Getting ready to start again

So our vacations are almost over and we should be getting ready to start a new academic year. What about a simple video?

http://bit.ly/9aDewS

I hope you enjoy it! Time to shape up.

Listening Practice

Listening Activities

There are lots of places where you can do listening practice. Here are a couple of suggestions
http://www.esl-lab.com/

http://www.britishcouncil.org/central.htm

Link for revision

This might help you when revising or studying for your exam.

http://blocs.xtec.cat/plaimpulscaparrella/category/pre-intermediate-eoi-level-2-a2/

Practice

Used to

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/usedto.html

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/usedto/menu.php

Passive Voice

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/passive

Listening Practice

Choose on topic and start listening...

http://www.englishlistening.com/startListeningNow.do

Reading Practice

Choose a topic you are interested in, and start reading

http://www.miguelmllop.com/practice/intermediate/readingcomprehension/readingcompindex.htm

Practice

First conditional

http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/g-grammar-firstconditional1.html

Second conditional

http://www.englishgrammarsecrets.com/secondconditional/menu.php

May-might: difficult quiz

http://www.usingenglish.com/quizzes/407.html

Should

http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/Should1A.html

Reading Practice

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59409&docid=155093

http://www.onestopenglish.com/section.asp?catid=59409&docid=155094

Listening Practice

http://www.elllo.org/english/1001/1024-Monica-Books.htm

http://www.esl-lab.com/tour1/tour1.htm

Seven

Watch the trailer of the film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4YV2_TcCoE

Can you mention the seven capital sins?

Practice

Ing vs Infinitive; modal verbs

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/preint/a_grammar/file05/

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/preint/b_vocabulary/bank08/

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/englishfile/preint/g_ef_pre_builder/

Email writing

So I am posting a place where you can practise email writing

http://www.better-english-test.com/unit13/index.html

Newspapers

http://kiosko.net/

Enjoy reading newspapers from all over the world!

Description of places

http://www.writeshop.com/blog/2010/02/23/choosing-vocabulary-to-describe-a-place/

I hope this will help you with your next writing.

Adverbs - Comparative and superlative

http://www.eflnet.com/tutorials/advcompsup.php

I think you will find this site useful.

Order of adjectives

Order of adjectives:

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm

Here you fill find all sorts of information about the adjectives. Very interesting.

Present Perfect practice

Present perfect and simple past

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs5.htm

http://www.englishpage.com/verbpage/verbs6.htm

http://www.eclecticenglish.com/grammar/PresentPerfect1A.html

Start practising!

Tenses

Will

http://www.englisch-hilfen.de/en/grammar/will_fut.htm

Going to future

http://www.ego4u.com/en/cram-up/grammar/future-1-going-to/

http://www.saberingles.com.ar/curso/lesson11/07.html

Present Continuous

http://www.oup.com/elt/global/products/naturalenglish/pre/a_grammar/unit08/nepre_grammar08_2/

http://www.englishtenseswithcartoons.com/tenses/present_continuous

Reading activities

http://esl-efl.webpark.pl/reading_comprehension.html

Listening Practice

http://www.esl-lab.com/seasons/seasonsrd1.htm

2010

How do we say 2010: twenty ten or two thousand ten? Read the following article. Then watch the video.

2010: 'Twenty ten' vs. 'two thousand ten'

Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer

Friday, January 1, 2010

---

Print

E-mail

Share

Comments (384)

Font | Size:

---

How do you say "2010"?

Coming off of "two thousand nine," you'll probably say "two thousand ten." In fact, 4 out of 5 YouTube videos randomly reviewed by The Chronicle have people pronouncing it that way.

IMAGES

View Larger Image

MORE NEWS

• Insurance-rate-hike foes can recoup legal fees 01.04.10
• Doyle Drive makeover will affect drivers soon 01.04.10
• Winter system drops record snow, chills the South 01.04.10

But you would be wrong, so wrong, according to the National Association of Good Grammar.

"NAGG has decided to step in and decree that (2010) should officially be pronounced 'twenty ten,' and all subsequent years should be pronounced as 'twenty eleven,' 'twenty twelve,' etc.," proclaims the association's news release.

The National Association of Good Grammar - essentially a guy named Tom Torriglia and some friends who also paid attention in English class - say people have been mispronouncing the year for 10 years.

"NAGG is here to put everybody back on the correct path," Torriglia said by phone from his home in San Francisco. "We lost the battle when we went from 1999 to 2000 - but now we're hoping to win the war."

The "20" should have been pronounced "twenty" all along, he said, pointing out that every year in the 20th century was pronounced "nineteen something."

" 'Twenty' follows 'nineteen.' 'Two thousand' does not follow 'nineteen.' It's logical."

Fighting for grammar

Companies pay Torriglia, who has written technical manuals for two decades, to be logical and clear in explaining the least clear concepts, like how to use their own computer software. He's also taught writing to aspiring technical writers and to junior college students.

Torriglia created NAGG in 1986 when he found himself calling publications about their grammatically incorrect ads.

"I would nag them," he said.

Torriglia, who is writing a book he calls "The Grammar Police Never Sleep," believes the time has come to nag again.

To punctuate the idea that "two thousand ten" is the wrong way to say it, Torriglia, 56, pointed out that no one would ever say, "I was born in one thousand nine hundred and fifty-three."

Yet that's how people keep saying "2010." In one YouTube video, a preteen promises to make more YouTube videos in "two thousand ten." Another has a guy on a yellow dirt bike saying he's "amped about the all-new 'two thousand ten' " model. A third features people trying to design novelty eyeglasses in the shape of "two thousand ten."

To Torriglia, it's relentless.

"I'm hearing it on TV commercials. I heard an announcer say it during 'Monday Night Football.' You cringe."

Torriglia cringes, anyway. But he's the kind of guy who cringes at the Safeway checkout line where the sign reads "10 items or less."

"It should be fewer."

He's right.

Maybe not

But what choice did anyone really have this past decade? Were they going to start off the new millennium with a "twenty oh oh" hiccup, while avoiding the melodious "two thousand"?

There's a reason Arthur C. Clarke didn't call his book "Twenty Oh One: A Space Odyssey."

It's been a difficult decade for Torriglia, phonologically speaking.

"It was never 'two thousand nine' for me," he sighed. "It was always 'twenty aught nine.' "

So the people hawking next year's car models, the newscasters on TV and anyone else with a reason to say "2010" aloud should embrace good grammar and say "twenty ten" right now, Torriglia said.

Not exactly, according to noted linguistics Professor George Lakoff of UC Berkeley.

"It's not wrong to say 'two thousand ten,' " Lakoff said. "And it's not like 'twenty ten' is the right way."

His explanation involves cognitive reference points, standards of speech and recognizing as anachronistic the notion that grammar can be right or wrong as people and cultures evolve.

Nevertheless, Lakoff predicted, " 'Twenty-ten' is gonna take over. It's shortest. It's easiest to understand."

On that point - if not on the syntax - the master linguist and the grammar police agree.

E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/01/MN621BB41U.DTL#ixzz0biybPeG5

Now watch this video

So how do you say 2010?