Dear students. It's been a while. Well... what can I say? Whether you like it or not, I'm back!

I know from bitter experience that only seven or eight of you actually read this blog but I suppose posting on it is a twisted kind of moral duty. Does that make any sense to you? Well, it does to me. So, what's new? For starters I'm teaching two new courses. They zero in on vocabulary issues. On Tuesdays from 18:00 to 19:00 I'll center on B1 and B2 vocabulary areas. On Thursdays (also at 18:00) I'll do the same on a C1/C2 level.

I intend to post thought-provoking stuff. Let's see if I manage to measure up to my own expectations. Anyhow, in order to avoid confusion I've decided to

Intermedio 1: essay on some stereotype / myth about men and women (due on Wed 1)
Avanzado 2: essay on cosmetic surgery (due on Wed 8)

One last thing: if you find the cartoon below hilarious that means your pronunciation is really good.

I know, I know. Long time no see. What can I say... I've been busy. But I got candy for everyone.

Pronunciation crowd: I've been doing some serious thinking lately and come to realize that it might be a good idea to tackle the whole approach to pronunciation from the obvious standpoint. Since we have agreed to start from scratch... why not pretend we are kids and learn like kids? This American website was designed to teach children how to read but I suppose some of you could make the most of it by simply focussing on the vowel sounds. Click on "Zac the rat", for instance, and listen to the vowel there. You can click on "the" and listen to the schwa.

Those of you that like technology may enjoy the brand new Google App "Google Translate", available for all kinds of cellphones and free of charge. It is practical, a lot of fun and can truly help you with your pronunciation. This software is far from perfect but has an interesting feature. although it may be incapable of recognizing a well pronounced word in isolation it will identify that same word in an appropriate context. Magic? Not really. That's how children learn languages. The video below shows a short demo. Enjoy.