Redações da Cultura Inglesa

Então, trouxe boas recordações do passado, minhas redações do ano de 2006, feitas como atividades na escola de Inglês Cultura Inglesa.

As 4 postagens anteriores mostram minhas diversões com Inglês já há quase 4 anos. Bons tempos...

A terceira é a que mais gosto, fala do maior herói do Brasil, Jaspion!!!

Abraços!

Cultura Inglesa - Marcos: 4th composition (Dec 2006)

This time I needed to write a letter of complain about an advertisement I have recently seen on TV and brough me on to have objection to it. It has ended up like this, and it's about to be fowarded to my teacher. He's a native speaker, born in England, with an unique accent over here, Christopher.

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To whom it may concern:

The very reason that has prompted me to write this letter is owing to the commercial I saw on television the day before yesterday. Such was my indignation when I set my eyes upon the commercial that no sooner had a woman appeared than I switched off my television, also because I knew what was about to come up if I did not take any action. I had already overheard people commenting on such a commercial at work, but I misbelieved then.

What was shown is a woman semi-naked dancing and drinking an alcoholic drink. The object of my concern is that the woman expresses herself as being proud of her actions, thus demonstrating herself as a pattern to be followed. But there is more to it than that; not only was the commercial on during a period of time at which lots of children were in front of television, but also that woman takes her brassiere out in the end, what is utterly unacceptable by me. Should it be otherwise, late at night when most children are probably in bed, there would not have any problem at all. Nonetheless, repeating it as when it was broadcasted, that would be solely disgusting.

Moreover, other point that disturbs me considerably is the lack of responsibility of such advertisements. You all do not realise how many people may be watching your programmes and taking into consideration what you display; rather, you probably know about it, but you disregard the matter since what must be paramount to your television station is the revenues from your programmes and commercials.

So I still respectfully request you to do not televise the commercial at issue during the day, when the youth is very certain to be awake and in front of television. We ought all to remember that children are going to be the future citizens of our nation and they have to acquire their experiences of life accordingly while they are rising.

I am deeply thankful beforehand to your personnel all.

Yours sincerely,

Marcos P Silvestri

Cultura Inglesa - Marcos: 3rd composition (Nov 2006)

Galaxy Wolf Juspion's review

When the subject to be discussed is the use of technology for special effects in films, we must definitely remember the super Japanese TV series that have been presented for decades already. A case in point is Kyojuu Tokusou Juspion, its Japanese name, aka Megabeast Special Investigator Juspion or Galaxy Wolf Juspion.

Even though Juspion was not a big hit in Japan when it was first aired in 1985, it caused a huge impact in other countries such as France and Brazil for it turned out to be stunning and appealing, different from previous series of the same genre.

Juspion is fantastic because it involves a battle between the human race and lots of aliens, androids, assassins, and megabeasts from outer space, all under the command of great-god-demon of the Galaxy, Satan Goss, a giant devil with powers to enrage creatures and transform them into vicious monsters. His plot was to create the Monster Empire in the Galaxy.

In order to combat all threats and enemies, Juspion had a metallic combat suit, also making use of his laser sword and a gun. Furthermore, to illustrate that Juspion was wide-ranging in special effects, it must be recalled that his mothership Daileon was able to become a giant warrior to fight against the megabeasts and Satan Goss directly on land, in the sky, or under water. High points and surreal sequences were always present in clashes between the hero and his foes, especially against Mad Gallant, the only Satan Goss's child. The giant warrior Daileon could fly, it had outstanding punches and kicks, and marvelous sequences thereby it could make a monster fall down easily. Additionally, it used to launch laser beams and it had an extremely powerful punch utilized to defeat monsters, exploding them in the end. Moreover, the hero still had his flying motorcycle, mini-spaceship, and drill-equipped tank to help him out.

As there was always a sense of war on a cosmic scale and it was very innovative, Juspion was considerably broadcasted over here, it was impressive and thus remarkable for its generation. Never will Juspion be forgotten.

Cultura Inglesa - Marcos: 2nd composition (Oct 2006)

ased on the extract below, I was asked to write a new composition, a proposal to have changes in the currect situation of a school where I am a student. I tried to keep as much formal as possible, as I was required to do. Feel free to read it and comment on it in a way that we can have development of our skills, any kind of suggestions are acceptable.

