Small people

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great ones make you feel that you too, can become great.

Mark Twain

Vocabulary Help

• keep away - mantenha-se longe
• people - pessoas
• try - tentar
• belittle - diminuir
• great - grande
• feel (feel, felt, felt) - sentir
• too - também

Real life Dilbert Quotes

My boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25-page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn't edit it. The disk I gave her was write-protected.

(CIO of Dell Computers)

Vocabulary Help

• boss - chefe
• weekend - final de semana
• claims - afirma
• damaged - estragado, danificado

Expressões Úteis da Língua Inglesa

Colaboração: Diones Alves

"TER" AS TO BE (15)

O verbo ter do português é largamente usado, aparecendo muito em expressões do nosso cotidiano e assumindo freqüentemente um papel idiomático. O verbo to have, que seria seu correspondente em inglês, tem um uso mais restrito, não aparecendo muito em formas idiomáticas. O verbo to be, por outro lado, cobre em inglês uma grande área de significado, aparecendo em muitas expressões do dia a dia, de forma semelhante ao verbo ter do português. Portanto, muitas vezes ter corresponde a to be, conforme os seguintes exemplos:

Quantos anos você tem? - How old are you?

Você tem certeza? - Are you sure?

Você tem razão. - You are right.

Não tenho medo de cachorro. - I'm not afraid of dogs.

O que é que tem de errado? - What's wrong?

Não tive culpa disso. - It wasn't my fault.

Tivemos sorte. - We were lucky.

Tenha cuidado. - Be careful.

Tenho pena deles (sinto por eles). - I feel sorry for them.

Isto não tem graça. - That's not funny.

Não tenho condições de trabalhar. / Não estou em condições ... - I'm not able to work. / I can't work.

Ela tem vergonha de falar inglês. - She's too shy to speak English.

Você tem que ter paciência. - You must be patient.

Ele tem facilidade para línguas. / Tem jeito ... - He's good at languages.

Este quarto tem 3 metros de largura por 4 de comprimento. - This room is 3 meters wide by 4 meters long.

ESTAR DE ... E ESTAR COM ... - PORTUGUESE "ESTAR DE ..." / "ESTAR COM ..." (19)

A combinação do verbo estar com as preposições de e com é muito comum em português, sendo que os significados que essas combinações representam, podem assumir diferentes formas em inglês, conforme os seguintes exemplos:

Estou com frio. / ... fome. / ... medo. / ... sono. - I'm cold. / ... hungry. / ... afraid. / ... sleepy.

Estou com vontade de beber uma cerveja. - I feel like drinking a beer. / I'd like to drink ...

Estou com pressa. - I'm in a hurry.

Estou com dor de cabeça. - I've got a headache. / I have a headache.

Está com defeito. - It's out of order.

Está com jeito de chuva. - It looks like rain.

Ela está com 15 anos. - She is 15 years old.

Estou de ressaca. - I've got a hangover. / I have a hangover. / I'm hung over.

Ela está de aniversário. - Today is her birthday. / She's celebrating her birthday today.

Estou de férias. - I'm on vacation. / ... on holidays.

Estou de folga. - It's my day off.

Estou de serviço. - I'm on duty.

Estou de castigo. - I'm grounded.

Estou de saída. / ... de partida. - I'm leaving.

Estou só de passagem. / I was just passing by.

Estamos de acordo. - We agree.

Estou com pouco dinheiro. / Estou mal de dinheiro. - I'm short of money.

Está de cabeça para baixo. / Está de pernas para o ar. - It's upside down.

Está tudo misturado. - It's all mixed up.

Este post é para Biólogos "insetos"

1. Formiga: Ant
Ex: Ants can lift up to 20 times their own body weight. (As formigas conseguem erguer pesos até vinte vezes maiores que o próprio.)

2. Abelha: Bee
Ex: Bees produce honey. (Abelhas produzem mel.)

3. Barata: Cockroach
Ex: Most women are afraid of cockroaches. (A maioria das mulheres tem medo de baratas.)

4.Libélula: Dragonfly
Ex: Dragonflies are predators that eat mosquitoes and other small insects. (Libélulas são predadores que comem mosquitos e outros insetos pequenos.)

5. Gafanhoto: Grasshopper
Ex: From every part of this State complaints of the grasshopper plague is assuming alarming proportions. (Em todas as partes deste estado, as reclamações da praga de gafanhotos estão tomando proporções alarmantes.)

6. Borboleta: Buttefly
Ex: I think butterflies are very beautiful. (Eu acho as borboletas muito bonitas.)

7. Besouro: Beetle
Ex: The beetles were taken to the laboratory after that. (Os besouros foram levados para o laboratório depois disso.)

8. Joaninha: Ladybug
Ex: Today, ladybugs are used to symbolize good luck and fortune. (Hoje, as joaninhas são usadas para simbolizar boa sorte e futuro.)

9. Mosquito: Mosquito
Ex: Dengue Mosquitoes breed in still water. (O mosquito da dengue reproduz em água parada.)

10. Vespa, Marimbondo: Wasp
Ex: A wasp stung him on the arm. (Um vespa o picou no braço.)

11. Piolho: Louse
Ex: Her son had lice when he was seven. (O filho dela tinha piolho quando tinha sete anos.)

12. Mosca: Fly
Ex: I think there is a fly in my soup. (Eu acho que tem uma mosca na minha sopa.)

13. Inseto: Bug
Ex: There are a lot of bugs near the river. (Há muitos insetos perto do rio.)

At the mental hospital

A guy walks past a mental hospital and hears a moaning voice

"13.......13.......13.........13"

The man looked over to the hospital and saw a hole in the wall, he looked through the hole and gets poked in the eye. The moaning voice then groaned

'14.........14.........14.......14.'

Vocabulary Help

• groan - gemer
• guy - sujeito, pessoa
• hear (hear, heard, heard) - ouvir
• hole - buraco
• look through - olhar através
• moaning voice - voz gemendo
• poked in the eye - atingido no olho
• see (see, saw, seen) - ver
• wall - paredce

Questions

A father and son went fishing one day. While they were out in the boat, the boy suddenly became curious about the world around him.

He asked his father, "How does this boat float?"

The father replied, "I don't know son."

A little later, the boy looked at his father and asked, "How do fish breath underwater?"

Once again the father replied, "I don't know son."

A little later the boy asked his father, "Why is the sky blue?"

Again, the father repied. "I don't know son."

Finally, the boy asked his father, "Dad, do you mind my asking you all of these questions?"

The father replied, "Of course not, if you don't ask questions, you will never learn anything."

Vocabulary Help - Ajuda de vocabulario

• father - padre - pai
• son - hijo - filho
• go fishing - ir a pescar - ir pescar
• boat - barca - barco
• suddenly - de repente - subitamente, de repente
• float - flotar - flutuar
• breath underwater - respirar bajo el agua - respirar debaixo da agua
• sky - cielo - ceu
• do you mind - te importa - importar-se
• learn (learn, learnt, learnt) - aprender - aprender

Question and Answer

Q. What's a mixed feeling?

A. When you see your mother-in-law backing off a cliff in your new car.

Q. What's the height of conceit?

A. Having an orgasm and calling out your own name.

Q. Why do most women pay more attention to their appearance than improving their minds?

A. Because most men are stupid but few are blind.

Vocabulary Help

• mixed feeling - sentimentos confusos, misturados
• mother-in-law - sogra
• back off - dar ré
• cliff - penhasco
• height of conceit - cúmulo do orgulho
• call out - chamar, gritar
• improve - aperfeiçoar
• mind - mente
• blind - cego

Mini-teste: Collocations

Have you ever noticed how native English speakers use a host of other words where Brazilians use “very”? The word “very” is a general-purpose intensifier, but it shouldn’t be used in every case. Often there are other words that are more appropriate as intensifiers. These strong word associations are called “collocations”. For example, we can say that someone is “very” rich, or we can say that someone is “filthy” rich. In both cases the idea is the same (very rich). However, we can’t use “filthy” and “very” interchangeably; you can’t be “filthy” poor or “filthy” hungry. ‘Filthy’ and ‘rich’ naturally go together and form a strong collocation. Knowing and using these frequent and strong collocations is an important step forward in really using the language like a native English speaker.

Let’s see how well you know these common collocations. Match the intensifiers in column A with the words in column B.

A	B
(1) The hotels were outrageously	(a) mad last night.
(2) Shoes are dirt	(b) hot in July.
(3) He was dirt	(c) wet.
(4) Mary was fuming	(d) successful at the moment.
(5) I ordered a freezing	(e) sorry.
(6) Arizona is burning	(f) poor as a child.
(7) I’m late. I’m terribly	(g) beautiful.
(8) His talk show is enormously	(h) cold beer to cool off.
(9) The view from the top was breathtakingly	(i) expensive in London.
(10) After the tennis game I was dripping	(j) cheap in Mexico.

Some other common substitutes for “very” in English are:

Terribly

I’m terribly sorry to disturb you, but I need to ask you something.
She’s terribly busy right now.

Horribly

We were horribly late to the wedding.
Jack was horribly drunk when he got in last night.

Awfully

He seemed awfully interested in the proposal.
Jane is awfully nice to offer her beach house for the weekend.

Absolutely

Are you absolutely certain it was John who took the laptop?
I’m absolutely delighted with the new sound system.

Utterly

I’m utterly exhausted from the hike this morning.
What an utterly ridiculous thing to say!

Also: entirely, absolutely, astonishingly, frightfully, tremendously, extremely etc.

