Like us on Facebook!

¿Quieres mejorara tu inglés antes de tu próximo gran paso?,
¿Te has dado cuenta de lo que saber inglés te puede aportar tanto a nivel profesional como personal, pero no tienes tiempo o la determinación necesaria para hacerlo? ¿te apetece hacerlo de una forma divertida y rápida? ¡Este es tu blog!
La idea es aprender inglés a través de series, películas, vídeos, charlas, canciones y pequeños documentos teóricos que a mí me han ayudado a aclarar dudas comunes. Sin más, espero que os sea de ayude y disfrutéis. Un saludo!

Si tenéis alguna duda, sugerencia,...y queréis poneros en contacto podéis mandarnos un mail a marta.hernandez.rubio@gmail.com.

viernes, 14 de diciembre de 2012

What are you up to this weekend?



This is a very light post. But you know, it´s one of those things: too long for "La frase del día", too short for a post, so we had to choose. Happy Friday everyone!

WHAT ARE YOU UP TO?




Present simple form. What are you up to?
Informal way of asking "What are you doing?, be it right now or in a more general way.

i.e:
1 Right now:
- (Your boss) What are you up to?
- (You) I´m just finishing this report.

2. General inquiry
- What are you up to this summer/ tonight? (¿Que vas a hacer/ que planes tienes para este verano/ esta noche?)


Present Perfect form. What have you been up to?
(¿Que has hecho/ a que te has dedicado ultimamente?)

i.e:
- What have you been up to this summer? (¿Que has hecho este verano?)
- (You bump into a friend that you haven´t seen in a while) So, tell me, how are you?, what have you been up to lately?

martes, 4 de diciembre de 2012

Reduplicatives, reduplicatives, reduplicatives.

 
Reduplicatives, sometimes called "echo words," or "echo phrases" are formulations such as hobnob, pell-mell, herky-jerky, hoity-toity, itsy-bitsy, niminy-piminy.  

Reduplicatives never travel alone. Actually, they always come in pairs and may sound rather silly. They are formed through reduplication of words, when you repeat a word to form a new one, or slightly change the vowel or consonant. These are inventive and musical words and there are hundreds of them in English.

There are three basic types of reduplicatives:


- some repeat the word exactly,
- some use rhyme for formation,
- and others, use vowel or consonant shift to come up with the other half of the pair. 

The majority of them are two-syllable words, although there are some with three syllables.

This type of word formation seems to come naturally to us. Some like hurly-burly are quite old (Shakespeare was responsible for it) and others are quite recent additions like chick-flick, a film genre geared towards (dirigido a) women.

-  Rhyming reduplicatives: hodge-podge, willy-nilly, helter-skelter, kowtow, harum-scarum, jeepers-creepers, okey-dokey, heebie-jeebie, gang-bang, hocus-pocus

- Vowel change reduplicatives: words that are formed by ablaut or vowel shift, such as ping-pong, shilly-shally, zig-zag, bibble-babble, pitter-patter, splish-splash, flim-flam. 

- There are also some lovely oddities that resist classification: dipsy-doodle, topsy-turvey, hunky-dory, tilly-valley, and, at the outer limit, hullabaloo.

Reduplicatives are not exactly easy to remember, so there´s really no point on me making a list here. I´ll give you a few of them in this post, the easiest ones so you remember them and I will be giving you more along the way in "La frase del día" section. As they say, one day at a time.

 
- hush-hush - confidential
- airy-fairy - nrealistic; light and delicate
- helter-skelter - adv. atropelladamente /noun tobogán
- easy-peasy – very easy
- fuddy-duddy – conservative or dull person
- chop, chop: hurry up!
- hocus-pocus – trickery; a magician’s incantation
- okey-dokey – OK
- super-duper – very pleasing
- chit-chat – gossipy talk
- riff-raff – rabble; people who are worthless
- mish-mash – a confused mixture
- flip-flop – this has several meanings, including a backward somersaut and a sandal with a piece between the toes.