BASIC STRUCTURES 1: THE SENTENCE

By Georgina Jacobs

❓ ¿A quién le importa esto?

Para construir correctamente un texto, es importante saber cómo estructurar correctamente un párrafo y, antes que eso, una oración. Por eso, me parece buena idea incluir una serie de posts sobre las estructuras básicas del idioma y poner los cimientos para explicar otros temas de manera mucho más clara y simple. 

Muy bien, empecemos por lo primero: LA ORACIÓN.

❓ What is a SENTENCE?

RECOMMENDED Website + Blog: THE EMOTIONS LAB

By Georgina Jacobs

🔺IMPORTANT: This is NOT an advert! This is just my free and honest opinion. I've already recommended other interesting websites, tools and videos, and I'll continue doing so in the future as long as I come across things worth recommending.

Why do I recommend this website? Simply because I think it is interesting, useful and fun, and it contributes to our understanding of our own feelings and those of people around us.

👉 GO TO THE EMOTIONS LAB WEBSITE

👉 GO TO THE EMOTIONS LAB BLOG

💡Below is a brief website overview

Active Listening: Hear What People Are Really Saying (From MindTools)

❓QUIZ ⇒ How Good Are Your Listening Skills?

💡Infographic ⇒ View and Download Full-Size Infographic Here 

How well you listen has a major impact on the quality of your relationships with others. 

[…] Given all the listening that we do, you would think we'd be good at it! In fact, most of us are not, and research suggests that we only remember between 25 percent and 50 percent of what we hear, as described by Edgar Dale's Cone of Experience. That means that when you talk to your boss, colleagues, customers, or spouse for 10 minutes, they pay attention to less than half of the conversation.

Turn it around and it reveals that when you are receiving directions or being presented with information, you aren't hearing the whole message either. You hope the important parts are captured in your 25-50 percent, but what if they're not?

RECOMMENDED: Skills 360 – Business English Pod (More than Business English)

By Georgina Jacobs

🔺IMPORTANT: This is NOT an advert! This is just my honest (and free) opinion. I've already recommended other interesting websites, tools and videos, and I'll keep on doing so in the future as long as I come across things worth recommending.

Why do I recommend this website? Simply because find it useful. Business Skills 360 podcast lessons provide essential tips and language for communicating in English, along with free transcripts, vocabulary quizzes and PDF downloads. (Lessons are listed on the website by the date published, with the more recent lessons at the top. All podcasts are free, and so are most resources though the latest lessons may require a subscription.)

💡Below is a brief podcast lesson overview:

GRAMMAR PILLS: CASE OF PRONOUNS + POSSESSIVE ADJECTIVES

By Georgina Jacobs

❓ What is case?

Cambridge dictionary ⇒ ‘case’ is “any of the various types to which a noun (or pronoun) can belong, according to the work it does in a sentence (clause), shown in some languages by a special word ending; for example: the accusative/dative case.” 

➧Llamamos 'case' a la forma que toma un nombre / sustantivo / pronombre según la función que tiene en la oración; por ejemplo: caso acusativo / caso dativo.

❓ What is a pronoun?

BASIC STRUCTURES 2: PARTS OF SPEECH

By Georgina Jacobs

In English, like in Spanish, a word is a single unit that has full meaning and can stand alone or be part of a larger structure (spoken or written).

Words can be classified according to their meaning and function and divided into different categories or parts of speech. Some books list up to 8 or 9 parts of speech depending on whether they take determiners as adjectives or as a separate category. Others divide verbs into lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs. In my posts, for the sake of simplification, I’ll be taking determiners as adjectives and treating verbs as a single part of speech (unless otherwise stated), so the 8 major parts of speech in English grammar are noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, conjunction, preposition, and interjection. 

How to tell if you’re being ‘breadcrumbed’ at work, by Emily Torres (From BBC Worklife)

👉By Emily Torres

👉READ FULL ARTICLE: Are you being ‘breadcrumbed’ at work?

From: BBC Worklife / Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

Stop breadcrumbing me!

🚩Is your boss commitment-phobic?

