Problems that our Spanish speaking students have with the definite article 'the'

Happy new year and festive greetings! In English, when we are referring to the next or last time period in relation to the present, the definite article should be omitted. So ’el año que viene es 2015’. Thus, 2015 is the next time period after the present when we are talking about years. Due to this we don't say 'the next year' when referring to 2015. One must simply say 'next year'. Similarly, as we are in January 'el mes pasado', is December, would be 'last month' and never 'the last month' when referencing the month before the present month. Every one of our Spanish clients makes this error at some stage more than once so please be aware of it. Do text me if you have any doubts. Hope that helps. 

Prepositions related to the festive season

Hi! Another common error from our Skype English classes is that which concerns the prepositions of time for this time of year. For example, we say 'at Christmas' and 'on Christmas day/eve' and 'on new year's day/eve'. The day of 'reyes magos' is called 'epiphany' or 'twelth night' and is not a holiday in the UK or the US. The preposition 'on' would be used in these last 2 examples. Hope that helps and Merry Christmas. 

Other nouns to mean 'robber' with Video

This video explains the difference between 'robber', 'mugger', 'pickpocket-er' and 'burglar'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeMwa-4O8Zg

'To mug' is reasonably easy. It is when someone pickpockets you outside. We are talking about stealing phones, wallets, iPods and the like: small items that you carry on your person. A mugger does this.

'To burgle' is easy too. It's when things from your house are stolen by a thief. A burglar carries this out. 

Concerning 'to rob'.You rob buildings, companies or organisations or people. It is transitive. For example, 'she robbed the bank', 'they robbed the family', 'I was robbed' or 'they robbed el Corte Inglés'. Here, the object is the person or thing that suffers, not what the thrift takes. The noun is 'a robbery'. 

With 'to steal' this is equally transitive but here the object is what is stolen: money, data, a wallet, a phone etc. With 'to steal' when you indicate the innocent party or where the item was taken from, you need the preposition 'from'. For instance, 'she stole the cash from the till', 'I have stolen money from the bank twice' or 'the thief stole the handbag from the frail woman'. We don't usually use a noun with 'to steal'.

Hope that helps. Have a Nice day. http://www.clasesinglesonline.com    

Difference between to steal, to rob, to mug and to burgle

Hi! So another issue students have in our Skype Englishclasses is that associated with the verbs 'to rob', 'to steal' 'to burgle' and 'to mug'. Much confusion arises with these. 

'To mug' is reasonably easy. It is when someone pickpockets you outside. We are talking about stealing phones, wallets, iPods and the like: small items that you carry on your person. A mugger does this.
 

 'To burgle' is easy too. It's when things from your house are stolen by a thief. A burglar carries this out. 

 

Concerning 'to rob'.You rob buildings, companies or organisations or people. It is transitive. For example, 'she robbed the bank', 'they robbed the family', 'I was robbed' or 'they robbed el Corte Inglés'. Here, the object is the person or thing that suffers, not what the thrift takes. The noun is 'a robbery'. 
 

With 'to steal' this is equally transitive but here the object is what is stolen: money, data, a wallet, a phone etc. With 'to steal' when you indicate the innocent party or where the item was taken from, you need the preposition 'from'. For instance, 'she stole the cash from the till', 'I have stolen money from the bank twice' or 'the thief stole the handbag from the frail woman'. We don't usually use a noun with 'to steal'.

 Hope that helps. Have a Nice day. http://www.clasesinglesonline.com

The difference between 'on time' and 'in time':

'On time' means being punctual, e.g. 'I arrived at the meeting on time' (if the meeting is at 17h then you pretty much arrived at that time). 'In time' means any time before the start time of an action, e.g. 'she got to the train station in time for her train to Milan' (she could have arrived 1 min, 5 mins, 15 mins etc before the scheduled departure of the train). This error is not confined to our Spanish English as a second language students. Students whose first language is not Spanish will have this issue. 

Confusion with 2 syllable comparatives ending in 'y'

So a common error often committed by native English speakers is with the double syllable comparative ending in 'y'. Remember, double syllable adjectives ending with 'y' should be treated as a short adjective. Hence we say 'funnier', 'happier', 'luckier' and NOT 'more funny' etc as natives often do. Remember to add the extra 'i' also before 'er' and take off the 'y'. Have a great day. 

Confusion with ‘to practice’ and other verbs for different sports

This is a very problematic word for students in our skype English classes as they all too often translate this literally wrongly when we are talking about sport. So ‘practicar deportes’ would not be translated by ‘I practice sport’ but we would say ‘I do or play sport’. Similarly, ‘practico tenis’ would not be translated with ‘practice’ but in this case we’d say ‘I play tennis’.

We use ‘to practice’ in sport or other activities to mean to go over a routine or to repeat something. For example, we would practice penalties in readiness for a penalty shoot-out. The noun ‘practice’ would be an ‘entrenamiento’. It can also be called ‘training’ in English. For example, we’d go to ‘hockey training’ as well as ‘tennis practice’. If we want to perfect routines by repeating them then we’d use ‘practice’. For example, we would say ‘we need to practice corners’.

With regard to the verb we use with different sports, the structure depends on the type of sport indicated. For team games with a ball, we employ the verb ‘play’. For instance, we’d say ‘she plays rugby, golf, baseball…’. If the sport is also a verb like ‘skiing’ or ‘sailing’ or ‘cycling’ then we have several options. First, we can say simply ‘I run’ or ‘she skies’. Second, it is possible to say ‘she goes skiing’ or ‘he went cycling’. For sports which are not verbs and do not have a ball in use then we would use the verb ‘to do’. For example we would say ‘I do karate’ or ‘I do archery’. As there are so many different sports there can be exceptions to these rules.