Halloween

O que significa Halloween?

Uma pergunta óbvia sobre o Halloween é, "O que a palavra significa?" O nome é, na realidade, uma versão encurtada de "All Hallows' Even"(Noite de Todos os Santos), a véspera do Dia de Todos os Santos (All Hallows' Day). "Hallow" é uma palavra do inglês antigo para "pessoa santa" e o dia de todas as "pessoas santas" é apenas um outro nome para Dia de Todos os Santos, o dia em que os católicos homenageiam todos os santos. Com o tempo, as pessoas passaram a se referir à Noite de Todos os Santos, "All Hallows' Even", como "Hallowe'en", e mais tarde simplesmente "Halloween".

Seguindo a tradição judaica, os cristãos consideram os dias santos do pôr do sol de um dia até o pôr do sol do dia seguinte. É daí que temos o costume de comemorar a véspera de Natal, de Ano Novo, etc. O antecessor direto do Halloween de hoje é a festividade que era iniciada no Dia de Todos os Santos, o qual começava ao pôr do sol do dia 31 de outubro.

Apesar de seu nome vir do Dia de Todos os Santos, o Halloween moderno é, na verdade, uma combinação de várias tradições diferentes. Na realidade, muitas das coisas que fazemos no Halloween antecedem completamente o cristianismo.

Some more slangs!

Miffle: Nothing.
Example: A. What are you doing? B. Miffle. 


Mint: Very cool. Everything's okay.
Example: That party was mint - good party.


Hack: To borrow something that you have no intention on paying back.
Example: Hey, lemme hack a cigarette from ya.


Half-cut: Drunk
Example: Kelly was so half-cut the other night she hit on Jay.

 

  

Some Humor

Business Letters

Click on the following link and get some important information about writing a business letter.
http://www.ego4u.com/en/business-english/communication/business-letter

Think about it...

When you study another language it is necessary that you dedicate some time studying on your own. Just going to school is not enough...so, try to do something for your English outside the classroom too. It does not matter if you read, listen to music, watch movies, study grammar....do whatever you like, but do it!!

Conditionals

Zero Conditional: certainty

We use the so-called zero conditional when the result of the condition is always true, like a scientific fact.

Take some ice. Put it in a saucepan. Heat the saucepan. What happens? The ice melts (it becomes water). You would be surprised if it did not.

IF	condition	result
	present simple	present simple
If	you heat ice	it melts.

Notice that we are thinking about a result that is always true for this condition. The result of the condition is an absolute certainty. We are not thinking about the future or the past, or even the present. We are thinking about a simple fact. We use the present simple tense to talk about the condition. We also use the present simple tense to talk about the result. The important thing about the zero conditional is that the condition always has the same result.

We can also use when instead of if, for example: When I get up late I miss my bus.

Look at some more examples in the tables below:

IF	condition	result
	present simple	present simple
If	I miss the 8 o'clock bus,	I am late for work.
If	I am late for work,	my boss gets angry.
If	people don't eat,	they get hungry.
If	you heat ice,	does it melt?

 

result	IF	condition
present simple		present simple
I am late for work	if	I miss the 8 o'clock bus.
My boss gets angry	if	I am late for work.
People get hungry	if	they don't eat.
Does ice melt	if	you heat it.

First Conditional: real possibility

Object Pronouns

Os "object pronouns" servem para substituir algum objeto em uma frase, para evitar a repetição. Por exemplo:

- I bought a gift and gave the gift to my girlfriend.

Para evitar que a palavra “gift” seja repetida, utilizamos o pronome de objeto “it”:

- I bought a gift and gave it to my girlfriend.

Abaixo uma lista dos "object pronouns":

I – Me
You – You
He – Him
She – Her
It – It
We – Us
You – You
They – Them

Pronomes de objetos podem ser utilizados como objetos diretos e objetos indiretos.

Caso o objeto indireto estiver antes do objeto direto, não se usa preposição (to, for):

- Give me the book

Ou, se o objeto indireto estiver depois do objeto direto, usaremos uma preposição:

- Give the book to me

Idioms (animal)

Take the bull by the horns = face the difficulties

Paul took the bulls by the horns and got the job done.

A New Word a Day...

The following site is recommended so that you can improve your vocabulary...

http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

Click on "Today's word" to start.