Last week I wrote about the word talk. Here are some more collocations that I hope you may like.COMMON EXPRESSIONS

There is small talk, the mundane chit chat that people engage in at cocktail parties to break the ice. Topics for small talk include the weather, sports, hobbies, and news events of general interest.

Small talk is to be differentiated from shop talk, discussing your work with friends outside of work hours.

The infamous pillow talk, intimate talk between the sheets (among lovers) is the stuff espionage movies are made of, and it received national attention when it was feared that the presidential pillow talk would create national security leaks (breaches).

The coach of a sports team gives his squad a pep talk to motivate them. Parents and teachers often give pep talks to their charges to lift their spirits when they are down and they need some extra encouragement.

WHEN TO USE THE DEFINITE ARTICLE THE AND THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE A

If you have the talk, as opposed to have a talk (conversation) you are sitting your son or daughter down to explain the facts of life (the birds and the bees, human reproduction and gender specific attitudes regarding sexuality). (Remember that to give a talk means to present an academic lecture, dar uma palestra).

That’s it for now.

ttyl (= talk to you later)

Beijinhos falantes,

Mary Ziller - USA

Oi pessoal, esta semana estou apresentando os novos colaboradores do blog English Experts, hoje é o dia de vocês conhecerem Mary Ziller, ela é Americana e obviamente é uma Native English Speaker. Os textos da Mary serão em totalmente em Inglês, como não poderia deixar de ser. Segue abaixo o primeiro post. Mary, welcome to English Experts.I was inspired by this article “Priceless: falar Inglês é algo que não tem preço”. In English we have several idiomatic collocations of the word talk. Talk can be a noun or a verb.

- If you give a talk, you are giving a speech or a lecture in an academic setting. It may be a colloquium talk (a specialized seminar lecture) or a pre-talk (a presentation by a graduate student to a more general area which serves as a prerequisite to the topic covered in the colloquium talk).

- If you have a talk, you are having a meaningful, serious conversation.

- Your ears should perk up if your boy- or girl- friend, parents, teacher or boss says “We have to talk.” It is a signal that you are in trouble and are about to find out just how much trouble you are in.

- “We have to talk” is often a prelude to breaking up, getting fired, or otherwise ending a longstanding or vital relationship.

The most important of the kinds of talk that we classify is, in my opinion, positive self-talk. Self-talk is the internal monologue that plays in your head incessantly. It is the messages you tell yourself consciously and unconsciously and directs your behavior and attitudes. Positive self-talk consists of affirmations that bolster self-confidence and a “can do” attitude in life.

Alessandro, I would like to bottle your self-talk and sell it, if that were possible, hehe. You have so much energy and drive with a strong “can do” attitude that is amazing. I admire you and your work and it is a pleasure to be a member of English Experts with you and all the partners of your blog.

I will talk more about the different kinds of talk in parts two and three of this post.

That’s it for today!

See you!

Hi everyone, today I received a comment from my friend Otávio on the post 14 tips to jumpstart your English, in which he presents an excellent method for improving your English vocabulary.This year I began a course to pass the entrance exam and today I had English class. I think that it is the class that I looked forward to the most each week. In the class of teacher Alex, they told me about a method of study so interesting that I decided to share it with you.

It is the following: You know those notebooks that have letters of the alphabet on the side? Like telephone notebooks, but it is a notebook with lines and everything else. First of all buy it. Then you will make it your personalized dictionary. Each new word that you read or learn, you will enter in the dictionary together with the translation. For example Go. Go to the G section and enter your translation. Then when you learn another word that begins with G, you should do the following: Write this second word below Go (example). When you are finished, read the first word and the second one. When you write the third one, read the first, second and the third, and so on. The beauty of the method is that if you write 50 words, the word Go you will have read at least 49 times, or that is, it will be almost impossible to forget after reading it so many times.

Thanks a lot for your tip, Luiz, I will try it.

Collaborator on the translation: MatPestana and Mary Ziller

Hi everyone, first and foremost I would like to thank you for visiting us, no matter if you are here for the first time or if you are addicted to this Blog. Both are equally important to me. You must be wondering, why is Alessandro writing in English today? I tell you, I think that is very important to practice writing everyday, and I have not been doing this lately. I have spent a lot of time writing to you, but always in Portuguese. Today, I wanted to change a little bit and I hope you don’t mind.As you know, I just started a group on Yahoo Groups called English-Experts (makes sense doesn’t it?). It’s sort of a study group. There are a lot of teachers and learners there. A couple of days ago we were talking about an interesting topic; that is how to end a letter.

Gustavo said that he usually ends his emails or letters with “Best regards” or “Thank you very much.” He asked which other phrases he could use in formal or informal circumstances.

You probably know that we usually begin letters or e-mail messages with “Dear” and the person’s name. If the letter is formal, we would put a colon after the name and in an informal letter, we would put a comma after the name. The end of the letter also depends on if it is formal or informal. Take a look at how Bill answered this question.

There are so many different ways to end a message. What you wrote that you usually use is perfectly good. For a formal message or letter we would tend to sign with “Sincerely…” or…”Sincerely yours…”. More informally we would sign off with anything from “all the best…”….or “as always”….or “take it easy….” or “be seeing you…” etc… But I think that foreigner has to have the “feeling” for how/ when to use the many many informal ways of signing off a message or a letter. The common way of signing off with “regards” or “all the best” for an informal message/letter is always good. The common “sincerely” for a formal message/letter is always good. One thing for sure English people don’t usually end a message or a letter with “kisses” or “hugs” except when they are writing to a close family member or a boy/girl friend.

So, I hope that helps.

All the best! ;-)

Collaborator: Adam Lorenz