Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Baccalaureate

Mastering English: Time, Word Building, and Connectors

Time Vocabulary and Expressions

Verbs related to time:

• Give: dar
• Have: tener
• Kill: matar
• Make up for: compensar
• Run out of: quedarse sin
• Save: guardar
• Spare: sobrante
• Take: tomar
• Take up: absorber
• Waste: perder

Prepositions of Time:

• At: en
• Before: antes
• By: por
• For: para
• From: desde
• In: dentro de
• Off: apagado
• On: sobre
• To: a

Common Time Expressions:

• With time to spare: con tiempo de sobra
• The whole time: todo el tiempo
• Time's up: se acabó el tiempo
• Short of time: poco tiempo
• I've got time on my hands: tengo el tiempo en mis manos
• For the time being: siendo por el momento
• A question of time: una cuestión de tiempo
• A long time ago: hace mucho tiempo
• There isn't much time left: no queda mucho tiempo
• The time next week:

Informal Email/Letter Structure

Greeting: Hi Juanjo,

Sorry that I haven't been in touch for a while, but I've been ill. I had a temperature of 40ºC, so I've been in bed for five days. I'm feeling a bit better today, so I've been catching up on my emails.

How are you? What have you been doing? I hear everyone is fine. My mother is stressed with work and taking care of my brother Alix, which is just as naughty as ever. How is your family? I hope they're well.

[Invent something relevant to the topic here.]

Well, that's all for now. Please give my regards to your family. I hope to hear from you soon.

Take care,

SANDRA

Useful Expressions

• Sorry to hear about your exam results.
• Glad to hear that you're all well (Encantado de saber que estás bien).
• Good luck

Common Expressions and Collocations with the Verb Do

• Anything (no hacer nada): My brother does not do anything in my house.
• A job (hacer un trabajo): My brother does a job with my friend.
• Badly (hacer mal): My brother does your homework badly.
• Nothing (no hacer nada): My father does nothing in my house.
• A burp (hacer un eructo): My brother does a burp after dinner.
• A painting (hacer un cuadro): My cousin does a painting in the afternoon.
• Business (hacer un negocio): My mother does business with my family.
• Right (hacer las cosas bien): My mother does right in my house.
• A course (hacer un curso): My brother does an English course.
• A service (hacer un servicio): The electrician does a service in the mall.
• Damage (hacer daño): My brother does damage to me.

Future Tenses in English Grammar

Understanding how to express future actions and predictions is crucial in English. Here's a breakdown of key future forms:

Future Continuous (Will be + -ing)

• Usage: Actions in progress at a specific time, duration, or interval in the future.
• Keywords: this time tomorrow, at 5 PM, for two hours, then.

Future Perfect (Will have + Past Participle)

• Usage: Actions completed before a specific moment in the future.
• Keywords: by this time, by then, by tomorrow, future adverb + perfect adverb.

Predictions and Certainty

Expressing predictions often involves specific verbs and adverbs:

• Verbs: think, believe, suppose, hope, know.
• Adverbs/Phrases: I'm sure, perhaps, probably, definitely.

Understanding English Modal Verbs

Modal verbs... Continue reading "English Grammar Essentials: Tenses, Modals, and Passive Voice" »

European Liberal Revolutions: 1820-1848

The Revolutions of 1820 and 1830

During the Restoration period, Liberals often operated in secret societies, with the Masons being the largest and most influential group. These societies saw themselves as heirs to the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, advocating for insurrection against absolutism.

The revolutionary wave between 1820 and 1824 saw initial victories in Spain, Portugal, Naples, and Piedmont, ushering in a brief liberal period. However, these movements were ultimately suffocated by absolutist forces. In Spain and the Italian states, this suppression involved the direct intervention of the Holy Alliance in 1823. Many Liberals were executed, while others were forced into exile.... Continue reading "Europe's Age of Upheaval: Liberalism and Democracy, 1820-1848" »

Textual Cohesion and Modalization in Discourse

This text is characterized by textual cohesion, as its ideas and statements are linked through different mechanisms to comment. | | | First, we highlight the i.e., insistence (the term "strike") keyword writing that is repeated several times. | | | The author refers to this concept through lexical coreference, i.e., by other words or expressions that emphasize the same idea: (..).

Lexical-Semantic Mechanisms

Lexical-semantic mechanisms — keywords, synonyms and coreferential expressions — appear throughout the text. There is mention of place names (Paris (France's capital)) and the presence of terms belonging to a semantic field or conceptual field | | | Morphosyntactic: the predominance of one... Continue reading "Textual Cohesion and Modalization in Discourse Analysis" »

Information Condensation Techniques

Nominalization Explained

Nominalization is a process that transforms a sentence's information into a noun or a nominal phrase. Nominalization can express more meaning within less space and using fewer words.

Linguistic Transformations: Nominalization Example

Nominalization involves a series of linguistic transformations. The statement «Laura and Michael met by chance. Thus, they felt very happy.» explains a situation. But it is not the only way to say it. If we say: «The chance meeting of Laura and Michael brought happiness.», we convey the same information but more concisely. We used two nominalizations. This has allowed us to condense two sentences or propositions into one. In short, the verb structure... Continue reading "Nominalization and Verb Tense Usage in Text Structure" »

The Political Philosophy of Machiavelli

Niccolò Machiavelli, the foremost political thinker of the Renaissance, inaugurated modern political science by dealing with the practical affairs of the state. He was a hands-on politician, more interested in intervening in the governance of his state than in abstract theorizing. However, he knew that any goal-oriented action must be guided by theoretical principles.

These principles are outlined in his two most famous works, The Prince and Discourses on Livy, which serve as a guide for rulers. This approach posits that the ultimate goal of politics is to preserve the unity and identity of the community. The general rule is that every city tends toward the degeneration and corruption of its institutions... Continue reading "Machiavelli: Politics, Power, and Morality" »

Adequacy

There are two main approaches to adequacy:

• Rule-Based Adequacy: Meeting the requirements of standard language regarding spelling, lexicon, and morphosyntax.
• Communicative Adequacy: Using linguistic elements appropriately to achieve the speaker's goal or intent. This involves adapting the form of speech to several communicative elements:
  • Audience type (ideology, culture, size, homogeneity).
  • Topic treatment (specialized or general).
  • Topic nature (serious, transcendent, etc.).
  • Field (academic, scientific, journalistic, etc.).
  • Channel (oral or written).
  • Lexical register (formal, specific, standard, colloquial, vulgar).
  • Use of resources.
  • Elements of impersonality and universality, sentence patterns, language functions.
  • Point of view, formulas, or focus/