Long /u/ Sound

     Hello everybody! After seeing the long vowel sounds for a to i, it is the turn of the u. The long u is a 2-sound vowel similar to a y sound followed by an oo sound.
  Part 1: The long u begins with the jaw mostly closed and tip of the tongue very close to the tooth ridge (similar to a y sound).
   Part 2: The sound transitions into an oo sound by closing the lips into a small circle while lowering the front of the tongue. At the same time as the front of the tongue lowers, the back of the tongue raises.
   The spellings for long u and oo sound are quite similar. (The oo sound has one additional spelling, oo.)

spelling	example		other pronunciations for spelling
u_e (VCe)[1]	cute cube huge		oo sound (rude)
ue[1][2]	fuel hue rescue		oo sound (clue)
ew[1]	few pew skew		oo sound (chew)

  A long u spelling is generally pronounced as a long u (not an oo sound) sound when it comes after the following consonant sounds:

• m sound
• k sound
• f sound
• b sound
• v sound
• h sound

   Following other consonant sounds, these spellings are more likely to be pronounced as the oo sound.
   The -ue spelling is usually silent when it occurs at the end of a word and follows the letters g, ng, or q (examples include the words fatigue, tongue, and unique). An exception is the word argue, which ends in a long u sound.
    In Spellingcity.com these were the words that were used in lesson 13 to sample the long /u/ sound.
-The rude man insulted neighbors.
-You have no excuse for your bad attitude.
-The human race is in danger of extinction.
-He makes music with his voice.
-You do not have any proof against me.
-The surface is very smooth and you can slip.
-The chewy candies can damage teeth.
-The class group prepared a nice presentation for the biology project.
-We have no clue to find the treasure.
-Eating fruits is a healthy habit.

Adjetives

      Good morning! Today we are going to talk about adjetives in English because Lesson 12 precisely focused on them.  Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person, place or thing in the sentence. Adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone, anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:
    Ex.1: Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone nice should be punished.
    Ex.2: Something wicked this way comes.
And there are certain adjectives that, in combination with certain words, are always "postpositive" (coming after the thing they modify):
     Ex.3: The president elect, heir apparent to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.
  Adjectives are often used to describe the degree of modification.
  The adjective forms are positive, comparative, and superlative:
-This tree is tall. (positive)
-That tree is taller. (comparative)
-The last tree in the row is the tallest. (superlative)
  A handful of adjectives have irregular forms of positive, comparative, and superlative usage.
  These include good/better/best, bad/worse/worst, little/less/least, much-many-some/more/most, far/further/furthest: My lunch was good, hers was better, and yours was the best.

   This was the list provided by Spellingcity.com and I did not know the meaning of some words:

----------- suave, esponjoso

------------ vacío




------------ inteligente


------------ pegajoso




------------- cortés


I invite you to search lists with new adjectives to expand your vocabulary.

Long Vowel Patterns for /a/, /e/, /o/

      Hello bloggers!  
   In the eleventh lesson I learned about long vowel patterns for /a/, /e/ and /o/.We must know that a long vowel is a vowel that is pronounced the same as the name of the letter. For example, the "U" is pronounced like "you," not like "a" which would be the sound of a short vowel. Sometimes a long vowel is combined with another vowel. Such is the case of the following words given in Spellingcity.com

   For this lesson, Audio Word Match activity was very important because it is convenient to associate the sounds that takes the vowel in each case. Thus listening skills are developed.

    These are the sounds that can take the long vowels. They are organized according to their frequency of use:

        A                                            E                                        O

        a                                             e                                         o

      a_e                                           ee                                      o_e

        ai                                            ea                                       oa   

       ay                                            -y                                       ow

      eigh                                          e_e                                     ou

       ei                                              ie                                       oe

       ey                                             ei

       ea 

                                           

Compound Words

    Good morning everybody! Compound words are very common in Spanish and also in English. Precisely the lesson today was about them. This was the list provided by Spellingcity.com

    In this list there were some words that I ignored. So I sought its Spanish translation.
        firefly (luciérnaga)                                  fingerprint (huella dactilar)
        handstand (parada de manos)                snowflake (copo de nieve)

                                     sunburn (quemadura de sol)

    An activity of this lesson that I find very useful is "Which word completes the sentence" because it helps develop thinking in English. We must analyze what is the correct word in context to complete blanks in sentences.

-We swam in the aftenoon before dinner.

-A fireflyis also called a lightning bug.

-I canot see without my glasses.

-I touched the glass and left a fingerprint.

-I went to the beach and got a red sunburn.

-The girl held a handstand until she got dizzy.

-Is there anyone who wants to go?

-I did my math homework after school.

-A snowflake is a beautiful frozen crystal.

-The lonely boy ate lunch by himself.

     Well guys, see you tomorrow. Bye!

Science Vocabulary

    Hello guys! I´m here with another installment of my blog, to tell you how I increased my English skills. To increase our vocabulary in English is very important to cover all branches of life, I mean the words related to home, work, technologies, and also with the different subjects we received in school. Earlier, in one of the lessons, we saw words related to mathematics; today we will approach science. And here is the list of words that give me Spellingcity.com:

        Matter---anything that has mass and takes up space

        Melt------to change from solid to liquid

        Boil-------to form gas bubbles in a liquid with heat

        Liquid-----a sustance that flows, a fluid

        Solid------state of matter that has definite shape

        Gas--------invisible state of matter, like air

        Heat-------energy felt by warmth from the sun

        Mass------amount of matter in an object

        Change----to turn into somethingelse or become different

        Atom------smallest building block of matter

    Look, with this other list you can also expand your vocabulary as I have done:

Science Vocabulary Word List

A astrophysics astronomy atom B beaker biochemistry biology botany Bunsen burner burette C cell chemical chemistry climate climatologist control cuvette D data datum E electricity electrochemist element energy entomology evolution experiment

F fact flask fossil funnel G genetics geology geophysics glassware graduated cylinder gravity H herpetology hypothesis I ichthyology immunology L lab laboratory laws lepidoptery

M magnetism mass matter measure meteorologist meteorology microbiologist microbiology microscope mineral mineralogy molecule motion O observe observatory organism ornithology P paleontology particle Petri dish phase physical science physics pipette Q quantum mechanics

R radiology research retort S scale science scientist seismology T telescope temperature test tube theory thermometer tissue V variable virologist volcanology volume volumetric flask W watch glass weather weigh Z zoology

  
Don´t forget to visit Spellingcity.com! Knowledge is waiting for you there.Bye!