SIMPLE PAST
REGULAR VERBS

En inglés, el pretérito (simple past – pasado simple) es un tiempo gramatical que se utiliza cuando una acción ocurrió y fue completada en el pasado. Esta lección explica como se forma el pretérito en inglés en los verbos regulares.

Para los verbos regulares, el simple past se añade -ed a la forma base del verbo.

base form	+ ed	simple past (pretérito)
walk		walked		caminar
push		pushed		empujar
greet		greeted		saludar
watch		watched		mirar

En inglés, el pasado simple es muy fácil. La conjugación es la misma para todas las personas gramaticales. Aquí hay un ejemplo con el verbo WORK (trabajar).

singular					plural
	subject	verb			subject	verb
1st person	I	worked	yesterday.		We	worked	yesterday.
2nd person	You	worked	yesterday.		You	worked	yesterday.
3rd person	He, She, It	worked	yesterday.		They	worked	yesterday.

Para los verbos regulares terminados en la vocal -e, hay que añadir solamente -d.

base form		simple past
hate		hated		odiar
seize		seized		coger
hope		hoped		esperar
assume		assumed		suponer
tie		tied		amarar
free		freed		liberar

Para los pocos verbos en inglés que terminan con un vocal que no sea -e, hay que añadir -ed.

base form		simple past
ski		skied		esquiar
echo		echoed		resonar

Para verbos regulares que terminan en una vocal + y, hay que añadir -ed.

base form		simple past
play		played		jugar
decay		decayed		descomponer
survey		surveyed		mirar
enjoy		enjoyed		disfrutar

Para verbos regulares que terminan en una consonante+y, hay que cambiar la -y por -i y añadir -ed.

base form		simple past
cry		cried		llorar
dirty		dirtied		ensuciar
ready		readied		preparar
magnify		magnified		magnificar

Para verbos regulares que terminan con una vocal corta seguido por una consonante, hay que doblar la consonante final antes de añadir -ed.

base form		simple past
dam		dammed		represar
beg		begged		rogar
plan		planned		planear
strip		stripped		desnudar

Cuando el verbo regular tiene más que una sílaba, en el inglés americano la consonante final está doblada, pero solamente cuando el acento tónico cae en la última sílaba.

base form		simple past		incorrect
defer		deferred		defered		diferir
regret		regretted		regreted		lamentar
reship		reshipped		reshiped		remandar
compel		compelled		compeled		obligar

En estos ejemplos, el acento tónico no cae en la última sílaba. No hay que doblar el consonante.

base form		simple past		incorrect
orbit		orbited		orbitted		orbitar
listen		listened		listenned		escuchar
travel		traveled		travelled		viajar
consider		considered		considerred		considerar

Aquí hay ejemplos de frases con verbos regulares en el simple past.

present		simple past
I walk to school. Camino a la escuela.		I walked to school. Caminé a la escuela.
She works downtown. Ella trabaja en el centro.		She worked downtown. Trabajó en el centro.
They help on Tuesdays. Nos ayudan los martes.		They helped on Tuesdays. Nos ayudaron los martes.
He asks a lot of questions. Hace muchas preguntas.		He asked a lot of questions. Hizo muchas preguntas.

 

BOXING DAY, ORIGENS

BOXING DAY, ORIGENS

SANTA CLAUS

SANTA CLAUS

CHRISTMAS

CHRISTMAS

Christmas (which means "Feast day of Christ") is a Christian holiday that honors the birth of Jesus (whom Christians believe is the Son of God), and a cultural holiday for non-Christians.[1]

The day known as Christmas Day is celebrated on the 25th day of December. It is one of the most important days of the year for Christians, along with Easter when the death and resurrection of Jesus are celebrated. The season of preparing for Christmas is called Advent and begins on a Sunday about four weeks before Christmas. The Christmas Season (called Christmastide) ends on January 6 or the Twelfth Day of Christmas, in which Epiphany is remembered.

Christmas is celebrated all over the world, as a religious holiday or as a time of celebration by Christians and non-Christians alike. The traditions are different from country to country, but they nearly always include a feast, giving gifts or cards, and enjoying church or public festivities such as singing Christmas carols and songs. Santa Claus is a tradition in many countries of the world.

Christmastime, as it is often called, is in the winter of the Northern Hemisphere, at a time when there were already ancient festivals. Some of the traditions that are used for Christmas are older than Christmas, or come from other non-Christian traditions such as Yule. Modern traditions of Christmas often focus on the giving of gifts. The season for retail stores to sell gifts, food, greeting cards, Christmas trees, and decorations begins the day about

THANKSGIVING

"THANKSGIVING DAY"

THANKSGIVING

THANKSGIVING ACTIVITY

THANKSGIVING DAY

"The First Thanksgiving"

by Nora Smith

Praying PilgrimsNearly four hundred years ago, a great many of the people in England were very unhappy because their king would not let them pray to God as they liked. The king said they must use the same prayers that he did; and if they would not do this, they were often thrown into prison, or perhaps driven away from home.

"Let us go away from this country," said the unhappy Englishmen to each other; and so they left their homes, and went far off to a country called Holland. It was about this time that they began to call themselves "Pilgrims." Pilgrims, you know, are people who are always traveling to find something they love, or to find a land where they can be happier; and these English men and women were journeying, they said, "from place to place, toward heaven, their dearest country."

In Holland, the Pilgrims were quiet and happy for a while, but they were very poor; and when the children began to grow up, they were not like English children, but talked Dutch, like the little ones of Holland, and some grew naughty and did not want to go to church any more.

"This will never do," said the Pilgrim fathers and mothers; so after much talking and thinking and writing they made up their minds to come here to America. They hired two vessels, called the Mayflower and the Speedwell, to take them across the sea; but the Speedwell was not a strong ship, and the captain had to take her home again before she had gone very far.

The Mayflower went back, too. Part of the Speedwell's passengers were given to her, and then she started alone across the great ocean.

There were one hundred people on board - mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and little children. They were very crowded; it was cold and uncomfortable; the sea was rough, and pitched the Mayflower about, and they were two months sailing over the water.

The children cried many times on the journey, and wished they had never come on the tiresome ship that rocked them so hard, and would not let them keep still a minute.

But they had one pretty plaything to amuse them, for in the middle of the great ocean a Pilgrim baby was born, and they called him "Oceanus," for his birthplace. When the children grew so tired that they were cross and fretful, Oceanus' mother let them come and play with him, and that always brought smiles and happy faces back again.

At last the Mayflower came in sight of land; but if the children had been thinking of grass and flowers and birds, they must have been very much disappointed, for the month was cold November, and there was nothing to be seen but rocks and sand and hard bare ground.

Some of the Pilgrim fathers, with brave Captain Myles Standish at their head, went on shore to see if they could find any houses or white people. But they only saw some Indians, who ran away from them, and found some Indian huts and some corn buried in holes in the ground. They went to and fro from the ship three times, till by and by they found a pretty place to live, where there were "fields and little running brooks."

Then at last all the tired Pilgrims landed from the ship on a spot now called Plymouth Rock, and the first house was begun on Christmas Day. But when I tell you how sick they were and how much they suffered that first winter, you will be very sad and sorry for them. The weather was cold, the snow fell fast and thick, the wind was icy, and the Pilgrim fathers had no one to help them cut down the trees and build their church and their houses.

The Pilgrim mothers helped all they could; but they were tired with the long journey, and cold, and hungry too, for no one had the right kind of food to eat, nor even enough of it.

So first one was taken sick, and then another, till half of them were in bed at the same time, Brave Myles Standish and the other soldiers nursed them as well as they knew how; but before spring came half of the people died and had gone at last to "heaven, their dearest country."

But by and by the sun shone more brightly, the snow melted, the leaves began to grow, and sweet spring had come again.

Some friendly Indians had visited the Pilgrims during the winter, and Captain Myles Standish, with several of his men, had returned the visit.

One of the kind Indians was called Squanto, and he came to stay with the Pilgrims, and showed them how to plant their corn, and their pease and wheat and barley.

When the summer came and the days were long and bright, the Pilgrim children were very happy, and they thought Plymouth a lovely place indeed. All kinds of beautiful wild flowers grew at their doors, there were hundreds of birds and butterflies, and the great pine woods were always cool and shady when the sun was too bright.

When it was autumn the fathers gathered the barley and wheat and corn that they had planted, and found that it had grown so well that they would have quite enough for the long winter that was coming.

"Let us thank God for it all," they said. "It is He who has made the sun shine and the rain fall and the corn grow." So they thanked God in their homes and in their little church; the fathers and the mothers and the children thanked Him.

"Then," said the Pilgrim mothers, "let us have a great Thanksgiving party, and invite the friendly Indians, and all rejoice together."

So they had the first Thanksgiving party, and a grand one it was! Four men went out shooting one whole day, and brought back so many wild ducks and geese and great wild turkeys that there was enough for almost a week. There was deer meat also, of course, for there were plenty of fine deer in the forest. Then the Pilgrim mothers made the corn and wheat into bread and cakes, and they had fish and clams from the sea besides.

The friendly Indians all came with their chief Massasoit. Every one came that was invited, and more, I dare say, for there were ninety of them altogether.

They brought five deer with them, that they gave to the Pilgrims; and they must have liked the party very much, for they stayed three days.

Kind as the Indians were, you would have been very much frightened if you had seen them; and the baby Oceanus, who was a year old then, began to cry at first whenever they came near him.

They were dressed in deerskins, and some of them had the furry coat of a wild cat hanging on their arms. Their long black hair fell loose on their shoulders, and was trimmed with feathers or fox-tails. They had their faces painted in all kinds of strange ways, some with black stripes as broad as your finger all up and down them. But whatever they wore, it was their very best, and they had put it on for the Thanksgiving party.

Each meal, before they ate anything, the Pilgrims and the Indians thanked God together for all his goodness. The Indians sang and danced in the evenings, and every day they ran races and played all kinds of games with the children.

Then sometimes the Pilgrims with their guns, and the Indians with their bows and arrows, would see who could shoot farthest and best. So they were glad and merry and thankful for three whole days.