Extract:

... student motivation throughout the institution is generally high, and there was evidence of learning taking place. However, the facilities available to both students and teachers are outdated and uninspiring. There is little for students to do outside the classroom and nothing to tempt them to stay in the building for longer than necessary. The environment is not conducive to the full learning experience which should be the benchmark of the 21st century.

Composition:

Proposal to the school restructure

Current situation

The facilities that our school can provide our students nowadays are unfortunately outdated and uninspiring. It is quite noticeable that, to certain extend, all students feel comfortable and under a reliable shelter here; however, I highly recommend a restructure concerning some facilities we have got so as to boost our interest in learning and exploiting what the school can offer thoroughly.

Recommendations

In order to achieve a higher satisfaction of our students while at school and also making available useful facilities that can allow them to progress towards the labour market successfully in future, I consider as important to take advantage of our available money to finance the construction of a new library and possibly a playground.

The current library contains only rather aged books, outdated, with no proper content available for students of this age. They were perfectly applicable to former societies which were completely different from today’s. Having said that, investing in the purchase of updated books would be a good deed, rather, indispensable for the proper and effective development of our students. To elaborate on that, new books would draw everyone’s attention for being directly connected with real facts, students will surely be able to comprehend the real world as it is, the causes and effects, the ins and outs of our modern society, what is utterly paramount for the formation of prosperous citizens.

Besides the library, constructing a playground would offer students what to see and do when outside the classroom, away from the rustle and bustle of the city, preventing the increasing number of teenagers involved in illegal activities in the streets to rise, such as being on drugs. On the contrary, the number could be considerably reduced.

Conclusion

By changing so, everybody is going to face the benefits of a considerable reservoir of information and the school will surely have condition to achieve its basic aim, the proper future formation, allowing the country the suitable progress to become part of the first world some day.

Cultura Inglesa - Marcos: 1st composition (Sep 2006)

Magazine article for the writing task:

We are becoming a society of cynics, money-grabbers, people who sole purpose in life is furthering self-interest. The sad truth is that there are no longer inspirational people among us; manipulation of the media and wealth creation have become paramount for those in public life; few take risks for the sake of others, or push for knowledge without anticipating financial reward. Where are the role models of today?

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My response to it:

Dear Sir,

For a start, I would appreciate to clarify that the reason of my writing as a response to the article about role models lies in my disagreement with what has been stated, solely ruling out the existence of inspirational people to be followed nowadays. We do have, at least, one person who has come to my mind and has to be mentioned herein, one prince of a kingdom in ancient India, Siddhartha, and most worldwide known as Shakyamuni Buddha.

Even though He was born amid all sorts of luxury yet before Christ, He had always been considering about leaving His palace so as to take a pro-active approach to attaining the finding the reality of mankind’s existence in this life crammed full of burdens, and so did he. To illustrate this point, we have barely enough information in books to go through and check that out, namely, to make sure that He weeded out His life as a prince of an one and only kingdom to undertake a new type of life that would soon lead him to the major breakthrough that humans had never faced before, the discovery of the truth of our existence in this world.

After leaving His palace, He took up an ascetic way of life, living as a monk and going over a deep process of meditation, exploiting the inner universe the humanity bear inside and fending off all possible positive and negative thoughts and feelings that could make him stray from the right path, steering clear of being doomed to failure owing to that and so keeping Himself on the right track that would ultimately guide Him to Enlightenment and so, the definitely cessation of any kind of suffering.

As a matter of fact, not only did He follow an unbearable path for people unwilling to succeed in life as a being who deserves salvation and peace for the eternity, but also He did achieve the very last point in progress and evolution as a human being, teaching everybody that what He has done is plenty possible to be done by anyone else strongly willing for so. Shall we ever be able to quote such an inspirational person throughout History?

Yours faithfully

Helping out a native speaker :)

I participate in a forum called WordReference, it's an excellent spot for solving any doubts you may have since there are lots of natives speakers around the globe constantly looking at the forums and providing help.

Right there, to my surprise there was a question from a native speaker, as follows:

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Hi everyone, here is my sentence:

The Ganges, the Sahara, the Black Sea….you can feel the presence of these places just through their names.

Is there any way you could improve this sentence in terms of expression, vocab, grammer etc? I'm especially concerned with the expression 'feel the presence' as well as the Ganges, the Sahara, the Black sea (3 'the'-s in a row)

Any suggestion would be welcome.Thank you.

