Thursday, December 14, 2017

English Classes Diary

Hi everyone and welcome back!

After more than a half a year of not giving English classes I'm back again to continue. Here is the picture I've made from one of my Spanish student. We made an interesting exercise for speaking: I've asked him to paint his own Pokemon (right), because the boy is very interested in them, and at the same time I painted mine (left). We talked what kind of powers each of them has, what they can do, what their weaknesses are and little stories about where they live. Student's pokemon is called Comodoro and mine has name of Racoony. Two powerful guys with extraodinary abilities and unbelievabale life story!


Awesome class and a good time spent together! 
If you want a class with me, don't hesitate to write me!

Monday, March 6, 2017

No me devuelven la fianza - Qué hacer?

Hola a tod@s!

Al tener varios grupos de alquiler en Facebook me ha surgida una idea de compartir mi experiencia con la gente y escuchar su opinión sobre diferentes situaciones que podemos sufrir todos aquellos que alquilan y viven de alquiler.

Yo creo que uno de los temas más discutidos, sobre todo entre el casero y inquilino, es la devolución de la fianza al finalizar el plazo del contrato de alquiler (no me importa aquí si fuese un contrato verbal o escrito). Y es que veo en muchos grupos discusiones cuando a una persona no se le haya devuelto una fianza porque el propietario impuso unas condiciones terribles para finalmente no devolver la fianza.

Bien, la cuestión lógica que se pregunta aquí es un qué hacer. En estos casos siempre vamos a la ley, para ver qué nos dice el Derecho al respecto. Pues sin más, vamos a ver lo que dice el artículo 36 de la Ley 29/1994, de 24 de noviembre, de Arrendamientos Urbanos:

1. A la celebración del contrato será obligatoria la exigencia y prestación de fianza en metálico en cantidad equivalente a una mensualidad de renta en el arrendamiento de viviendas y de dos en el arrendamiento para uso distinto del de vivienda.

4. El saldo de la fianza en metálico que deba ser restituido al arrendatario al final del arriendo, devengará el interés legal, transcurrido un mes desde la entrega de las llaves por el mismo sin que se hubiere hecho efectiva dicha restitución.

Para nosotros serán importantes solo dos apartados, primero y cuarto. En el primer apartado nos establece que la devolución de fianza se realiza al finalizar el contrato de alquiler sin más condiciones. Entonces, es lógico que cualquier otra condición o requisito que os impone un propietario es ilegal. He tenido una experiencia con unos propietarios que no querían devolver mi fianza si no nos desempadronamos de su piso. Hemos tardado 5 meses en devolver toda la cantidad puesto que mi novia no podía cambiarse de padrón debido a su trabajo fuera de España. En aquel momento no sabíamos de dicho artículo, así que sin más, hemos aceptado las condiciones impuestas.

Volviendo a nuestra ley, el apartado cuarto establece una forma clásica por la que se supone que el arrendamiento está finalizado y hay que devolver fianza, es la devolución de las llaves al propietario. Junto con esto podemos encontrar el devengo del interés legal si hay una demora en devolución de la cantidad.

Yo creo que en este breve artículo se ha quedado claro que si el propietario os dice que hay que hacer algo para poder devolver la fianza, le podéis aconsejar a leer bien el texto legal o poner una denuncia.
Así que espero vuestras historias sobre algo parecido que os haya surgido.

Wednesday, March 1, 2017

False Friends English - Spanish #2

Hi everyone and welcome back!

Today's post will be about two false friends that English and Spanish have and so many times Spanish speakers have made mistakes with these words. I remember one day, when one of my student sent me a message in Whatsapp telling me: "Sorry, Denis, I don't feel well today and I'm constipated...". Of course, English speaker will think, that she might have this, as you can see on the right picture.

But I understood her, that she literally translated the Spanish word constipado into constipated, and these two words are similar, but their meanings are absolutely different!

If I say "I'm constipated"(Estoy constipado) in Spanish. it means that I have flu, I'm sick, I've got cold and don't feel well, as on the left picture. But the same phrase in English has absolutly different meaning. If we say "I'm constipated", it means in Spanish "Estoy estreñido".

So sometime literal translation from Spanish into English can be a little bit dangerous, because we can missunderstand you!

Wednesday, February 8, 2017

False Friends English - Spanish #1

Hi everyone and welcome back!

Having so many Spanish students, I've noticed that almost all of them like to include some words that are absolutely identic but have different meanings in English and Spanish. Sometimes it was even very confusing, because I missunderstood a person, I couldn't even imagine what that person meant. Now I'd like to make it a little bit clear by preparing this posts about False Friends in English and Spanish. So let's begin with the first group of false friends!

The Menu VS El Menú

The word "menu" in English means "la carta", so basically it´s the list of the food that restaurants offer. In Spanish the same word "el menú" refers to the first plate, second plate and dessert. So this idea of "menu" doesn´t exist in English, sometimes you can find something like a "set menu" which includes things described in "el menú".

                                  The Menu                                                                      El menú

 


Monday, February 6, 2017

English Listening #5 - Prince, Panama Case, Olympic Games 2016

Hi everyone and welcome back!

For today's English Listening Episode I'm going to present you 4 audios related with Putin and Trump, USA and Russia, why Miss Obama called Americans like children and we will see what's happening right now in the world with the technology in USA (Amazon) and India.

Enjoy it!


Questions:
1. Why the cyberattack happened in USA?
2. What are the consequences of this attack?



Questions:
1. Why Miss Obama called Americans like children?



Questions:
1. What is Amazon Go? How does it works?
2. What is the main problem in grocery market?
3. How does Amazon see its future in this new business?
4. Is there any opened Amazon Go store?



Questions:
1. What is the main purpose of a new monetary reform in India?
2. Why did Mr. Modi want all people to use electronic money?
3. Who does Mr. Modi want to participate more actively in this initiative?


Reference of a student. Sergio - approved university English exam

Sergio is a student of University Carlos III de Madrid and my friend. He needed to pass an English exam at his university in order to finish successfully his Law Degree, it is an obligatory exam for all students of this university, so soon or later he needed to do that. After the exam Sergio had some doubts about his exam and wasn't sure if he passed or not. Fortunatly, Sergio did pass the exam and got B1 level, the maximum level you can get in this exam.

Click on picture to see the text:


Monday, January 23, 2017

Student's reference from Jose. Approved TOEFL exam

Here I live you guys another reference from on of my student, Jose!

Jose contacted me on the last week of the December, exactly before the New Year. He needed to prepare in 2 weeks his TOEFL exam, because he needed to achieve at least 80 points to be enrolled in an English speaking university, he's studying engineering and he sees himself working abroad, that's why he wanted to achieve the needed score in TOEFL. For 2 weeks, until the 7th of January of 2017, we had been having classes every day in order to prepare Writing and Speaking of Jose. The things is that Jose had already done this exam before but he couldn't get enough points, so he needed to do it again if he wanted to study abroad. At the end, we have achieved the goal and Jose got his 80 points!

Click on picture to see the text: