Have you ever been looking for something you are quite sure you won’t find ? There’s  a nice expression that Jim taught me some days ago: to be on a wild goose chase.

So for example I’m desperately looking for a rare book I need for a research, I meet a friend and I tell him: I’m looking for that book, but I think I’m on a wild goose chase.

Today I found a very nice explanation of the difference  between go-back and come back:

Simple and clear

Ok, a quick summary of the last things I learnt in English. So probably I won’t forget them

1) You don’t pronounce the “h” at the beginning of some English words, like honesty, honor, hour. There’s no general rule, but maybe you don’t pronounce “h” for words imported from Romance languages

2) Rise is not transitive, so you can say “The sun is rising” but you can’t say “Rise this book off the floor”, instead you can use the verb “raise”: “Raise this book off the floor”

3) Rinse: sciacquare

4) Swarm: Sciame, a swarm of grasshoppers (uno sciame di cavallette)

That’s all for now

Se avete una mezz’ora da spendere vi consiglio questa intervista a Marissa Mayer, uno dei top manager di Google, in particolare mi ha colpito la parte finale, dove risponde alla domanda: quali sono le qualità che cercate in un colloquio di lavoro ?

La risposta denota quel pragmatismo americano che mi piace moltissimo perché fa funzionare le cose, le qualità sono:

1. Smart: intelligente
2. Get things done: espressione complessa che significa propriamente “che inizia e porta a termine le cose con successo”

Il perché è ovvio, se assumi una persona intelligente, ma che non fa le cose, è inutile, se ne assumi una poco intelligente ma che fa il suo lavoro, otterrai dei risultati scadenti.

Semplice, ma efficace

This is a bilingual post, because initially it was just a thought but then I realized that this video is also an interesting listening in English.

The video is a discussion with Marissa Mayer, one of the top managers at Google. I like especially the final part, when she talks about the quality Google looks for in an interview.

She says in a simple but effective way:

1. Smart
2. Get things done

If you hire a smart guy who doesn’t do his job it’s not good and if you hire a dumb guy who completes his tasks you get poor results… Cool

Just to write something softer than my political opinions, tonight I saw “The proposal” a nice movie with Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds.

It’s a pleasant comedy, and it’s nice to see in English, just a little slang and easy conversations. The movie is not on DVD yet… but you’ll probably find it out there.

Here the trailer:

A full cup must be carried steadily: La mia interpretazione è più o meno che una situazione delicata va trattata con molta attenzione

Give neither advice nor salt, until you are asked for it: Non dispensare mai sale e consigli a meno che non ti siano richiesti… questo si commenta da solo

It’s been a long time since the last post, but I’ve been a little busy… sob.

Anyway, let’s start again with this saying, thanks again Jim.

We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it: Ce ne preoccuperemo quando sarà il momento.

Take stock of the situation: Fare il punto della situazione, detto in modo formale.

Esempio:

Let’s meet tomorrow to take stock of the situation: vediamoci domani così facciamo il punto della situazione. Un’espressione meno formale potrebbe essere: Let’s meet tomorrow to iron out what we need to do (Thanks Jim)

I was told the best way to learn something is having fun, and I think it’s almost true. So take a look at these videos in the series “Get a mac“. Get a mac it’s the Apple advertising campaign with the “cool” mac guy and the loser pc guy.

The poor pc guy tries to do his best to keep up with the mac guy but he always ends up to fail, that’s probabably why in the end the pc guy is much more pleasant

Enjoy.