Tasks for Wednesday, September 1st 2010

Dear students,

These are the tasks I would like you to develop while using the computers' room:

*Checking our blog, peer-reviewing classmates' contributions.
*Looking for information about the movie we watched.
*Exploring possible topics for your PWP (Personal Writing Project)
*Reading the text: "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell. (See article on Wikipedia)
*Looking for an academic text about "Language and Citizenship".

Memorable quotes for The Last Station (2009)

Memorable quotes for
The Last Station (2009)

Sofya Tolstaya: Oh, Leovochka, why do you insist on dressing like that?
Leo Tolstoy: What do you mean, like what?
Sofya Tolstaya: Like a man who looks after the sheep!
Leo Tolstoy: It wasn't meant to offend you.
Sofya Tolstaya: You're a count, for God's sake!

________________________________________
Leo Tolstoy: Despite good cause for it, I have never stopped loving you.
Sofya Tolstaya: Of course.
Leo Tolstoy: But God knows you don't make it easy!
Sofya Tolstaya: Why should it be easy? I am the work of your life, you are the work of mine. That's what love is!

________________________________________
Sofya Tolstaya: I'm your little bird, you know the sounds I make.
Leo Tolstoy: And that was some sort of love call, I suppose?
Sofya Tolstaya: Brought you back to me.

________________________________________

This has no taste...

In both writing in english and french there is a problem in the sense of lexical resources and all the tenses' usages. It is not easy as in spanish to express exactly what I think in the way I want it, actually even in spanish sometimes is very hard.

Making a comparison, writing in English can be a little easier than in french, talking about gramatical aspects (variety of tenses, conjugation, irregular verbs, etc.), but it is also true that our language is more similar to french, so you can think in a way closer to the other language.

Besides, I think french is richer in vocabulary than english, that means you can adorn your text like in spanish, however, this is "counter-productive" because this makes english writing simpler, or faster, of course this depends on the kind of text.

Writing...

For me writing in English and French is like a favor that my mum asks to me, I seldom want to do it but I have to.
Just when is my will, writing in Spanish is like weeping, I do it in sad moments but I like it because I find a rest.

Our e-mail account

Dear students,
check our e-mail account:
englishseventh@gmail.com
password: solcolmenares
Regards.

Writing in English, French and Spanish...is like...

For me writing in English is like swimming in the sea (with a boat or a beach near me). Sometimes I feel confidence and I can swim without difficulty. I remember the names of some of its creatures and I like it. But when the sea reminds me its magnitude and that there are many things unknown for me, I lose my concentration and my confidence… So I just try to remember things that I know in order to improve my stroke and not to feel suffocated by the uncovered creatures and water of the sea: English language.
Writing in French is like to write in English. The difference is that I see more colors in the warm water of French Language, and that I know much better its creatures. Thus I understand its rhythm and its sound...
It is less unknown for me, but when I feel its vastness also I remember that I have to improve my broke and my knowledge about it.
Writing in Spanish is like being a fish or a turtle or a whale in the sea of Spanish Language. I just need listen to my soul and my thoughts to arrive where I want… because I‘m part of this sea. Writing in Spanish is a kind of freedom for my feelings.
D.

Writing in... for me is....

For me....

Writing in English is like doing the pattern of a building when you are a civil engineer... he/she has the knowledge but he/she needs to be careful and to use the right tools for building a solid structure.

Writing in French is like playing a puzzle; you have to put every piece in the right place for finding the perfect match.

Writing in Spanish is like learning to swim, you have the theory, but it is difficult to apply it and it takes many hours of practice.

Writing.....

Writing in english for me is like making wood statues without some tools, because sometimes I have the idea, but I don't know how to write it, there are some linguistics structures that are difficult or I don't know how to use them.
Writing in french for me is like cooking, because sometimes I write and I suppose that is good, but when the teacher checks it out is wrong.
Writing in spanish for me is like dancing because I feel good, trusting and comfortable, although at the end my texts don't have sense.(not all the time), anyway I feel good.

