Tag: B2

A2 · B1 · B2 · phonetics

Silent letters in English words

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When you have a phonetic language like Spanish, for instance, it is quite easy to say the words you have learned from a book or  a dictionary because if you know the sounds of each letter you can do quite well when speaking the language and everybody will understand you. But this is not the case with English, which for a lot of people seems like a `crazy´language with its own rules. I already mentioned this feature of English in a post on phonetics and here I’m going to mention another feature that will also look pretty strange to many language learners, that is, letters that appear in the written form of language but should not be pronounced. These letters are called ‘silent letters’ because we do not pronounce them. About two years ago I created a slide lesson, but now that I (unfortunately), have a lot of time, I have also made a video where you can see and hear the examples some of the most typical silent letters.

There’s a quiz button at the bottom of this post.

Serena’s blog
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B2 · Listening · Multiple choice cloze

B2 Listening 15 Wierd Food Recipes in the World

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Image from Mentalfloss

I found this video quite funny and entertaining and couldn’t help laughing at the speaker’s reactions to some of the dishes he describes. I’m aware that there is a lot of prejudice concerning eating habits, but what would our great-grandmothers have thought if they had seen us ordering a hamburger and chips at a fast-food restaurant? They would have been horrified and not only that, but they would have lectured us! What would you do if you were offered barbecued scorpions or fried tarantulas for dinner? I think my first reaction would be to puke. What about you?

This week my B2 groups have been talking about eating habits, so I’ve prepared this listening for them that I’m sharing with anybody that would like to learn a little about this topic. By the way, hitting the subscribe button and leaving a like would be totally awesome.

Waiter! Waiter! There’s a wasp in my cookie!

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B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Flavour vocabulary

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What’s your favourite type of food? Do you like savoury dishes or do you have a sweet tooth? I particularly go for savoury, but I also sometimes crave for chocolate. Here’s another of my tacky videos (sorry, I don’t have a good video editor, but I’ll finally get round to it. Promise!). This video covers intermediate vocabulary for flavours and some types of food. I hope you find it useful.

B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Vegetable vocabulary 3

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The last of a series of videos that cover vegetable vocabulary. Which is a sort of relief because I’m pretty tired of the music that I’m using to cover the horrible white noise that I can’t get rid of when recording an audio. I’m also tired of hearing my voice over and over again and even feel a bit embarrassed. But there’s such a lot of vocabulary to cover, that I think it’s better to put the words into small chunks with the pronunciation, the images and even the phonetic transcription. Anyway, I hope the effort was worth it and you find these videos useful. (fingers crossed!)

ps. You can always turn the sound down!

Below this video you’ll find a link to a crossword or you can download with keys.

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B1 · B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Vegetable vocabulary 2

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As I think that too many words together in one video is a bit too much, I’ve divided the vocabulary in three different videos. In post Vegetable vocabulary 3, you’ll find a crossword that will help you to fix some of these words in your memory and focus on how to spell them.

B1 · B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Seafood vocabulary

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Here’s a short video with pictures and the opportunity to hear these words. You can also check your memory and spelling in the crossword you will find in this post. You can also download the paper version and keys.

Seafood crossword
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B1 · B2 · Sin categoría · Vocabulary · vocabulary activity

B2 Cooking vocabulary 1

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Is it bake or roast? Grilled or fried? Why do the English say both, roast potatoes and baked potatoes? Is it the same dish? Here’s a video with an opportunity to see pictures and hear these different cooking adjectives and nouns. In the video you have a short quiz to check your memory for these words.

B1 · B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Cooking vocabulary 2

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Hello. In this post you’ll find a short video with pictures and a short quiz for basic cooking vocabulary for intermediate levels of English. Cooking vocabulary 2 covers more advanced verbs. If you’d like to check your memory and spelling, you can do the crossword that you’ll find in this post.

Serena’s blog
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B2 · vocabulary activity

B2 Cooking vocabulary 3

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Hello! Here’s a tacky video quiz that presents nearly all the cooking vocabulary for intermediate 2. If you want to practise your spelling, you’ll also find a crossword in this blog entry. By the way, the video says it’s the second in a series of two, but it’s actually number three. The thing is that I can’t stand having to get it sorted out right now. Sorry!

from Serena’s blog
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