Our modern dating vocabulary is making its way into our work lexicon, and it’s bringing more life and colour to the way we describe our experiences. Have you ever been ghosted by a potential employer? Or have you ghosted them? Now, thanks to the latest series of the reality TV show Love Island, we have a new word for an old practice: breadcrumbing.

Are you heading for BURNOUT?

Credit: GETTY IMAGES

Here are two excerpts from two reading articles and three videos on burnout: what it is, what its consequences are and how you can avoid it.

👉How to tell if you’re close to burning out, by Zaria Gorvett (From BBC WORKLIFE) 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has redefined burnout as a syndrome linked to chronic work stress. There’s a difference between a busy workload and something more serious, writes Zaria Gorvett.

[…] Late last month [June 2019], the WHO announced that the trendy problem will be recognised in the latest International Classification of Diseases manual, where it is described as a syndrome “resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”.

The 101 people, ideas and things changing how we work today (From BBC Worklife)

👉 The 101 people, ideas and things changing how we work today

👉 GO TO BBC WORKLIFE 101

The world of work is in transition. Are you ready?

In Japan, companies are encouraging employees to go for lunchtime sleep, or hirune. It could contribute to a better working environment. (From BBC / Image credit: Piero Zagami and Michela Nicchiotti.)

The world of work is being struck by waves of change. Some are vast and visible – leaps in machine learning and artificial intelligence or the rise of ‘do anything from anywhere’ technologies. Other ideas are just beginning to emerge – like monitoring content to ensure proper gender balance, or rethinking office design to promote air quality. Behind it all are the people whose ideas and attitudes have the potential to shape the next chapter of our lives.

[In this reading article] are the 101 indispensable things that you need to know about our work-life future:

How Good Are Your Listening Skills? (From MindTools)

Understanding Someone's Entire Message

For many of us, listening is the communication skill we use the most. Yet, many people listen poorly, and they rarely think to improve this important skill.

They get distracted by their own thoughts or by what's going on around them, and they formulate their responses before the person who they're talking to has finished speaking. Because of this, they miss crucial information.

Good listeners, on the other hand, enjoy better relationships, because they fully understand what other people are saying. Their team members are also more productive, because they feel that they can discuss problems easily, and talk through solutions.

So, how good do you think your listening skills are? Test them HERE, and then find out how you can improve.

❓How Good Are Your Listening Skills?

How to escape the ‘hyperactive hivemind’ of modern work, by William Park (From BBC Worklife)

👉 By William Park

Should ‘deep focus’ become a central pillar of workplace culture?

The constant ping of messages that keep us plugged into work chatter might be doing more harm than good. We feel we must respond – it is about work, after all. But always being switched on means we never have the chance to think deeply. And that is a problem for companies that want to get the most out of their employees.

Copyright : Evgenii Naumov

The next great revolution in the office will need to correct this, according to one man who wants to reset the way we work. He believes that the value someone can bring to a company will be judged not by their skill, but by their ability to focus. But how do we find the time to shut off distractions and do our best work?

The emotion centre of the brain: why is mood so important? By Dr Genevieve Rayner (From Your Brain Health)

👉By Dr. Genevieve Rayner, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health

“Somebody woke up on the wrong side of bed this morning.” You know that comment; the one that rarely makes you feel any more gracious towards the world (or the person saying it). At other times you might feel particularly gracious and sunny, for no reason at all.

Our mood is a transient frame of mind that influences how we think and view the world. It is influenced by events in our lives, the amount of sleep we get, hormones, even the weather. But what role does the brain play in shaping our mood?

The limbic system

Many regions fundamental to mood are buried deep in the most primordial parts of the brain; that is, they are thought to have been among the first to develop in the human species. This is probably because mood is evolutionarily important.

Being glum can be advantageous and has been shown to sharpen our eye for detail, for instance. But, overall, the brain seems geared towards maintaining a mildly positive frame of mind. Being in a good mood makes us more likely to seek new experiences, be creative, plan ahead, procreate and adapt to changing conditions.

The limbic system is the major primordial brain network underpinning mood. It’s a network of regions that work together to process and make sense of the world. (Continue reading)

👉GO TO FULL ARTICLE ⇨ The emotion centre is the oldest part of the human brain: why is mood so important?

