Hi there,
Here goes a nice lil' exercise that I found in a book for the preparation of the CAE exam. It's not too difficult though.
I'll post the solutions next week.
Cheers!
Categoría: Reading
Thou, Thee, and Archaic Grammar
by A. Davies, R. Lipton, D. Richoux et al.
"Thou", "thee", "thine" and "thy" are pronouns that have dropped out of the main dialects of Modern English. During the period of Early Modern English (~1470-1700), they formed the Second Person Singular of the language, and were standardized by the time of the King James Bible as shown below.
| Subjective | Objective | Possessive | Present Tense Verb Ending |
|
| 1st Pers. Sing. | I | me | my/mine[1] | none |
| 2nd Pers. Sing. | thou | thee | thy/thine[1] | -est |
| 3rd Pers. Sing. | he/she/it | him/her/it | his/her/its | -eth |
| 1st Pers. Plural | we | us | our | none |
| 2nd Pers. Plural | ye/you[2] | you | your | none |
| 3rd Pers. Plural | they | them | their | none |
| [1]: "Mine" and "thine" were used before "h" and vowels, much as "an" was. | ||||
| [2]: "You" had replaced "ye" for most plural uses by 1600. | ||||
Here are the conjugations from that era of two common irregular verbs:
to be - Present tense to have - Present tense
I am I have
thou art thou hast
he/she/it is he/she/it hath
we are we have
ye are ye have
they are they have
You may have been told that "thou" and "thee" were for familiar use, and "you" and "ye" were formal. This was not true originally, but it was true for about two centuries, roughly 1450-1650, including Shakespeare's time. The previously plural "you" was used in the singular to signify politeness and respect, which left "thou" and "thee" for all the other singular uses, ranging from endearing intimacy to bitter rudeness. Eventually, the politer "you" drove out nearly all uses of "thee" and "thou"; they survived mostly in poetry and religion.
Several groups continue to use these pronouns today as part of their daily speech (although with different grammar), including residents of Yorkshire, Cumbria, the East Midlands, and some rural areas of Western England. Some Quakers also used their Plain Speech with "thee" and "thy" until the middle of the 20th century.
Would you be able to 'translate' this sonnet by W.Shakespeare into 21st Century English?
Sonnet 51
Thus can my love excuse the slow offence
Of my dull bearer when from thee I speed:
From where thou art why should I haste me thence?
Till I return, of posting is no need.
O! what excuse will my poor beast then find,
When swift extremity can seem but slow?
Then should I spur, though mounted on the wind,
In winged speed no motion shall I know,
Then can no horse with my desire keep pace.
Therefore desire, (of perfect'st love being made)
Shall neigh, no dull flesh, in his fiery race;
But love, for love, thus shall excuse my jade-
Since from thee going, he went wilful-slow,
Towards thee I'll run, and give him leave to go.
If you think you can, please, post the 'translation' as a comment to this post.
Cheers!
Hello,
Even though I am not teaching your level this year, from now on I will continue updating the blog, as it was agreed in our faculty meeting last Friday.
I will upload exercises every week, focusing especially on the reading comprehension skills - as they are the easiest of all four to be implemented online - , not neglecting the other three though.
We will start with a cloze text using an article from the BBC. The article is about a recent finding in the science field.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/lcp/4eoialcala/myfiles/reindeer.htm
After you have finished the exercise you can read the article in its original location here
Best,
Raúl
P.S: for those of you wondering what 'started back ... used to do' means or where the heck I took it from, here is the song where you will find the answer: Maybellene, originally by Chuck Berry.
Lyrics | Chuck Berry Lyrics | Maybellene Lyrics
(tip: there is always a song for every single grammatical issue you would want to study or practise).
Embedding is not allowed, so there goes the link
The credit for this link goes to Teresa Liñan, from the EOI Córdoba 
The big freeze set to stay for inauguration day by Matt Taylor
The recent arctic freeze in the northeast USA shows no signs of abating this week. Inauguration day on Tuesday is forecast to be particularly cold.
Last week, some very cold air pushed south from Canada, bringing bitterly cold temperatures to many parts of the Midwest and Northeast. Sub-zero temperatures combined with a fresh breeze led to wind chill temperatures as low as -45C (-49F) in parts of Minnesota.
