More "¡azúcar!": sugar-eating children

It's all well and good to like "azúcar", but as everything else in life... in moderation. After the overview of Celia Cruz's career, we look at sugar from a critical point of view.

This is a rather old interview with Felicity Lawrence, a British author who warned against the dangers of excessive sugar in processed food. I would like you to notice the use of several adjective+noun and adverb+adjective collocations, and to try these comprehension questions:

1. What is the meaning of "acquiring a taste for sth"? When does she use this expression?

2. Why do parents resort to processed food (e.g. formula milk) so early in the baby's life?

3. How does she explain our liking of sweetness in evolutionary terms?

4. What kind of sweeteners can be found in baby's food?

5. What's the main problem with eating refined sugar?

The key, coming soon here. But let me insist on sharing your answers in the comments section!

The life of Celia Cruz

As you know, biography videos tend to make use of certain expressions that recur time and time again, and I'm starting to think that they are a genre of their own in their use of language. Take, for example, the sentences we are looking for to answer these comprehension questions:

"A career that spanned five decades" - can you express this idea in other words?
How many prizes and recognitions did she receive? Can you find the verb+noun collocations that are used in the video to give this information?
What expressions with the word "influence" can you find?
How do they define "the ultimate American spirit"?

I will try to make the key available as soon as possible here ... seeing as most of you decided long ago not to share answers in the comments section. Comments are still (and always) welcome, though!

Enjoy!

Azucar! Life of Celia Cruz from c.p. granado on Vimeo.

Topic Video: Privacy

Hello everyone,

This is a piece of news that has had most of my attention for the last couple of days. I don't know if you're familiar with the story (I guess you are): Edward Snowden worked for outside contractors of the NSA (National Security Agency), and decided to leak top secret documents about surveillance procedures that were, in his view, a breach of privacy.

The amazing thing, to me, is that he has revealed his identity of his own accord, becoming what is called a whistleblower.

This video takes you through some of the events, in a mixture of British English (from the Telegraph reporter) and American English (from Snowden).  I strongly recommend that you also read the accompanying article (with video on the same page).While some accuse him of treason (which could lead to death penalty, as far as I understood from a newspaper article), others hail him as a hero. The widest coverage I have found on the topic so far is in The Guardian.

Some words whose pronunciation you may want to check before listening (remember, monolingual dictionary on your right):

surveillance
extradite
disclosure


So, some questions:

1. The person who has revealed himself as the whistleblower is a former ________________.
2. The NSA has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans to find out if _____________ have been in contact with people in the US.
3. Snowden believes that it's fundamentally dangerous to democracy to _______________ of government.
4. He wants to go ______________ to defend the authenticity of his disclosures.
5. The journalist he spoke to, Greenwald, believes that ______________ he must be anxious about what may happen to him.
6. Most likely, he will be ______________ by the US government and _____________ from Hong Kong.

Key coming very soon here!

Topic Video: Education

Hello everyone,

The video for today is on the topic of education.

I bring you one of my favourite TED talks: Ken Robinson speaks about education and creativity. For a more condensed, visual explanation, you have this animation video that I sent you once in the email video (I don't know if you'll remember of if you were in the list already).

The questions today require a bit of development, and quite a lot of attention. On the plus side, he's very entertaining. If you're having difficulties (British accent at tremendious speed sometimes... great), there are subtitles in English available.


1. He says we all have "a vested interest" in education - What does this common collocation mean, and why is it so?
2. What's his main point (as stated at the beginning)?
3. How is the education of children similar to running a company?
4. What's the universal hierarchy of subjects in education systems?
5. How would you rephrase the expression "to be predicated on the idea that..."?
6. What's the explanation of the "process of academic inflation"?
7. How does he compare the mind to the Earth in his "ecology" comparison?

Enjoy! Please leave a comment! Key coming soon!

Topic Video: Science and Research

Hello everyone!

The video for today is on one of my favourite topics: women in science. A video "with a twist": it's from 1954.

A promotional video by GE (General Electric) that shows us that "it's not a man's world". The questions:

1. What does each woman do (some details, please)?
2. What are polymers?
3. What is the biologist working on at the moment?
2. List the adverb + adjective collocations
3. List the adjective + noun collocations.
4. Which of these collocations are specific to science or could you use in a conversation about science?

My oh my the end of the video... Well it's 1954 after all...!

All my respect today to women devoted to science and research.

Key coming soon! Please comment!

Topic Video: Health

Hello again!

Some of you tell me that you're not commenting because you watch the videos in a rush, kind of frightened by the whole burden of the exams. About fear of the exams, I will let someone speak for me.

Take it easy, guys, you can do this!

The questions for today are related with health. This is a series of very short videos. Open questions for the first one, and gap-filling, no more than three words per gap.

I like to link you to websites with playlists that you can continue watching if you have the time and inclination, so apart from embedding the videos, here's the link. Enjoy! Key coming soon here!

VIDEO 1

1. What do they want to prevent, mainly? What are the difficulties they are facing?
2. What three diseases are mentioned?
3. Who are they teaming with? To prevent what disease?

 


VIDEO 2 (pronunciation, please, the name of this illness is pronounced so differently in English!)

1. The first reason to make of Alzheimer's a ___________________ is the fact that it is stigmatised.
2. The Alzheimer's patient can also be invisible because it mainly affects old people in a _____________ culture.
3. One reason that the caregivers aren't advocating more strongly for better attention to the disease is that the 24/7 care leaves them ___________________ , ___________________  and ___________________  drained (what's the synonym of this word in the video?)

VIDEO 3

1. She claims that American and Western healthcase systems are entrenched in practice patterns, so introducing a new technology can be actually  ___________________ .
2. India is perfect to introduce some of these techonologies because they have an ___________________  and many increasingly successful hospitals, where patients pay for all of their healthcare.
3. Other places that might benefit from wireless technology are those where they have ___________________  but no electricity.

Topic Video: Cities

Hello again!

The video for today corresponds to the topic of cities. Instead of the usual "city life vs country life" comparison, I bring you a video about the peculiarities of suburban life. That is, life in the suburbs. Please remember that can be a false friend! A suburban area is simply in the outskirts of a city. Anyway, you will see that the definition of "suburbs" becomes very clear in the video, as it features one of the largest suburban areas in the country.

Living in the suburbs has shaped the residents' way of life, but how? Let's find out. Before listening, consider this vocabulary (dictionary to your right, people!). You can also try to find out the meaning by context, if you want.

stretching North = expanding to the North
cul-de-sac (check pronunciation, the word is defined in the video. How is it defined?)
to come at a cost 
to track (or track down)
to be off the beaten path

Some questions:

1. How many synonyms or near-synonyms of  "going" can you find?
2. How has walking been transformed by this way of life?
3. What are the problems originated/not solved by the road system?
4. Why does the reporter call the situation in the Dallas-Fort Worth area a "construction loop"?

By the way: I can check how many people watch the videos. Is it possible that 63 people have watched yesterday's video in one day, and not one of them has shared their answers? I put it down to you having the key, but then the commenting/sharing element loses all meaning... I'm not too happy with that.

Answers to be shared in the comments, please! And the key coming soon here!