Student's room

SMS language (also known as chatspeak, txt, txtspk, texting language or txt talk) is the English language slang used in mobile phone SMS. It is an abbreviated form of English similar to a rebus.
SMS has evolved from the shorthand use in Internet chatrooms to accommodate the small number of characters allowed and as a convenient language for the small keyboards on mobile phones.
Punctuation and grammar are largely ignored.

Here are some examples:

sorry = sry or soz
text = txt
with = wit or wiv
something = sth
what = wat
please = plz
later = l8r
forever = 4eva
homework = hw
whatever = w/e
of course = ov cors or ofc
because = cuz, bcuz or bcz or bcos
cutie = qt
hugs and kisses = xoxo

face to face = f2f
I see = ic
at the moment = atm
talk to you later = ttyl
laugh out loud = lol
I don’t know = idk
got to go = g2g or gtg
text back = txt bck or tb
be right back = brb
I love you = ily or luv u
oh my god = omg
just kidding = jk
shame on you = soy
rolling on the floor laughing = rofl
Hi, mate. = hi m8
Are you okay? = ru ok?
What’s up? = sup?
Are you going to the pub tonight? = goin pub 2nyt?

Some emoticons (symbols used to display feeling):

:-) or =] or :) or =) or :] Smile or happy
:D or =D Wide grin, happy smile
:( or =( or D: or D= Frown or sad
xP or XP Straining, disgust, bad joke, dead, dead from laughing, silliness
xD or XD Laughing hard
:S or :s or =S or =s Confused
;) or ;] Wink
BD or 8D Laughing while wearing cool glasses, comedian
:P or :p or =P or =p or :- tongue tongue sticking out, used to convey a joke, light-hearted sarcasm, inappropriateness, relief, mild resignation, humorous resignation
B) Wearing cool glasses (often sunglasses). Indicates pride in something
>:O Angry / Yelling
:*) or -^o^- I am blushing

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_emoticons

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Take my word for it !!

Try it yourself ! Are you able to translate the text messages below?

1) “My smmr hols. B4, we usd 2 go 2 NY 2C my bro & his :-@ kids. ILNY, its gr8…”
(part of a text speak – txtspk - essay written by a Scottish schoolgirl who shocked teachers with it)

2) “txtin iz messin mi head ‘n’ me englis…”
(the Guardian newspaper’s text message poetry competition won by Hetty Hughes with her poem)

3) soz 4gt 2 cl u lst nyt.



Difficult? Easy? Let’s see… :-)

Translation:

1) “My summer holidays. Before, we used to go to New York to see my brother and his three screaming kids. I love New York, it’s great….”

2) “Texting is messing up my head and my English…”

3) I am sorry that I forgot to call you last night.

Travel with English

US gets disaster warnings by SMS

What do people do during disasters? Turn to their mobiles, of course. The Federal Communications Commission has adopted a plan that will see mobile networks used to transmit alerts during disasters or emergencies.
The system, called the Commercial Mobile Alert Systems, will see texts sent to mobile users including, presidential alerts, imminent threat alerts and child abduction alerts and possibly in the future, video and audio messages. The system will also be set up to deliver the messages to the blind and deaf. There are two questions here: during disasters, will the network hold up? Anyone who was in London during the 7/7 bombings will attest how impossible it was to use the network for calls, texts or anything else. So does that mean there will be a priority system set up to ensure these messages get through? And secondly, the system delivering presidential alerts. During a crisis, surely the last thing people want to see is a George Bush’s gurning mug on their mobiles?


http://www.smstextnews.com/2008/04/us_gets_disaster_warnings_by_sms.html

Tips

Want to learn more about SMS language?

Take a look at the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS_language

There you can find some information about SMS language and some txt devices. Try to use them as much as you can and have fun with this new language.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_emoticons

There you can find a list with the most common emoticons to use while sending a txt message to someone. At the bottom of the page there are some graphic emoticons and also some animated ones. Those who like using MSN can add them.

By Thaisa Passos

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Comics

Let´s have fun!!

http://www.cartoonstock.com/

by Thaísa Passos & Fabrício Falqueto

Welcome to Enjoy it! 2008

Dear students, we all at CACS are very enthusiastic with this semester and we would like to present you with our new Jornal Mural On line - ENJOY IT!

Here you'll find many articles and clues to help you understand English better and so to make it more interesting for you. From now on the whole ENJOY IT! is going to be based on a main subject that it displayed on UPDATED.

We truly hope you enjoy it and have fun learning "the beautiful language".

