Author: andreaalthoff

Corpus Christi: the Body of Christ we receive and are called to become. Is it a long weekend for you?

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Carefully listen to the beautiful message below. Take notes of the new words or the entire sentences, and notice pronunciation.

Então, Corpus Christi será um feriadão, um feriado prolongado para você? Sabe como dizer isso em inglês?

Quando um feriado cai próximo ao final de semana, e empresas ou escolas fazem um recesso na quinta e sexta, ou segunda e terça, chamamos em inglês de long weekend.

Você pode dizer também, a three-day weekend, quando o feriado é na sexta ou na segunda, ou a four-day weekend, se é na quinta, com recesso na sexta. 

E as perguntas mais comuns antes de um feriado prolongado são: 

Como será seu feriadão? Como/Onde você passará o feriadão? O que você fará neste feriado prolongado? Você tem planos para o feriado?

  • How is your long weekend going to be?
  • How/Where are you going to spend your three-day weekend?
  • What are you going to do this long weekend?
  • Do you have any plans for the holiday?

Agora que tal usar estas perguntas juntamente com o vocabulário para este feriado de Corpus Christi?

Então complete as frases com as palavras ou expressões que faltam:

1- Thursday is a__________________.  It’s _____________________. (Quinta-feira é feriado. É…).

2- It’s _________________________ for me.  (É/não é um feriadão/feriado de quatro dias para mim.)

3- There are many_______________________in Brazil.  (Há muitos feriados cristãos no Brasil.)

4- Corpus Christi always __________________ a Thursday.  (Corpus Christi sempre cai em uma   quinta-feira.)

5- I’m in a__________________.  (Estou em clima de feriado.)

6- We’re ____________________ Corpus Christi at/in _____________________.  (Passaremos Corpus Christi……)

Confira suas respostas: 1 – holiday/Corpus Christi; 2 – long weekend/a four-day weekend; 3 – Christian holidays; 4- falls on; 5 – holiday mood; 6 – spend.

Então:

  • Enjoy your holiday! Aproveite/curta seu feriado!
  • Have a great holiday! Tenha um ótimo feriado!

Quer mais? Clique aqui.

Comparatives and superlatives

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We use comparatives to compare two things, places or people.

She is taller than her husband.

Superlatives are used, however, to show the difference between more than two things, places or people.

Paris is the biggest city in France.

Now watch the following video and make/take notes.

So, to form comparatives and superlatives, you need to know the number of syllables in the adjective. Syllables are like “sound beats.”

For instance:

  • “find” contains one syllable,
  • but “finding” contains two — find and ing.

Rules to form comparatives and superlatives

1. One syllable adjective ending in a silent ‘e’ — nice

  • Comparative — add ‘r’ — nicer
  • Superlative — add ‘st’ — nicest

2. One syllable adjective ending in a consonant, a vowel and another consonant — big

  • Comparative — the consonant is doubled and ‘er’ is added —bigger
  • Superlative — the consonant is doubled and ‘est’ is added—biggest

3. One syllable adjective ending in more than one consonant or more than a vowel — high, cheap, soft.

  • Comparative — ‘er’ is added — higher, cheaper, softer.
  • Superlative — ‘est is added — highest, cheapest , softest.

4. A two syllable adjective ending in ‘y’ — happy

  • Comparative — ‘y’ becomes ‘i’ and ‘er’ is added — happier
  • Superlative — ‘y’ becomes ‘i’ and ‘est’ is added — happiest

5. Two syllable or more adjectives without ‘y’ at the end — exciting

  • Comparative — more + the adjective + than — more exciting than
  • Superlative — more + the adjective + than — the most exciting

Examples:

  • The Nile River is longer and more famous than the Thames.
  • Egypt is hotter than Sweden.
  • Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
  • This is one of the most exciting films I have ever seen.

Irregular comparatives and superlatives

AdjectivesComparativesSuperlatives
badworseworst
far(distance)fartherfarthest
far(extent)furtherfurthest
goodbetterbest
little  lessleast
manymoremost
muchmoremost

Similarities

To express similarities use the following structure:

… as + adjective + as …

Examples:

  • Mike is as intelligent as Nancy.
  • Larry is as popular as Oprah.

Comparative and superlative exercises

Complete the sentences with the most appropriate comparative or superlative phrase of the adjective given.

1. Mary is  ____________________ (lazy) student in the class.

2. Rob’s apartment is  _________________ (nice) mine.

3. Elephants are  ____________________ (fat) camels.

4. Kim is   _______________________ (small) of all my friends.

5. I think tornadoes are _______________________ (bad) hurricanes because they occur more often and are much more unpredictable.

6. Laura speaks English  ______________________ (good) Susan.

More exercises on comparatives and superlatives.

And now the funniest practice ever! With songs! Listen and complete. 😉

I’m kinda sad!

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Kinda sorta

Hi everyone! The other day I used “kinda“ in a post, which was really appropriate. I think it’s about time for me to tell you what it means. Listen carefully to the following video.

Então, existem duas maneiras diferentes de usar estas palavras em inglês. A primeira é usar kind, sort e type quando você está falando sobre diferentes categorias ou grupos de coisas. E a segunda maneira de usar kind e sort (mas não type) é ao expressar incerteza sobre algo.

