Reza and Craig are back into the routine of teaching after the Christmas break.
A question from Silvio:
After verbs like love, start, stop…the following verbs have to go with a
gerund, I think. However,I have read : “It started to rain.”
Why not: “It starting raining.”?

Gramática: Gerunds and infinitives

“It started to rain” and “it started raining” are both correct.
Reza stopped smoking years ago. (he stopped the activity of smoking)
Reza was walking down the road when he stopped to pick up a coin (una moneda). (He stopped doing one thing – walking down the road – to do another thing – pick up a coin)
Reza and Craig stopped podcasting to have a cup of tea.

MAKE (obligar/forzer) – to make someone do something
My teacher made me do my homework again.
Reza made me sing the Mickey Mouse song.
LET (dejar/dar permiso) – Craig lets Reza say many silly things in the podcast.
ALLOW – Allow me to ask a question.
PERMIT – Craig permits Reza to say silly things.
LOVE – “Craig loves/likes to drink coffee” or “Craig loves/likes drinking coffee.”
FORGET – I forgot to close the door. (think about something BEFORE it happens)
I forgot giving John the money. (I have no memory of something that ALREADY happpened.
REMEMBER – I remember turning off the gas.
Reza remembers growing up in Belfast. (PAST)
Remember to phone me tomorrow. (FUTURE)
Remember to buy milk on your way home from work.

Study more gerunds and infinitives in our intermediate course:

Miiguelitoo Goonzaleez (Facebook)
Hello, I have a question : “When should I use this word “awesome“?”
The Roman Empire was an awesome force.
This podcast is awesome! (cool, great, wonderful, amazing, incredible)

Pronunciación: /dj/

judge
June. July, January, jazz, jolly good!

Phrasal verb: To take off

Take your books off the table (literal – to remove)
What time did your plane take off? (idiomatic – despegar)
Some comics are good at taking off politicians (impersonar, hacer el ridiculo)
Reza has taken off his trousers! (quitar la ropa)
Our podcast has really taken off. (Idiomatic) – Nuestro podcast ha tenido mucho éxito.
A business can also “take off”

Vocabulary Corner: films/movies

film (UK)
movie (US) – motion picture
dubbed – doblado
subtitled – subtiulado
review (crítica) – a film review, a book review, a review of a play etc. / critic (the person who writes the review)
screenplay / script (guión) Script is a more general word, screenplay is for films,
‘teleplay’ is a script for television.

Practise cinema vocabulary in our intermediate course:

Send us an email, or a sound file (mensaje de voz en mp3) with a comment or question to mansionteachers@yahoo.es or belfastreza@gmail.com.

Puedes darnos estrellas y una crítica en iTunes.

The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called See You Later – licensed by creative commons under a by-nc license at ccmixter.org.

 

FULL TRANSCRIPTION (lovingly created and kindly contributed by Patricia Alonso) 

C: Hello and welcome to episode 14 of Aprender Inglés con Reza y Craig.

R: 14, Craig?

C: Can you believe it? Can you believe it, 14 episodes. How’re you feeling? How are you?

R: Well, now that you said 14, a little bit tired. But apart from that, ok.

C: Are you back into the routine of teaching after your Christmas break? Do you feel like you’re back into, as we say, the swing of it? Are you back into the routine?

R: Yeah, I’m back into the swing. It’s always five minutes, you think, oh, teaching, oh yeah, tricky, then you think oh, actually it’s not too bad.

C: I think it’s the thought of going to class that can be a bit, can bother me a bit. Once I’m in there, once I get the student’s hopefully laughing and enjoying the lesson, it’s fine. A piece of cake as they say, it’s a piece of cake. Water off a duck’s back.

Anyway, we have some feedback this week, we have a question first of all from Silvio. I can’t remember where the question… I think the question came in by email and Silvio’s question is this: “After verbs like love, start, stop”, he says, “the following verbs have to go with the gerund, I think”. This is Silvio. “However, I have read it started to rain, why not it started raining?” So Silvio sounds a little confused with these ing-gerund-infinitive verbs, can you help him?

R: Yes, I think so, I can help him a little bit, but I’m afraid experience and time is the only solution to this question.