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The sequence of the thread was:

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Kate,

First of all, to me, the sentence is perfect, and it reminds me of a sightly literary text.

I don't know exactly what you want to achieve, but I'll try to give some suggestions:

1) It is just a matter of hearing of the Ganges, the Sahara, and the Black Sea to fancy yourself as though you were right there.

2) By hearing the names of the Ganges, the Sahara, and the Black Sea you promptly / immediately imagine yourself present in such places.

3) You need no more than hearing of the Ganges, the Sahara, and the Black Sea to experience the sensation of being there.

I think you cannot eliminate the definite articles 'the' in these sentences, because in English this article is used before certain proper names of seas, rivers, groups of islands, chains of mountains, plural names of countries, deserts, etc:

- the Arctic
- the Alps
- the Antarctic (both land and sea)
- the Netherlands
- the Gobi Desert
- the Atlantic
- the U.S.A.

I hope it helps, best regards!

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Then:

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Great help, Marcos : )
Thank you so much. I think I'll try to find a way to mix your third sentence with my original one and come up with something better...

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Some learners of English do not believe that much in themselves when they need to interact with native speakers. However, as well as we have troubles with our mother tongues, so do they. When we fiercely study a foreign language, however, there are times we find out we are able to help natives of that language, what it's natural to me once we hardly ever study our own languages with due dedication.

As a student of a foreign language, believe in you :)

Source: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1745842

English proverbs and sayings

These are common English proverbs. They reflect the philosophy, humor and character of English speakers.

1. Time is money

2. Walls have ears

3. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth

4. Live and learn

5. At night all cats are grey*

6. There is a time for all things

7. Love is blind

8. Men make houses; women make homes

9. Money talks

10. Necessity is the mother of invention

11. Time flies

12. The child is the father of the man

13. Dog does not eat dog

14. A cat has nine lives

15. It's no use crying over spilt milk

16. Where there's a will, there's a way

17. There's no smoke without fire

18. Never say die

19. Make hay while the sun shines

20. Out of sight, out of mind

21. You can't have your cake and eat it

22. Experience is the best teacher

23. When in Rome, do as Romans do

24. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush

25. No news is good news

26. Live and let live

27. The more you have, the more you want

28. Let sleeping dogs lie

29. Don't put the chart before the horse

30. Better late than never

31. Absense makes the heart grow fonder

32. First come, first served

33. Don't cross your bridges before you come to them

34. Don't count your chickens before they're hatched

35. Still waters run deep

36. He who hesitates is lost

37. Look before you leep

38. Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

39. Haste makes waste

40. Finders keepers, losers weepers

41. Water dripping day by day wears the hardest rock way

42. Let bygones be bygones

43. Cheer up! The worst is yet to come

44. Better to be alone than in bad company

45. Looks can be deceiving

46. Barking dogs seldom bite

47. Hell is paved with good intentions

48. The calm after the storm

49. The early bird catches the worm

50. Money doesn't grow on trees

51. Birds of a feather flock together / A man is known by the company he keeps

52. Two heads are better than one

53. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

54. A closed mouth catches no flies

55. Do as I say, not as I do

56. Speak of the devil and he appears

57. A burnt child dreads the fire

58. Every dark cloud has a silver lining

58. Out of sight, out of mind

59. Kill two birds with one stone

60. An idle mind is the devil's workshop

61. Don't bite the hand that feeds you

62. Don't bite off more than you can chew

63. Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today

64. Don't make a mountain out of a molehill / Don't sweat the small stuff

65. All that glitters is not gold / Not all that glitters is gold

66. All is fair in love and war

67. Crime doesn't pay

68. Success depend on ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration

69. A word to the wise is enough

70. When the cat's away, the mice will play

71. It takes two to make a fight

72. Beauty lies in lovers' eyes

73. Nothing ventured, nothing gained

74. Make do with what you have

75. He who laughs last laughs best

76. Don't wash the family's dirty linen in public

77. If you can't beat them, join them

78. Better be safe than sorry

79. Like father, like son

80. All good things must come to an end

81. Two wrongs don't make a right

82. You scracth my back and I scratch yours

*grey (Great Britain) = gray (United States)

Note: many of the proverbs are equally used in Brazil