LinguaSuite Blog

International Jazz Day!!

Doreen Ketchens in New Orleans

FESTIVOS: DÍA INTERNACIONAL DEL JAZZ

HOLIDAYS: INTERNATIONAL JAZZ DAY

¿A quién lo le gusta la musica? El sábado de Memorial Day Weekend en U.S.A., es tradicionalmente el día internacional del jazz, y vamos a celebrarlo escuchando esta magnífica música de las calles de New Orleans, una señora increíble que se llama Doreen Ketchens. ¡Disfruta del vídeo!

¿Y qué mejor que repasar un poco de vocabulario en inglés? Los nombres de los instrumentos musicales:

bass guitar	bajo
baton	batuta
bugle	clarín
cello	violoncelo
cymbals	platillos
double bass	contrabajo
drum	tambor
drums	batería
drumsticks	palillos
flute	flauta
French horn	trompa
grand piano	piano de cola
keyboard	teclado
keys	teclas
piccolo	flautín
string	cuerda
tambourine	pandereta

¿Sabías que el director del orquesta en inglés se dice CONDUCTOR? Entonces, ¿cómo se dice conductor en inglés? ¡DRIVER! Obvio, pero lioso… Bus driver and the conductor of the Boston Philharmonic. Y ¡Ojo! ¿Has visto? La palabra en inglés es ORCHESTRA. Con R.

Para más “Holidays”, vocabulario en inglés y vídeos para aprender inglés no te pierdas estos posts nuestros:

EARTH DAY
SAINT PATRICK’S DAY
APRIL FOOL’S DAY
GROUNDHOG DAY: CÓMO LIGAR EN INGLÉS
CHINESE NEW YEAR
BACK FRIDAY

Earth day

Si te ha gustado este vídeo para aprender inglés, ¡pásalo a tus amigos!

Hoy es uno de nuestros Holidays, EARTH DAY, el día de la tierra, y vamos a examinar el vocabulario en inglés relacionado con el medio ambiente:

VOCABULARIO EN INGLÉS

EARTH DAY

carbon emissions = emisiones de carbono
carbon footprint = la huella de carbono
global warming = calientamiento global

No confundes las palabras POLLUTE y CONTAMINATE en inglés:

POLLUTE significa contaminar o ensuciar el medio ambiente con las sustancias que salen de las fabricas o los coches, por ejemplo.

All the fish have died because the river is polluted.

CONTAMINATE significa que se ha mezclado una sustancia con otra, afectando la pureza de la primera.

Because laboratory wasn’t clean, the liquid for the experiment was contaminated.

Happy Easter!

Un bonito sitio para celebrar un día libre o a day off

Happy Easter!!

Hoy es “Easter Sunday“. Es una de las fiestas más importantes del año, uno de nuestros Holidays.

El viernes pasado era “Good Friday“.

Mañana es “Easter Monday“.

Si tienes suerte, ¡tienes unos DAYS OFF, unos días libres!

VOCABULARIO EN INGLÉS:

A day off
A week off
Mike is off work today. He didn’t feel well yesterday.
Sarah is going to take a year off work to go to India and learn yoga!

SO HAPPY EASTER AND ENJOY YOUR DAY OFF (if you have one!)

April Fool’s Day

Pingüinos encima del hielo con el presentador

Colony of penguins. Photo from the BBC
HOLIDAY? APRIL FOOLS DAY

El día 1 de abril es nuestro día para hacer bromas, ¡nuestro 28 de diciembre! Te recomendamos este documental de la BBC sobre una colonia de pingüinos ¡que se van volando para pasar el invierno fuera! ¿A dónde van? ¡Míralo para saberlo! ¡Disfruta!

Los vídeos para aprender inglés de LinguaSuite

PENGUINS!!

The 1st of April is our holiday to fool people! Here is a BBC documentary showing a colony of flying penguins! Where are they going? Watch it and find out!

We hope you enjoy it! We’re sending it to you to celebrate April Fool’s Day.

More interesting information about holidays here:

SAINT PATRICK’S DAY
VALENTINE’S DAY: What is XOXO?