C: It’s complicated, isn’t it? It’s a complicated area of grammar.

R: Well, in a way you could say it’s complicated, in another way you could say it’s just memory. It’s just memory, you either remember that, oh yes, that verb goes with the infinitive or that one goes with gerund more or less, or that one goes with both. There isn’t much logic to it, Silvio, but you asked specifically it started to rain or it started raining? The answer is yes, they’re both right. In the case of start there’s no difference in meaning, if I say it started to rain or I say it started raining, the meaning is exactly the same, there’s no difference. However, Silvio, I’m afraid that’s more the exception, it’s not so common, usually there’s a difference between infinitive or ing after a verb. For example, you said start, now the opposite, stop. Stop + ing, stop + infinitive, they both exist but with different meanings. If I said to you “I stopped smoking a long time ago, I stopped smoking”.

C: You stopped the activity of smoking.

R: I stopped the activity of smoking and I terminated it, I stopped smoking, I terminated.

C: You gave up.

R: I ended it, I gave it up. But what about this Silvio: “I was walking down the road but I stopped to pick up a coin I found on the street”.

C: So you interrupted the activity of walking to do another thing.

R: Exactly, I interrupt one action to do another. That’s stop + infinitive. So, let me just repeat that then: stop + ing, gerund, is terminate, end, but stop + infinitive with to, I stopped to pick up the coin, is interrupt one action to do another.

C: I could use the example “Reza and Craig stopped podcasting to have a cup of tea”.

R: That’s right.

C: That’s right. We stopped doing one thing, podcasting, to do another thing, the drinking of the tea.

R: Exactly.

C: Which isn’t a bad idea, now I mention it.

R: Yes, we must do that soon. So, stop + ing and stop + infinitive are not the same. However, start + ing and start + infinitive are the same. What about make? An important verb. To make someone do something, so that’s make + a person, make someone, make John, make you, make M, make the teacher, plus an infinitive but without to. For example “My teacher made me do my homework again because the first time was very bad”. My teacher made me do my homework again, make + a person, me, + infinitive without to, made me do.

C: Reza made me sing the Mickey Mouse song.

R: Well, I asked you to sing it but you didn’t give me the whole version, are you gonna give me the full version?

C: Not this episode, I’m practising.

R: I’m gonna make you do it, I’m gonna make you do it.

C: Well, you have to have some way to keep people listening, to keep people downloading these podcasts.

R: Oh, well, don’t you worry about that, later on the show I’ve got a way to get people to keep listening.

C: I’m sure you have.

R: We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, as they say. That means we won’t think about it yet but we will soon. Another verb which is very important and very common is let. It’s related to make but it’s not the same. If you make someone do something, infinitive without to, you force them, but if you let someone do something that means you give them permission or you don’t stop them. For example, Craig lets me say many silly things in his podcast. He’s very tolerant.

C: It’s you podcast, I keep telling you.

R: Well, it was your idea, it’s your baby, it’s your baby as we say. Craig lets me do silly things, he lets me say silly things, sorry, in his podcast.

C: You could say “Le me ask you a question”.

R: yes.

C: Allow me to ask you a question.

R: Oh, allow me to ask.

C: Allow me to ask.

R: Very good, so…

C: Infinitive with to.

R: Exactly, the meaning is the same, let me ask, but allow me to ask. One is infinitive without to, that’s let, but allow is an infinitive with to. Why readers, why? I’ve no idea, I warned you there wasn’t much logic. Another one is permit, Craig permits me to say silly things, lets me say silly things, he permits me to say silly things, he allows me to say silly things. They all mean the same but let is followed by infinitive without to but allow and permit are infinitive with to.

C: So, just go back a second, Reza, to compare let and make, which I think it’s a mistake that some Spanish speakers make, let would be dar permiso, allow me to do something.

R: Dar permiso, dejar, as well.

C: Dejarme.

R: And make is hacer.

C: O forzar.

R: Forzar o hacer.

C: It’s much stronger, isn’t it?

R: Obligo, yeah.

C: Obligar, ok. Could you speak a little about love and like, which is also in Silvio’s question? Verbs like love and like.

R: Love and like.

C: Or hate.

