instituição. Veja:

Mas nas minhas pesquisas, encontrei diferentes resultados.

Instead of giving rules and exceptions, I’ll show you the result of my search. / Em vez de dar regras e exceções, lhe mostrarei o resultado dela.

Birthday

The anniversary of the birth of a person.

He was in New York to celebrate his 74th birthday.

The date on which someone is born or something is created, more commonly called birthdate or date of birth.

Anniversary

(especially) The date on which a couple married or the date on which a romance began. It also means the celebration which takes place on an anniversary day.

We are celebrating our tenth anniversary today.

Anniversary

A day that is an exact number of years (to the day) since a given significant event occurred. Often preceded by an ordinal number indicating the number of years.

Today is the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the war.

Speech on the 150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

WVU vigil, other remembrance events planned to mark 20th anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Birthday and anniversary

The anniversary of the day on which something is created.

Birthday and anniversary

The anniversary of something’s origin or foundation.

The holiday is to celebrate the city anniversary.

The City of Cleveland Orchestra is celebrating its 200th birthday.

Happy 10th birthday: UNU-CRIS – United Nations University

Hats off to Academia Sinica’s Institute of Law on its tenth birthday!

Interestingly, even though we don’t usually refer to birth dates as “anniversaries,” we use the death anniversary when referring to death dates. / Curiosamente, embora geralmente não nos refiramos a datas de nascimento como “anniversary”, usamos “aniversário” de morte quando nos referimos a datas de falecimento.

Remembering dad on his death anniversary is a great agony.

The 100th anniversary of the birth of composer Benjamin Britten.

However, unless you qualify the noun anniversary, it is generally taken to mean a wedding anniversary. If you say, Today is my anniversary, unless the context indicates otherwise, you would be speaking of your wedding anniversary.

For other anniversaries, use a qualifier as well. For your employment, you can say work anniversary.

For anniversaries, such as a nation’s birthday, we use a recognized proper name. For the United States, July 4 refers to as “Independence Day.”

These national anniversaries, celebrated in most countries, are called national days. These are the dates of independence or adoption of a new constitution or form of government. 

Well, I hope this information was of some help to you. At least I’m sure you have no doubts about how to greet someone on their birthday, right? 😉