Saint Patrick’s Day

¿Sabías que el 17 DE marzo se celebra

“SAINT PATRICK’S DAY”?

Irish pub. Photo taken by LinguaSuite

¿Sabías que no hay serpientes ni culebras en Irlanda?

Algunas personas creen que San Patricio, el Santo Patrón de Irlanda echó a todas las serpientes.

Otras personas dicen que nunca hubo serpientes en Irlanda debido a que el agua alrededor de la isla es demasiado fría para que las serpientes pudieran llegar.

En cualquier caso, ¡FELIZ DEL DÍA DE SAN PATRICIO! ¡¡Ponte una prenda de color verde el 17 de marzo!!

NOW IN ENGLISH. PAY ATTENTION TO THE ENGLISH VOCABULARY

¡PRESTA ATENCIÓN AL VOCABULARIO EN INGLÉS!

Did you know that there are no snakes in Ireland?

Some people believe that Saint Patrick, the patron saint of Irelandsent out all the snakes.

Other people say that there never were any snakes in Ireland because the water around the island is too cold for snakes to be able to get there.

In any case, HAPPY SAINT PATRICK’S DAY. Wear something green on the 17^th of March!

MORE INTERESTING HOLIDAYS HERE:

VALENTINE’S DAY

VALENTINE’S DAY

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, XOXO!!!

Have you ever seen someone sign an email or card like this XOXO?

Do you know what it means?

The letter X represents a KISS* and the O is a HUG*. WHY????

It is believed that this custom comes from the Middle Ages*.

Sometimes people had to sign a document but they did not know how to write. So they would write an X and then kiss it as a way to show the signature* was true. (I suppose they symbol for a hug is just obvious…)

Do you know the expression “to wear your heart on your sleeve“? In Spanish it would be something like “llevar tu corazón en la manga”. A bit strange. It means that you don’t hide your feelings; that other people know how you feel, especially about another person.

Why do we say that?

Again, it appears that this expression comes from medieval times. On Valentine’s Day, unmarried men and women used to pick a name from a plate and pin the name to the sleeve of their clothes. For a week! Not too sure what happened after that. Do you know?

Check out these posts for more interesting facts on holidays and traditions:

Groundhog Day: Cómo ligar en inglés

Chinese New Year

New Year 2014

Christmas vocabulary

Black Friday

Thanksgiving

VOCABULARY FOR TODAY: VOCABULARIO EN INGLES PARA HOY

KISS = un beso, besar

HUG = un abrazo, abrazar

THE MIDDLE AGES = la edad media

SIGNATURE = when you write your name on a document, this is your signature

GROUNDHOG DAY results 2014

from the official Groundhog club site
Holidays: Groundhogs Day

Do you get it? Basically, MORE WINTER!!!

VOCABULARIO EN INGLÉS: LAS PALABRAS DE HOY

seer = a person who can SEE the future, like a clairvoyant

stump = when you cut down a tree, what is left is the stump, a short piece of tree in the ground

awaken = similar to WAKE UP

shadow = when you stand in a sunny place, you see your SHADOW. Don’t confuse this work with SHADE

shade = when it is hot and sunny, you look for some shade where you can sit and be cool

You can see more about this at the official Groundhog Day site: groundhog.org

Groundhog Day- Cómo ligar en inglés

Today, the 2nd of February, is one of our funniest Holidays— GROUNDHOG DAY!

A good day to LIGAR EN INGLÉS?? In English, “ligar” is to pick somene up.

In one scene in Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is trying to get Andie MacDowell to fall in love with him. But they don’t even really know each other!

The scene is great for learning for pick up lines in English.

Hmmm or is it? Watch the clip and listen to Bill. What do you think of his pick up lines??

VOCABULARIO EN INGLÉS: LAS PALABRAS DE HOY
Here are some of the key sentences. Can you hear them?

If you only had one day to live, what would you do with it?

I’m interested in you. What do you want?

What do you like?

What do you think about?

What kind of men do you like?

What do you do for fun?

