Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Planning Your Dream Home

So, you need to write an essay about your dream home? Well there's a lot to think about, but let's start with the grammar.

1. Since this topic is about something that probably won't happen (sorry) it's best to use the 2nd conditional:

"If I had a billion dollars, I would have a dream house. It would have ten floors. It would have two swimming pools. It would have a cinema. etc."

In Slovak, "Keby som mal miliardu dolárov, mal by som dom snov. Ten dom by mal desať poschodí. Mal by dva bazény. Mal by kino."

2. Another thing to remember - when counting rooms, you need to count all of them. Don't say,

"The 2nd floor would have four rooms and two bathrooms." That's six rooms!

Say, "The 2nd floor would have four bedrooms and two bathrooms."

3. In English, we say, "How it would look," or, "What it would look like."

We never say, "How it would look like." That's wrong.

4. In English, host = hostiteľ The word for someone who visits your house isn't 'host' but 'guest'.

5. Every year one student mixes up the words 'bed' and 'bad'. Bed means 'posteľ' and bad means 'zlý'. If you want a "badroom" please don't tell me about it. I don't want to know. It sounds like something from Fifty Shades of Grey.

You also need to think about the kind of home you want. Do you prefer something big or small? What style? See here for choices.

Do you want one dream home or two? Or maybe three or four? Would you like to travel during the year, and live in different places in different seasons? Where do you want your homes located? Do you want to live somewhere tropical or exotic? Or do you want to stay in Slovakia? Think about it because some places have unique features you can only find there:




Once you answer these questions, you may want to give your home some unique features and characteristics that make it special. Here are some ideas. Let's see if they inspire you:








  


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 

 




 
 

 
 

Monday, March 9, 2015

Last Week Tonight Discusses the U.S. Territories

In this short video, comedian John Oliver discusses the unfairness of US Policy in its territories Puerto Rico, Guam, and American Samoa, where people are citizens but are denied full rights, including the right to vote for president.