Looking for self-study books in Spanish, for level C1/ Libro para estudiar español en nivel C1

Winston Churchill According to Winston Churchill “, if you are not a liberal when you are 25, you have no heart. If you are not a conservative by the time you are 35, you have no brain. Once, the director of our school quoted this and reminded us that he is over the hill, claiming that we should sometimes accept that he will not accept our crazy ideas, such as playing football in the classroom. I agree with Churchill’s statement and can prove it with my own example: an 18 years old person with liberal thoughts (hopefully). As far as I am concerned youngsters are prone to be liberal, because they did not understand the world yet. Young adults think that rapid changes can be made and that it is easy to shape the world and to shape traditions. Even though this sounds negative, in my opinion, one should definitely rely on them because they are the ones who believe in changes and are able to protest to have their rights and to achieve something. On top of that, young adults have a future: they aspire to have a good job, social welfare and to create a pleasant environment for their descendants. On the other hand, people over 35 got used to the way of life: when they were younger they were in protests, believed in changes and may even make some. It is important to emphasise that conservative philosophy does not mean a world without improvement, it means little changes in a way that traditions and already working-systems are preserved. As people settle down, create a family, have a job they long for steadiness and safety. They do not have radically new ideas since they have lived half of their lives in one system and they have learned how to operate in it. After almost 40 years the barriers and deficiencies of that system are not as striking as it was 20 years ago, this is why they, at least, accept it. Overall, one should see a process: that mankind can get used to a system. To my mind, one should resist this process, by travelling around the world and speaking with people from different countries. I hope that as I will get older, I would be open-minded and would not overlook problems in the country, where I will live.

What is democracy? According to Sir Winston Churchill “Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” Indeed democracy has been criticised since its establishment in Greek polis, called Athens. Not to mention the Enlightenment, during which a divide between several structures of democracies evolved. Under those circumstances the rhetorical question is always asked: Are we living in a democracy or in a disguised dictatorship? According to its definition, democracy exists when the 3 main governing powers are separated from each other. Usually, delegates are elected by voters thus everyone can represent their opinion in Parliament. This system has been working for several decades in the US, Germany, England etc. Furthermore, some barriers are included, such as but not limited the age of voters and the origin of the president. In this way a regulated and efficient system can work. On the other hand, as it turned out several times in the history of mankind, these systems are fragile enough to be broken and mixed with autocratic governance. Aside from that it is claimed by many that even the electoral system in the USA includes some deficiency of democracy since voter can not vote directly for the president. Generally speaking, democracy is elusive and has minor changes compared to countries, cultures and age groups. At the same time it is a balance between a governance by all members of the society and autocracy and this is why currently it is considered to be the best system.

Spanish conjugation

Hi! :)

I would like to ask other Spanish-language learners how they practice conjugation. For me, it is a disaster because I'm always confusing conjugations of the past and even if I do it in the right way, pretérito and subjuntivo makes it even harder.

How did you get over this problem? How much time did it take for you to learn each conjugation and irregular verbs? Do you have any tips?

Will all the realms fail eventually? Ozymandias sonnet, written by Percy Bysshe Shelley refers to an idea that kingdoms’ and empires’ destiny is to crumble eventually. Indeed, we have seen several cases throughout the history when an empire grew by leaps and bounds and suddenly collapsed: due to the malfunction of ruling or maybe because it was defeated by another growing empire. Several theories are based on the idea, that a nation or a realm can not expand after a while and if it does so, it would collapse. On the one hand, it can be clearly observed that as an empire start to conquer other nations ruling and management becomes harder: barriers occur in case of culture, language and religion. Conquered nations try to hinder the function of the new empire and might make a revolution or support another country that could liberate them. On top of that, as a realm became larger so does the power of the ruler and during the heyday of the realm many inappropriate emperors embark on bad decision or battles that could weaken their realm and thus it would be easily conquered by another. Some empire that has fallen are for instance the Roman, the Ottoman or Spanish empire. On the other hand, Kingdoms and Unions can be spotted throughout the world, which incorporates several nations, some are such as, but not limited the United Kingdom. Although Britain had lost massive amounts of land it remained as a Kingdom since a thousand year, including Scotland, Northern-Ireland, Wales and England. Furthermore, Britain is considered to be part of the G7, which means that it has an advanced economy so far. As far as I am concerned as after an empire reaches the prosperity and greatness it would eventually fail, maybe because it grows further, has an economic crisis or thinks that it could not be conquered. Nevertheless, these empires created great advancements throughout the history and remained in papers for good.