From: Your Brain Health Blog

💡 You may also be interested in:

• FREE PERSONALITY TEST: Which personality type are you?
• Emotions in the Wake of Disaster, by Sarah Rose Cavanagh Ph.D. (From Psychology Today)
• The surprising truth about loneliness, by Claudia Hammond (From BBC FUTURE)
• How Resilient Are You? (From Mind Tools)
• How Emotionally Intelligent Are You? (From Mind Tools)
• The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (from Mind Tools)
• HOW SELF-CONFIDENT ARE YOU? (from Mind Tools)
• What's your outlook on life? (from Mind Tools)

Why we should learn to love awful corporate buzzwords, by Meredith Turits (From BBC Capital)

👉 By Meredith Turits

Why we all need to be a little more zen about grating corporate language.

Is vacuous corporate babble diminishing our capacity to think clearly at work? (Credit: Getty Images)

I just wanted to circle back on this. Have we digested the learnings from our fact-finding mission? I need to leverage these insights in the deliverables.

Perhaps you haven’t received this email verbatim, but if you glance back through jargon-littered emails from various jobs you’ll probably find something startlingly similar. Corporation, start-up, sole proprietorship or family company: bad business speak is endemic to many work environments – and, sometimes, infuriating.

In what can seem like universal condemnation, business jargon is considered bad form. There are dozens of overused words that some argue make smart people sound less intelligent. Movements have even sprung up to bin corporate speak.

Yet the backlash might not be worth the effort.

👉 GO TO FULL ARTICLE: In defense of corporate buzzwords

USAGE: "Compare With" Or "Compare To"? (From Oxford Lexico Usage)

In general terms, either preposition is correct, but the choice depends partly on meaning and partly on grammar. 

In addition, American English generally prefers to when there is a choice, whereas in British English the two different constructions are more evenly spread.

💡Let’s look first at the meaning of each phrase. To compare can be defined broadly as "to estimate the similarity or difference between things." For example:

• Individual schools compared their facilities with those of others in the area.
• It is difficult to compare our results to studies conducted in the United States.

In this meaning, either preposition can be used.

💡However, when compare is used to say that one thing resembles another, or to make an analogy between two different things, to is obligatory:

• Her novel was compared to the work of Daniel Defoe.
• He compared children to young trees, both still growing and able to be shaped.

A Shakespearean example ⇒ One of the most famous lines in English poetry, from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18, uses compare to in this way:

• Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Shakespeare is likening the addressee to a summer’s day, even though in the end he shows his beloved to be lovelier than such a day.

💡Intransitive uses

British English prefers with when compare is used intransitively, because similarities are being evaluated:

• His achievements do not compare with those of A. J. Ayer.
• No other English painter can compare with Sutherland in the subtlety of his vision.

In American English, however, compare to is possible and slightly more frequent:

• None of those birds compare to L.A. pigeons.
• No, today’s calamities don't compare to the Great Depression or even to the agricultural troubles of the 1980s.

💡Compared to...

When the past participle compared introduces a phrase, the preposition is either to or with, although here usage is moving in favour of to:

• This was a modest sum compared to what other people spent.
• Compared to physics and astronomy, cosmology is a young science.
• However, compared with the USA and Japan, Europe contains a group of separate nation states.

💡Comparable, comparison

Comparable is used with to or with in line with the previous discussion, with a marked preference in current usage for to:

• We find ourselves in a situation comparable to mediaeval times.
• Social mobility is, in fact, comparable with most countries in Europe.

Comparison as the noun equivalent of compare can be followed by either with or to:

• Poussin’s approach bears closest comparison to Michelangelo’s.
• Prices for real estate in Tbilisi cannot stand comparison with Western capitals or indeed Moscow.

The phrase in comparison to is more often used than in comparison with, but by comparison with is more frequent than by comparison to:

• The film is utterly benign in comparison to some of the more violent movies of today.
• The standard is pitiable in comparison with other countries.
• By comparison with North Sea oil production, it is a drop in the ocean.

Essentially, both with and to are correct prepositions to use after compare, comparable, or comparison, although it may be worth checking the regional and grammatical context of the sentence when making your choice.

👉GO TO OXFORD: "Compare With" Or "Compare To"?

