Pull a fast onne on somebody

Essa expressão descreve a situação em que um lutador consegue surpreender o seu oponente devido à sua agilidade e precisão. Dentro do esporte, a expressão não implica fraude ou ato ilícito. Fora do meio esportivo, ela pode significar uma jogada astuta e, não raro, fraudulenta.

The pop star pulled a fast one on the reporters and left through the back door.
A estrela pop enganou os repórteres e saiu pela porta dos fundos.

Came Sunday morning and by dawn’s early light he knew – all the world knew – that the Russians had, overnight, pulled a fast one on the United States – they had rocketed Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin around the Earth, the first human to travel in space. (BBC News)
Chegou o domingo de manhã e assim que amanheceu o dia ele sabia – o mundo todo sabia – que os russos tinham, de uma hora para a outra, passado a perna nos Estados Unidos – eles conseguiram fazer com que Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin desse uma volta em torno da Terra, e se tornasse o primeiro homem a viajar pelo espaço.

Hearns & Hearns pulled a fast one on the competition by introducing their new product line two months before the holiday season.
A Hearns & Hearns enganou a concorrência lançando a sua nova linha de produtos dois meses antes do Natal.

Fonte: O Inglês na Marca do Pênalti, de Ulisses Wehby de Carvalho. Compre na Livraria Disal.

Prontos para uma lição do curso de inglês para iniciantes Extr@? Aproveitem porque na semana que vem teremos a última lição!

Let’s study!

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Hoje compartilho um texto super interessante do site Voice of America News sobre várias expressões idiomáticas com a palavra “dog”.

Now, the VOA Special English program WORDS AND THEIR STORIES.

Americans use many expressions with the word dog. People in the United States love their dogs and treat them well. They take their dogs for walks, let them play outside and give them good food and medical care. However, dogs without owners to care for them lead a different kind of life. The expression, to lead a dog’s life, describes a person who has an unhappy existence.

Some people say we live in a dog-eat-dog world. That means many people are competing for the same things, like good jobs. They say that to be successful, a person has to work like a dog. This means they have to work very, very hard. Such hard work can make people dog-tired. And, the situation would be even worse if they became sick as a dog.

Still, people say every dog has its day. This means that every person enjoys a successful period during his or her life. To be successful, people often have to learn new skills. Yet, some people say that you can never teach an old dog new tricks. They believe that older people do not like to learn new things and will not change the way they do things.

Some people are compared to dogs in bad ways. People who are unkind or uncaring can be described as meaner than a junkyard dog. Junkyard dogs live in places where people throw away things they do not want. Mean dogs are often used to guard this property. They bark or attack people who try to enter the property. However, sometimes a person who appears to be mean and threatening is really not so bad. We say his bark is worse than his bite.

A junkyard is not a fun place for a dog. Many dogs in the United States sleep in safe little houses near their owners’ home. These doghouses provide shelter. Yet they can be cold and lonely in the winter.

Husbands and wives use this doghouse term when they are angry at each other. For example, a woman might get angry at her husband for coming home late or forgetting their wedding anniversary. She might tell him that he is in the doghouse. She may not treat him nicely until he apologizes. However, the husband may decide that it is best to leave things alone and not create more problems. He might decide to let sleeping dogs lie.

Dog expressions also are used to describe the weather. The dog days of summer are the hottest days of the year. A rainstorm may cool the weather. But we do not want it to rain too hard. We do not want it to rain cats and dogs.

(MUSIC)

This VOA Special English program, WORDS AND THEIR STORIES, was written by Jill Moss. I’m Faith Lapidus

Link original =http://ow.ly/kJy14  (Acesso em 06 de maio de 2013)

Vicky Loras

Today’s post if by Vicky Loras, co-founder of The Loras English Network. Thank you, Vicky!

Playing with Long Words

I teach all ages and very often we have ten minutes to spare at the end of class, or we just need a change of pace, or just something to liven up the class! I love playing with vocabulary – no matter what age group or level I am teaching.

Here is my favourite:

The Long Word: this game was one of my favourites when I was a little girl. I was taught this game by my cousin’s wife, who worked for the Board of Education in Canada.

The idea is this: you choose a big word and the students create new words using the letters from that specific one. Some words you can use are encyclopedia, establishment, metamorphosis…anything with a lot of letters in it!

It is great when the students are the ones choosing the words. They come up with the greatest ideas! The teacher then gives them three minutes to find as many words as possible – the winner is the person with the most words – however, they have to be words that really exist!

The winner then reads the words s/he has found and everyone looks at their own, crossing out the ones they have too. If they have different ones that have not been mentioned, they read them out too.

This activity helps them:

• Learn new items of vocabulary, as the initial long word is very often a word they have never encountered before.
• Practise their spelling, as the new words they create need to be correct in their spelling – so even if they make mistakes, they then remember them for another time.
• Teach each other vocabulary, as they read out their own words.
• Use some of the new words to write a story.

They love this activity, young or older students – and they can learn a great deal from it! I hope your students enjoy it as well.

Por isso hoje estou escrevendo sobre o livro Fale Inglês como um Americano, de José Roberto A. Igreja e Robert C. Young. Comprei esse livro quando foi lançado e nunca tinha prestado muita atenção no conteúdo até pouco tempo atrás e o que eu vi me surpreendeu.

O livro dá ao leitor exemplos de como o inglês americano é usado naturalmente em situações específicas e realistas como fazer compra numa loja, ajudar um amigo que teve um problema com o carro, falar sobre o emprego novo, paquera, entre outros.

O livro traz 30 diálogos situacionais recheados de expressões coloquiais, phrasal verbs e gírias. Cada diálogo vem com exercícios de compreensão, language check, conversação e construção de vocabulário. O livro traz também três unidades de revisão com mais 10 exercícios. Cabe lembrar que o leitor pode conferir as respostas para todos os exercícios no final do livro.

O que torna esse livro mais interessante ainda é o CD de áudio, com todos os diálogos gravados de forma natural, e não como nos livro de texto.

Se você já fala um pouco de inglês e deseja chegar à tão desejada fluência, Fale Inglês como um Americano é livro para você. Eu tenho e eu recomendo!

Compre no Submarino!