Better Than Before

Every day of your life is shaped by your habits. Are you a morning or evening person? Messy or tidy? Do you eat breakfast or skip it? Drive or commute? Pack a lunch or dine out? Exercise or watch television?

Gretchen Rubin, author of the new book “Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Our Everyday Lives,’’ has discovered that we repeat about 40 percent of our behaviors every day. Our habits — good and bad — provide the architecture to our lives, she writes, which is a good reason to pay more attention to them. Why and how do we form habits, and how can we create more good habits than bad?

History of the Tea Bag

How did the tea bag originate? Thomas Sullivan, a New York tea importer, mistakenly invented tea bags in 1908 when he sent the loose leaves to clients in small silk bags to cut costs. In turn, they steeped the entire bag to make their brew.
As a result, his buyers were more interested in having their brew pre-packaged in silk sacks than they were receiving the leaves in loose form. Sullivan didn't realize this until many of his most important clients started to complain that the orders they received were not in bags. Since silk was too expensive, he opted to used gauze sacks to package his blends and fulfill his orders.
Leftovers from tea processing in the form of "fannings" and "dust" were used to fill the bags, as is done today. Tea fannings (small broken pieces of leaves) and tea dust (that has the consistency of rough powder), typically yield an inferior taste and drinking experience for true connoisseurs.
Some flavor experts say they can taste a hint of the paper that is used in making bags. In addition...

What's your English question?

(Flickr CC: Uwe Schwarzbach )

What is the difference between traffic and transport? 

'Traffic' is a noun, it refers to vehicles moving on a road or highway.

The traffic in the city is terrible today.

The word 'traffic' can also be used to talk about movement of vehicles, like planes or ships, or even pedestrians.

The foot traffic through this area is very heavy at lunchtime. 

Automakers Produce Cars of the Future

Automakers around the world are planning to make cars that are smaller, use up less fuel and do not damage our environment. At auto shows around the globe car producers are presenting what they have in mind.
General Motors has already showed one of its prototypes .It is called P.U.M.A. , which means Personal Urban Mobility and Accessibility Vehicle. It looks like a cart, has two batteries and seats for two people.
While GM’s car may never be produced other car makers have already made mini-cars that you can buy. Mercedes’ Smart car has been popular in Europe for some time. Chrysler’s GEM Peapod and Toyota’s IQ are two small cars that have been specially designed for city traffic.
Man people want to buy small cars because they save fuel. That means saving money on petrol plus being able to find parking spaces more easily in crowded cities.
Carmakers are also spending money on research to make alternative-fuel cars. Maybe one day, most of us will drive biodiesel, hydrogen, or solar-powered cars.

Hybrids are cars that are already on the market today. Toyota and GM already produce hybrid cars, trucks and SUV’s that run on petrol and electricity. Other companies, like BMW, have made cars that use hydrogen and electricity. Although such cars are still too expensive to produce in great numbers carmakers are continuing to improve them and make them cheaper.

Segway's P.U.M.A.

 

• accessibility = user friendly
• alternative-fuel = not powered by petrol but other environment-friendly kinds of energy
• although =while
• cart = here: an object that has a small, round form and a motor
• crowded = full
• damage = destroy
• design = make, plan
• environment = the world around us
• fuel = here: petrol; the liquid for of energy that a car needs to drive
• globe = world
• have in mind = what they are thinking of
• hydrogen = the lightest gas that forms water when you mix it with oxygen; it is also a source of energy;
• popular = liked by many people
• prototype = the first form of something new
• research = to study a topic and find out new and interesting things about it
• solar-powered = energy from the sun
• SUV = sport-utility vehicle= car that larger than a normal car and is used to travel over rough ground
• urban = city
• vehicle = car 

use up - zużyć coś, zużywać coś
damage - uszkodzenie, szkoda, uszczerbek (np. własności, zdrowia); źle wpływać
have in mind - mieć na myśli
accessibility - dostępność; przystępność; ułatwienia dostępu
carmaker - producent samochodów
utility - pożytek, użyteczność; funkcjonalny, praktyczny; wszechstronny

 źródło: http://www.english-online.at/technology/future-cars/prototype-cars-of-the-future.htm