💡GO TO OXFORD LEXICO and See more from Usage

💡You may also be interested in:

• USAGE: "Enquire" Or "Inquire"? (From Oxford Lexico Usage)

USAGE: "Enquire" Or "Inquire"? (From Oxford Lexico Usage)

The traditional distinction between the verbs enquire and inquire is that enquire is to be used for general senses of ‘ask’, while inquire is reserved for uses meaning ‘make a formal investigation’.

In practice, however, enquire, and the associated noun enquiry, are more common in British English while inquire (and the noun inquiry) are more common in American English, but otherwise there is little discernible distinction in the way the words are used.

Some style guides require that only inquire or only enquire be used.

• Could I enquire about your mother's health?
• She inquired about the library's rare books collection.
• Every enquiry is very welcome.
• Adam helped the police with their inquiries.

'Enquire' or 'inquire'? (1:45 minutes)

Both words derive from the Old French enquerre, from a variant of the Latin inquirere, based on quaerere 'seek'. The same root word can be seen in various modern English words, including acquire, require, conquer, quest, request, inquest, and question.

👉GO TO OXFORD: "Enquire" Or "Inquire"?

💡GO TO OXFORD LEXICO and See more from Usage

enquire or inquire (2:00 minutes)

WEEKLY PICKS - 28 - READ and LISTEN SPECIAL

This is a weekly selection of free online self-study materials and resources for you to further improve your English language skills and have fun – ENJOY!

👓+ 🎧THIS WEEK ⇒ READ + LISTEN SPECIAL! 

These are not typical reading and listening comprehension exercises. On these websites, you will find a list of podcasts or recordings that you can listen to while reading transcripts. Reading and listening is an easy and effective way of developing your listening skills, improving your pronunciation and building up on your vocabulary at the same time.

📌AMERICAN CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS

• 1. America: Land of Opportunity
• 3. The U.S. Federal Government
• 7. Valentine's Day – A Holiday of Love and Friendship
• 14. Labor Day – A Holiday to Honor Workers
• 16. Halloween – A Holiday for Costumes and Candy
• 19. Thanksgiving – Families Coming Together
• 21. One Country, Many Taxes
• 31. Private Schools – An Expensive Educational Alternative
• 33. Driving in the United States
• 47. Museum Mile in New York City
• 49. The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World
• 56. Funeral Customs in the United States
• 58. Social Class in the United States
• 69. Central Park
• 100. Baseball: The National Pastime

👉GO TO FULL LIST (128 short listening + reading articles)

📌BUSINESS ENGLISH POD ⇨ SKILLS 360

• Skills 360 – Levels of Formality in English (Part 1) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Levels of Formality in English (Part 2) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Communicating Clearly in English (1) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Communicating Clearly in English (2) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Leading Group Decision-Making Meetings (1) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Leading Group Decision-Making Meetings (2) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Getting the Most out of a Conference (Part 1) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Getting the Most out of a Conference (Part 2) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Presentations: Connecting with your Audience (1) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Presentations: Connecting with your Audience (2) (Free resources: Lesson Module | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript)
• Skills 360 – Teleconferences (Part 1) (Free resources: Transcript | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript | Mobile Quizzes)
• Skills 360 – Teleconferences (Part 2) (Free resources: Transcript | Quiz & Vocab | PDF Transcript | Mobile Quizzes) 

👉All Business English Skills 360 Lessons (Learn business English skills for communicating effectively at work. All Skills 360 lessons are listed on this webpage by the date published, with the more recent lessons at the top.)

📌 VIDEOS

925 English Lesson 9 - How to Talk about your Ideas in English | Business English Conversation (9:57 minutes)

925 English Lesson 10 - How to Agree with Ideas in English | Business English Conversation (9:27 minutes)

925 English Lesson 11 - How to Disagree with Ideas in English | Business English Conversation (10:00 minutes)

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!

How well do you know your phobias? (From Oxford Dictionaries Blog)

Spiders. Heights. The dark. Small, enclosed spaces. When we think of phobias, our minds usually jump to the commons ones – including the aforementioned claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces) and arachnophobia (fear of spiders). However, there’s a curious group of much rarer phobias out there as well. For example, how about iconophobia (fear of religious works of art)? Or apeirophobia (fear of infinity)?

