If only I had...

How many times have you wondered what would have happened if you had made other decisions? Third conditional help us to structure sentences that expressing ideas like this. In our past activity we used this conditional to create a story. With only the last sentence we had to imagine a creative story. It was a funny experience because we could use our imagination. There were a lot of incredible and unexpected stories. 

It was not difficult think in a good story, because I like writting things like this. But, it was complicated to structure all the ideas that we had in a short story. However, we enjoyed writting and reading the group´s stories.

Would you like to write a story about what you could be?

By: Nancy Sánchez

SAT exam: how good are you?

In a competitive world, people are accustomed to measuring our skills. It is necessary to know our abillities to get a job, to access at the school or only for self-interest. For this reason, many tests have been created to know how good we are in some knowledge areas. A common example is SAT exam. This tests measures the skills that anyone need for academic success in college. Maths, critical reading, evidence-based reading, writing and language are some of the skills that you will need at college. 

In Mexico we have exams that measure our abilities. I had solved some exams, like the test to been accepted at UNAM. But, solve exams in other language is not too easy. To me was not to complicated math section, but I realized that I must improve my skills in critical reading and evidence-based reading. However, to practice this kind of tests is very useful to improve our understanding of English. 

In this link you can practice SAT exam, and know how good you are in these knowledge areas.

Would you like to know how good you are?

By: Nancy Sánchez

Loanwords: a piece of the world

It is known that languages around the world have influenced each other. However, we seldom know the origin of many of the words we use day by day, or that several of these, we continue using them in their original language. This words are called loanwords, the speakers of a language have adopted words from a different language.

In English we find a lot of beautiful loanwords from all the world:

• French:
• Ballet
• Champagne
• Spanish:
• Mustang
• Armadillo
• Mosquito
• Taco
• Italian:
• Umbrella
• Violin
• German:
• Pretzel
• Quartz
• Russian:
• Vodka
• Arabic:
• Bazaar
• Japanese:
• Kamikaze
• Karaoke
• Geisha
• Yiddish:
• Mazel Tov
• Oy Vey
• Nosh
• Shalom

As you can see, there is a great variety of words that we take from other cultures. This nourishes our knowledge about the whole world and allow us to see the way in wich all humanity is connected. In this link you can find more loanwords that are used in English.

Do you know more interesting loanwords?

By: Nancy Sánchez