PAST TENSE

Present Perfect

How to Learn English with Luke’s English Podcast

This should be a useful episode. I’m going to go through a whole bunch of ways that you can improve your English with Luke’s English Podcast. You’ll find a list of these points on my website. I’m going to expand on them here.
I’ll be talking about key areas: listening, reading, writing, speaking, grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and discourse. Much of what I’m saying is written on my website. Just find the episode called “How to Learn English with Luke’s English Podcast”. I’ve written a lot of this down because it contains lots of specific bits of information which I wanted to make sure I included. I try not to do too many episodes in which I read things to you. I promise that the next one will be unscripted. Anyway, I’ll do my best to make this sound as natural as possible, which is an art in itself. Actually, you could use this script to help you practise your pronunciation, you could record yourself reading this too, and compare it to my version. What are the differences in your version and mine? What can you learn from that? Record yourself doing it again, and compare that to your first attempt. It’s bound to sound a lot better. In fact, I guarantee that you’ll sound more natural and convincing with each attempt. More on that later.
For now, here is a list of tips and advice for learning English with LEP.

Household Chore List

A clear household chore list is important to keep the household running smoothly and to keep everything tidy. Start with a Master List and then break it down into individual lists for each member of the family. In this way, all the chores are divided evenly and no one has an unfair amount of work to do to keep the home in shape.

The Master Household Chore List

A master list of household chores the place to begin. You can do this on paper or on a computer spreadsheet. On this list, write down every chore that needs to be done and how often it is needed. This should also include outside tasks as well as indoor tasks. If you would rather use a pre-formatted document instead of creating your own, click to download a free printable household chore checklist  created by LoveToKnow.
If you need help downloading the printable checklist, check out these helpful tips.

CAN/ BE ABLE TO

Zamiast "can" można stosować również zwrot "to be able to do sth" - często jednak "can" jest dużo bardziej naturalne w użyciu.

Zwrot "to be able to do sth" oznacza tyle co: być w stanie coś zrobić, potrafić coś, móc coś zrobić.
Can ma tylko dwie formy, tj. can-could- Ø. Dlatego też należy używać be able to do tworzenia czasów perfect lub innych konstrukcji gdzie wymagana jest tzw. trzecia forma:
I haven’t been able to learn how to cook yet.

Podmiot (subject) + odpowiednia forma czasownika to be + able to + bezokolicznik bez to (infinitive without to) + reszta zdania

We use could for general ability. But if we are talking about what happened in a particular situation, we use was/were able to ... or managed to  ... (not could).

a (an), the, -

- use (-) with plural and uncontable nouns when you are talking about things in general
- use a/an - with singular contable nouns when you are not talking about a particular thing, or when you mention something for the first time
- use the - with any type of noun when you and your reader/listener know which particular thing you are talking about, for example because it is unique or it has been mentioned before
- use the - with a singular contable noun or an adjective to talk about things in general
- use (-) - with most place names
- use the - in fixed phrases such as in .... 1960s, in ... beginning


indefinite article (a/an) 

- when it's not clear (or important) which one is being talked about
- when it is the first time something is mentioned
- in phrases of quantity of frequency

no article
- to talk about things in general
- for most continents, countries, towns, roads, stations, individual mountains and lakes

definite article (the) 
- when it's clear what is being talked about
- when something is unique 
- when something has been mentioned before
- + adjective or singular countable noun to talk about things in general
- for oceans, rivers, groups of islands/regions, deserts, mountain ranges, decades

wish, if only, should

use:

- wish + past simple

to talk about things you would like to be different in the present/future (but which are impossible or unlikely

- wish + person/thing + would + infinitive to talk about things we want to happen, or stop happening because they annoy us

(You can't use would for wish about yourself. eg. NOT I wish I would....)

- wish + past perfect  to talk about things that happened or didn't happen in the past and which you now regret.

You can also use If only instead of I wish with these teneses.

- should + have + past participle

Carbon Footprint

The carbon footprint shows how much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a person produces in everyday life.  It measures the amount of fossil fuels and electricity someone uses up as well as the carbon footprint of the products they buy.

When we use our cars or heat our homes with oil or natural gas, carbon dioxide and various other gases are set free.  These emissions lead to a denser atmosphere and global warming.

You can measure your carbon footprint by using a calculator that you can find on various websites. It shows you in which way your living habits damage the environment. The carbon footprint usually measured in tons of CO2 per year. In America for example, every citizen produces about 28 tons of carbon dioxide and other dangerous gases a year, in Great Britain the amount is about 10 tons.