Talk to me. Let me buy you a cup of coffee. And a doughnut.

So what do you want out of life anyway?

Are you seeing anyone?

What I really want is someone like you.

Who is your prefect guy?

Andie resists!

Is this for real or are you just trying to make me look like a fool.

I think this is getting too personal, I don’t think I’m ready to share this with you.

Oh please!

Listen for these qualities she wants in a man:

Humble, intelligent, supportive, funny, romantic, courageous, has a good body but doesn’t have to look in the mirror every 2 minutes, kind, sensitive, gentle, likes animals and children, will change poopy diapers, he plays an instrument, he loves his mother

Back to Ground Hog’s Day, today! …

It’s part of popular culture in the USA, made even more famous by the movie of the same name.

The idea is that when the groundhog comes out of his hole, if he sees his shadow, he will be frightened and go back in again and we will have another 6 weeks of winter. If he doesn’t see his shadow, spring is around the corner.

Where ever did we get such a crazy idea?!

A GROUNDHOG photo from Wikipedia

Apparently, in ancient times, people in (what is now) Germany thought that a similar animal, the badger, could predict the weather and tell them when it was a good time to do the planting. When the first German immigrants came to Pennsylvania, they kept the tradition.

Punxsutawney in Pennsylvania held its first Groundhog Day in the United States in the 1800s. Today the town attracts thousands of visitors every year.

Chinese New Year- Did you know

photo from Kinternational

Did you know these facts about the Chinese New Year????

It’s a very traditional and festive holiday not only in China but also in Chinatowns all over the world, including New York, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, London and more.The US post office has created this stamp to commemorate the holiday this year.

photo from US Postal Service

The date is based on the Chinese calendar. Traditionally from the last day of the year to the 15^th day of the first month! What a celebration! This year it starts on January 31^st.

2014 is the year of the horse.

Dragon dances and street fairs are very popular.

It’s also a popular time to do a real good cleaning in the house. We call this SPRING CLEANING.

Children receive red envelops with money inside as gifts. The amount of money must be an even number (2, 4, 6, 8 etc.) But it must NOT be divisible by 4 (4, 8, 12, 16 etc.) The number 4 means death in Chinese.

To make sure you don’t have debts and money problems during the year, the Chinese believe that you should pay any money you owe family and friends before the New Year.

On the last day of Chinese New Year, people go out with red paper lanterns. It’s called Lantern Day and it is supposed to light the way for the New Year.

photo from TIME OUT

Have you ever had the chance to go to a Chinatown or China for the New Year celebrations? Can you share some more fun facts about the Chinese New Year?

Happy New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Today is New Year’s Eve and tomorrow is

New Year’s Day!!

Did you know that the New Year’s Eve ball on Time Square originated when New York City banned fireworks because they were too dangerous?

The owner of the New York Times newspaper ordered an illuminated seven-hundred-pound iron and wood ball to be lowered from the tower flagpole (77 feet, 23 meters) precisely at midnight to signal the end of 1907.

In 1914, The New York Times relocated to West 43rd Street but New Year’s Eve in Times Square was already a part of American’s tradition.

Today’s Time Square New Year’s Eve Ball was designed by Waterford Crystal. The ball weighs 11,875-pounds and is 12-feet in diameter. It is lowered starting at 11:59:00pm and reaching the bottom of its tower 60 seconds. Watch it live here: TIMES SQUARE

For many people, New Year’s is not complete without the song Auld Lang Syne, especially in Scotland, but also in the US and other countries. I’m sure you have heard this song many times! What do the words mean? Many of us have no idea! It is a very nostalgic song about old friends and old times.The song is actually a poem by Robert Burns set to music. Listen to it here: AULD LANG SYNE

You can see the words in English and Spanish on Wikipedia (where else?) here: LYRICS

A little vocab to bring in the new year!

ban = similar to prohibit, especially in a legal sense
fireworks = colorful explosions you see in the sky to celebrate important holidays
to be lowered = similar to descend
flagpole = a tall pole where you put, guess what? Right, a flag!