R: Oh yes, he asked about love. Love can be followed by infinitive or a gerund.

C: I love drinking coffee.

R: And I love to drink coffee.

C: Is there a difference?

R: Not really, not really. You could read that there was a very subtle, that means very tiny difference in the meaning of the intention but I think on modern English it has been lost. So, love and like, followed by infinitive or gerund, you can consider them to be the same meaning, more or less. Well, the only difference is love is stronger than like.

C: Of course.

R: But they’re both followed by either ing or infinitive without any difference. However, here’s an important one, the words remember and the opposite forget, can be followed by infinitive with one meaning and gerund for another meaning. For example, “I had to go home quickly because I forgot to close the door”. I didn’t want a burglar to get in and steal everything, I had to go home quickly because I forgot to close the door. So, forget + infinitive means, difficult to explain it succinctly but I’ll try to keep it as short as I can. Forget + infinitive is to think about something, forget or it could be remember, before it happens. So, I forgot, I didn’t think in this case, remember means you did think about it, but forget means I didn’t think about it, I forgot to close the door, I didn’t think to close the door. If I said to you “I forgot giving John the money” and I said to John “Oh, here’s your money” and he said “But you already gave me the money yesterday”, I forgot giving John the money. That means yesterday I gave John the money but now I have no memory of that thing which has already happened, me giving John the money.

C: Of course, I forgot doing something. I forgot giving him the money, I forgot uploading something to the computer.

R: Yeah. You’ve already done it but now you don’t have a memory of you doing it.

C: Of the activity.

R: That’s forget + ing. And it’s the same with remember. “I remember turning off the gas before I left my flat”. Now I’m thinking about it and yes, I have a memory in my mind of the action of me turning the gas, it happened and now I’m thinking about it.

C: D you remember growing up in Belfast?

R: Oh yes, of course.

C: I remember growing up in London.

R: Yeah. Growing up it’s ing because, listeners, it was a long time ago that that happened.

C: Very long time ago.

R: The action of growing up happened a long time ago before the action of thinking about it, remembering it, that’s why it’s ing.

C: But if I say to you “Remember to phone me tomorrow”, that’s future.

R: Yeah, you’re asking me to think about the action before it happens. Remember to phone me tomorrow, so you will need to first think and then phone, so the remembering comes first and then the phoning.

C: Remember to buy milk on your way home from work.

R: Yeah, so first think, then buy.

C: Ok.

R: But if you said to me “Do you remember phoning me last week?”, I could say to you “I don’t remember phoning you last week” because, at that time, I had drunk too much whisky. So now I don’t remember phoning you but you say oh, you phoned me, ok, it had happened, but I don’t remember doing it. I have no memory now of the phoning which happened before. So that’s the difference between remember and forget + ing or infinitive.

So, there just a few examples listeners, there are many many many verbs in English which are followed by infinitive or gerund, sometimes with a different meaning, sometimes a similar meaning, sometimes infinitive with to like allow me to speck or sometimes infinitive without to, let me speak. There are many many.

C: I think we should come back to this topic in a future episode and speak a bit more about gerunds and infinitives.

R: Yes, we must remember to look at it again.

C: We shouldn’t forget to review this in future episodes.

C: Moving on, we have another question just before our pronunciation spot and it’s from Miguelituu Gonzaliz, which I think probably Miguelito González. A Facebook question and Miguelito says “Hello, I have a question. When should I use the word awesome?”. Well, good question, thank you MIguelito. Would you agree Reza that awesome is more of an Americanism or an American English word?

R: In its informal slang use, yes.

C: Do you use awesome?

R: Occasionally, but I don’t use it in the same way that is used in American slang. I would say that for example the Roman Empire was an awesome force, for example. That’s not the modern use of awesome, I’m not saying that, oh, really cool.

C: A tsunami is an awesome power of nature.

R: Right, it is extremely powerful. That’s the original meaning of awesome.

C: But Americans use it so often, don’t they? Everything in America is awesome, this podcast is awesome, that car is awesome, that song is awesome.

R: Yeah.

C: I hear it so often.

R: Yeah, it just means cool, great, fantastic, but not necessarily powerful.

C: And I think one problem is it’s overused, so the effect of the word is not as powerful as maybe it should be.