We are waiting for your participation. The 3 first to answer correctly will win a brand new book.

Sobre o autor: Mark, canadense, reside no Brasil há quatorze anos. Possui mestrado em Teoria da Comunicação pela McGill University, bacharelado em Antropologia e Estudos Culturais e graduação em Semiótica pela Trent University. Autor de diversos livros da série Michaelis.

Puzzle

Three blondes walk into a bar and ask the bartender for three shots of tequila. He looks at them and says "OK" and pours their shots.

They all clink glasses and and yell "51 days!" Then they proceed to slam the shots, looking very self-satisfied. They look back to the bartender and decide to order another round. This time they pick up the glasses again and, more gleefully yell " Only 51 days!"

The bartender finally can't stand wondering what they are talking about and asks them what they mean by Only 51 days.

One of the blondes looks at him and says "Well," looking very smug. "We "We just finished a jigsaw puzzle. It took us Only 51 Days.....and on the box it said 4-7 years"

Vocabulary Help

• blondes - louras
• pour - servir
• clink glasses - tocar os copos
• yell - gritar
• order - pedir
• wonder - imaginar
• smug - satisfeita
• jigsaw puzzle - quebra-cabeças
• box - caixa

WORD-FORMATION MORFOLOGIA (FORMAÇÃO DE PALAVRAS)

WORD-FORMATION

MORFOLOGIA (FORMAÇÃO DE PALAVRAS)

Ricardo Schütz

O estudo da morfologia, ou seja, da formação de palavras, serve para demonstrar a flexibilidade da língua, flexibilidade esta que permite ao falante nativo transferir palavras de uma categoria a outra, através da adição de afixos.

Infelizmente, regras de formação de palavras não se aplicam a todas as palavras, tendo na verdade uma aplicação, ou uma "produtividade" muito limitada. Ou seja, a regra só se aplica àquelas palavras já consagradas pelo uso na língua. Do ponto de vista daquele que aprende inglês, a regra ajuda apenas no reconhecimento das palavras, não na produção. Portanto, de pouco adianta aprender a regra para poder aplicá-la na formação de palavras. O que também, mais uma vez, demonstra a eficácia superior da assimilação natural (acquisition) sobre estudo formal (learning) no processo de aprendizado de línguas.

A utilidade de se conhecer as principais regras de formação de palavras, do ponto de vista daquele que está desenvolvendo familiaridade com inglês, está no fato de que este conhecimento permite a identificação da provável categoria gramatical mesmo quando não se conhece a palavra no seu significado, o que é de grande utilidade na interpretação de textos.

São 3 os processos de formação de palavras:

AFFIXATION: É a adição de prefixos e sufixos.
Ex: pleasant - unpleasant, meaning - meaningful - meaningless.

CONVERSION: É a adoção da palavra em outra categoria gramatical sem qualquer transformação.
Ex: drive (verbo) - drive (substantivo)

COMPOUNDING: Refere-se à junção de duas palavras para formar uma terceira.
Ex: tea + pot = teapot, arm + chair = armchair

Parrots

A parrot fancier entered a London pet shop noticed a particularly colorful bird and asked its price.

"Five thousand pounds," the shop owner replied.

"Five thousand pounds?" the man asked. "Why so much?"

"Well, this bird speaks fluent Italian, Spanish and French, is brushing up on his German and starting to study English," came the reply. "With the European Community's unification due in 1992, he'll be a great asset."

"I don't care about the Common Market," the parrot fancier said. "What about that gray one in that other cage?"

The gray one was 15,000 pounds, he was told, because the bird spoke Arabic, Chinese, and Korean and was learning Japanese--"the languages of the 21st century."

"I'm too old to worry about the 21st century," the frustrated parrot lover replied. "What about that brown parrot up on that perch in the corner?"

The brown one, said the shopkeeper, was 25,000 pounds.

"Twenty-five thousand pounds!" exclaimed the customer. "What does he do to worth that?"

"We're not sure," the pet-shop owner replied. "But the other two call him chairman."

Vocabulary Help

• pet shop - loja de animais
• notice - notar
• bird - pássaro
• shop owner - dono da loja
• speak (speak, spoke, spoken) - falar
• brushing up - aperfeiçoar
• asset - coisa de valor
• I don't care - Eu não me importo
• gray - cinza
• cage - gaiola
• corner - canto
• shopkeeper - funcionário da loja, atendente
• be worth - valer
• sure - certo
• chairman - chefe, gerente

Public Telephone

At a public telephone:

-- I am sorry Sir, but I am in a terrible hurry. It's fifteen minutes you're using this telephone without saying a single word.

-- I am talking to my wife.

Vocabulary Help

• sorry - desculpar
• hurry - pressa
• say (say, said, said) - dizer
• single - única
• word - palavra
• talk - falar
• wife - esposa