FOR or TO + infinitive: INDIVIDUAL PURPOSE
For is commonly used with
nouns to express individual purpose:
If we want to express individual
purpose with a verb pattern, we are obliged to use to
+ infinitive:
|
|
For + verb-ing: the purpose of
an object
However, if we are talking about
the purpose of an object or an action, we normally use the for
+ verb-ing pattern. Note that this pattern commonly answers
the question: What are they (used) for? Compare the
following:
Note that when the subject
of the sentence is a person rather than the thing
described, the to + infinitive pattern is also possible:
|
Creamos este blog como una herramienta de apoyo para las clases de inglés. Aquí podremos publicar actividades de refuerzo o de ampliación a los temas que estemos trabajando en clase.
martes, 30 de abril de 2013
PURPOSE: FOR AND TO
Etiquetas:
Intermediates
martes, 23 de abril de 2013
viernes, 12 de abril de 2013
POSESIVOS: ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUMS
Aquí tenéis un enlace a una página donde podréis encontrar algunos ejercios para practicar los posesivos.
Have a nice weekend
Have a nice weekend
Etiquetas:
Beginners
martes, 2 de abril de 2013
BIOGRAPHIES: ALBERT EINSTEIN
Albert Einstein (1879-1955
This is Steve Ember. And this is Sarah Long with the VOA Special English program, EXPLORATIONS.
Today we tell about a scientist who changed the way we understand the universe, Albert Einstein.
In
the year 1905, Albert Einstein published some important papers in a
German scientific magazine. They included one of the most important
scientific documents in history. It was filled with mathematics. It
explained what came to be called his "Special Theory of Relativity." Ten
years later he expanded it to a "General Theory of Relativity."
Albert
Einstein's theories of relativity are about the basic ideas we use to
describe natural happenings. They are about time, space, mass, movement,
and gravity.
Albert Einstein was born in Ulm, Germany, in 1879.
His father owned a factory that made electrical devices. His mother
enjoyed music and books. His parents were Jewish but they did not
observe many of the religion's rules.
Albert was a quiet child who spent much of his time alone. He was slow to talk and had difficulty learning to read.
When
Albert was five years old, his father gave him a compass. The child was
filled with wonder when he discovered that the compass needle always
pointed in the same direction -- to the north. He asked his father and
his uncle what caused the needle to move.
Their answers about
magnetism and gravity were difficult for the boy to understand. Yet he
spent a lot of time thinking about them. He said later that he felt
something hidden had to be behind things.
Albert did not like
school. The German schools of that time were not pleasant. Students
could not ask questions. Albert said he felt as if he were in prison.
One
story says Albert told his Uncle Jacob how much he hated school,
especially mathematics. His uncle told him to solve mathematical
problems by pretending to be a policeman. "You are looking for someone,"
he said, "but you do not know who. Call him X. Find him by using the
mathematical tools of algebra and geometry."
Albert learned to
love mathematics. He was studying the complex mathematics of calculus
when all his friends were still studying simple mathematics. Instead of
playing with friends he thought about things such as: "What would happen
if people could travel at the speed of light?"
Albert decided
that he wanted to teach mathematics and physics. He attended the Federal
Polytechnic Institute in Zurich, Switzerland. He graduated with honors,
but could not get a teaching job. So he began working for the Swiss
government as an inspector of patents for new inventions. The job was
not demanding. He had a lot of time to think about some of his
scientific theories.
From the time he was a boy, Albert Einstein
had performed what he called "thought experiments" to test his ideas. He
used his mind as a laboratory. By 1905, he had formed his ideas into
theories that he published.
In one paper he said that light
travels both in waves and in particles, called photons. This idea is an
important part of what is called the quantum theory.
Another paper was about the motion of small particles suspended in a liquid or gas. It confirmed the atomic theory of matter.
The
most important of Albert Einstein's theories published that year became
known as his "Special Theory of Relativity." He said the speed of light
is always the same -- almost three hundred thousand kilometers a
second. Where the light is coming from or who is measuring it does not
change the speed. However, he said, time can change. And mass can
change. And length can change. They depend on where a person is in
relation to an object or an event.
Imagine two space vehicles with
a scientist travelling in each one. One spaceship is red. One is blue.
Except for color, both spaceships are exactly alike. They pass one
another far out in space.
Neither scientist feels that his ship is
moving. To each, it seems that the other ship is moving, not his. As
they pass at high speed, the scientist in each ship measures how long it
takes a beam of light to travel from the floor to the top of his
spaceship, hit a mirror and return to the floor. Each spaceship has a
window that lets each scientist see the experiment of the other.
They
begin their experiments at exactly the same moment. The scientist in
the blue ship sees his beam of light go straight up and come straight
down. But he sees that the light beam in the red ship does not do this.
The red ship is moving so fast that the beam does not appear to go
straight up. It forms a path up and down that looks like an upside down
"V".
The scientist in the red ship would see exactly the same
thing as he watched the experiment by the other scientist. He could say
that time passed more slowly in the other ship. Each scientist would be
correct, because the passing of time is linked to the position of the
observer.
Each scientist also would see that the other spaceship
was shorter than his own. The higher the speeds the spaceships were
travelling, the shorter the other ship would appear. And although the
other ship would seem shorter, its mass would increase. It would seem to
get heavier.
The ideas were difficult to accept. Yet other scientists did experiments to prove that Einstein's theory was correct.
Ten
years after his paper on the special theory of relativity, Albert
Einstein finished work on another theory. It described what he called
his "General Theory of Relativity." It expanded his special theory to
include the motion of objects that are gaining speed. This theory
offered new ideas about gravity and the close relationship between
matter and energy. It built on the ideas about mass he had expressed in
1905.
Einstein said that an object loses mass when it gives off
light, which is a kind of energy. He believed that matter and energy
were different forms of the same thing. That was the basis of his famous
mathematical statement E equals m-c squared (energy equals mass times
the speed of light squared). This statement or formula explained that a
great amount of energy could come from a small piece of matter. It
explained how the sun could give off heat and light for millions of
years. This formula also led to the discovery of atomic energy.
In
his general theory of relativity, Einstein said that gravity, like
time, is not always the same. Gravity changes as observers speed up or
slow down. He also said that gravity from very large objects, such as
stars, could turn the path of light waves that passed nearby. This
seemed unbelievable. But in 1919, British scientists confirmed his
theory when the sun was completely blocked during a solar eclipse.
Albert Einstein immediately became famous around the world.
In
1921, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics. It was given to him, not for
his theories of relativity, but for his discovery of the law of the
photoelectric effect. This scientific law explained how and why some
metals give off electrons after light falls on their surfaces. The
discovery led to the development of modern electronics, including radio
and television.
Albert Einstein taught in Switzerland and Germany.
He left Germany when Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933. He moved to
the United States to continue his research. He worked at the Institute
for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. Einstein became a citizen
of the United States in 1940.
Einstein was a famous man, but you
would not have known that by looking at him. His white hair was long and
wild. He wore old clothes. He showed an inner joy when he was playing
his violin or talking about his work. Students and friends said he had a
way of explaining difficult ideas using images that were easy to
understand.
Albert Einstein opposed wars. Yet he wrote to
President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 to advise him that the United
States should develop an atomic bomb before Germany did.
Einstein
spent the last twenty-five years of his life working on what he called a
"unified field theory." He hoped to find a common mathematical
statement that could tie together all the different parts of physics. He
did not succeed.
Albert Einstein died in 1955. He was seventy-six years old.
Etiquetas:
Intermediates,
Listening,
Reading
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