Learning English at Duques de Nájera

The word “storey” is used to refer to the hight of a building, while “floor” is used to talk about each of the different levels of the building.

The words “draw” and “drawer” can have the same pronunciation [dro:]

American settlers borrowed more than 500 words from the Spanish. However, some of these words were originally Indian, having been adopted by the Spanish settlers. Some examples are: rodeo, bronco, buffalo, burro, fiesta, coyote…

The word “dollar” comes from Joachimsthaler, which refers to a 16th century silver mine in Joachimsthal, Germany. It was first recorded as “daler” in 1553.

OK is probably the most versatile word in English. It can be a noun, adjective, adverb, verb and interjection.

Around 4,000 common words are used differently in Britain and the USA.

English is the official language of 44 countries, more than any other language in the world.

Japanese is the language with the largest number of English borrowings. It is estimated to have taken around 20,000 words from English. Some examples are: erebeta (elevator), bata (butter) or beikon (bacon).

Smith is the most common surname in Britain and the USA.

The word “hoover”, meaning “to vacuum” and “vacuum cleaner”, comes from a brand name.

The symbol & is called ampersand.

The names of more than half of the states, and thousands of lakes, rivers and towns in the USA have an Indian origin.

The words “landscape” and “cookie” were taken from Dutch by American settlers.

The Oxford English Dictionary insists that Shakespeare should be spelt “Shakspere”, even though it admits that the most common spelling is “Shakespeare”.

Tall and high are basically synonyms but while you can say “a tall / high building” you can only say “a tall person”.

The sound “sh” can be represented in 14 different ways: shoe, sugar, champagne, passion, ambitious, ocean, etc.

There is a larger variety of accents in Britain than in the United States.

In modern England it is considered more refined to pronounce “ate” as /et/, instead of /eit/.

The International Phonetic Alphabet is composed of 52 sounds in English, divided equally between vowels and consonants.

The letters “ough” can be pronounced in eight different ways, as in: through, though, thought, tough, plough, thorough, hiccough and lough (an Irish-English word for “lake”)

The word “goodbye” comes from the expression God-be-with-you, while “hello” comes from the Old English “hal beo thu” o “whole be thou”.

The word “nice” was first recorded in 1290 and it meant “stupid and foolish”.

The verb “tell” used to mean “to count”. This meaning still persists in the American expression “bank teller” (cajero de banco) and when we refer to the person who counts votes.

English has borrowed words from a large variety of places and languages. In fact, at least half of its common words do not have an Anglo-Saxon origin. Some examples are:

- “shampoo” from India
- “ketchup” from China
- “potato” from Haiti
- “sofa” from Arabia
- “slogan” from Gaelic
- “breeze” from the Spanish “brisa”
- “bankrupt” from the Italian “banca rotta”

There are still 250 irregular verbs in English.