1. KIND OF, SORT OF, TYPE OF: CATEGORIAS OU GRUPOS

Essas palavras sempre vêm acompanhadas da preposição “of”: kind of, sort of, e type of . Exemplos:

1. What type of music do you like? (Que tipo de música você gosta?)

2. What are the different kinds of spices in this cake? (Quais são os diferentes tipos de condimentos desse bolo?)

3. That magazine prints fake news and all sorts of other rubbish. (Aquela revista publica notícias falsas e todo tipo de besteira.)

2. KINDA, SORTA: ESTABELECER INCERTEZA

Kind + of = kinda e sort + of = sorta. Essas palavras são usadas no geral para expressar a ideia de “um pouco” ou “meio”. Podemos também usá-las para estabelecer incerteza ou quando achamos que a nossa opinião poderá ofender alguém.

1. Mm, I’m kinda cold, could you please close the window? (Estou com um pouquinho de frio, você poderia fechar a janela?)

2. Do you like tomatoes? Mm, sorta. (Você gosta de tomates? Mais ou menos.)

3. “KINDA-SORTA”: MARCA DE UMA GERAÇÃO MAIS JOVEM

Essa expressão às vezes significa um pouco (1) e outras vezes muito (2). Também, pode mostrar indecisão (3) ou ser usada quando você está com preguiça (4). Independente da forma como é usada, essa expressão é muito popular hoje em dia, então é importante conhecê-la. Essa expressão é usada de diversas maneiras:

1. Who is that actor? / Oh, he used to be kinda-sorta famous back in the 90s. (Quem é aquele ator? / Ah, ele costumava ser um pouco famoso nos anos 90.)

2. How’s my writing paper? / Um, it still kinda-sorta needs some work. (Como está minha redação? / Hum, ainda precisa de muitas melhoras.)

3. So, are you guys, like, together? / Well, we’re kinda-sorta boyfriend/girlfriend. (Então, vocês dois estão, tipo, juntos? / Bem, nós somos meio que namorados.)

4. Do you wanna go out tonight? / Mm…kinda-sorta, not really, maybe, but yeah, okay. (Você quer sair hoje à noite? / Humm, mais ou menos, não muito, talvez, mas tá, ok.)

That’s it! Em que situações você usa kind, sort ou type na sua vida? Please, share it with me!

Prepositions of time: AT, ON and IN

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Prepositions are words that show things like:

TIME = at 2:00 o’clock

PLACE = in Moscow

DIRECTION = near the airport

First, we learned a few basic prepositions of place. Next, we will look at IN, ON,and AT used to describe WHEN something happens, happened, and will happen.

AT

We use AT with specific times (hour / minutes):

  • I get up at 7 o’clock.
  • My English class starts at 10am.
  • She finishes work at 6.15.
  • I left the party at midnight.

Midnight (and midday) is a specific hour which is why we use AT.

12am = midnight
12pm = midday / noon

We use AT for a holiday period of two or more days:

  • Do you normally get together with your relatives at Christmas?
  • Did you eat a lot of chocolate at Easter?

ON

We use ON for specific days and dates:

  • I will return it to you on Wednesday.
  • They got married on Friday the 13th.
  • We get paid on the 20th of every month.
  • I drank too much milk on New Year’s eve.

Remember that for dates, we use ordinal numbers.

E.g. the First of September (not the one of September)

IN

We use IN for specific months, years, seasons, decades, centuries and lengths of time.

  • My birthday is in January. (I don’t mention the date, just the month)
  • My grandmother was born in 1927.
  • The river near my house is dry in summer.
  • Life was difficult in the 1940s.
  • The music was great in the eighties.
  • The company was founded in the 19th century.
  • We need to have this report ready in 15 minutes.

Compare:

The New Zealand National day is in February.
(I don’t mention the day – only the month)

The New Zealand National day is on February 6th.
(I mention the day – the order is not important)

AT ON IN - Prepositions of Time in English

The Weekend

Sometimes you will hear AT the weekend and sometimes ON the weekend.

They are both correct. ON the weekend is used in United States.

  • Where did you go on the weekend? (American English)
  • Where did you go at the weekend? (British English)
The prepositions AT, ON, IN with parts of the day - English grammar rules

At the moment

I don’t want to talk about it at the moment.

We don’t use Prepositions

We do not use AT, ON, IN, or THE before these words:

  • LAST, NEXT, THIS and EVERY
  • TODAY, TOMORROW, YESTERDAY, TONIGHT

The party is next Friday.

They went to the mountains last month.

Choose the correct alternative to complete the sentence.

“Between you and ___: I or me?”

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Complete the following sentences:

Would you like to come to lunch with Noah and ___?

Just between you and ___ …

When the word in question is the object of a preposition and not the subject of a sentence or phrase, we should use the object pronoun.

A subject pronoun is the performer of the action in a sentence.

The object pronoun is the receiver of the action in a sentence.

So the correct answers are:

Would you like to come to lunch with Noah and me?

Just between you and me…

I is a subject pronoun and me is an object pronoun. 

I like chocolate. / The call is for me.

So a good way to check yourself is to remove the other person.

And just one more important thing:

It is considered polite to mention oneself last in double subjects or objects.

Why don’t you and I go away for the weekend?

The invitation was for Tracy and me.