Be careful when saying ‘last day’ or ‘next day’:

So in our sessions virtually every client falls into this trap. Avoid saying ‘last day’ or ‘next day’ when you want to talk about the last or next occasion an event such as one of our Skype English classes will happen. For instance, students often say something like ‘I’d like to look at uncountable nouns next day’. The use of ‘next day’ here is a significant error. Remember that ‘next day’ and indeed ‘last day’ are direct translations from the Spanish and they don’t work in the same way in English. As alternatives we could use ‘next/last time’ or ‘in the next/last session’ when mentioning the next or last instance something will take happen. We hope that makes sense.

So which preposition should we use with the verb 'to arrive': in or at?

The preposition that comes after ‘arrive’ is often problematic. Even native speakers have trouble with this. If we are talking about arriving in a specific place name such as a village, region, country, city, park then we must utilise the preposition ‘in’. For example, ‘the England rugby team arrived in South Africa last night’ or ‘we arrived in Rotterdam yesterday’ or ‘she will arrive in the village of West Harting later’. So, when we mention the name of a specific place (village, town, city, county, country…) then we must use ‘in’ with the verb ‘to arrive’. Should the place where we arrive not be a city, village, county etc then we must utilise the preposition ‘at’. For example, ‘I arrived at the police station half an hour ago’ or ‘she will shortly arrive at the cinema’ or ‘he has already arrived at work’ or ‘when will we arrive at Madrid bus terminal?’ Note in the last example that the generic place supersedes the specific place (Madrid) with regard to the implementation of the preposition.

Separate from this is the phrase 'to arrive at a decision'. This is not to be confused with the above.
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How do we translate the word 'fiesta' to English?

Good evening/morning, so a lot of fiestas are taking place right now in Spain. So what would be the closest word to 'fiesta' in English? Well ultimately some loss in translation is inevitable as a fiesta in Spain is a concept that is unique to Spain. Probably, the best word would not be 'party' for 'fiestas' happening in big towns or cities as the 'fiesta' really becomes quite sizable in big towns or cities. In these cases, the most appropriate word would be 'festival'. So Pamplona/Iruña has a bull running festival in early July. Valencia has a festival in March and San Sebastian de los Reyes similarly has a bull running festival in late August. If the 'fiesta' occurs in a village then we can safely name it a 'village party' since we do have village parties in the UK, albeit very different to those in Spain. Also, in the UK, a party can be at someone's residence or in a night club (discoteca). All the best. 

Verb "to discuss" has no preposition

Good morning! So remember the verb 'to discuss' has no preposition. So we cannot say in class 'let's discuss about the new procedure in the follow-up meeting'. It would be ' 'let's discuss the new procedure in the follow-up meeting'. Have a great day.
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2 common and useful phrasal verbs

Good morning/afternoon: 2 common phrasal verbs you will find useful that our English students have trouble with are 'to be fed up with' meaning 'estar harto de' and 'to put up with' meaning 'aguantar algo'. So we could say 'she is fed up with getting up so early' and 'she can't put up with the barking dogs any longer'. Have a Nice day/evening.
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Use of the nuetral possessive 'their'

What to do with possessives when group is both genders or unknown and subject is third person: we can use the neutral possessive. Students in our Skype English lessons have great problems with this. Read on:

The neutral possessive used in third person for people is 'their'. So if we have a group of people composed of both sexes we should use 'their'. Consider: 'each student/everyone should hand in their homework on time'. Unless we know that the people involved is one gender, we should assume that there are 2 genders and thus utilise 'their'. If we know that the group has one sex only then we could employ 'his' or 'her' depending on the gender of the group. An alternative to 'their' often employed is 'his or her'. E.g. each student should hand in his or her homework. Have a good day/night. www.clasesinglesonline.com

Issues with 'since'

Good afternoon! Another problem area that Spanish speaking students have in our Skype English lessons is using 'since' . For instance, you cannot say 'I have been here since 1 year ago'. 'Since' used with the present perfect, present perfect continuous or the past perfect continuous tenses has to have an indication of the starting time of when the action began. So we would say 'I have been in Venice since Monday' or 'she has been studying Norwegian since March 2013' not 'since 1 year ago'. With the 3 afore mentioned tenses make sure you indicate the actual start time. If you translate structures like 'desde hace 1 año' literally you are gonna have trouble. With regard to other tenses not indicated above 'desde' when it indicates when an action starts should not be translated by 'since' but by 'from' for instance. Thus, 'she has class from Monday to Thursday' or 'they will be on holiday from January to March' or 'the trip occurred from June to August'. Hope that helps. Have a great day/night.

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