24/09/2021
It's Friday, and you know what that means - it's time for some pun fun!
The star of today's pun finds himself in a tricky situation - he's been pulled over by the police whilst driving! 👮♂️
The policeman tells him that his paperwork states that he needs to wear glasses when he's driving. As we can see in the picture, the man isn't wearing glasses, but he protests "I have CONTACTS".
Here, the man could be referring to CONTACT LENSES (called CONTACTS for short) - a perfectly acceptable substitute for his glasses!
However, CONTACTS could also refer to the man's friends and acquaintances (just like the CONTACTS on your mobile phone!)
So when the man says "I have CONTACTS", he might mean that he has a friend or relative who is very important in the police force and who could maybe create problems for the policeman if he tries to arrest him!
The policeman clearly thinks the man is talking about his important friend in the police, and he is not impressed - he tells the man that he doesn't care who he knows!
I hope you liked this week's pun! Have a great weekend, and see you soon 🥰
20/09/2021
Happy Monday besties!
I've got a special treat for you today, courtesy of the internet: a fun infographic about how Brits measure things!
We like to use a fun mixture of the metric and imperial systems, presumably because our favourite hobby is confusing and annoying our friends and neighbours.
I hope this graphic gives you a good laugh. If it teaches you some new vocabulary too, even better! 😁
17/09/2021
Happy Friday! I've got 3 for 1 puns for you this week - because who doesn't love a good deal?
In the first picture, we can see a group of people holding an intervention for their friend who, the brunette woman tells us, is addicted to soap. And like all good friends, each person has decided to contribute to the intervention with a soap pun! 🧼
The red-haired woman tells the man to WASH HIS HANDS OF his soap addiction. The expression "TO WASH YOUR HANDS OF SOMETHING" means to refuse to be involved in it any more, or to refuse to take responsibility for it. But if we're talking literally, what product do we use to WASH OUR HANDS? Soap, of course!
The man in glasses calls his friend's soap addiction a SLIPPERY SLOPE. When we say that something is a SLIPPERY SLOPE, we mean that it's a bad habit that can very easily get much worse. For example, if you open a packet of cookies to eat "just one", it's very easy to accidentally eat the whole packet! So in this case, the soap addiction is a SLIPPERY SLOPE that could lead to... a shampoo addiction? Or maybe he means that soap is a very SLIPPERY substance and could be dangerous for that reason!
In the second picture, the soap addict tells his friends "I'M CLEAN now". This could be good or bad news! We often use the expression "TO BE CLEAN" when talking about overcoming an addiction. So the man could be saying that he is no longer addicted to soap - yay!
On the other hand, the man might literally be saying that he's CLEAN because of all the soap he's been using! We use soap to CLEAN ourselves, so a soap addict would obviously be very CLEAN indeed!
Alright, I'm going to WASH MY HANDS of this pun now! Have a great weekend, and see you next week for more pun fun! 😘
16/09/2021
Did you know that we have THREE ways of talking about the future in English?
We use WILL + INFINITIVE (often contracted to 'LL + INFINITIVE) to talk about uncertain future possibilities.
This structure is often used with expressions like: 'I think', 'I don’t think', 'probably', 'perhaps', 'maybe'...
e.g. "Where are you going on holiday?" "I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll go to Italy."
We also use WILL + INFINITIVE when we make a spontaneous decision at the time of speaking (we didn't plan it before).
"I’ll have the pizza, please!"
We use BE GOING TO + INFINITIVE to talk about future intentions or decisions:
"I’ve made my decision. I’m going to move to London."
We can also use BE GOING TO + INFINITIVE to make future predictions based on present evidence.
"Look at that dark cloud! It’s going to rain."
(Compare this with: "I think it will rain later")
'Going to' is often shortened to ‘gonna’ in informal, spoken English!
We use the PRESENT CONTINUOUS (be + -ING) to talk about definite future plans and arrangements:
"What are you doing tomorrow?" "I’m meeting a friend for lunch"
Watch out: We DON'T use will to talk about definite plans!
"I’m going to the cinema this weekend. What about you?"
"I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just stay at home".