What is writing in english, french and spanish like?

English represents nowadays the tool to spread information. why is that? because english is the empire's language (i.e. "empire" allude to our "western civilization"). Like latin was the roman empire language throughout ancient age, helping them to spread and to impose the roman political system, their technology and their science. So, for me writing in english is such an enjoyable expirience and english is such an organized and punctual words system in terms of language economy that permits clearly to show what you really mean. French on the other hand, I think is very dificult for me to write and that's because is a language that I've been contact with no more than 3 years. For that reason, french is a language that I haven't got accustomed to write. Now, for me spanish is my conscience language; my ideas, my thoughts and my work are expressed in spanish, and writing in spanish it's always like being my self but beside these conditions, spanish it's a language that can capture any words from others languages, that explain why many spanish novels are famous and really wanted.

1984 - George Orwell

What's up guys... here it's a BBC Television's live production of George Orwell's "1984". So for those who want to above the stress of reading the book. thank God YouTube!! ....just kidding.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hATC_2I1wZE&feature=related

Plus, the 1984 movie trailer released in the same year...weird isn't?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4rBDUJTnNU

see ya.

Zorak

Writing in ... is like ...

I find English as the easiest of all languages I know, since it's very objective and I like objective things, I can express myself and Shape my ideas clearlly and to the point, I mean "I really say what I want to say", but, sometimes I find a lack of vacabulary for expressing some thoughts. Actually writing in English is for me like dancing the songs I like.

On the other side writing in Spanish is also an activity I enjoy, because I can say anything I want, so I say everything but sometimes it means nothing and othertimes I don't find a way for putting everything together and create an understandable idea. In fact I find writing in Spanish like a complicated way of going home.

Finally writing in French is such a great activity because you express yourself in a very poetical way, for me is the politest of all languages, everything you write makes you look intelligent, everything you say or write looks pretty... the problem is... I suck writing in French, I have huge problems with the accents and the lexical choices but in general I love it. The interesting thing is that writing in French is for me like singing a beautiful song I don't like.

By Jhon Alexander

Do I write?

Writing in English is like making a puzzle with an image of a forest. There is a sunshine on top; some of the pieces are extremely blurred because of the nature of the forms and the shadows. Fortunately a melody comes from the inside, a warm melody sung by the trees.

Writing in French is like being in charge of a building project, to be an architect with some kind of disorder. The architect is lazy: he sleeps in the building while his drunk workers talk about their pathetic boss. Who wanted to hire this guy?

In Spanish, I fly above the trees, above the buildings. I see the ocean, I hear a mermaid singing a beautiful song that sometimes makes me dream with disaster and hope, black and yellow. Although it's an endless flight, makes me smile. I'm always writing a timeless letter.


Eduardo Valderrama

Writing in English

In English is different, I enjoy every part o the process, perhaps it’s because I can explain what I want to express shorter than in Spanish or in French, but this doesn’t happen just because the nature of English, but also because I feel words are the correct ones . And if I must compare writing in English with something, I thing that is like climbing a mountain, because when I’m standing in a foot in the door to star climbing, in that moment, I’m conscious that is going to be hard but I don’t care, and I enjoy every part of the ascent.

Luis Fernando Agudelo

Writing in French

When I read in French is like if someone with a sweet voice would be reading for me, but when I start to write in French that sweet voice begins to shout me and then whips against my back start torturing me meanwhile I write. But at the end when I finish what I write about, I can feel freedom in all my being.

Luis Fernando Agudelo

Writing in Spanish

Writing in Spanish is like to be under the shadow of a tree in a sunny and hot day, and it’s hard to go out from there because I know I want to be there, but more than taking a refuge, I enjoy to be there, since every kind of feelings start to coming up into my mind and then I start to take care of every sort of little thing around me and suddenly, I realize about tings that I’ve never known.

Luis Fernando Agudelo

Why I write, George Orwell

Why I write by George Orwell
http://orwell.ru/library/essays/wiw/english/e_wiw