ENGLISH: FALSE FRIENDS

Learning English for Spanish speakers can seem quite simple at first because as much as 40% of English words have cognates in Spanish. Cognates are words that sound similar, have similar spelling and have the same meaning in the two languages. Examples of cognates are: teléfono-telephone; persona- person; invitar-invite.  However, there are many words called FALSE COGNATES or FALSE FRIENDS. In the case of False Friends, the English word sounds like a word in Spanish but the two words do NOT have the same meaning. Here is a list of FALSE COGNATES with translations of the words in Spanish and English:

         

                                  

ENGLISH: INDIRECT SPEECH

•For speak about indirect speech, first, we have to speak about direct speech.

•DIRECT SPEECH

Direct speech repeats, or quotes, the exact words spoken. When we use direct speech in writing, we place the words spoken between quotation marks (" ") and there is no change in these words. We may be reporting something that's being said NOW (for example a telephone conversation), or telling someone later about a previous conversation.

EXAMPLES

• She says, "What time will you be home?"
• She said, "What time will you be home?" and I said, "I don't know! "
• "There's a fly in my soup!" screamed Simone.
• John said, "There's an elephant outside the window.

INDIRECT SPEECH

Reported or indirect speech is usually used to talk about the past, so we normally change the tense of the words spoken. We use reporting verbs like 'say', 'tell', 'ask', and we may use the word 'that' to introduce the reported words. Inverted commas are not used.

She said, "I saw him." (direct speech) = She said that she had seen him. (indirect speech)

'That' may be omitted:
She told him that she was happy. = She told him she was happy.

'SAY' AND 'TELL'

Use 'say' when there is no indirect object:
He said that he was tired.

Always use 'tell' when you say who was being spoken to (i.e. with an indirect object):
He told me that he was tired.

'TALK' AND 'SPEAK'

Use these verbs to describe the action of communicating:
He talked to us.
She was speaking on the telephone.

Use these verbs with 'about' to refer to what was said:
He talked (to us) about his parents.

ECONOMY:Supply and Demand

Supply and demand is perhaps one of the most fundamental concepts of economics and it is the backbone of a market economy. 

Demand refers to how much (quantity) of a product or service is desired by buyers. The quantity demanded is the amount of a product people are willing to buy at a certain price; the relationship between price and quantity demanded is known as the demand relationship. 

Supply represents how much the market can offer. The quantity supplied refers to the amount of a certain good producers are willing to supply when receiving a certain price. The correlation between price and how much of a good or service is supplied to the market is known as the supply relationship. Price, therefore, is a reflection of supply and demand.

The relationship between demand and supply underlie the forces behind the allocation of resources. In market economy theories, demand and supply theory will allocate resources in the most efficient way possible. How? Let us take a closer look at the law of demand and the law of supply.

A. The Law of Demand

The law of demand states that, if all other factors remain equal, the higher the price of a good, the less people will demand that good. In other words, the higher the price, the lower the quantity demanded. The amount of a good that buyers purchase at a higher price is less because as the price of a good goes up, so does the opportunity cost of buying that good. As a result, people will naturally avoid buying a product that will force them to forgo the consumption of something else they value more. The chart below shows that the curve is a downward slope.

 

A, B and C are points on the demand curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity demanded (Q) and price (P). So, at point A, the quantity demanded will be Q1 and the price will be P1, and so on. The demand relationship curve illustrates the negative relationship between price and quantity demanded. The higher the price of a good the lower the quantity demanded (A), and the lower the price, the more the good will be in demand (C).

B. The Law of Supply 

Like the law of demand, the law of supply demonstrates the quantities that will be sold at a certain price. But unlike the law of demand, the supply relationship shows an upward slope. This means that the higher the price, the higher the quantity supplied. Producers supply more at a higher price because selling a higher quantity at a higher price increases revenue.

 

A, B and C are points on the supply curve. Each point on the curve reflects a direct correlation between quantity supplied (Q) and price (P). At point B, the quantity supplied will be Q2 and the price will be P2, and so on

ARTS:Contemporary Art

While works by living artists have always been collected by the MFA – Winslow Homer, Claude Monet, and John Singer Sargent were contemporary artists when some of their paintings were acquired – the Department of Contemporary Art was only established formally in the Museum’s centennial year, 1971. Since 1992, it has focused on art created since 1955 and today the collection contains more than 1500 works from across the globe. All media are represented: painting, sculpture, photography, works on paper, installation, decorative arts, craft, design and film and video. The MFA is also one of the first encyclopedic museums in the United States to fully integrate performance art into its collections, exhibitions and programs. Thousands more works dating since 1955 are held in the Museum’s other departments including Prints, Drawings and Photographs, Art of the Americas, Art of Asia, Oceania, and Africa, and Textiles and Fashion Arts.