I hope you liked this post! Jump on the link below to test your knowledge with a quick quiz.
https://inglesprofesionalparaturismo.com/will-be-going-to-or-present-continuous/
10/09/2021
Happy Friday! This pun goes out to all the gym bros out there 💪💪
Today, we're in a pretty dramatic setting: we can see fire, brimstone and a line of people falling off a cliff and into the flames below. We must be in Hell! 😈🔥🔥
In the foreground, we can see a couple of muscular guys chatting. They call each other "bro" and "dude", which are pretty common nicknames for your friends in English, especially if you're a "gym bro" - an alpha male type who spends a lot of time at the gym!
Now, let's look at the pun!
Gym Bro 1 asks his friend if he knows where he can find a protein shake, to which his friend replies "THERE'S NO WHEY IN HELL".
WHEY is the protein element of milk, and is the liquid that's left over when you make cheese. Because of its high protein content, WHEY is a common ingredient in protein shakes and other muscle-boosting products. Unfortunately for Gym Bro 1, it seems that WHEY doesn't exist in Hell!
WHEY sounds exactly the same as WAY, so Gym Bro 2 could also be saying "THERE'S NO WAY IN HELL". This is a common informal (and slightly rude!) English expression that we use when we want to say that there is no chance of something happening. So Gym Bro 2 is telling his friend that he's got absolutely no chance of finding a protein shake!
I hope you liked the pun! Are you going to study some English this weekend, or is there NO WAY IN HELL?
03/09/2021
Happy Friday English fans! ☀️ Just me dropping in with your weekly dose of silly puns!
Do you like to BOWL? When we roll a heavy ball to try to knock down ten wooden skittles, we can say that we are GOING BOWLING, or that we are going to BOWL 🎳
Of course, we can also use BOWL as a noun to describe a hollow dish that we can use to eat cereal or soup! 🥣
All make sense? Great! Let's move on to the pun!
In the first picture, the woman is getting ready to feed her dog, and asks the man if he has seen the dog BOWL - the BOWL where they put the dog's food.
However, in the second picture we can see the dog getting ready TO BOWL - he's got his bowling ball and a wooden skittle! The man says that he hasn't seen the dog BOWL - i.e. he hasn't seen the dog bowling!
I hope you liked this week's joke! Have a great weekend 😘
27/08/2021
OK, this one is pretty silly but I've been laughing at it for about 20 minutes 😅 There's a lot to unpack here, so let's get started!
First of all, let's look at the phrasal verb "TO HOLD UP". The most common definition of this verb is "to delay" - for example, you might be late for work because the traffic HELD YOU UP!
Here, we can see a robber HOLDING UP a bank, In this context, "TO HOLD UP" means to point a gun at the cashier and force them to give you all the money 💰 We can also turn this phrasal verb into a noun: "This is a HOLDUP!"
Let's move on to the pun! The robber tells the cashier "Give me all your money, or you're Chemistry!" This is actually incorrect: as the cashier rightly points out, the expression is "YOU'RE HISTORY!" - you're finished, you no longer exist 😵
Unsurprisingly, the robber doesn't appreciate receiving a grammar lesson from someone who he is pointing a gun at, and tells the cashier to stop CHANGING THE SUBJECT!
The expression "TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT" means to change the topic of conversation to avoid embarrassment or distress. For example, you might CHANGE THE SUBJECT if someone decides to talk about your ex, or if they point a gun at you!
However, Chemistry and History are both school SUBJECTS, so by correcting the robber "you're Chemistry"/"you're History", the cashier is changing the literal school SUBJECT that they are talking about! 📖
Have a great Friday English fans! Have a great weekend and I'll be back on Monday 😘
26/08/2021
When is the past not the past? When it's the UNREAL PAST!
The unreal past is about as close as English gets to having a subjunctive mood.
If we want to talk about a hypothetical or unreal situation in the PRESENT or FUTURE, we use the PAST SIMPLE.
If we want to talk about a hypothetical or unreal situation in the PAST, we use the PAST PERFECT.
You might have already seen the unreal past when studying the second conditional. Here, we are talking about unreal present or unlikely future situations.
If + past simple + would/other modal verb.
The classic example: If I WON the lottery, I would buy a house 💰
It also appears in the third conditional, when we are talking about unreal past situations.
If + past perfect + would/other modal verb have + past participle
If I HAD WON the lottery, I would have bought a house 💰
We can also use "what if", "supposing" and "if only" with conditional sentences to sound extra clever!