R: Exactly.

C: If everything’s awesome then everything is pretty much the same.

R: It’s like the word cool, who doesn’t know the word cool? Most Spanish speakers have heard the word cool but the original meaning of cool means a little bit cold, that’s what it means. And it still means that today, but if I say to you “He’s a cool guy” or “Hey, your boots are really cool”, I don’t mean they’re a little bit cold, do I listeners? I mean I really like the style of the…

C: Mola.

R: Yeah, mola, son guays.

C: So, Miguelito, you can use awesome whenever you like, it’s an adjective and it means wonderful, fantastic, incredible, amazing, especially in American English.

C: Moving on to pronunciation and I’d like to look at the sound “j” because one of my students had a problem with this just yesterday. We were looking at the English word for juez, which, Reza, is?

R: Judge.

C: Judge, so three sounds and the first and last sounds is the same, it’s “J”, the same sound that you would find in words like June, July, January, jazz. And judge, juez, has the vowel sound “a” as in up. Judge, So, practise that at home, listen to me, judge, and repeat the word, judge. That’s the pronunciation tip.

R: Jolly is another one, isn’t it?

C: Jolly, jolly good, well done.

C: Moving on to phrasal verb, to our phrasal verb this episode, do you have one for us?

R: Yeah, take off.

C: Take off.

R: Take off. For example, Craig, you went to Laos recently, yes?

C; That’s correct.

R: When you were going there, what time did your plane take off?

C: We took off about 12 o’clock midday.

R: It took off.

C: Despegar.

R: Despegar, when the plane leaves the ground to go up, that’s to take off.

C: But that’s not a literal meaning, is it? That’s an idiomatic meaning.

R: That’s an idiomatic meaning, yeah. The literal meaning would be to remove something from a place or area, for example imagine I was going to serve you dinner but you had books on the table. I would say “Take your books off the table”. Remove them, change the position of the books. Take them up on your hand and put them on a different place, take them off the table.

C: An interesting point is that with the last example you could put the object in the middle, take the book off the table, but not with the idiomatic despegar, you can’t take the plena off.

R: No.

C: You have to say the plane takes off.

R: Yeah.

C: So, it can’t be separated with that meaning. Sorry, I interrupted you.

R: No, no, that’s a good point, it’s a perfectly good point.

Another meaning of take off means to make a funny version of something. For example, some comedians, some comics on TV, they’re very good at taking off someone’s accent-

C: Do you watch the Intermedio sometimes?

R: I do, yes.

C: They take off politicians, they take off popular personalities, El INtermedio. It’s very funny.

R: That would be in Spanish, take off…

C: Impersonar.

R: Si, hacen…

C: ¿Hacen risa?

R: Hacen el ridículo, ridiculizar. To make fun of someone by copying him, that’s to take off.

C: You’re really good at taking off accetnts, you’re good at taking off famous people.

R: You think so?

C: Yeah.

R: But, yo creo… Tengo que trabajar más en mi acento argentine, ¿no? Un poco flojo, yo que sé, yo que sé… Es que como no me dan dulce de leche no puedo hacerlo, dulce de leche, quién me da dulce de leche, por favour… Sorry Craig.

C: Is that a person from Andalucía? Jaja.

R: Jaja, I’m not sure.

C: Are there any other meanings of take off?

R: There are a few, I’m going to give you just one more because I got a bit crazy today. I think it’s the dulce de leche but Craig, do you mind just…

C: Reza, what are you taking off?

R: Ups, sorry, I couldn’t resist it, I just had to take off my trousers there.

C: He’s taking off his clothes!

R: Yes, I took off my trousers, remove clothes from your body, take off clothes.

C: Quitar la ropa.

R: Shall I put them on again?

C: Oh, please do.

R: Ok, right.

C: You’re putting off my lunch.

R: Right.

C: There’s one more I just thought of. Do you think this podcast has taken off?

R: Ah, of course it has, how many hits have we had recently Craig?

C: We’ve been getting about 2.000 – 2.200 more or less hits per episode, which is very pleasing and very encouraging. So, you may be happy to know we’re going to continue making episodes for you. So, if something takes off it becomes successful. A business can take off, a TV show, a TV program can take off and this podcast has really taken off. Nuestro podcast ha tenido mucho éxito.

