The Irregular Past Forms .(1)

Una de las malas noticias para los estudiantes de Inglés es que existe un lista de verbos irregulares que hay que aprender  si se quieren usar correctamente el pasado y el participio de estos verbos. La buena noticia es que, con unos cuantos consejos, la lista es más fácil de lo que parece: la irregularidad no es absoluta ni del todo caprichosa y, en realidad, se trata de aprenderse un conjunto de modelos y recordar a cuál de ellos pertenece cada verbo.

Verbos regulares e irregulares

A la hora de formar el pasado simple y el participio, en Inglés existen dos tipos de verbos: regulares e irregulares. Los verbos regulares son muy fáciles. Basta con añadir el sufijo –ed a la forma del infinitivo para formar tanto el pasado como el participio, que son iguales. Así, por ejemplo:

Infinitivo	Pasado	Participio	Traducción
to listen	listened	listened	oír
to decide	decided	decided	decidir
to look	looked	looked	mirar

Los verbos irregulares son, justamente, aquellos que no siguen la regla que acabamos de explicar, es decir, los verbos que forman su pasado y su participio de manera distinta a, simplemente, añadir –ed. Así pues, en el caso de los verbos irregulares, habrá que aprender cuáles son sus formas de pasado y participio o, lo que es lo mismo, habrá que aprender  la famosa  lista de verbos irregulares.

La lista de verbos irregulares presenta los verbos alfabéticamente ordenados en tres columnas (infinitivo/pasado/participio).Muchos diccionarios  y manuales de gramática incluyen al final una lista de verbos irregulares. Dependiendo del nivel, la lista puede contener aproximadamente entre 75 y 150 verbos, que son los más usuales en lengua inglesa. Por lo tanto, la lista no es sólo importante para saber cuál es el pasado y el participio de los verbos que incluye, sino también para saber, por eliminación, qué verbos son regulares: aquellos que no recordamos  como irregulares.

Y, antes de pasar  a ver la tabla, una última observación. La lista de verbos irregulares es para muchos estudiantes de Inglés una buena manera de aprender vocabulario, ya que, aunque sean relativamente pocas palabras, son palabras de uso muy habitual. Si tienes que estudiarla y aprenderla, está bien que la estudies con una cuarta columna en la que figure el significado más básico del verbo (muchos tienen más de uno), tal y como te lo presentamos aquí en los ejemplos.

 Otra forma de mirar la lista de verbos irregulares

 Si bien la forma alfabética de la lista de verbos es la más útil para su consulta, no necesariamente es la mejor manera de aprenderse su contenido. Si estudias la lista un poco más a fondo, en seguida te darás cuenta de que, aunque no todos, la mayoría de los verbos que contiene se pueden agrupar en un puñado de modelos, lo que facilita enormemente su aprendizaje. Comenzaremos por dividir los verbos irregulares en tres grandes categorías:

1. Verbos con las tres formas iguales.
2. Verbos con pasado y participio iguales.
3. Verbos con pasado y participio distintos.

Al examinar en más detalle cada una de las categorías, te ofreceremos algunos de los modelos más usuales.

 Verbos con las tres formas iguales

 Son verbos muy cortos (monosílabos) que, además, suelen acabar en –t o en –d. Completa la lista siguiente.

let	let	let	dejar
bet			apostar
set			establecer
put	put	put	poner
cut			cortar
hurt			doler
shut			cerrar
cost			costar

Cuidado con el verbo read (leer). Aunque, en apariencia, pertenece a esta categoría, dado que sus tres formas se escriben igual, en realidad el pasado y el participio se pronuncian de forma distinta:

read /ri:d/

read /red/

read /red/

leer

What is Black Friday ?

" People stand in line hours before the store is opened..."

The day After Thanksgiving (Friday) is known as Black Friday. This also is the start ( unofficially or officially ) of the Christmas shopping season. Many stores come out with Sales to attract consumers to their stores. People stand in line hours before the store is opened, to get the bargain  (la ganga) of the year. For bargain hunters ( cazadores de gangas)  this is the biggest festival in the year . Additionally, Green Monday is another big shopping day. Although Cyber Monday is relatively smaller shopping day but is growing each year. 

Why is it called Black Friday ? 

The closest reason as to why it is know as Black Friday is given in Wikipedia - "Many retailers report some of their highest profits on Black Friday. The name, "Black Friday" relates to businesses recording their losses (sus pérdidas) in red ink and gains ( ganacias)  in black. This tradition lives on in modern accounting software, hence the name." 

For more information visit: www.theblackfriday.com 

New York, New York!

      

Where is New York? It’s in New York, of course! This might seem a little strange, but let me explain. New York City is in the state of New York, although the state capital is Albany. Its nickname is “The Big Apple” (la Gran Manzana) and the people who live there like it so much that they started a fashion: The heart of the city is Manhattan. The Dutch bought the island from the Indians at the start of the 17^th century and a city called New Amsterdam was built there. In the 1660s, the English captured it and named it New York in honour of (en honor de) the Duke of York.

The Statue of Liberty

Did you know that the Statue of Liberty, on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, was a present (regalo) from the French to mark 100 years of American independence? In fact, there is a replica on an island in the River Seine in Paris. The Statue of Liberty was the first thing that millions of immigrants from Europe saw when they arrived in America. She carries a torch (antorcha) in one hand to light the way (iluminar el camino) and a book in the other to represent the American Constitution.

        

The City today

Today New York is divided into 5 boroughs (distritos)– Manhattan, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, and Staten Island. It’s the biggest city in the United States with a population of over 7 million and it’s a major business and cultural centre. As you might imagine, a city this size needs a sophisticated transport system. New York has a subway (the American word for underground), its famous yellow taxis and lots of bridges and tunnels.

The streets in Manhattan are very easy to follow; there are 11 avenues that run north-south (ir de norte a sur) and they are crossed by streets. The avenues and streets don’t usually have names but are numbered. That's why the U2 song calls it the place where "the streets have no name".

Origin of Halloween and traditions

Origin of Halloween

Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient (antiguo) Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest (cosecha) and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed that on the night before the new year, the boundary (la frontera) between the worlds of the living and the dead became blurred (se difuminaban). On the night of October 31 they celebrated Samhain, when it was believed that the ghosts of the dead returned to earth. In addition to causing trouble and damaging (dañar) crops, Celts thought that the presence of the otherworldly (sobrenatural) spirits made it easier for the Druids, or Celtic priests, to make predictions about the future. For a people entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, these prophecies were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
      
Today’s Halloween Traditions

The American Halloween tradition of “trick-or-treating” probably dates back to (se remonta a) the early All Souls’ Day parades in England. During the festivities, poor citizens would beg (medigaban) for food and families would give them pastries (pastelitos) called “soul cakes” in return for their promise to pray for the family’s dead relatives. The distribution of soul cakes was encouraged (animada/alentada) by the church as a way to replace the ancient practice of leaving food and wine for roaming spirits (espíritus errantes) . The practice, which was referred to as “going a-souling” was eventually taken up by children who would visit the houses in their neighborhood and be given ale (cerveza), food, and money.
The tradition of dressing in costume (disfraz) for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots (raíces). Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain (incierto) and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low (se quedaban cortas) and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter (se encontrarían inesperadamente) ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them (les confundirían) for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease (apaciguar) the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.(intentar entrar)