A Quote

This is a lovely quote from the book The Little Prince which was written by Antoine de Saint-Exupery in September 1943. The book is about a little prince who fell to earth. It is a lovely sometimes touching (emotional) story which is highly memorable. I recommend it!

In whichever language you prefer, though it would be good English reading practice.

Can you guess? (guess = adivinar)

Do you have any idea what is the connection between this caterpillar eaten leaf from my balcony plants and the 5 vowels?

Keep reading or scroll down to find out the connection…

2 useful expressions with butterfly in them

The most common expression with butterflies is to have butterflies in your stomache which describes that feeling when you are all nervous or in love and your stomach feels like it is moving inside with emotion.

e.g. I get butterflies when I am about to go on stage to sing.

To call someone a social butterfly is a negative comment. It means they go to all the social events only caring about fashion and their popularity.

e.g. Jenny is such a social butterfly, don’t expect her to stay after the party cleaning up.

What is a bug? Why do they mention them in American spy movies? And what are the usual insects called in English?

While we are talking of bugs (an informal way to say insects) here is a little vocabulary. Do you like bugs? Which do you like and dislike?

A bug is also the name of a spy device which records the audio of telephone conversations, places or people. That is why they mention them so much in spy and police programmes.

Click here for photo credit and original

Now for the connection between the leaf and the 5 vowels!

The Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland sings this song!

Click here to go to the clip on You tube.

Can you sing along?

A, e I o you, a e I o you, a e I o you, o,
You e I o a, you e I a, a e I o you..

3 Tips to help with vowel pronunciation.

Some people have difficulty with the vowel a, e and i.

I have a few tricks to help with this:

A – think of A,B,C,D singing the alphabet.
E – think of the word Eat which begins with the correct sound.
I – think of the phrase “I am happy” it gives you the pronunciation.

Practice spelling out your name and try these words: aerobic, adagio, audios, iguana, and caterpillar.

Kim’s Madrid Life & an Interesting Interview

Often on Saturdays there is a market of handmade things in Plaza Dos de Mayo in Madrid. The Market is called Malamarket because the area name in Malasaña. There are lots of lovely things -jewellery, clothes, decoration and more. The people on the stalls are really friendly and helpful.

Click here if you would like to see more about Malamarket.

Recently I was looking around the market and met Diana Silva and Javier Salazar. They have Mari Mariposa. They were kind enough and brave enough to let me interview them in English. Many thanks to them!

To see more of their work or to get in contact with them click here.

Here is the short interview. There are correct subtitles and the transcript available in the You tube comments.

Click here to watch the interview on You tube.

Have you heard of the butterfly effect?

No, I don’t mean the movie. I mean the theory.

It says how just a small butterfly flapping (moving) it’s wings can cause a tornado in another part of the word. A quote which you may have heard in the movie Jurasic Pak. The theory also mentions that every action we make has consequences.

This is an interesting video, with subtitles in English available, but he does talk quite fast so don’t panic and pause when you need to.

Click here to watch the video on You tube.

So let’s think – what if one of the events in history hadn’t happened, how would our world be different?

If JFK hadn’t been wearing a back support for back pain would he have moved down after the first time he was shot and missed being killed by the second shot? How would things be different? If Hitler had been accepted to art school what would have happened or not happened?