Saturday, March 7, 2015

Some prepositions practice with Cassidy on linguistiko.com


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1.) Don't use with arrived preposition to.
Ex.: He arrived at the train station (not to the train station)


Use expression:
explain something to someone;
married to her;
on the 1st floor;
at that moment.


2.) Use at when we are talking about general, not specific place.
Ex.: I was at the shops (not in the shops).
Note: When we specify place we use in. For example: I'm at home, but more specifically, I'm in my room.


3.) Use arrive in or come to with countries, cities, villages. When it is a general place (airport, shop etc) we use arrived at.


4.) We use to for describing moving from one place to another (She went to the gym).


5.) We use something or somebody good or bad for us for describing it, when don't mean a specific actions toward us.  If a person acts toward us in positive or negative way, we use preposition to.
Ex.: Fruit is good for my body. He is bad to her, he is always hits her.


Exercises:
Answers:
1b with arrived we don't use to  
2b because it is a general place not specific Ex: I'm at home in the room  
3b  
4a


Answers:
5b
6a  
7a to + verb


Answers:
8a explain something TO someone  
9b
10a  
11b married TO her


Answer:
12a


A scary story


This Summer I spent a couple of days (1) ……..my friend Alice's town. We stayed (2)………her cottage, which had 2 floors. It was a remote village, (3) in the middle………… nowhere, let's say (4) ………. 2 hours far from the next village. Alice and I were sharing a room (5) ………the 1st floor; then one night just (6)………….. 4.30, a scream woke me (7) …… “Oh no, Alice!” I thought. Immediately I looked (8) …………her bed, but it was empty. I got out (9)….....bed to the room where Alice used to sleep, but it was empty, too. I went(10) …………………trying not to make any noise; I had decided to be courageous, but (11)……that moment I saw a terrifying shadow (12)………..the kitchen and I thought that it would be a good idea to phone the police. I crept (13)……………….…. the dinning room because that was where the phone was. However, I was looking(14) ……….my shoulder to keep an eye(15) ……….the shadow, when I cut my hand (16)……….a glass.  “I'm not going (17)………… shout, “ I thought. But when I saw my hand covered (18)…………. blood and discovered some more glass and more blood, I decided “I'm going to shout!”. So I shouted so loudly that the shadow started to move, and it was moving (19) ……………… me! I picked (20)………. a piece of glass (21)…………the floor to die (22)………dignity but when the owner of the shadow appeared (23)…………….the corridor she asked me: “What's the matter?” “Alice!!?? “ I said, “but you are dead!” “Oh, thanks.” “No. The blood. The scream and…the glass.”  “The blood is ketchup, the pieces of glass were the ketchup bottle and my scream was caused (24)…………the bottle when it fell (25) ……………my foot.”


Answers:
1in 2at 3of 4about  5on  6before  7up    8at  9of  10downstairs  11at  12in  13towards    14over  15on  16on  17to  18in  19towards  20up    21from  22with  23in  24by  


These notes were written in the Cassidy’s classes 15/02/2015 and 26/02/2015

Monday, March 2, 2015

Free Trip to Australia from linguistiko.com (free writing)

Free Trip to Australia from linguistiko.com
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If I had the possibility to travel for free to any place, I would probably fly to Australia. Here are some reasons why.

Australia is located far away from the place where I live. This means that paying for this trip would be very difficult. Going there for free would be a treat.

Next, the nature of the continent is very different from Europe, where I live. Could I really meet a kangaroo just walking on the street? I hope so.

The culture of the aborigines who have been living in Australia is incredible interesting.

Let’s go ...     

Meeting with Jay Gatsby in Jazz Age
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If I had a chance to meet a character from a book, I would choose Jay Gatsby. The reason why I would choose Mr. Gatsby is because of the mystery the author  (F. Scott Fitzgerald) had left.

We don’t know much about Jay Gatsby. We don’t know what the source of his wealth was, and more importantly, the mystery behind his possible fate.

The book “The Great Gatsby” was dedicated to the Golden Age of the USA. It was the Jazz Age. How did the people feel in that time? What were they expecting for the next years? These questions have been explored by people since that time.

Some mistakes which were corrected by teacher Stefanie Linguistiko during the class on linguistiko.com

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Study English in The Terminal


Task: Write a letter to an investor about a new invention you have created.
Screen Shot 2015-02-28 at 16.10.59.png

Attention to Mr. Tom Hanks

I know that you have ROYALTIES for the movie “The Terminal” and I’d like to SUGGEST you create a new project which is based on this film.
Here is my plan:

Your character in this movie studied English from zero to proficient. He was forced to learn English because according TO the plot he couldn’t leave the terminal of AN airport. Many people would repeat your way of studying language but in A more convenient situation.

I SUGGEST creatING a program (LIKE A game) based on the movie. We can create many dialogs there with the airport’s/AIRPORT staff, police, with passengers etc.

The purpose of the game is to give STUDENTS AN opportunity to BE IMMERSED in AN atmosphere of adventure and as a gift to reach A proficient level in English.
And Tom, it is an open letter. I’m publishing this letter TO my site: http://item1000.blogspot.com

Anatoly

The capital letters show some mistakes which were corrected by teacher Audrey Ross during the class on verbling.com

Saturday, February 21, 2015

One More Night with Verbling



Our teacher, Lisa Biskup  dedicated this class on verbling.com to listening to the song “Maroon 5 - One More Night” where was shown the problems in the relationships in the family.

