Xmas Time

Well, I have some good and bad news for you, let's start by the good one... Christmas is coming so you are going to have more time to spend with your family, eat and drink a lot, give and receive lots of presents... or maybe that was the bad news... well ... don't know. But you are definitely going to have some holidays, aren't you?

Although it might be the case that by now some of you are sick of hearing about Christmas as every time this holiday seems to start earlier. Well, some more good news is that if you are tired of Spanish Christmas you can always learn more about other traditions all around the world, especially those of some English speaking countries, for instance, the UK, the US...

Let's start with a common tradition in most cultures, Christmas Carols, do you like singing? and singing Xmas carols? In case you don't know the answer to that question yet, you can try and see with this very famous Xmas Carol:

Song lyrics | All I Want For Christmas Is You lyrics

This song became very famous a few years ago with a film called Love Actually. It is located in London and, although is at Xmas time ... yeah I know ... there are like 1,000 Xmas films on TV every day during this period of the year, but trust me this one isn't the typical one, so if you haven't seen it yet, it could be a good oportunity, here you have the trailer.





Other common tradition all around is food, so here you can find some very famous Christmas recipes in English culture:

Christmas Recipes

Here you have some more mix ability practise related to this topic:

Christmas Gift Listening - Multiple Choice
General Xmas Trivia - Quiz

Finally, you can read a bit about how popular online shopping is even more at Christmas and you can even have a look at some webs, maybe you get some ideas for your own Xmas gifts, good luck!

Christmas shopping stalls Walmart.com
The Great Christmas shopping price fix
somucheasier.co.uk - online shopping webpage
Great Christmas gift ideas - online shopping webpage

How much technology is in your life?

How much technology do you use in your everyday life? And how much Technology related vocabulary do you know? Let's see by testing your techno-jargon with the following test:

Test your Techno-jargon

Do you have a computer or a laptop at home? Do you use a Microsoft PC or an Apple Mac? In Europe Macs are not so popular but they are getting more and more popular everyday as they are already in places as, for example, the US .

Watch the following video: Apple Boy vs Microsoft Man where both are compared in quite a funny way:

And now that we have started to enjoy why stop it? Watch the following cartoons about Gates vs Jobs or what's the same Microsoft vs Apple, it's great!

If you still feel in the mood for more technology related issues here you can read some news articles about some of the latest developments in technology:

Can Google Wave replace e-mail? (CNN.com)
20 new techie gadgets not to be missed (time.com)

Out & About

Guess what? There is a wonderful website with a section called 'Welcome to London' where you can follow some characters through a series of situations as they arrive and settle down in the city. What is really good about this is that you can listen to the typical conversations taking place when you are visiting a city. Useful, isn't it? Even more if some of you are lucky enough to go abroad this Christmas!

Welcome to London