EXPLAIN, RECOMMEND, SUGGEST

These three verbs are very similar in meaning to their equivalents in Spanish (explicar, recomendar, sugerir respectively), and shouldn't imply much difficulty by a Spanish-speaker when using them in English. Unfortunately, they do because Spanish-speakers tend to use them applying the Spanish-verb pattern.


So teachers keep correcting their students when they say statements like:

Could you explain me the difference again?  (¿Podrías explicarme la diferencia de nuevo?) 

I recommend you this film; it's really good.  (Te recomiendo esta película.)

I suggest you that you go and see that film. (Te sugiero que vayas a ver la película.)

(The last example needs some more explanation, which I will tackle in this post as well.)

Verbs like explain/recommend/suggest need to be followed by the preposition to before the indirect object (i.e. to whom you explain, recommend or suggest something), otherwise this object is taken as the direct object. Thus, we can say:

I recommended him for the job. (¨him¨ is the direct object)

He explained the lesson in a very easy way so all the students understood it straight away. (¨the lesson¨ is the direct object)

I suggest a coffee before we go in. (¨a coffee¨ is the direct object)

We must remember to place to before the person to whom we are explaining, recommending or suggesting something: 

I recommended the new film to him.

He explained the lesson to the new students. 

El blog para aprender inglés has published a very good post on the verb recommend, which I encourage you to read:
http://menuaingles.blogspot.com.es/2010/01/como-se-usa-recommend.html


For more instances of recommend and explain please check these online entries:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/recommend
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/explain?show=0&t=1328789888


Regarding suggest I suggest that you read the online entry below (check my own example just given as well):
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/suggest


So the verb suggest can have three different patterns:

• suggest something (to somebody)
• suggest (to somebody) that + clause *
• suggest doing something

* clause = (1) subject (should) infinitive

                (2) subject + verb form (present/past, depending on the verb tense of suggest)

I suggested a coffee before our visit.

He suggested (to me) that I should call before leaving.

We suggested going to the cinema that evening.

We suggested that he went home straight away.

Lastly, I recommend that you watch this video uploaded by Jennifer ESL explaining the uses of advise, recommend and suggest. 

After reading THE LOTTERY (1)

There is a lot written about this shortstory and I have selected two pieces/links from the web as a follow-up for those of you who would like to go a little bit more into the story itself and the authoress.


The first one is The Power of Symbols by Dr Randy Laist. He discusses the symbolism in Shirley Jackson's story.

The second link provides more information on the authoress and her story SHIRLEY JACKSON  You will be able to read about the background to The Lottery and Jackson's "response to questions about the 'meaning' of the story".


On a coming third post I will write about the way my advanced students and me will tackle this story from a language perspective. The use of verb tenses, adjectives and adverbs, and how the different paragraphs are laid out to walk the reader out of their comfort zone which previously set them in by both the title and the peaceful summer day-scenario. I can still recall the disturbance and unease Mrs Hutchinson's last words provoked in myself. Last but not least, when you read the story a second time, those stones the children are gathering playfully at the beginning become deadly premonitory.

My favourite shortstory: THE LOTTERY by Shirley Jackson

Ever since I did North American Contemporary Shortstory in my 4th year at university I have kept The Lottery as my favourite one. There are quite a few more I like but somehow this one got itself "the place" in my own top reading-list and even if others have come along and have also marked the path of my reading, what makes The Lottery so special to me is the disturbing unease I was left with when I finished its reading. Since I am trying not to give away the story itself, I will stop using adjectives to describe my opinion and suggest that you should read and listen to the story yourself -provided that you haven't read it yet!


If you google The Lottery by Shirley Jackson, you get 644,000 hits. After some browsing, I have chosen the links below to lead you into the story itself, both in text and audio, and also a film version uploaded on YouTube which, I must say, would never have been my choice. In my opinion some written stories should never be transferred into pictures for it is the reader's own vision that makes them so unique. This is what I also felt when I read Frankestein; the horror Mary Shelley wanted to convey when wording the creature's appearance would never match any visual image created on the screen.


This first link will direct you to the text courtesy of Classic Short Stories

Reading The Lottery

This second link features one of The New Yorker fiction podcasts, in which A. M. Homes reads the story and discusses it with The New Yorker's fiction editor Deborah Treisman:

Listening to The Lottery: Luck of the Draw 

Lastly, here are two YouTube links on which you can watch a film version of the story:

Singing to friendship: COUNT ON ME by Bruno Mars

Here's a song to say goodbye to 2011 and welcome 2012. 

We need to take care of our friends for good friends always take care of us.

Economics, politics and the idiom ¨mad as a hatter¨

The field of economics has taken the front line as a daily topic in worldwide newspapers, whatever the language.  Obviously, we all know the reason so I will skip any further comment. What's more, due to this fact, many economic terms wander freely in my mind at least in the form of passive vocabulary. I have had to get used to absorbing obscure terms such as ¨subprimes, hedge funds, GDP, bonds¨ -to name but a few-, and yet, I cannot say I do understand the world of economics. To be honest, reading about it hasn't deepened my knowledge in this field; I am still (and guess I will always be) in shallow waters, although I must say the reading has become lighter somehow.

