O INGLÊS NOSSO DE CADA DIA  - 05/01/2009

The literal translation of this adverb into Portuguese is VOCÊ NÃO PODE COMER O SEU BOLO E TÊ-LO.  It is very good to keep this proverb in mind when one must make a decision.  Not complying with such proverb may subject you to an unbearable situation.  A good example of the non-compliance with our first adverb of the year is the case of Catholic priests who are child molesters.  Or homosexuals who want to be accepted in their communities as Christians, or even worse, as priests and pastors.  Why is it so?  Because the Christian doctrine does not accept homosexual practices among its followers.  The solution to this "problem" (this is not a problem) is very simple.  One can either give up being a Christian or give up his/her sexual behavior.  As the second option, according to science, is not an optional matter, the solution seems to be giving up one's religion.  As far as I know, there are religions that do not interfere in one's sexual behavior.  It is important to mention that in western democracies no one will be beheaded (DECAPITADO) for making this kind of decision.  What seems to be wrong is to try to make changes in the doctrine of a religion, as some individuals and some groups have been doing for quite some time now.  It is much easier to give up Christianity than to change the Pope's mind.  What amazes me is the amount of attention that the media dedicates to such simple "problems".  People who do not abide by the above-mentioned proverb, especially in matters regarding sexual behavior, usually want to change the doctrine of their religions, when it is much easier for them to change their religion.  After all, we are not living in the Middle Ages, are we?

You are reading this article on the first Monday of the year 2009. Have you already written out your new year's resolutions?  If you have already decided what your resolutions for 2009 are, it is a must to write them down on a piece of paper. (Notice the difference between the phrasal verbs TO WRITE OUT (REDIGIR) and TO WRITE DOWN (ANOTAR). It is common sense that it is very easy to forget your new year's resolutions if you do not write them down. Of course, this applies also to all other resolutions, regardless of the occasion when they were made.

If one of your resolutions, in case you are not fluent in today's international language, is to improve your capacity to express yourself in English, let me congratulate you.  To be able to maintain a fluent conversation in English is, in matters of salary, as valuable  as having a second graduation and, it is important to mention the fact that the time and money necessary to learn English are both less than the time and money necessary to obtain a second graduation.  For the ones who intend to study English in 2009, my first advice is to get acquainted with your task.  Before enrolling in a course, I advise you to spend a very small percentage of the money that you are going to pay as enrolment fee to your English course in buying a copy of the book O QUE VOCÊ DEVE SABER ANTES DE ESTUDAR INGLÊS.

When you know how to do something, it is much easier to do it, and that principle applies, in a perfect manner, to the task of learning a foreign language.  The recommended book deals specifically with the problems that Portuguese native speakers face when learning English.  For the ones who are already fluent in English, one good book to invest in is PHRASAL VERBS – COMO FALAR INGLÊS COMO UM AMERICANO.  As you probably have already noticed, it is not easy to understand films spoken in English.  There may be several reasons for that, but one, for sure, is the fact that English native speaker use phrasal verbs much more frequently than we imagine. Phrasal verbs always have an equivalent that is not phrasal, so, when a Brazilian student starts speaking English, due to the fact that we do not have phrasal verbs in Portuguese, he/she prefers to use common verbs instead.  As it is almost impossible to understand what you are not used to speak, it gets difficult to understand a film spoken in English even for non-beginners.  The good news is that this problem can be easily overcome just by using some electronic resources that your TV set or DVD player have.  I am referring to CLOSED CAPTION and SUB-TITLES.

Closed Captions can be decoded by your TV set.  Sub-titles can be activated through the menu of your DVD player.  I, myself, prefer CC because this resource was originally developed to help the hearing-impaired people, so CC shows you not only the words spoken by the characters of the film that you are watching, but also informs you what is going on. For instance, if you hear footsteps, CC will tell you NOISE OF FOOTSTEPS.

Another important aspect is that some DVD titles offer you sub-titles only in Spanish or only in French but, if you check the CC, you will find that its first option is always the English language. If your TV set is old and does not offer you the CC resource, you always have the possibility to watch the film in the monitor of your computer.  Of course, you will need software to watch DVDs. Usually when you buy a DVD recorder for your computer, the hardware comes with the necessary software to watch films, but if you do not have the software in your computer, you can always buy it separately. The software that I like most is Power DVD.