R; Craig, do you think we’ll get even more hits now that I’ve taken off my trousers?

C: Probably not, we’ll probably get an explicit label from itunes for our podcast.

R: Could this become the first over 18s podcast for English listeners?

C: Well, they do say you’ve got the perfect face for podcasting jaja.

R: But it’s lucky that viewers can only see my face on Mansion Ingles.

C: They can’t see anything, jaja.

C: Moving on to our vocabulary corner, and I’d like to speak a little bit about films and movies so let’s start with the difference between a film and a movie. Tell us.

R: Same thing, isn’t it?

C: No.

R: Only one’s American and one’s British.

C: Ahh, that’s it, that’s what I’m after. Which one’s American?

R: Movie.

C: Movie, movie’s the American word and film is the British English word, so you go to see a film in the UK and you go to see a movie in the United States.

R: And there’s another word, isn’t it? Which they use in certain circumstances…

C: Flick.

R: I wasn’t thinking about that but yeah, colloquial, the flicks, go to the flicks, go to the movies.

C: What were you thinking?

R I was thinking of, like in Hollywood, in some ceremonies they don’t say best film, they say best motion picture.

C: Motion picture, that’s right!

R: Means film, a motion picture.

C: Yeah. A big Hollywood producer with a cigar could talk about his latest picture, it’s true.

Dubbed and subtitled, what’s the difference?

R: Well, I know which I prefer always, subtitled.

C: Me too. WE can’t have Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino speaking in Spanish. That’s dubbed, when a Spanish voice is on the top of an English actor’s voice then for me it spoils the experience, I wouldn’t like to listen to Spanish actors speaking English. Could you imagine that?

R: No.

C: Javier Bardem speaking in a British London accent would be terrible.

R: Wouldn’t work, would it?

C: No.

R: I heard something really ridiculous in the radio not long ago. Do you remember the actor died a month or so ago, Peter O’ Toole?

C: That’s right.

R: Peter O’ Toole, and he was very famous all over the world, including in Spain. And so on a radio program they were paying tribute to him, they said “Let’s listen to this great clip from his film”, but it was a Spanish dub version! And to me it was ridiculous. They’re remembering the life of this great actor by listening to the voice of another version, dub, it makes no sense.

C: Makes no sense. So, dub, doblado, and subtitled, subtitulado.

What about the difference between review and critic? Which I think is a false friend.

R: Yeah. A review is a piece of writing or is the verb to write that piece of writing and a critic is the person who writes it.

C: Absolutely, so the problem is with the Spanish word crítica which is not a critic, it’s the actual review that the critic writes. So, critic is the person and review is the thing he or she writes, a movie review, a film review, play, the review of a play, a book review, etc.

Plot. Now, this is interesting, I was looking on the internet before because I’ve always been confused at the difference between screenplay and script, because both are guión and I always told my students that screenplay is more detailed, it has directions for the actors, where they stand, where they look. But checking on the internet before it’s not quite true, do you know the difference?

R: I just thought really that a screenplay was like a script but written specifically for a film or a TV program.

C: Actually, a screenplay is a script, there’s no difference. Script is more generic, is more general, and screenplay is more specific to a film or a movie.

R: Ah, I didn’t know, I didn’t know that, I thought they were slightly different.

And what about telly play, what’s that?

C: A telly play is a script for television.

R: Ah ok.

C: Which is a word I didn’t know. Screenplay would be for movies and films or the big screen and telly play would be a script for television. Well, I think we’re running out of time, Reza, we have to move on and finish this episode, so we can save our top tip for next episode?

So, thank you so much for listening. Remember, send us an email or send us a sound file, mensaje de voz en mp3, if you have a comment, a question or suggestion, and send your comments to mansionteachers@yahoo.es. Or you could get in touch with Reza at belfastreza@gmail.com.

Thank you for listening, thank you to Reza and remember to visit itunes and give us some stars and a crítica.

R: Bye bye!

C: Bye for now!

The music in this podcast is by Pitx, the track is called See you later, licensed by Creative Commons under a by-nc license at cc mixter.org.