fue o era?

Hola todos :)

Cuándo usamos el preterito indefinido ser (fue) y cuando usamos el preterito imperfecto ser (era)? La verdad es que muchas veces me confundaba, por ejemplo es esta ocasión:

" De repente una sombra negra saltó sobre mi. Era un gato."

Aquí porqué no podemos usar "fue"?

muchas gracias por su ayuda :)

IELTS writing essay With the help of internet, just clicking on a button enables humanity to find thousand of working opportunities in their country as well as abroad. It is considered by many that one should work in different workplaces, thus getting a clear picture of the labour market and its opportunities. Although this may be true, several people feel comfortable with their job and do not have the inclination to take the risk of losing this convenience. On the one hand, getting a job is difficult for recently graduated students because they have less experience, however were they find a lucrative job with company perks, promotion opportunities and pleasant environment, understandably they would not leave it. For instance, I have done and internship in a small start-up company and despite of the fact that I had low salary, I had the opportunity to observe how a company operates and gained experiences in management and webpage designing. On the other hand, provided that one have gathered different experiences along their life, they will be more valuable in the labour market because each position require different skills. In addition, working for certain organisations helps to build a good social network and have an idea of positions offered by companies. To conclude with, evaluating our job and position is the most important aspect. It should be realised when we are in a dead-end job or what we would like to achieve and make our decision according to these aspects. From my perspective one should definitely try out several positions to gain valuable experiences and to have knowledge about several organisations in labour market.

Ielts writing task 4 The diagrams below illustrate the alterations and constructions built at West Park Seconday School since its establishment in 1950. In general, it is striking that over the past years the secondary school has been significantly expanded with new blocks, for instance with a sport field. The playground next to the school has been remained as it was in 1950. Comparing 1950 with 1980 new constructions can be noticed; houses on the left has been removed and a small parking lot with a science block attached to the school was built between this period of time. Another alteration is that instead of a farmland a sport field is on the south-West of the school. If we make a comparison between 1980 and 2010 a remarkable expansion of the parking lot is illustrated at the expense of the large sport field, probably because during that period of time cars have spread worldwidely.

IELTS writing 3 In early 20th century, before the First World War, the Model T was produced by Ford and the assembly-line production made cars affordable for the middle class. After 100 years, this commodity has spread worldwide and is causing several problems for citizens by emitting greenhouse gasses and by losing its comfort because roads are full of them and heavy taxes are imposed on them. On one hand, there are several cities in which the city centre is almost unreachable because of heavy traffic and frequent accidents, thus people who are commuting day by day to their workplace must rely on public transport or must start their day with a one-hour-long stressful driving. Furthermore, when cars are stuck in traffic and they emit greenhouse gasses that are neither harmless for the environment nor for the citizens living in downtown. On the other hand, the government could tackle the problem of traffic jams; building new roads and developing a reliable public transport system could ease some overused highways and roads. Furthermore, the number of accidents could be decreased by a stricter licence control and with well-adjusted traffic lights to daily commuting. In conclusion, I can not deny that the number of cars are increasing rapidly around the whole world and in some countries traffic can be horror not just for drivers but also for pedestrians and for means of public transport. As far as I am concerned, the government should introduce tolls on roads or establish and affordable and punctual public transport system.