What if we CAUGHT a later flight? We could stay longer.
Supposing I HAD TAKEN that job, I would never have met you.
If only I HAD more money, I could go on holiday with you.
As we saw in my last post, we can use the unreal past with "I WISH" to talk about situations in the past, present or future that we would like to change.
I wish I WASN'T so full...
I wish I HADN'T EATEN so much.
We can also use the unreal past with "I'D RATHER" to talk about something that we would prefer SOMEONE ELSE to do.
I'd rather you DIDN'T TALK to me like that.
I'd rather wash up, so I'd rather you CLEANED the floor.
We use the normal infinitive when talking about what we want to do ourselves. We can control our own behaviour.
When we talk about what we want someone else to do, we're talking about an unreal present in which we can control someone else's behaviour, which is impossible!
And finally, we use the unreal past with "it's (high) time" when we want to say that someone should do something right now.
It's high time you GOT a job!
I hope that made the unreal past seem a little more real to you! Don't forget to SAVE this post, and click the link below for a quick quiz!
23/08/2021
Happy Monday English fans! What are your plans and goals for this week?
Today we're going to look at the English word QUIT, which looks just like the Spanish word QUITAR, but has a completely different meaning!
You've probably seen the English word "QUIT" on the computer, when you exit or leave a game or a programme.
"Are you sure you want to QUIT?" - your needy computer.
We also use QUIT when talking about resigning from a job, i.e. leaving voluntarily.
"I've QUIT my job. The pay was terrible!"
Another use of QUIT is when talking about giving up bad habits.
"I've decided to QUIT smoking. It's so bad for my health!"
Now, let's look at the Spanish word QUITAR.
In Spanish, QUITAR means "to remove", "to take off" or "to clear".
For example, during the snowstorm back in January, lots of people in Madrid had to clear the snow from their balconies!
Or you might take off your face mask as soon as you get home, after wearing it all day at work.
Make sense? Awesome! Now don't let me catch you talking about quitting your face mask!
20/08/2021
Another Friday, another steak-related pun! The stakes were just too high...
First, let's revise the different ways you can order your steak in an English-speaking country:
BLUE - only cooked for a short amount of time on the outside, cold in the middle.
RARE - cooked on the outside, cool or warm red centre.
MEDIUM RARE - warm, pink/red centre. Firm on the outside, soft on the inside.
MEDIUM - pink centre, grey/brown outside.
MEDIUM WELL - mostly grey/brown, with a hint of pink in the centre.
WELL DONE - grey/brown, no sign of pink, charred on the outside.
Got that? Great! 🥩
As we can see from the above list, if you order your steak RARE, then you are asking for it to be cooked only for a short time. However, the word RARE can also mean "very uncommon", e.g. Pandas are very rare in the wild.
And now, let's move on to the pun!
In the first picture, we can see the waiter asking the customer how he would like his steak cooked, to which the customer replies "like winning an argument with my wife."
How often do you think he wins an argument with his wife? Often? Sometimes? RARELY?
The waiter clearly thinks that it's very uncommon for the man to win an argument with his wife - he replies that he'll order the steak "RARE!"
I hope you enjoyed this week's pun! How do you like your steak cooked? Let me know in the comments!
18/08/2021
Do you DO any sports?
A very common mistake among English students is to use the verb "practise" when talking about all kinds of sports. This is incorrect: we use three different verbs to talk about sports, but "practise" isn't one of them!
The three verbs for talking about sports in English are GO, DO and PLAY. Let's look at how we use each of them!
GO is used with activities and sports that end in -ing.
We use “go” because we usually have to go somewhere to practice this sport.
Where do we have to go if we want to GO SKIING? The mountains! ⛷️ 🗻
DO is used in the following situations:
💡 When talking about sport in general - (I do sport twice a week.)
💡 With hobbies (do a crossword puzzle)
💡 With individual sports (do athletics)
💡 With sports in which a ball is not used, like martial arts (do karate)
PLAY is used in the following situations
🎾 Team sports, and sports that need a ball or similar object (play tennis, play badminton).
♟️ Board games, card games and other activities where two people or teams compete against each other (play poker, play chess).
SAVE this post, and don't make the common mistake of using "practise"!
❌ I practise sport every day.
✅ I do sport every day.
❌ I love practising sport.
✅ I love sport.
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