Gooooood morning or afternoon or at whatever time you are seeing, reading or hearing this my dear conlanger. Mañana se acaba Septiembre y apenas hace 3 newsletters te estaba dando la bienvenida a September.

Pero bueno, mientras aquí sigamos, nuestro inglés debe seguir mejorando y nuestras habilidades de comunicación aún más.
Creeme, comunicarte correctamente y en especial, correctamente en inglés hace la diferencia entre obtener eso que quieres o perderlo. So, let’s crush it.

Escucha esta edición en la siguiente liga:

I’m currently reading How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie so for the following editions Ill be bringing a chapter of the book to discuss it with you. Hope you enjoy it.

Lo que nos dice Dale en el primer capítulo es don’t criticize, condemn or complain. About criticism he says “Criticism is futile because it puts a person on the defensive and usually makes him strive to justify himself. Criticism is dangerous, because it wounds a person’s precious pride, hurts his sense of importance, and arouses resentment.”

The second point can be summarized with the following quote: “Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof, when your own doorstep is unclean.” - Confucius

One simple point yet impactful that blew my mind is the following:
“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.” which makes a lot of sense ‘cause we are used to think that the other person we are dealing with is thinking as we are doing when that is not the case.

Another great quote he shares is the following:
“A great man shows his greatness by the way he treats little men.” - Carlyle

Finally condemn, we tend to point out others immediately right when we detect a mistake or error from other. Dale shares the following, “instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.” As Dr. Johnson said: “God himself, sir, does not propose to judge man until the end of his days.” Why should you and I? “

Let me know what you think.

Vocabulary, Phrases and Tools

This week tools is a reminder about collocations, do you remember what a collocation is? Y no no es colocar.

What is a collocation?

A collocation is two or more words that often go together. These combinations just sound "right" to native English speakers, who use them all the time. On the other hand, other combinations may be unnatural and just sound "wrong". Look at these examples:

Why learn collocations?

• Your language will be more natural and more easily understood.

• You will have alternative and richer ways of expressing yourself.

• It is easier for our brains to remember and use language in chunks or blocks rather than as single words.

How to learn collocations

• Be aware of collocations, and try to recognize them when you see or hear them.

• Treat collocations as single blocks of language. Think of them as individual blocks or chunks, and learn strongly support, not strongly + support.

• When you learn a new word, write down other words that collocate with it (remember rightly, remember distinctly, remember vaguely, remember vividly).

• Read as much as possible. Reading is an excellent way to learn vocabulary and collocations in context and naturally.

• Revise what you learn regularly. Practise using new collocations in context as soon as possible after learning them.

• Learn collocations in groups that work for you. You could learn them by topic (time, number, weather, money, family) or by a particular word (take action, take a chance, take an exam).

• You can find information on collocations in any good learner's dictionary. And you can also find specialized dictionaries of collocations.

Here are a couple of examples that you may hear in native english speakers:

• He was writhing on the ground in excruciating pain.

• Invading that country was an utterly stupid thing to do.

• I vaguely remember that it was growing dark when we left.

• high earnings (not big earnings)

• long-range planning (not long-time planning)

• urban guerrilla (not city guerrilla)

I did a cup of coffee.

native speakers will understand that you mean:

I made a cup of coffee.

Recommendations

This week’s recommendations are:

To watch:

A video related to what we discussed about the first chapter of Dale Carnegie’s book is the following TED talk, I really encourage you to watch it.

Recuerda que si no quieres seguir recibiendo este contenido de valor te puedes dar de baja en el siguiente link:

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