Expressions that I never used before

The best way for immerse in a culture is using expressions, however, most of the time these expressions are very difficult for me because you have to memorize the meaning and use it. I know that the only way for improve a knack is practicing, but is hard... English has expressions for everything (of course), but in this time, we learned about financial, which is very important because as an adult, all the time, you are in touch with something about money. For example, I learned that when you don't have money and you can't catch up your friends, you can say "strapped for cash" and also, you can use "to make ends meet", for example: "Sorry my friend, my salary is to make ends meet, I can't go to the journey". In case of any of your friends have a financial problem, you can recommend him or her that "you need to curb your spending"... English is crazy, isn't it?

Banks drive me crazy everywhere!

The first thing that we have to understand is that banks are business, they don't do their job for charity, banks exist because they are a "juicy business". However, sometimes I forget this and then is when drive me crazy... A lot of times I felt that they ripped me off with their interest and charges and then noticed that I hadn't bounced any cheque for pay my bills.

I totally agree with this article, the most banks have a really bad customer service, in spite of the fact that they are working with my money, some of them don't worry about my interest and my feelings, I think that is the reason why my grandparents use their mattress as their banks. Nevertheless, in these days, it is very important to have a "credit history" in order to obtain mortgage and survive in this crazy world... So, yes, we need to be patient but be careful and don't mess up anything!

English sounds are crazy!

Instead the English and Spanish have the same alphabet, English has more sounds than Spanish, however, I'm surprising because is not much than I thought...

In class, we had an exercise using the Venn diagram and we found that in Spanish we don't have 10 or 12 sounds between consonants and vowels (I'm not sure because it's so difficult for me). For example, one of the sound difficult is "Ay", I confused this sound with the "i". So with this exercise, I noted that I pronounce wrong "April" or "pink", before I pronounced these words same...

The good thing is that since now, I can be focus in this sounds for improve my pronunciation and my English.

My grandfather was holding a grudge against me

When I was 10 years old, I lived with my grandparents in their house. That house was located in a town near to Bogota, the capital of Colombia. My school was in Bogota so my parents pay me a school bus for take me and my brother to home. Every day, when we arrived to the house, that actually was a farm, my grandfather went to the main entrance and received us. As you can imagine, in the school bus we were a lot of children, so we used to play while we went to our houses. 

One day, I was in the school bus and I listened some friend that say a bad word, but in that moment, I didn't know that was an offensive word... So, as soon as I arrived to my house, I said to my grandfather "Hola boludo" in Spanish, that's mean something like "Hi stupid"... He looked at me and seemed very upset and in that moment I understand that I said some bad word and immediately I felt that he was holding a grudge against me... We went to the main house and there was my grandmother, she noted that something happened... That night, we had an special dinner in the house because was my cousin's birthday, but my grandfather didn't want to enjoyed the party with us because I... I felt really bad and sad, I messed up the celebration... Then, my mother told me "you said some bad word to her grandparent and he is holding a grudge against you, you should go to him and ask him for forgiveness". So I went to my grandfather's room and I sat down in his bed and I gave him his favourite dessert and I tried to made up for my mistake. I said him that I was so sorry about the word that I used and will never happened again. At that moment, I think, he understand that my intention wasn't to offend him, I was only a kid...

Since that day, I learned that everything that I heard, I should ask to someone adult for ask the real meaning, in order to not repeat this unfourtanelly accident. Then, now I can know how words are "bad words" or maybe are inapropiate for say to anybody. I feel soo lucky that my grandfather has taught me that lection... I love you grandpa :)

Let me introduce myself

My name is Maria Jose Andrade, but everyone in Canada call me Maria. I'm from Colombia so I speak Spanish, but I'm here for learn English and about the Canadian culture. I arrived at January 01st, when the winter start... First days was totally different for me, because the weather was below of 0 degrees, in Colombia that is not possible... However, I really enjoyed this new experience. At the third day of I came to Canada, at night snow! Was awesome! I've never seen snow.

My time here is short, I only stay for 4 months. However, I want to come back and start my family in Canada. So, I'm coming back to Colombia at the end of April and I will try to ask for a resident visa. Therefore, in the next 5 years I hope to live in this beautiful country (although cold).

My passion is travel, know new cultures, food, languages, everything that a new city could bring you. For that reason, now, I am working in a startup, a travel agency, so in 5 years, I will work in my own business and working for create good experiences for people who love travel, like me!

Also, I want to start a family, I want one kid, so I hope in 5 years be pregnant or maybe my kid has 1 year old maximum. However, I know that it's what I want but I can be pregnant before, will see... While, I continue to enjoy my life and this beautiful experience that I am living...

⇧Hello everyone!