Flávio Martins - English Coordinator

Updated

Hollywoodese: A Second Language

When glancing through "Variety" for the first time, it's easy to get lost. That's because this industry is self-absorbed enough to have created its own vocabulary. See if you are entertainment-saavy enough to understand the following expressions (Call it my Hollywood Trades Obstacle Course). Look at this small glossary of terms, below:

LAFFER: A comedy show that makes you laff.

TALKER: Talk show.

TUNER: Musical. “Canned Tuner” would be a cancelled musical, not fish product.

PIC: Picture or movie. When plural, use "PIX", as taking the time to spell "PICS" would be inefficient.

PREEM: Premiere. Preemie Preem: Premiering a film about premature babies.

NOM: Nomination

MOUSE HOUSE: Disney. Isn't that cute?

PAR: Paramount (TV or Studio). Except in golf.

U: Universal. The laziest nickname so far.

LION: MGM

FROG: WB

PEACOCK: NBC

EYE: CBS... see the pattern?

http://coryscuriosities.blogspot.com/2006/04/hollywoodese-second-language.html

Comics

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

http://www.cartoonistgroup.com/search/cardimage.php

Take my word for it

WATCH IT! “PAY IT FORWARD”

SUBJECTS --- U.S./1991 to Present & Nevada;SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING --- Alcohol and Drug Abuse; MORAL-ETHICAL EMPHASIS --- Responsibility; Caring; Citizenship. Age: 13+; Rated MPAA Rating: PG-13 for mature thematic elements including substance abuse/recovery, some sexual situations, language and brief violence; Drama; 2000; 123 minutes; Color.

Like some other kids, 12-year-old Trevor McKinney believed in the goodness of human nature. Like many other kids, he was determined to change the world for the better. Unlike most other kids, he succeeded. With Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment, this drama was based on a book with the same name by Catherine Ryan Hyde.

http://www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/pay-it-forward-DVDcover.jpg

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Travel with English

TRAVEL WITH ENGLISH

taken from http://quiz.ivillage.com/entertainment/tests/oscarhistory.htm

1. Anything won or awarded as a token or evidence of skill, valor, victory, etc. (noun)Root TROPAIOS = things of a defeat

T __ __ __ __ __



2. The written text of a play, motion picture, television broadcast or the like (noun) Root Scribere = to write

S __ __ __ __ __


3. Any award, honor or laudatory notice; an expression of praise (noun)Root COLLUM = neck

A __ __ __ __ __ __ __


4. An entertainment or an individual action presented before an audience (noun) Roots PER & FOURN = throughout & furnish,

P __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __



1. The _____, 10 inches high and weighing seven pounds, is made of bronze and covered with gold plate.

2. The actress had studied the 440 page _____ for weeks and memorized her lines in time for rehearsal.

3. Recognition at the Academy Awards is a treasured _____ for achievement in filmmaking and acting.

4. The young actress gave a stunning _____ when she portrayed the grief of the widow.

ROOTONYM® by Jan and Carey Orr Cook DIRECTIONS:To solve the puzzle use the clues given in each box and in the sentences. Each word uses part or all of the MASTER ROOT.© 2006 www.vocabulary.com

Answers: 1-trophy, 2-script, 3-accolade, 4-performance

Student's Room

LOOKING FOR A COURSE ON CINEMA? TAKE A LOOK AT THESE TIPS!

http://www.nyfa.com/index.php

Oficial web site of one of the best cinema schools in the whole world – New York film academy: film school and acting school. the website brings general information about the courses and you can also find available films made by students.

http://www.roteirosonline.com.br/fgv.htm

Can’t you go abroad to study cinema? no problem! São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are nearer and Fundação Getúlio Vargas offers excellent courses, too. visit the web site and find out the courses offered, schedule and the e-mail addresses to get in touch with the school, teachers and coordinators.


by Andrea Viola

Updated

Brazil is known around the world for the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Tourists prefer these cities because of their coastlines and great tourist attractions, like Christ Redeemer. But Belo Horizonte is becoming Brazil’s third largest city and is unknown to the outside world. A question that could be done is: What is the reason for the international anonymity of this great city? The answer was published in one of the most famous newspaper in the world: The New York Times.

Last week The New York Times published news showing that BH is as attractive as RJ or SP. Of course the attractions are completely different, but they stand out just the same. According to them, BH is not famous because it has no beaches, no big Carnival, and no remarkable attractions, apart from some buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer. Some tourists treat it as a simple refueling shop as they go toward picturesque colonial-era mining towns like Ouro Preto or Diamantina.

