Páginas Web interesantes

A continuación os incluyo una serie de páginas Web que pueden ser de utilidad:

La mansión del inglés: Encontraréis desde teoría, juegos y libros, pasando por ejercicios y vocabulario.

BBC Learning English: Podréis leer noticias, hacer un crucigrama, ver vídeos en inglés para estudiantes, etc.

British Council: Una Web con una filosofía similar a la de la BBC, pero con materiales diferentes.

ESL-Galaxy: Donde podéis descargar la teoría explicada de forma muy gráfica o a través de un juego.

Activities for ESL students: Encontraréis juegos, actividades, vocabulario... y los guiones de preguntas que utilizamos en conversación (no me gustaría ver a nadie con la hoja ya impresa y las preguntas contestadas; conversación, como su propio nombre indica, es para hablar, para leer ya hay otros espacios).

El lector virtual: Para los osados que se atrevan con libros en inglés no adaptados. Ojo, no os frustréis, un libro en inglés que no está adaptado para estudiantes de inglés se puede leer, sí, pero poquito a poco.

Texto: Fish & Chips

"Fish and chips" is deep-fried fish in batter[1] with deep-fried potatoes, and a popular take-away food[2]. Fish and chips is originally from the United Kingdom, but also very popular in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa and some coastal towns of the Netherlands and Norway; and also increasingly so in the United States and elsewhere. For decades it was the dominant (if not the only) take-away food in the United Kingdom.

The fried potatoes are called chips in British and international usage; and while American English calls them french fries, the combination is still called "fish and chips". (Potato chips, an American innovation, are a different potato-derived food, and are known as crisps in the United Kingdom.)

– though the potato was not introduced to Europe until the 17th century. The originally Sephardi dish Pescado frito, or deep-fried fish, came to Netherlands and England with the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The dish became popular in more widespread[3] circles in London and the south-east in the middle of the 19th century (Charles Dickens mentions a "fried fish warehouse[4]" in Oliver Twist) whilst in the north of England a trade in deep-fried "chipped" potatoes developed.

It is unclear when and where these two trades were merged to become the fish and chip shop industry we know today. The first combined fish and chip shop was probably the one opened in London by Joseph Malin in 1860.

During World War II, fish and chips were one of the few foods that were not rationed in the UK.

Fuente: MDLU.

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[1] In batter: Empanado.

[2] Take-away food: Comida para llevar.

[3] Widespread: Generalizado, extendido.

[4] Warehouse: Bodega, almacén.

Texto: The Uffington white horse

The Uffington White Horse is a highly stylized prehistoric hill figure, 110 m long, formed from deep trenches[1] filled with crushed white chalk. The figure is situated on the upper slopes[2] of White Horse Hill in the English civil parish[3] of Uffington (in the county of Oxfordshire, historically Berkshire), some 8 km south of the town of Faringdon and a similar distance west of the town of Wantage Best views of the figure are obtained from the air, or from directly across the Vale, particularly around the villages of Great Coxwell, Longcot and Fernham.

The figure presumably dates to "the later prehistory", i.e.[4] the Iron Age (800 BC–AD 100) or the late Bronze Age (1000–700 BC). This view was generally held by scholars[5] even before the 1990s, based on the similarity of the horse's design to comparable figures in Celtic art, and it was confirmed following a 1990 excavation led by Simon Palmer and David Miles of the Oxford Archaeological Unit.

Iron Age coins that show a representation comparable to the Uffington White Horse have been found, supporting the early dating of this artifact; it has also been suggested that the horse had been fashioned in the Anglo-Saxon period, more particularly during Alfred's reign, but there is no positive evidence to support this.

The Uffington is by far the oldest of the white horse figures in Britain, and is of an entirely different design from the others.

It has long been debated whether the chalk figure was intended to represent a horse or some other animal. However, it has been called a horse since the 11th century at least. A cartulary[6] of Abingdon Abbey, compiled between 1072 and 1084, refers to "mons albi equi" at Uffington ("the White Horse Hill").

The horse is thought to represent a tribal symbol perhaps connected with the builders of Uffington Castle.

Fuente: Wikipedia.

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[1] Trench: Zanja.

[2] Slope: Colina, cuesta.

[3] Parish: Distrito.

[4] i.e. (id est): Esto es, a saber.

[5] Scholar: Erudito, investigador.

[6] Cartulary: cartulario, códice diplomático.

Bienvenidos a Inglés en la UPP

A través de este blog os iré pasando textos, ejercicios y teoría, para reforzar lo que trabajamos en clase. Como sabéis, algunos textos ya los hemos trabajado, pero, de todos modos, los colgaré aquí también, por si alguien quiere echarles un nuevo vistazo o sentís la irreprimible necesidad de poneros a leer algo en inglés.

Ahora os explicaré cómo va a funcionar: Este blog lo utilizaré para los tres cursos que imparto, es decir, Active English (AE), Englisg Step 4 (ES4) y English Step 5 (ES5). Las etiquetas de las entradas especificarán para qué curso va dedicado ese material. Algunos materiales son comunes y por tanto en las etiquetas no aparecerán ninguna de las abreviaturas que he mencionado antes.

Bienvenidos y espero que os sea de utilidad.