A review of a current Spanish movie The Sara’s notebook is a Spanish movie directed by Norberto López and starring Belén Rueda. A drama, set in the present day in the middle of a war in the Congo jungle. The main characters in the movie are two sisters, Sara, allegedly kidnapped and Elena, desperate to find her sister at all costs. Elena has been looking for her sister for years and neither the NGO for which she worked nor the Embassy had news of her whereabouts until a photo of a mining town in Eastern Congo appears with the blurred image of Sara. Without hesitation, Laura travels to that region ready to do everything she can to find Sara. When she arrives in the Congo the Sara’s notebook is found and handed over to Elena, used it to look for people who met her sister and to find out how to rescue her alive. The great strength of this story is that it’s incredible moving with a deep message about how local people try to survive in such a violent country. The only criticism is that it might be quite implausible story as it’s hard to believe how an only woman gets that far in a country at war. I’d recommend it if you like to learn something real related to that country and movies which raise interesting questions once you’ve seen it, this movie is absolutely thought-provoking, but on the other hand, if you love fast-moving and intriguing stories I’d never recommend it.

How to combat the indigestion of Christmas There are no miracles in the nutrition world, to lose weight you should combine diet and exercise and keep away from magic diets that promise you that you will lose weight lying on the sofa. We all know that the first day of each New Year is when we start to feel regrets about how much weight we have put on us for the last two. But you don’t have to worry about that overweight as you only have to follow some easy and simple advice to get back to your pre-Christmas weight (I mean your right weight before Christmas time) without any great efforts. First, the most important thing of everything is that you have to have five daily meals based on salads, vegetables, low-fat yogurts, products without fats, etc. Second, don’t eat saturated fats. This type of fats are present in the industrial pastry, the oily part of the meats, fried food, etc., so you should avoid consuming them as far as possible or, if you do it, moderately. Third, close to the fats, it is also necessary to have a lot of care with the carbohydrates. It is important to consume them but have care because if you do not do anything of exercise later, this one can play tricks on you and manage to turn into fat accumulated in your body. Finally, besides looking after yourself in food, it is also suitable to do something of exercise; because as many diets that you do, if you don’t do anything of sport, you don’t have anything to do. Among all of exercises and sports that you can choose, the better thing to start lowering weight is the aerobic movements such as swimming, walking, cycling or running.

Studying English in Spain Introduction The aim of this report is to discuss what foreign language Spanish people learn, the kind of people who learn it, where and how they do it and I will make recommendations for improving language learning based on my own experience. What the main foreign language is learned The command of foreign languages is extremely important nowadays, especially English language. One of the main reasons to learn English is that it is the international language par excellence. Obviously, another main reason is that having a good command of this language would offer you a lot of opportunities to work inside and outside Spain. Who, where and how There is a wide range of people who are learning English today. On the one hand, the three-year-old children start to study English in nursery school by playing and singing. After that, the older children of Primary and Secondary school have to study English deeper since they need to study grammar, vocabulary and get fluency of this language in a gradual way. On the other hand, there are adults who learn English because they need to know how to speak it to promote or maybe as they want to learn it for fun. However, studying English from the earliest possible age is not enough to get fluency. That is why most teenagers and adults need to attend private English academies to improve their skills if they want to use that language accurately. Recommendations As an English student as well I would like to tell what I regard as the fastest and effective method to get fluency, speaking with native English speakers daily. That means to spend time abroad or if you can’t afford it, you should look for websites to exchange languages with natives speakers. In that way, you don’t only improve your skills, but you also make very good friends.

Is the society moving forward or getting worse? What can our grandparents think about the current ways to meet someone? And how do you think our children will get to know their partners within 20 years? We cannot imagine newer and more modern methods but definitely, our society will be responsible for finding them. I bet that your parents have ever told you how they met each one and all they had to go through not to get caught by their parents, so our grandparents. I am sure they also told you how they had to hide from any person who could recognize them and how they walked together but with a few meters between them to avoid people gossiping. Nowadays, those ways to find partners have been changing gradually. Today, young people don’t need to go discos to meet someone as they use social networks or websites to do it instead. It can seem easier than in the past, however, the blind dates are also more dangerous as someone may pretend to be someone who is not and cheats on you, and unfortunately, that happens very often. Regarding the dates, you can see youth in bars and restaurants taking photos to post them on any social network to get more likes as that is their main purpose. Perhaps we can’t or don’t want to imagine the future ways to flirt that our children will use, but we should adjust to new society what’s to come.