The gallery installations change frequently so there is always something new to see and reason to return. Of the eight galleries in the Linde Family Wing, one is dedicated to contemporary craft and decorative arts; another to film, video and new media. Large-scale installations are exhibited in the Wing’s soaring Eunice and Julian Cohen Galleria. Also located in the Linde Family Wing is the Henry and Lois Foster Gallery, the Museum’s main space for special exhibitions of contemporary art. Our performance art program encompasses a wide array of live interactive experiences throughout the Museum and on our campus.

SPORTS:VOLLEYBALL

Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.^[1] It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Gamessince 1964.

The rally continues, with each team allowed as many as three consecutive touches, until either (1): a team makes a kill, grounding the ball on the opponent's court and winning the rally; or (2): a team commits a fault and loses the rally. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point, and serves the ball to start the next rally. A few of the most common faults include:The complete rules are extensive. But simply, play proceeds as follows: a player on one of the teams begins a 'rally' by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team's court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. The team may touch the ball up to 3 times but individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively. Typically, the first two touches are used to set up for an attack, an attempt to direct the ball back over the net in such a way that the serving team is unable to prevent it from being grounded in their court.

• causing the ball to touch the ground or floor outside the opponents' court or without first passing over the net;
• catching and throwing the ball;
• double hit: two consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same player;
• four consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same team;
• net foul: touching the net during play;
• foot fault: the foot crosses over the boundary line when serving.

The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push (short contact) the ball with any part of the body.

A number of consistent techniques have evolved in volleyball, including spiking and blocking (because these plays are made above the top of the net, the vertical jump is an athletic skill emphasized in the sport) as well as passing, setting, and specialized player positions and offensive and defensive structures.

HISTORY: COLD WAR

During World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union fought together as allies against the Axis powers. However, the relationship between the two nations was a tense one. Americans had long been wary of Soviet communism and concerned about Russian leader Joseph Stalin’s tyrannical, blood-thirsty rule of his own country. For their part, the Soviets resented the Americans’ decades-long refusal to treat the USSR as a legitimate part of the international community as well as their delayed entry into World War II, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of Russians. 

After the war ended, these grievances ripened into an overwhelming sense of mutual distrust and enmity. Postwar Soviet expansionism in Eastern Europe fueled many Americans’ fears of a Russian plan to control the world. Meanwhile, the USSR came to resent what they perceived as American officials’ bellicose rhetoric, arms buildup and interventionist approach to international relations. In such a hostile atmosphere, no single party was entirely to blame for the Cold War; in fact, some historians believe it was inevitable.

RELIGION: Christianity

Based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ approximately 2,000 years ago, Christianity is one of the most influential religions in history. Although it began as a small sect of Judaism during the first century in ancient Israel, the Christian religion has nearly 2 billion followers at the beginning of the 21st century and can be found in virtually every corner of the globe.

In Christian belief and practice, a sacrament is a rite, instituted by Christ, that mediates grace, constituting a sacred mystery. The term is derived from the Latin word sacramentum, which was used to translate the Greek word for mystery. Views concerning both what rites are sacramental, and what it means for an act to be a sacrament vary among Christian denominations and traditions.

Taken together, these are the Seven Sacraments as recognized by churches in the High Church tradition—notably Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Independent Catholic, Old Catholic, many Anglicans, and some Lutherans. Most other denominations and traditions typically affirm only Baptism and Eucharist as sacraments, while some Protestant groups, such as the Quakers, reject sacramental theology.Christian denominations, such as Baptists, which believe these rites do not communicate grace, prefer to call Baptism and Holy Communion ordinances rather than sacraments.

LITERATURE: ROMANTICISM

"Romanticism" is a period, movement, style, or genre in literature, music, and other arts starting in the late 1700s and flourishing through the early to mid 1800s, a time when the modern mass culture in which we now live first took form: the rise of nation-states as defining social and geographic entities, increasing geographic and social mobility, people moving to cities, the growth of the middle class, new technologies including power from fossil fuels, and ideas or values including individualism, imaginative idealization of childhood, families, love, nature, and the past. The Romantic era is the historical period of literature in which modern readers most begin to see a reflection of themselves and their own modern conflicts and desires.

