W e l c o m e

Welcome to this page of English-related links and things. As an EFL teacher I am often asked about resources to help with people's English studies outside the classroom.

  • The net also offers a plethora of other sites focusing on the more complex areas of the language like phrasal verbs, false friends and so on. As internet can be constantly updated (on a virtually daily basis, unlike most dictionaries) new vocabulary and cultural trends in the English-speaking world can also be more readily assimilated online.

  • As I am based in Madrid, sometimes students are curious to discover how British or American correspondents see Spain and Spanish current affairs, and often report facts more impartially than the local media.
  • I try and update the links column weekly if I find any new and potentially "useful" sites!

  • Also, these pages will save me sending out long links by email!

Enjoy it!

Tuesday, 27 April 2010

Tell me what you want, what you really really want...

No-one who uses public transport in the Spanish capital can have failed to have noticed the vast number of posters like the one above, adorning bus shelters and metro stations, from Barajas to Valdecarros and beyond.

A smiling child holding a piece of paper emblazoned with the Comunidad de Madrid's new slogan to promote their bilingual state schools: YES, WE WANT.

Presumably echoing Barack Obama's much-copied YES WE CAN (without the comma).

But, hang on... something looks funny here... er...

Isn't that... wrong?

I mean... you can end a sentence yes you can (without to) because can is a modal verb.

But YES WE WANT (with or without a comma)
is just  plain WRONG.

Unless it is followed by "to"... or a pronoun, or a noun.

As in "Yes, you're right, we at ad agency Adsolut didn't want to hire a professional translator".

Did none of these evidently monolingual admen (or indeed women) ever hear Dr Who sidekick Billie Piper (eyes down) and her 1998 number one hit "Because We Want To"?

Of course the simplest way of answering a question such as "Do you really think it is worth holding the Comunidad de Madrid up to national and international ridicule for the sake of saving a few bob on translators' fees?" is "Yes we do! There's no such thing as bad publicity!" (Not to be confused with bad advertising, please take note!)

One of the things that makes this blooper all the more amazing (apart from the fact that a glaring grammatical mistake is being used to promote bilingual schools... a bit like using a bout of food poisoning to promote a restaurant) is that the Comunidad President - one Esperanza Aguirre, as seen earlier on these pages - does actually speak English fairly well.

Excellently, in fact, when compared to almost any other Spanish politician.

Of course it wasn't long before the bloggers and the British and American media picked up on the story.

* LA - Madrid Files (US)
* The Web of Language (US)
* CampoPulse (Gibraltar)
* An Offshore Account (Spain)
* Ayudation (Spain)
* Don't Confuse The Narrator (Spain)
* Notes from Spain (Spain)
* Living La Vida Loca (Spain.. nothing to do with Ricky "Loca" Martin, thankfully)

The story even made it to Russia!
*Никогда не стой на месте (Russia)