Close your books: be used to

13.4.13

Model composition: Who was Sara Montiel?

Sara Montiel together with James Dean (photo taken from Rohmerin's blog)

Just five days ago, two very well-known women (for different reasons) died on the 8th April. The two of them may be quite unknown for our students, one of them was Margaret Thatcher and the other was Sara Montiel. We can take advantage of this and practice the past simple to talk about life events, as we did with Jane Austen or Frida Kahlo.

Sara Montiel was born as Mª Antonia Abad in Campo de Criptana in 1928. When she was just 15 years old, she took part in a talent show and won. She started making films in Spain and, very soon, she decided to go to America to start making films there. In 1954, she made her first Hollywood film called Veracruz with very big actors like Gary Cooper. She came back to Spain and became a great diva and star.

At the beginning of the 1970s, she decided to stop making films in Spain and dedicated her work to singing. She has been married four times, the first in California, the second in Rome, the third in Palma de Mallorca with her great love, Pepe Tous, with whom she adopted two children and the fourth a few years ago with a Cuban men much younger than her.

Sara has sung together with her own son and other Spanish artists and has conducted two TV programmes in Spain. She wasn't ill and her death took everybody by surprise even though she was 85 years old.

Did you know her? Have you seen any of her films?

10.11.12

Be used to, get used to; I used to know these things

While you are listening to this fantastic song by Gotye (there are some mistakes in the Spanish translation), you can have a look to the explanation in the chart below about these three quite similar terms; there is another good explantion at Peter's Blog inglés (in Spanish).You can also do the exercises I am going to propose you.

USED TO DO (INFINITIVE)	GET USED TO DOING (GERUND)	BE USED TO DOING (GERUND)
Past habit or state	Process of acquiring a habit	Actually having the habit.
Verb in personal form (used to changes), already in the past: I used to eat a lot. I didn’t use to eat a lot. Did you use to sleep a lot?	Verb in the infinitive, we can find it in present, past or future (used to remains unchanged): I got used to eating little. I didn’t get used to eating so little. Did you get used to eating so little?	Verb in the infinitive, we can find it in present, past or future (used to remains unchanged): I was used to eating little. I wasn’t used to eating little. Were you used to eating so little?