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Habla inglés con el Método Callan en Barcelona - Callan Method

Consejos para aprender inglés

 

En el artículo, consejos para aprender inglés, se centra básicamente en las preposiciones, cuando y como colocarlas, los tiempos verbales y frases y palabras coloquiales del inglés.

Tips for learning English

One of the difficulties of learning a language is understanding colloquialisms. These are words or phrases that are used in particular places around the world. They have the same meaning as other words but can be very difficult for a language learner to understand because they often don´t sound like the words of the same meaning.

It is a good idea to buy a book with these types of phrases in it. In this way you can sit down in your free time and read through them and see what they mean.

Another difficulty that people have when learning a language is the use of prepositions. Why do we say on the beach but we say in the city? This is something that must be learned by practise. Some prepositions do have certain rules that they follow, like on and onto or in and into.

We can use on for something that is moving or still but we can only use onto for something that is moving. E.g «I am putting the pen on the book». «The pen is on the book». «I am putting the pen onto the book». We cannot say «the pen is onto the book». The same rule applies for in and into. We can use in for something that is moving or still but we can only use into for something that is moving. E.g «I am walking in the park now». «I am in the park now». We can say «I am walking into the park now», which means you are entering the park but we can´t say «I am into the park».

We use in when we are talking about a region, city, town, village, neighbourhood or an area. For example we say «I live in Barcelona», «I will arrive in Spain at 2p.m», or «I am in Gracia at the moment». However we use at when we are talking about being at a point such as a building. For example we say «I am at school», I will meet you at the cinema at 10p.m» or «He is at the doctor´s at the moment».

Prepositions are very confusing for students but the best thing to do is practise them as much as possible. As they say «practice makes perfect».

English grammar can be quite easy at times and quite difficult at other times. In my opinion, it is easier to remember English conjugations than the conjugations in Spanish. This is because there are a lot less conjugations to remember in English than in Spanish.

For example, let us use the verb ‘to have’. In English the present simple tense of the verb to have is: I have, you have, he has, she has, it has, we have, you have, they have. Notice that it is only for the third person singular that the conjugation changes from ‘have’ to ‘has’. Most verbs in English follow the same pattern by adding ‘s’ to the third person singular. Now look at the verb ‘to have’ in Spanish, which is ‘tener’. Yo tengo, tú tienes, el tiene, ella tiene, usted tiene, nosotros tenemos, vosotros tenéis, ellos tienen, ellas tienen, ustedes tienen. As you can see, in Spanish for each different person we have a different conjugation, so as a language learner this can be a lot to remember.

My advice is to study the exceptions to this rule in English and it will make it easier to remember which verbs do take ‘s’ with the third person singular of the present simple tense and which verbs don´t take ‘s’ with the third person singular of the present simple tense.

For the past tense it is a little more difficult because we have the regular verbs and the irregular verbs. Remember, for the past tense of regular verbs we add the letters ‘ed’ to the end of the verb. For the irregular verbs you need to study these in order to remember them. The more you practise them , the easier it becomes to retain them in your mind.

G. Harman