Dear Alex

Alexander Elliot Salmond
Crown St Andrew's House, 1
Edinburgh, SCOTLAND


Dear Alex,

I write you because this week we have received your “Scottish special cookies”. It was a great pleasure; we ate everything in a few days!

I would like to fly to Scotland again. I hope to do it this summer. Actually, I’m writing a lot of places to visit, like Stirling or Eliean Donan Castle. I read that this castle was   the localisation of “Higlander”. I like this movie! I think that we are going to rent a car and visit the North of Highlands, because last year we only saw Inverness.

A workmate told me about a very comfortable Bed & Breakfast in Fort Williams. I took the telephone number to book it as soon as possible.

Give special wishes to Jane and your parents. I hope we can meet very soon!


Kind regards!


Nick



[Composition #1, 2nd Level]

A summer keeping our English afloat: drawing conclusions

Summer is ending and it is therefore time to take stock. Let’s review the four areas that we marked when we finished the course: reading, listening, speaking and writing.

READING. I borrowed from the library five books tagged as a fourth level EOI. I achieved to finish four of them: Frozen pizza and other slices of life, from Antoinette Moses; The Amsterdam connection, from Sue Leather; A dangerous sky, from Michael Austen; Tales of mystery and imagination, from Edgar Allan Poe. The fifth book is Emergency Murder, from Janet McGiffin, which is the compulsory one for the first quarter, so I’m going to wait a few weeks to start reading it (in order to keeping it fresh for the January test). Meanwhile, I’ll take some Speak Up magazines because there are always interesting articles. I did a vocabulary exercise writing in a notepad all the words that I didn’t know. Whenever I can, I will publish a relation of them, which is not precisely short…

LISTENING. I think this area is my Achilles heel. This summer I bought on Wallapop all seasons in DVD from Lost —TV show— but it’s so difficult to follow the conversations. But I will not surrender. I try every day or twice watching an episode. I watched the whole show several years ago, so I know the main plot and I can follow the scenes; but their English is not easy at all. From time to time I listen to news channels like BBC or just Youtube. Definitely, documentaries and news are easier than dramatic fiction: a neutral language is used there, without colloquial or oral fast expressions. Anyway, I must go on listening stuff more and more.

SPEAKING. Until July, we had met regularly with Tim and Linden —our Australian friends— every Wednesday. They are really good and friendly guys and we enjoyed talking about different topics in English and Spanish. Moreover, I have been going every Monday to the library to the “Creative Conversation” sessions with two American guys. I spoke in English to the tourist people who were walking around the streets in the Renaixement, trying to help them with localisations, city streets, etc. And as I commented a few posts ago, I visited Berlin and I could speak to many people: German, Canadian, South-Korean, etc. I was able to use my English to start little talks.

WRITING. Well that’s the point… I wrote some posts here. Actually, it’s a good way to refresh structures and think in English. Apart from the English skills, it’s an imagination challenge. Thinking a short story, coherent, a little interesting… it’s not always easy. I wrote some historical post about the Second World War, that is a really interesting matter for me. And I wrote some narrative texts like in our EOI tests, starting with a single phrase. And I will continue doing it.

Epilogue.

In English terms this summer has been more productive than the last one:

1.- I’m happy of my achieves finishing four of five books. My speed and reading comprehension are improving.
2.- Listening is my worst area, so I need to continue doing comprehension exercicies of "ear-training" and listening to as many things I could.
3.- Our Australian pals have left :( but we will meet other English-spoken people to continue chatting and speaking.
4.- This blog will continue active as a self-obligation of writing English during the whole year and as a cool way to evaluate our progressions.


So... let's go on!

Dear Shoshanna

This is a fictional letter which was sent to Shosanna Dreyfus* by her aunt, Mrs Himmelstein.

Dear Shoshanna,

I felt very sorry because your great lost. It was a really injustice and I would make sure that the perpetrators were punished some day. I have been looking for you since I was noticed about, and finally I have been able to find you.

You have to know you are safe at last. My good friends, the Béringer family, will help and protect you. Just follow my notes below. You will find your new passport and everything you need in the attached box. From this day onwards you will be Emmanuelle Mimieux and you will own Le Gamaar Cinema. We think it’s the better option and a proper hiding place.

Paris is waiting for you. Leave the whole past and take your new life.

Yours,


Jacqueline V. Himmelstein

(*) Shosanna Dreyfus is one of the main protagonists of the Quantin Tarantino's film Inglourious Basterds.

Never was so much owed by so many to so few

‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’. This is a well-known sentence by Sir Winston Churchill to evidence the decisive paper of the RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain as well as starting the dangerous bombing campaign over Germany. The bravery of these men and women achieved a great victory over Luftwaffe attacks, England was not occupied by German troops and allied armies defeated the Third Reich.

But it’s important to remember that several spitfires of those air squadrons were driven by polish pilots. When Germans occupied and defeated Poland, lots of polish ran to England and other countries. Polish experienced airmen didn’t remain waiting with crossed arms, but joined to the RAF and fighted as British to defend a foreign land.

Nowadays, in the Brexit age, the populist parties are blaming against polish (and others) immigrants in the UK. But those same polish helped British people to not be enslaved by and occupation army.

The first Luftwaffe bombing attacks took place 76 years ago today. So today is a good day to remember the RAF heroes and their polish brave people.