Parents within 30 years will be even worse than us. The role of men and women have been developing since the ‘90s. If we look back on the past we can see how our mothers and fathers’ roles were as different than ours are nowadays. For example, a regular night in the past, our mothers made dinner, bathed us and took us to bed while our fathers were lying on the couch watching a football match or just idling their lives away. And what did they do during a typical day? I am sure that all our fathers worked out for all day long while our mothers did all the cleaning, went shopping, made lunch, picked up the children from school and our mother was who raised us. Gradually those roles have been exchanged today. Every day there are more and more parents who work out during all day long and in most of those cases, grandparents are in charge of taking care of their grandchildren and parents have to share their chores at nights without time to spend with their children. Then, who will responsible for the children in 30 years’ time? obviously us. We will be who look after our children’s children as they will work as we are doing now. The fish that bites its own tail.

Why people prefer to move to countries so far from home?

Today, my language partner Ray and I were talking about how many British people are living in South America and how many American people are living in Spain.

This raises the question of why. What is the main reason why the British,  who live near Spain, prefer to move to South America to work as an English teacher, for example, and why the Americans, who live closer to South America, prefer to do it in Spain.

We, my friend Ray and I, think that one of the main reason is because they want to experience a greater adventure. What do you think about that? If you are one of those adventurers, why don't you tell us your own experience and put an end to our doubts? 

Thank you in advance. 

Por qué se usa "de que"?

Hola a toda la comunidad. Tengo un amigo americano que está aprendiendo español y me ha preguntado que cuando y por qué usamos "de que", en frases como; tengo miedo de que vengas conmigo, el plan de que los estudiantes practiquen en el extranjero es caro, el calcio reduce el riesgo de que los bebés nazcan con problemas de peso... 

Si alguien puede explicármelo para ayudar a mi amigo y a otros muchos compañeros de idiomas que estén aprendiendo español y tengan la misma duda... lo agradecería muchísimo!! gracias de antemano!! 

About my musical tastes My musical tastes are very varied / variable; ( I don't know if both adjectives are correct in this case) On the one hand, I love phychedelic music of old Rock bands from the 70s and 80s, such as Led Zeppelin and The Doors. I also love The Police band because I like its Rock and Jazz styles. I like Bob Marley as I love reggie. I also love the Irish Pop band called Cranberrries formed in the late 80s, although I knew nothing about that band until in the early 90s. At that time I was a teenager and I loved listening to that band every day, in fact, it was my favourite one. That's why I like listening to it in these days, it reminds of me plenty of good memories. Nowadays, I usually listen to these bands when I am at home, making lunch or doing housework, even when I have to drive for hours, I enjoy the journey listening to a CD player with all of them playing. On the other hand, I love Pop Latino singers such as, Shakira, Ricky Martin or Mark Anthony. I also like electronic music from the 90s. I listen to pop latino because I like dancing that kind of music and I listen to tecno when I am working out in the gym or running outside. By the way, I'd rather listen to live music once in a while, so I usually go to concerts twice a year. Actually, next month my husband and I are travelling to Madrid to attend one of his favourite bands, OBK, and we will spend the weekend there.

Can you express your feelings? Something that makes me feel depressed is September. On the one hand, I hate that month because the Summer is over, Autumn is coming and that results in spending a lot of money on books, on clothes for kids and back to the grind. Our boring routines start again, take the son to play football at 4, just after having lunch, twice a week, take the daughter to the dance classes twice a week as well. Take both of them to the drama classes on Friday, after having lunch too. It's such a stressful schedule that I don't realize that the time goes by quickly that even I don't have enough time to complain about that. But at least, the summer will come soon again. On the other hand, I have to say that Autumn's my favourite. It's the most romantic and colourful season of the year. I love it because everything important that ever happened to me happened at that time. I fell in love, got married and had my children in Autumn. Something that frustrates me about learning English is being unable to understand native speakers if they speak in their natural way, but most of them are aware of that you are learning their language and they try to make the propery sentences and talk to you in a slowly way. Finally, someting that also really annoys me about learning English is when people talk or ask nonsense in class, I mean when we are in class and someone is trying to find some excuse to waste time and start a conversation, but not an English conversation, it's irrelevant. That makes me feel so furious that I just could grab her and pull her out of the class and finally, I would get too comfortable.