However, the capital of Minas Gerais is claiming its fame as the bar capital of Brazil. Not bars as in slick hotel lounges or boozy meat markets, but bars as in botecos, informal sit-down spots where multiple generations socialize, drink beer and often have an informal meal. It is almost unbelievable, but there are about 12,000 bars in the city, more per capita than anywhere else in the country. The reason for so many bars nobody knows, but one theory has turned into a popular saying: “There are no seas, thus there are bars.”

The best time to know its bars is in the annual Comida di Buteco competition, when some 40 top bars square off in categories like hygiene, beer frigidity, service and most importantly, best appetizer. The bars typically have yellow plastic tables and serve beer in bottles of 0.6L, but it is not difficult to find those that look like restaurant with green and white tablecloth, uniformed waiters, and wall of cachaça. There is one with an interesting theme; its name is Bar do Caixote (Nogueira da Gama Street, 189, João Pinheiro). Its chairs and tables are literaturely wooden crates, and it is a place where friends can have an informal talk, drink beer and have a tasteful appetizer. Another one which is a regular participant of Comida di Buteco is Mercearia Lili (São João Evangelista Street, 696, Santo Antônio). It stands at a steep hill that requires superhuman parallel parking skills or taxi service.

When you need a bar break, take a trip to the Pampulha neighborhood, where you can find some Niemeyer buildings, like his famous Church of São Francisco de Assis. The Belo Horizonte’s most famous restaurant, Xapuri (Mandacaru Street, 260, Pampulha) stands in this beautiful side of the city. It is one of the best place to try the traditionally cuisine of Minas Gerais. Besides the bars you can also find unusual gifts at the Hippie Fair (Afonso Pena’s Art fair), two long blocks on Afonso Pena Avenue full of clothes, jewelry, household goods and crafts. When you’re done, stop at food stalls at either end for fried fish or coconut sweets, or pop into the beautifully landscaped Municipal Park park just below the fair to relax. In either place, you won’t be far from a vendor ready to crack you open a can of Skol. In Belo Horizonte, the world’s a bar.


Adapted from: http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/10/28/travel/28next.html

by Maycon da Costa – Intermediate I -Teacher: Gabby

Comics

Take my word from it

BH and the Trance Movement

Trance is one of the most important types of electronic music.
This music style, developed in the 1990s in Germany by Jam el Mar and DJ Dag (Dance 2 Trance), is generally characterized between 130 and 160 beats per minute, repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and down throughout a track.


Other important names for the Trance society are Tiesto, Paul Van Dyk, Judge Jules, Markus Schulz, Gabe and so on.

What about Belo Horizonte?

If you want to talk about the beginning of electronic music in BH, you have to talk about the Noise Family. This famous name for electronic music began its “career” at the end of the 1990s playing at small parties and in clubs like Brodway in Santa Tereza, and others in Santa Efigênia and Savassi. The first local festival was the “Eletronika” in 1999. It brought only 3000 people to Serraria Souza Pinto.

Since then the festival has been growing more and more. In fact, last year the event involved 15000 people over the course of three days. Meanwhile, night clubs, parties and important events have made BH an important place for the trance movement.


On November 30, 2007 the most important electronic party in BH will take place: the British festival Creamfields. Lasting for more than 12 hours, the festival will bring famous names like Infected Mushroom, Benny Benassi, Shant, Anderson Noise and others. Besides that, events like XXXperience, Flowers, Tribe, Enigma and other not so significant acts have been turning BH into an electronic city.



Therefore, the trance movement has attracted much attention to BH. The lovers of trance believe that it is more than a type of music; the electronic music brings freedom, meditation and a complete harmony between body, mind and soul.

Written by Suzana Almeida Gontijo – Intermediate I – Teacher: Gabby

Travel with English

Greece in Belo Horizonte

If you can’t go to The Louvre in Paris, France, don’t worry. Liberdade Square has received a visit of four Greek sculptures. The exhibit goes on until November 15th and you don’t need to pay anything to see them! The sculptures are authentic perfect replicas of “Venus de Milo”, which represents Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. It was found in 1820, next to the ruin² of an old Greek theatre on the island of Milo. You can see “Venus Genitrix” too, which represents the mother of all the gods, the universal mother. It was made approximately in 450 B.C. There is the “Discobolus of Myron”, which was carved by Master Myron, between 460 and 450 B.C. The statue is of an athlete throwing a disk. The last one is “Winged Victory of Samothrace”, also known as “Nike of Samothrace”. It was discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace. It is an ornament of the entrance of the sanctuary dedicated to the protectors of the seafarers³.