One of the authors I like to read most is the Nobel Prize for Economics Paul Krugman; for a layman like me I find his writing didactic and it makes quite some good sense. Yesterday reading his article Springtime for toxics, published in the International Herald Tribune, my interest in the content was immediately diverted to a piece of language he used as a way to illustrate the toxicity and harmful effects of mercury on the population. Basically, in his article, Krugman welcomes the good news of the EPA's new regulating standards, which also has some economic benefits. He goes on to link this decision to American politics, the second theme he wanted to discuss.

However, my featuring his article on this post has mostly to do with that ¨language diversion¨ and which I quote next:

...As far as I can tell, even opponents of environmental regulation admit that mercury is nasty stuff. It’s a potent neurotoxicant: the expression “mad as a hatter” emerged in the 19th century because hat makers of the time treated fur with mercury compounds, and often suffered nerve and mental damage as a result. ...

Being a teacher and so interested in languages, it simply fascinates me to learn the origin of idioms we have acquired as part of our vocabulary. I knew this idiom but not its origin and, of course, it now makes so much sense. Furthermore, it proves my belief that when you are a teacher, whatever your field or rank, the pedagogue in you emerges constantly in your writing as it is the case of Paul Krugman.

ELEVATOR PITCH: pitch, one of those ¨tricky¨ words to learn.

A few weeks ago, when doing an activity with my advanced students pitch, the word that has triggered this post, came up in the form of a crossword clue:

Money in brief followed by an irritation of the skin has very black results.

The answer was given straight away in the dialogue where such definition was inserted -pitch-,  but it took me a while to come up with the explanation which would associate both parties. Actually, it came right away when discussing the activity with the students. 

• Money in brief........p(ence)
• An irritation of the skin......itch
• Has very black results........pitch black 

A follow-up question was what does pitch mean exactly? It's certainly one of these words that may trap a teacher in a winding explanation and still leave the student at a loss as there's nothing they like best but a straight equivalent to copy down in their notebooks. 

You're probably aware of what I mean by now if you have clicked on the word pitch and read the different answers provided by wordreference.com, both in the English definition entry and the English-Spanish one.

Pitch is one of these chamaleonlike words that has sneaked in different theme-areas of life so it gets complicated for a student of English who is constantly seeking for a straight-forward answer to their vocabulary queries.

To mention but a few, the word pitch appears in sports, a football pitch, in linguistics Pitch accent and in sales the elevator pitch. 

As my students hadn't heard of the elevator pitch term before and the class was about to end I encouraged them to do some research themselves. I also promised I'd come back to it in the near future. Not so sure myself how I'd introduce this in another class I thought I might as well write a post that would feature not only the latter, but also the word pitch itself. Furthermore, I find it really self-encouraging to link both my blog and my teaching.

I've selected an article from Bloomberg Business Week: 

The Perfect (Elevator) Pitch by Aileen Pincus 

And this YouTube video which rides you up in the hope of your grasping its basic idea:

HALLOWEEN or ALL HALLOWS' EVE

Whether we like it or not, the Anglosaxon world has pervaded Spanish society and is here to stay. 

The term "Anglo-Saxon" can be used in a variety of contexts, often to identify the English-speaking world's distinctive language, culture, technology, wealth, markets, economy, and legal systems.

One of the many examples is the festivity of Halloween, which Spanish children are so eager to celebrate at school. My daughter starts to talk about it well before it's due and her main concern is what she will wear on that day. 


Halloween or All Hallows' Eve is celebrated on 31st October and is considered a pagan festivity by the Catholic world. Spain being a country of so much Catholic tradition began to frown upon this festivity as soon as it made its appearance in our society; something which children, so attracted to anything that means fun and festivity, don't give it much thought. Finding the right disguise so that they can impress their friends is what keeps them occupied the previous weeks. The phrase Trick or treat is constantly uttered on that day. We can now say that Halloween is here to stay and forms part of our festivity calendar. 


This festivity has its origins in the Celt world, a people whose culture spread across Europe more than 2000 years ago. The Celts celebrated the end of the harvest season and the beginning of the Celtic New Year on the night of October, 31st.  This time was considered to be a liminal zone in which both the living and the death could merge. To prevent the ghosts from invading the living world, they lit bonfires to drive away the evil spirits. The growing power of the Catholic Church eventually turned it into what we know here in Spain as All Saints' Date (Día de Todos los Santos) or Hallowmas. Hallow meaning holy and mas referring to mass. The night before was All Hallows' Eve whose phonetics turned into the well-known Halloween. The festivity was soon exported to the United States by the Irish immigrants driven away from their homeland during the Irish Potato Famine during the 1840s. Not only did they bring the holiday but the customs that went with it. One of the best-known artifacts is the jack-o'-lantern, a carved pumpkin which is lit inside. 

I encourage you to further your knowledge about this Halloween emblem on the highlighted wikipedia entry; tradition and folklore mix. 

Last but not least, here is a website full of links related to Halloween for all levels and tastes: http://www.esolcourses.com/topics/halloween.html