                       

The Romantic period has passed, but its styles and values still thrive today in popular forms and familiar attitudes, e.g.:

 belief in children's innocence and wisdom; youth as golden age; adulthood as corruption and betrayal

 nature as beauty and truth, esp. as the sublime (god-like awesomeness mixing pleasure and pain, beauty and terror)

 heroic individualism; the individual separate from the masses

 characters as symbolic types

desire or will as personal motivation

 feelings, emotions, and imagination take priority over logic and facts ("Anything you want you can have if you only want it enough.")

 intensification, excess, and extremes 

 nostalgia for the past

 common people idealized as dependable source of true common sense

 idealized or abstract settings

 the gothic as nightmare world of intense emotions

GEOGRAPHY:GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming is primarily a problem of too much carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere—which acts as a blanket, trapping heat and warming the planet. As we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas for energy or cut down and burn forests to create pastures and plantations, carbon accumulates and overloads our atmosphere. Certain waste management and agricultural practices aggravate the problem by releasing other potent global warming gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide. See the pie chart for a breakdown of heat-trapping global warming emissions by economic sector.

Earth's climate is mostly influenced by the first 6 miles or so of the atmosphere which contains most of the matter making up the atmosphere. This is really a very thin layer if you think about it. In the book The End of Nature, author Bill McKibbin tells of walking three miles to from his cabin in the Adirondack's to buy food. Afterwards, he realized that on this short journey he had traveled a distance equal to that of the layer of the atmosphere where almost all the action of our climate is contained. In fact, if you were to view Earth from space, the principle part of the atmosphere would only be about as thick as the skin on an onion! Realizing this makes it more plausible to suppose that human beings can change the climate. A look at the amount of greenhouse gases we are spewing into the atmosphere (see below), makes it even more plausible.

CHEMISTRY:PH SCALE

PH SCALE

The pH scale measures how acidic or basic a substance is. The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14. A pH of 7 is neutral. A pH less than 7 is acidic. A pH greater than 7 is basic.

The pH scale is logarithmic and as a result, each whole pH value below 7 is ten times more acidic than the next higher value. For example, pH 4 is ten times more acidic than pH 5 and 100 times (10 times 10) more acidic than pH 6. The same holds true for pH values above 7, each of which is ten times more alkaline (another way to say basic) than the next lower whole value. For example, pH 10 is ten times more alkaline than pH 9 and 100 times (10 times 10) more alkaline than pH 8.

Pure water is neutral. But when chemicals are mixed with water, the mixture can become either acidic or basic. Examples of acidic substances are vinegar and lemon juice. Lye, milk of magnesia, and ammonia are examples of basic substances.

PHYSICS:Newton's 3 Laws of Motion

FIRST LAW OF MOTION

An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an unbalanced force. An object in motion continues in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.This law is often called "the law of inertia". SECOND LAW OF MOTION Acceleration is produced when a force acts on a mass. The greater the mass (of the object being accelerated) the greater the amount of force needed (to accelerate the object). Everyone knows that heavier objects require more force to move the same distance as lighter objects. The Second Law gives us an exact relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. It can be expressed as a mathematical equation:        F=MA This is an example of how Newton's Second Law works: Mike's car, which weighs 1,000 kg, is out of gas. Mike is trying to push the car to a gas station, and he makes the car go 0.05 m/s/s. Using Newton's Second Law, you can compute how much force Mike is applying to the car.   Answer = 50 newtons THIRD LAW OF MOTION For every action there is an equal and opposite re-action. This means that for every force there is a reaction force that is equal in size, but opposite in direction. That is to say that whenever an object pushes another object it gets pushed back in the opposite direction equally hard.   The rocket's action is to push down on the ground with the force of its powerful engines, and the reaction is that the ground pushes the rocket upwards with an equal force.

MATHS:Classifications of Triangles

RIGHT TRIANGLE

A right triangle has one 90° and a variety of often-studied properties including:

• Right Triangle Calculator
• Proof of Pythagorean Theorem
• Pythagorean Triplets
• Sine, Cosine, Tangent
• Pictures of Right Triangles
• 7 24 25 Right Triangle Images
• 3 4 5 Right Triangles
• 5 12 13 Right Triangles

EQUILATERAL TRIANGLE

The Equilateral triangle shown on the left has three equal sides and three equal angles.

Each angle is 60°.

ISOSCELES TRIANGLE

The Isosceles triangle shown on the left has twoequal sides and two equal angles.

SCALENE TRIANGLE

The Scalene Triangle has no congruent sides. In other words, each side must have a different length.

ACUTE TRIANGLE

The Acute Triangle has three acute angles (anacute angle measures less than 90°).

OBTUSE TRIANGLE

The Obtuse Triangle has an obtuse angle (an obtuse angle has more than 90°). In the picture on the left, the shaded angle is the obtuse angle that distinguishes this triangle.

Since the total degrees in any triangle is 180°, an obtuse triangle can only have one angle that measures more than 90°.