Evernote and Business English: A cool idea

I know I drive a lot of you crazy by talking about useful Evernote is for organizing vocabulary. Well, I just saw another excellent idea that help you if you need to write a lot of e-mails in English:

1. Open Evernote. On the left-hand side of the screen, you'll see two lists: One is for notebooks, and the other is for individual notes. 

2. Create a Notebook called "Business English" or "Business Correspondence" (or something like that).

3. Once you've created the notebook, create a new note (or more than one) that focuses on the language you want to keep, and to refer to, more frequently. Some ideas might be: Phrasal verbs for business, Nice ways to ask for difficult things, Language for describing options and possibilities, things like that.

4. Every time you read (or hear) something useful or cool or funny or effective, be sure to open the note and write it down!

Yes, this method is a bit more work in the beginning. The reward, however, is that you'll save a lot of time and wasted brainpower trying to remember (or, worse, think of) specific language for specific situations.

Youcan learn more about Evernote at www.evernote.com (www.evernote.es in Spain.)

Thanks to FastCompany.com for the tip!

Cambridge Exams: Key Sentence Transformation Videos

I just wanted to let everybody know that there are now two Key Sentence Transformation videos available on YouTube.

The first one is a general overview of how Key Sentence Transformation works.
The second one focuses specifically on how to do Key Sentence Transformation with one-word verbs and phrasal verbs (and vice-versa.)

I'll be working on more videos this summer, especially the Key Sentence Transformation videos.

POLITICS or POLITICIANS: What's the difference?

I try to create videos that are timely and help people talk about current affairs. Today's video is for those of you who follow the news: What's the difference between politicians and politics? 

(No jokes, just definitions!)

COMPLETE vs. REALIZE: What's the difference?

It's time for a new video on false friends! This is one that will be of interest to you who are doing the First Certificate, because this pair of easily confused words has appeared on the First in the past: it's the different between REALIZING something and COMPLETING something. 

A post about snow and adverbs

Like the song says, "Baby, it's COLD outside." Two students who are in London are reporting that there's quite a bit of snow in the south-east UK, and my friend Álvaro, who lives just north of Madrid, says that he's got about 10 cm of snow on his car.

Here's a photo of the thermometer on my balcony, taken today at 9:17 AM:

It seems like today is a good day to write about adjectives and adverbs: It's really cold out there today.

One of the jobs of adverbs is to give us more information about adjectives. We often do this with adverbs of degree:

• It's cold outside.
• It's really cold outside.
• It's surprisingly cold outside.
• It's shockingly cold outside.
• It's ridiculously cold outside.

English speakers often do this in order to give you a very specific idea of their opinion about something.  Why? Our ideas of cold are probably different - and, even then, we have so many degrees of cold that it helps me be specific about what kind of cold I mean.

This isn't really common in written Spanish, and almost no one uses it in normal, spoken Spanish. It's very common with English speakers, however, so if you're not sure about how to use adverbs to describe adjectives, be sure to ask your teacher.

AGREE or CONFORM - What's the difference?

Today's video will be useful for those of you who are studying business English: it describes the difference between AGREE and CONFORM, two verbs that people sometimes get mixed up when they're talking about legal documents.

Another vocabulary video

Good morning, everyone...

Sorry to post and run, but I'm off to a seminar this morning. Before I leave, however, here's another video for you: this one explains the difference between a CHAPTER and an EPISODE.

Enjoy!

SAY and TELL - What's the difference?

The latest Doceri video is up - What's the difference between SAY and TELL?

I should mention that this video covers the basic, general differences. I'll make a more detailed video to go with the First Certificate/Escuela Oficial class work.

If you need help with phrasal verbs...

Yesterday, I posted my latest Doceri video about phrasal verbs. Looking back, though, I realize that I should have provided a little bit more of an explanation, so here's a quick rundown of what to remember about phrasal verbs:

a) Phrasal verbs may be complex, but they're not LONG. The maximum number of words you can have in a phrasal verb is three words. That makes it easier to learn and use all the parts together. Don't fixate on the meaning of the individual pieces. That won't help you. Trying to translate the individual words just shows that you can't work in English. If you can learn the name of a brand (e.g. Coca-Cola - two words) or someone's name (Angelina Jolie, which has two words), you can learn phrasal verbs.

b) You do not need to know every possible phrasal verb that exists in English. If I told you that you had to memorize the credit card numbers of everyone you know, you would think that I'm crazy. If I told you to sit in the Metro and learn the names of every single station in the Metro system, you'd think I was mad. So why do students feel that they have to learn every single possible phrasal verb? Don't drive yourself crazy with that idea. So....

c) Focus on the phrasal verbs that you need to use in your everyday life. Don't try to learn phrasal verbs that you won't use. If you're a secretary, you probably don't feel a great need to learn terms related to neuroscience. It's the same thing, here.

I'll post more Doceri presentations about phrasal verbs in the future; but, for now, if you can remember those three key ideas, you'll give yourself a lot less stress and frustration.