From Oxford Dictionaries Blog

Etymologically, the names of these phobias are usually formed through two combining forms. The combining form -phobia comes (via Latin) from the Greek word 'phobos', meaning fear or dread. The combining forms that make up the first elements (claustro- or arachno-) come from Greek, Latin, or English origin. Some modern formations retain the elements separately, such as school phobia, and might be considered compound words.

Can you match the less common phobias in the quiz with their corresponding subjects? Take this 10-question quiz and find out!

💡You may also be interested in:

• Animal phobias, from apiphobia to musophobia
• Quiz: The facts about plastic pollution (From BBC Earth)

👉More QUIZZES:

• How Good Is Your Feedback?
• How Approachable Are You? (from Mind Tools)
• The Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale (from Mind Tools)
• HOW SELF-CONFIDENT ARE YOU? (from Mind Tools)
• Are You a Positive or Negative Thinker? (From Mind Tools)
• The Leadership Motivation Assessment (from Mind Tools)
• FREE PERSONALITY TEST: Which personality type are you?
• How Good Are Your Communication Skills? (from Mind Tools)
• How emotionally Intelligent Are You? (From Mind Tools)
• How Resilient Are You?

WEEKLY PICKS - 27

This is a weekly selection of reading articles, free online exercises, YouTube videos, games, quizzes and resources for you to further improve your English language skills and have fun – ENJOY!

📜READING PICKS – Articles, blog posts, quizzes and more:

From BBC TRAVEL: How France created the metric system, by Madhvi Ramani. It is one of the most important developments in human history, affecting everything from engineering to international trade to political systems. (Continue reading)

From BBC CAPITAL: Can you make money selling your data? By Sam Harrison. Tech giants make billions from our data, but what if there was a way to claw some of that control back – and make some money in the process? (Continue reading)

🎬 VIDEO PICKS – Short and fun videos:

LESS-THAN-5-MINUTE VIDEOS:

Why is yawning contagious? - Claudia Aguirre (4:28 minutes)

• 6 Types of Loneliness (1:29 minutes)
• How does your brain respond to pain? - Karen D. Davis (4:57 minutes)
• How misused modifiers can hurt your writing - Emma Bryce (3:20 minutes)
• Ireland | Galway City (4:10 minutes)

5-TO-10-MINUTE VIDEOS:

Body Language in an Interview - 3 Tips (9:05 minutes)

• How An Igloo Keeps You Warm (5:16 minutes)
• Vampires: Folklore, fantasy and fact - Michael Molina (6:56 minutes)
• What is the psychology of envy? [Interview] (7:48 minutes)
• How NOT to give COMPLIMENTS: British English Speaking Practice (6:30 minutes)

A LITTLE LONGER BUT WORTH IT!

The Silk Road and Ancient Trade: Crash Course World History #9 (10:30 minutes)

• Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1 (12:11 minutes)
• 10 Foods under $1 in Saigon, Vietnam - Street Food Dollar Menu (13:57 minutes)
• Phrasal Verbs and Expressions about FOOD (10:17 minutes)

💬 VOCABULARY PICKS:

Learners' Questions: Assure, ensure, insure (3:22 minutes)

• Make or Do?
• -ed/-ing adjectives – adjectives from verbs (3 DIFFERENT EXERCISES)
• Farther, farthest or further, furthest? (Brief explanation from Cambridge Grammar Today) ⇒ Exercise: Quiz: Further & Farther
• Collocations 2 (Some words are often used together: Click on the buttons until you find the correct collocation)
• Adjectives to nouns - Match nouns to adjectives
• Adjectives to nouns - Match nouns to adjectives 2

💡 GRAMMAR PICKS – Assorted exercises and games:

Learners' Questions: 'When', 'if' and 'in case' (3:06 minutes)

• Past simple, past continuous, past perfect (3 DIFFERENT EXERCISES)
• Comparative and superlative adjectives and adverbs (3 DIFFERENT EXERCISES)
• Quiz: Adjective or Adverb?
• Word order 2 (Click on the correct answer)
• Phrasal verbs 1 - missing preposition
• Out (Phrasal Verbs)

MORE PICKS NEXT WEEK!