The Pilgrim mothers and fathers had been sick and sad many times since they landed from the Mayflower; they had worked very hard, often had not had enough to eat, and were mournful indeed when their friends died and left them. But now they tried to forget all this, and think only of how good God had been to them; and so they all were happy together at the first Thanksgiving party.

All this happened nearly four hundred years ago, and ever since that time Thanksgiving has been kept in our country.

Every year our fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers have "rejoiced together" like the Pilgrims, and have had something to be thankful for each time.

Every year some father has told the story of the brave Pilgrims to his little sons and daughters, and has taught them to be very glad and proud that the Mayflower came sailing to our country so many years ago.

BRAIN DRAIN

"Brain Drain"

It is an Economic and Sociology term  which refers to the emigration of intelligent, well-educated individuals to somewhere for better pay or conditions, causing the place they came from to lose those skilled people, or "brains." Typically, emigrating brains have learned English and have moved to the United Kingdom, the US or some other English-speaking country. An example is Albert Einstein.

(Este término se puede traducir como "FUGA DE CEREBROS")

Present Simple and Present Continuous

Present Simple and Present Continuous

What's the difference between the Present Simple / Present Continuous and how to use them.

We use the present simple tense when we want to talk about fixed habits or routines – things that don’t change.

We use the present continuous to talk about actions which are happening at the present moment, but will soon finish.

Compare these two statements:

(present simple) I play tennis.
(present continuous/ progressive) I am playing tennis.
(present simple) ‘I play tennis’ tells us that playing tennis is something the speaker always does. It is part of a routine or habit. We can call this a permanent situation.

(present continuous/ progressive) ‘I am playing tennis’ tells us that the speaker is playing tennis right now. Soon the game will be over. We call this a temporary situation.

With the present simple we say:

I play tennis

You play tennis

We play tennis

They play tennis

He/she/ it plays tennis.

With the present continuous we say:

I am playing tennis

You are playing tennis

We are playing tennis

He/she/it is playing tennis


Frequency Adverbs we use with the Present Simple

With the present simple we use these frequency adverbs:

(Notice that the adverb comes before the main verb in the sentence.)

Always: ‘I always read before I go to bed.’

Often: ‘Her sister often comes shopping with us.’

Frequently:‘Michael frequently visits his family.’

Sometimes:‘You sometimes go to the gym, don’t you?’

Occasionally:‘It occasionally rains in summer.’

Seldom:‘They seldom ask for help.’

Rarely: ‘He rarely goes out without his backpack.’

Hardly ever:‘I hardly ever eat pizza.’

Never: ‘Japanese people never wear shoes inside.’


Time Expressions we use with the Present Continuous

With the present continuous we use these time expressions:

(Notice that the time expression can come at the start or at the end of the sentence.)

At the moment: ‘I’m watching TV, at the moment.’

These days: ‘Paul’s living in Cardiff, these days.’

Now: ‘What are you doing, now?’

Nowadays: ‘I think you are smoking too much, nowadays.’

THE STORY OF GUY FAWKES

THE STORY OF GUY FAWKES

HALLOWEEN

Halloween

Halloween, the time of pumpkins, candies, ghosts, witches and much more, is annually celebrated on 31 October.
That's the night before All Saints Day. Its origins date back thousands of years to the Celtic festival of Samhaim or The Feast of the Sun, a most significant holiday of the Celtic year. This day marked the end of summer but also the season of darkness as well as the beginning of the New Year on 1 November.

Druids in Britain and Ireland would light bonfires, dance around them and offer sacrifices of animal and crops. The fires were also intended to give warmth to the households and to keep free from evil spirits. Through the ages these practices changed.


The Irish hollowed out turnips, placed a light inside to keep away the bad and stingy Jack. As the legend says, Jack was a man who tricked the devil and after Jack had died he was allowed neither in heaven nor in hell. With a lantern in his hand he began to search for a resting place on Earth. This was the original Jack-o-Lantern. Since Halloween came to America from Ireland (Scotland and Wales) people used pumpkins because they were bigger and easier to hollow out than turnips.

During the centuries the cultures have added their own elements to the way Halloween is celebrated.

Children love the custom of dressing-up in fancy costumes and going from door-to-door yelling "Trick-or-Treat" . Adults instead join spooky parties which are nearly held all over the cities and villages on that special evening. A spooky decoration, games and "frightening food" are nuts and bolts for a Halloween party your friends won't soon forget.

BREAK A LEG

"Break A Leg"

Today you are going take an exam.  As you are heading to the classroom one of your friends texts you on your phone.  The text message says "break a leg!"  You may wonder "Why would my friend send me a message like that?  Why does he wants me to hurt myself?"  Of course your friend does not want you to break a leg bone in the classroom.  If someone tells you to "Break a leg" it really means good luck!

 "I hear you have a big interview for a job with Google today.  Break a leg!"

 "I know you are giving a speech in front of the whole class today.  I just wanted to tell you -  break a  leg!"

 "I heard that you are finally going to ask the girl you like out on a date today.  Break a leg!"