In the following article it says that Spanish families are using their mobile phones more than the traditional camera to take holiday photos:

http://www.euroweeklynews.com/news/spain/item/115271-smart-smiles-more-families-using-phones-for-holiday-snaps

Now, that the cameras on phones are getting better and better, is there any need to have a traditional camera? Do you think that the traditional camera is dying?

My digital camera is 5 years old and I’ve only used it about once in the last 3 years, because my phone’s camera is usually sufficient for my needs.

I’d love to hear whether other people use the phone more than a camera.

by Siôn, An Optima Communication Teacher

If you listen to the average group of teenagers today in Britain, you’ll hear a lot of slang that originally comes from the USA, such as ‘dude’ which means ‘guy’ or ‘man’.

What slang words have you learnt on your travels or in everyday contact with native English speaking people? What’s your favourite? How important is using slang? And what’s the best way of learning it?

I really think the phrase ‘gobsmacked’ which means to be ‘lost for words’ or ‘completely surprised’, because it’s very amusingly descriptive, such as the word ‘gob’ is slang (originally from Australia) for ‘mouth’ and ‘smack’ is a verb meaning to hit with the palm, so gobsmacked is very descriptive meaning you literally can’t speak because you’ve been hit in the mouth.  “I’m gobsmacked! I can’t believe it!”

If anyone is unsure of what slang is: Slang is the use of informal words and expressions that are not considered standard in the speaker’s language or dialect or have a different meaning. Such as ‘sweet!’ which is now often used by young people to mean ‘great’ or ‘fantastic’. So we must be careful in what situations we use it, using some of these words in a formal situation can give the wrong impression.

By Siôn

English is generally considered the international language of business and travel, and with more businesses looking abroad for trade and to do business, English is becoming a necessity in more and more Spanish companies every day. In the following news article in Spanish they say that the Spanish have the worst level of English in Europe:

http://www.elperiodico.com/es/noticias/sociedad/los-espanoles-tienen-peor-nivel-ingles-europa-segun-estudio-1338182#comentarios

I’d love to hear people’s opinions about the article. What is the cause of this? and what can be done?

Just to even things up a bit, I found the following article in English via the telegraph that looks into a report saying that British teenagers are ‘the worst’ in Europe at second languages.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/9873479/English-teenagers-worst-in-Europe-at-languages.html

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The following article provides a look at the latest voice translation apps:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20004210

At the end of the article it mentions that the applications are currently limited in their use, because the users have to speak very slowly and unnaturally to avoid as many translation errors and possibly and also the translations aren’t instantaneous.

In my opinion, These applications are great for those difficult situations on holiday such as when you need to explain that you don’t want mayonnaise on your burger in Vietnamese. However, I do believe that they won’t help normal conversations, because having a digital voice repeating what you just said in a different language removes the ‘feeling’ from a conversation which will also make it more difficult to build relationships. I also believe that it will be a long time before we have any device that will provide instant translations to the listener as you speak, such as in Star Trek.

What do you think is the future of learning English with applications like these? Will people become more lazy and not learn other languages?