An English Joke

Dear friend, I'd like to share a joke with you today.

A soldier wanted to ask for a leave from his commanding officer, so he said he would go to attend his sister's wedding. The officer asked him to stay outside the office and he wanted to consider the request. Several minutes later, the officer let the soldier back in and said to him:"You are such a liar. I have phoned your sister and she told me she is already married."
Then the soldier said angrily:"You are a even larger liar! You couldn't have phoned my sister  because I don't have a sister at all!"

When I started learning English...

Hi everybody, thanks for the help in your corrections!

When I first started learning English, I didn’t even know what a phrasal verb was. However, I thought it was a good idea to start translating things. I used to translate everything I read. Literally. No matter if it didn’t make any sense in Spanish. I remember having wondered “do they really want to say this? But it makes no sense!”.

The only times it wasn’t as disastrous was when I kind of used my common sense, as with the phrasal verb “to take out”, in which I first translated into Spanish as “sacar afuera” but as “sacar” after much thought. I said “this doesn’t sound elegant at all, let’s omit afuera, I don’t think translating a word sometimes is that bad”.

(Always translate words from diffrent languages to another. They could mean horrible things in a diffrent language and most people may not undertsnad what you are saying).

A little time after, I understood one doesn’t always translate word by word, but rather the general meaning of something, and then I realized the problem wasn’t my knowledge about English, but that of Spanish. My native language. I was kind of obsessed with it, because I thought understanding the language as a native speaker would allow me to understand others more easily, so I started buying Spanish grammar books. I remember that my family asked me every time “if you already speak Spanish, what are those books for?”. Sometimes, I wasn’t able to explain to them what I had in mind, but others, I just told them: "I’ll be able to understand other languages better”, and they just looked at me as if I were joking.

Introduce myself

Hi everybody!
I'm Isaías García. A native Spanish speaker from Mexico, I'm a programmer and I develop apps.
I want to practice my English skills with native speakers or those who want to practice it. Also I´m available to help you if you want to practice Spanish.
I hope we can talk a lot :)

Entertainment and Media

I believe that the principal entertainment instrument in our days is still the television. It is used widely among all different kinds of people and families. It is the biggest tool of communication and anyone can reach a good level of information with It. In the last period this means of dissemination and entertainment that has been completed with many other applications. There is the possibility connecting with internet by wi-fi or with a wire in order to watch television and to surf the net at the same time. We can link many types of game consoles and people can play with others from others in other parts of the world. You can also listen the radio and music with a “home theatre” system, in this case the quality of the sound depends on the quality of system that you are using. In addition to this you can connect the PC and amplify the potential of the tool. You are not tied to a specific time to watch something, because you can watch your favorite shows when you prefer. There is not anything better than watching a film at the cinema, nevertheless is more comfortable staying at home to watch the DVD, because of time and for expense reasons. With Blu-Ray technology and “home theatre” systems the film experience is enough pleasant even at home.

A Brazilian girl trying to improve her English

My native language is Portuguese! I've been trying to learn english for about four years now (yeah, it's been a long time!) but I need to improve my English so much!