The objective of the exposition is the diffusion of knowledge about the significant contribution of the Greek civilization for modern society. Liberdade Square, which was inspired in the gardens of the Palace of Versailles, also in France, was the setting chosen to inspire in the public the respect and admiration by the historical values.

¹ Carved (to carve): it’s what some artists do in rocks; they “design” faces, bodies, objects, animals, etc in rocks. With this job, the artists produce some statues.

² Ruin: it’s an old place which was not preserved very well. (Ex.: Coliseum, Italy.)

³ Seafarers: it’s a man who works and sometimes lives in a boat or ship (Ex.: Cristóvão Colombo)


Written by Thaísa Santos Faria – Intermediate I – Teacher: Gabby

Students room

Mineirês - The new culture


Belo Horizonte is a crazy city

Sometimes it even seems silly

Because it has its own tongue

You never know if you are wrong


And if you do not understand

Don’t think that you’re alone in a land

Now I’ll teach you a thing or two

To recognize the “UAI” we do

You can be Brazilian or British

You can speak Portuguese or English

Even if you don’t know why

You can always say “UAI”


From fleas to big bears

No one actually cares

I don’t know how to explain

But everything is a “TREM”


Finally, when you wan to go out

It doesn’t matter what it’s about

It is better not to go by car

Since you’ll probably end up in a bar!

Written by Simone Cristina Valentim Fogliene – Intermediate I – Teacher: Gabby

Welcome / Bienvenido / Alle - First Edition - # 01

Rock n’ roll over

“When the music is over, turn out the lights.” Jim Morrison

It doesnt take much to be “rock” these days. Once upon a time it had an idea of being on the edge to be a rock n’ roll fan. Parents hated it, relatives hated it, school hated it and obviously churches hated it too. However, nowadays a captivating stage persona, having many screams from the audience, overcrowded concerts and slamming a guitar can’t definitely be considered rock n’ roll. Is the concept changing or is rock n’ roll condemned to disappear?


So should we be worried that rock is less a way of life these days than an adjective – are we devaluing something that should be our lifeblood by spreading it around thinly ? What is rock? What does it mean to you ? Did rock n’ roll really die?


Here are some answers collected from CACS “rock” student through the last 3 semesters:


“The day MTV considered Britney Spears doing “I love rock n’ roll” a piece of rock was astonishing bad. That’s the day music died...”


“No way man! The music died in 1971 with Morrison. Then it got ressurected and died again in 1980 when Lennon died. Theeeen it ressurected AGAIN and died in 1994 at the hands of some smack and a shotgun. Music today sucks, doesn’t it? Having one song that’s slightly feminist and pretending to play the guitar and having fake tatoos in a music clip does not constitute rock. It sucks.”


“Rock is a state of mind, not a state of fashion as is shown nowadays. It’s more about your attitude than about what you decide to wear on stage.”


“Well, I’ hope that’s what it’s all about, ROCK, but obviously it’s not. These pop chicks and these new “boy-bands-that-want-to-be-rock-n-roll-like” think that twisting or wearing a pair of leather pants make them ROCKERS. Definitely, they’re all going mad.”


“Rock is not dead, it’s out there and you just have to get off your butt and find it. If you sit back and expect it to be delivered to you via radio or TV, then you’ll be surely disappointed.”


“If your children like that popular music that is on fashion (including Brazilian) and they don’t develop a taste for real music that was written before their birth by the time they hit 13, then pure and simply, you have stupid children.”


“Music and rock are not dead anyways. People just don’t seem to look hard enough . I’ve been listening to some great music like The Doors, Led, Sabbath, Satriani and Metallica. They are pretty “rock”, aren’t they? You just have to get in touch with those legends and when you do so, you’ll realize there’s a world of exciting music coming out. The better the oldies are, the worse music gets on the radio and seems that rock n’ roll is going underground, not literally.”



Rock fans and singers have always been said to be Satan worshipers. Religion, politicians and other music style fans have helped this idea to grow and have spread this point along the last 50 years all over the planet. Since Rock ‘n Roll began people have had different approaches regarding it. For some people it is much more than a music style; it is a way of living. Thus, after reflecting upon all these ideas and getting a tip from the answers students gave, I challenge all you rock fans to write a note telling us about you “rocky” experience and to answer the following question:


Is rock n’ roll a devilish issue or sort of a thing that connects its followers to the Hellian kingdom ???


We’re looking forward to receiving your souls, I mean, your answers.

By Flávio Martins (flaviolin@ufmg.br)