The cold air is still affecting Washington D.C and a storm system pushing in from the mid-Atlantic on Monday is forecast to bring up to an inch of snow. This will be followed by dry and cold weather through inauguration day on Tuesday.
In stark contrast to the cold weather gripping central and eastern parts of the USA, a number of western states are experiencing unusually warm conditions. Temperatures in Los Angeles last week reached 27C (81F), 10 degrees above average for the time of year.
From BBC News
Spanish industrial output plunges
Employment in Spain's construction industry has been hard hit
Spanish industrial output fell by 15.1% in November, compared with the same month one year ago, the biggest fall on record and a sign of a deep recession.
Analysts had expected output in factories and mines to drop by 11%.
On Thursday, figures revealed that the country's unemployment rate hit a 12-year high in 2008 of 3 million.
Retail sales across the 15 nations that share the euro rose unexpectedly in November, defying the gloom that pervades the eurozone economy.
Manufacturing blow
Spain has been particularly hard hit by the slowdown, partly because of the slump in the construction sector.
The figures indicate that the problem is not just in the construction sector, but also in manufacturing.
The outlook is bleak for both the production and household sides in Europe
Matthew Sharatt, Bank of America
The biggest fall in output was in durable goods like household appliances, which tumbled 23.9%. Consumer goods fell 9.4%.
This latest data reinforces expectations of an early cut in eurozone interest rates.
The European Central Bank is to meet next week to decide on the future level of rates and will be faced with a barrage of data indicating a worsening slowdown in the eurozone.
"The fourth quarter does look very, very bad. There has been a substantial contraction in all activity, not just in industry, but what we've seen this morning is this is not just a Spanish, but a pan-European story," said Juergen Michels of Citigroup.
"The difference for Spain is that the problem is exacerbated by its own internal problems of its housing market and a lack of competitiveness," he added.
Retail sales
Retail sales across the eurozone in November rose 0.6% from October and fell 1.5% from a year earlier. Both figures were better than expected.
Europe's biggest economies did better than the average.
Retail sales in France, the eurozone's second-biggest economy, were up 1.8% month on month and 1.6% on the year.
Germany, the eurozone's largest economy, registered rises of 0.7% and 0.3% respectively.
Food and drink sales rose 0.5% on the month and fell 1.3% on the year.
But analysts said the outlook remained bleak.
"Monthly data can be volatile. It's way too early to talk about signs of a turnaround with unemployment only recently surging higher. The outlook is both bleak for production and household sides in Europe once unemployment continues to rise much higher and we have only just seen that starting in Germany," said Matthew Sharratt of Bank of America.
"It makes no overall change to the outlook. It will probably lead to a 50 basis point cut by the ECB next week but signs on the retail side that it's not all one way count against the hope they could do more than 50 basis points," he added.
Eurozone interest rates are currently 2.5%.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7819569.stm
We reviewed the vocabulary related to crime and punishment --> Exercise 2, page 37 & Vocabulary Bank page 149
"Judge Mike Cicconetti has been Judge of the Painesville Municipal Court since January, 1994, and is currently in his third six-year term of office. Judge Cicconetti is a summa cum laude graduate of St. Leo College, Florida, and received his law degree from Cleveland State University in 1980.
Innovative and creative sentencing has brought Judge Cicconetti national and international attention. His sentencing practices have been the subject of articles in national and international news media publications and articles in nearly every major newspaper worldwide, all local and national news programs including the Today Show, Good Morning America, CBS Morning Show, Fox News, Dr. Phil, Paula Zahn and Court TV.
Judge Cicconetti is the proud father of five children and resides in Concord Township. "
Then we started the speaking exercise on page 39 (Exercise 5). First we thought of an appropriate punishment for each of the crimes suggested in 5a; then we read the text on page 39 (Judge Cicconetti's creative justice) aloud and checked if the punishments agreed matched those by Cicconnetti. We asked and answered a few comprehension questions and in small groups we discussed what 'creative punishments' to apply on a number of offences suggested in 6a.
Homework --> page 38, exercise 4a and workbook, page 24.
Body of Evidence, a TV Programme devoted to crime and punishment ...
"This riveting series gets inside the mind, life and career of one of the country's leading forensic profilers. In each episode, Dayle Hinman guides you through some of her most puzzling cases and explains how they were solved. These are baffling mysteries -- often with no eyewitnesses, little evidence and no apparent motive."
Click here
People caught Speeding ...