Let’s look lyrics:

“You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war.
You and I go rough, we keep throwing things and slamming the door.
You and I get so damn dysfunctional, we stopped keeping score.
You and I get sick, yeah, I know that we can't do this no more.”

The male character here is fighter likewise he describes his life inside family.
The lyrics in the song contrasted with video. We can see in the video loving father who is preparing for his job.


“Yeah, but baby there you go again, there you go again, making me love you.
Yeah, I stopped using my head, using my head, let it all go.
Got you stuck on my body, on my body, like a tattoo.
And now I'm feeling stupid, feeling stupid, crawling back to you.”

She stuck on his mind (figurative- body), like a tattoo. We could interpret this line that he’d like to remove her (figurative - tattoo) but he can’t.

He is probably thinking during the boxing that he is fighting for his family. We became a winner but when he returned home he revealed that his wife left him.



The author of this video made a riddle why it happened. During the discussion in the class our attention was drawn for interesting detail. The singer cried “Yeah, baby, give me one more night” and the title of this song “One More Night”. Why night? Maybe this guy concentrated for physical side of relationships and didn’t care enough about building good relationships with his wife.

Here is the song



It is impressive to see number of views on youtube,  more than 338 millions! And more than hundred thousand comments!

Here are some of them (in quotes):

1.) “I laughed so hard at the end when she took one of the fishes.” or “NOOOO NOT THE FISH!!!! Dang this lady is, like, heartless. Taking another dude's fish just ain't right. Girls, if you are ever leaving a guy, please for the sake of his broken heart, LEAVE THE FISH.”

Yes, I agree, there is some exaggeration moments in the clip.

2.) “I didn’t see the point in her leaving, she had a nice home, child, good bf and everything, I bon’t understand”
Reply:   “She wanted more. If you notice the fairy tale book, she wanted a Prince Charming. She didn't think he was good enough for her or their child, so she left.”

The first impression might be that he was guilty in ruining their family life, but usually there are two guilty parties.

3.) “Sure, who cares about everything you have to do in a official divorce? Just leave and take everything you like and think belongs to you, even the fish!”

Sometime through cynical statement people better perceive the truth.

After one comment “it is amazing and i hate maroon 5” I would add:
excellent discussion and memorable class!

Anatoly

Saturday, February 14, 2015

Borrow an Idea from Verbling and Create your Own Social Network

Task: Write an email to a coworker asking for help on a new project you would like to start.
Place: online school verbling.com, the class of Audrey Ross

Hello Sergey,
You know, I have AN idea of creating A new social network. This project IS based on the interest of many people IN studying foreign languages. The idea to create this social net had appeared when I visited THE community on the site verbling.com . You can try it, here is the link http://www.verbling.com/community , it’s free, all you need is A google + account which is also free. I had some interesting conversations there and I know why they were interesting. It is because people come to that site for similar purposes: TO practice foreign languages AND TO GET new knowledge about different cultures and so on.

If we build A similar website and organize there possibilities of creating thematic hangouts and A blog for writing exercises, sharing links etc, we will achieve our goals: to become rich and successful entrepreneurs.      

This is A screenshot OF how it would work:
Let me know about your decision,
Anatoly

P.S.
I'm not saying to use Verbling's intellectual property. It is more like an advertisement of verbling. It is a very great online school and I recommend explorING their site.

The capital letters show some mistakes which were corrected by teacher Audrey Ross

English class on verbling.com with Martin: Is there a mathematical formula for love?


Friday, February 13, 2015

English Class: Top 10 Animated Films with Michelle on linguistiko.com (February 9, 2015)


During the class we were counting down our picks for the top 10 animated films.


As a warm up activity I told Michelle about my experience of watching animated films. Thanks youtube I could show to Michelle a few animated movies which I really like:


1.)
This Russian Winnie-the-Pooh is much more favorable for me than American one.


These two characters became heroes of folklore and funny stories. For instance this one:
“In fact, Winnie the Pooh does not want to marry, but the thought of the upcoming honeymoon drove him mad …”
The subject for laughing here is wordplay, because Winnie liked honey very much.

2.) I compared the serie of Russian animated film Nu, pogodi! (Well, Just You Wait!) with Tom and Jerry. Two main characters there are fighting constantly.
Do they provide violence? I think, no. Are they only for children? Not at all.


When Michelle asked me about animated films which I watched last time I was able remember only Disney/Pixar's Up - Official Trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORFWdXl_zJ4

Michell suggested to watch and discuss this list from Youtube:
Top 10 Animated Movies: All Time
10. Snow White (1937)
9. Bambi
8. Finding Nemo (2003)
7. My neighbor Totoro (1988)
6. Aladdin
5. The Lion King (1994)
4. The Little Mermaid (1989)
3. Cinderella (1950)
2. Pinocchio (1940)
Honorable Mentions: Spirited Away (2001), Wall-E (2008), How to train your Dragon (2010) Up (2009), The Great Mouse Detective (1986),
1. Toy Story


We talked about an aesthetics of the genre (aesthetics = having to do with beauty, style, the way things look).


I remember the animated film which I most recently watched and really liked. It is Shrek. The reason why I liked this movie is that producers described there not only extremely positive or negative features of characters but they gave them some  character flaws.


Michelle told that her favorite animated film is Spirited Away.


Last part of the class was reading the article “Are Hollywood studios cranking out too many animated films?”
The new vocabulary for me was this one:




This article demonstrates the question which we discussed in the beginning of the class, what is the audience of animated films, how serious they.


As a result this class revived in my memory some pleasant moments in my past and it inspired me re watch at least Shrek again.

Anatoly