For the most part the Spanish language is highly ordered. You can pretty much dissect any Spanish sentence and understand why it has been constructed in the way that it has, simply by learning some fundamental concepts about Spanish grammar. Once you understand those concepts you can use them to formulate other sentences.

My intention here is not to discuss in any great detail the workings of any particular aspect of Spanish grammar but rather to indicate those elements of Spanish grammar that are pretty much essential if you want to gain a good understanding of how the Spanish language works. Below I have divided these elements into four categories.

Spanish verb formations Different tenses.
Gender Forming masculine and feminine nouns and adjectives. Verbs and gender.
Types of words Using prepositions / conjunctions / adverbs etc.
Sentence formation How different words fit together in a sentence.

All of the above elements of Spanish grammar were included in the basic level Spanish textbook that I used when I first started to learn Spanish and in every other textbook that I have seen since.

I mentioned in my last article that you will want to buy a Spanish verb conjugation book in order to learn how Spanish verbs are formed. Not only can you use these books to understand and learn how different verbs should be formed in different tenses but you can also use them to learn which verbs fall into different formation categories. You can instantly tell for example if a new verb you have learnt is regular or irregular.

Verb conjugation books provide a constant reference. Every time you learn a new verb in Spanish how will you know how that verb should be formed in different tenses? You will have to refer to a verb conjugation book. Although you can often guess how a verb should be formed by looking at how it is spelt and whether it ends in AR, ER, or IR you can never really be sure.

Even when you have learnt how different verbs are formed in some of the most commonly used verb tenses you still may have to refer to a verb conjugation book to see how that verb is formed in a tense that is used in speech far less often!

Even when you are highly proficient in Spanish it is still quite likely that you will have to refer to a verb conjugation book from time to time. Even native Spanish speaking people have to use them occasionally! The truth is that there are thousands of different verbs that can be formed in so many different ways that it would be almost impossible to know and memorise how every verb should be formed and used in all types of situations!

A good start for anyone learning Spanish verbs would be to concentrate on commonly used verbs. Look around you and think about different types of everyday situations where you need to use a verb in order to communicate. Very quickly you will have a list of several hundred everyday verbs. Once you have done this you then need to learn which ones are regular and which are irregular. You can use your verb conjugation book to do this.

Before I embarked on my trip to Central and South America I did buy myself a Spanish verb conjugation book. However, after travelling for a while I ended up buying another one. This is because the first one I bought didnt include all possible verb tenses, probably because some verb tenses in Spanish are rarely used. There is for example two different ways that the past subjunctive tense can be formed in Spanish. Some verb conjugation books might not show both methods of formation and some dont even show the past subjunctive tense at all!

So, when buying a verb conjugation book be sure to check that it includes everything you need to know. If you dont know exactly what to check for take a look at the verb tables on Spanishexperto.com. These tables contain all the different verb tenses that you will ever come across when learning Spanish.

So far in this series of articles I have talked about some of the things you might want to think about before starting to learn Spanish, such as mental preparation. I have also touched on different learning techniques and have pointed out some of the areas of study that you will inevitably engage yourself in if you are serious about learning Spanish.

I have also barked on about my basic level Spanish textbook that I studied before my trip to Central and South America. After finishing this basic level textbook and arming myself with a fair selection of different Spanish words I thought I was ready to take on the Spanish language for real. I couldnt have been more wrong! In my next article I intend to talk about what happened to me when I first tried to communicate with the native Spanish-speaking people of Tijuana in Mexico.

Learning Spanish – Part 7 – Essential Elements of Spanish Grammar and Verb Tables is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

Step 1
Probably the most important step in learning how to build muscle fast is to keep an accurate record of what you are doing, and the effect it is having. Building your muscles fast needs your workouts to be as effective as possible, so you need to keep accurate records, either in a written diary, or on an electronic system. When you are getting results from a weight training program, you should be increasing the amount of weight you are lifting fairly regularly. If you aren’t, you aren’t getting optimum results.

Tip 2
Be diligent in working with each muscle group in turn. If you go through three or four sets, making sure the weight gets greater each time. This will show you one of the most important lessons in learning how to build muscle fast. When you have reached the fourth set, you should have already set up enough of a strain on your muscles for them to be stimulated to grow. Just keep following your basic routine, but make sure the weights get heavier as you continue to progress.

Tip 3
Keep the length of workouts down. It is so tempting to fall into the trap of thinking that more time necessarily means greater results. Do the same amount of work in less time, by taking shorter rest periods, and you will see greater results from you efforts. This is due to the vast increase in intensity levels. Learning how to build muscles fast can actually save you time.

Tip 4
Have a small rep count. The limit really should be set at 6 or 8 reps, as once you go beyond this, you are working the slow twitch muscle fibers. This is not that useful to bodybuilders, as these are muscles which do not really grow. Long distance athletes who are more concerned with strength than bulk are the ones who benefit from this kind of training. Bodybuilders need to be lifting heavy weights for a short rep count.

These are the fundamental starting points in learning how to build muscle fast.

How To Build Muscle Fast is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

Obviously, the first thing you have to check out are your state laws regarding homeschooling. You must do this to determine if you have to meet any kind of state requirement. Most states need an affidavit filed with the State’s education department that you are choosing to homeschool your
child.

There are basically three categories of homeschooling laws. These are: private school laws, home education laws and equivalency laws. Find out about your state’s laws and know what your obligations are to the state before you start homeschooling. For example, you may need to maintain a portfolio that keeps a record of your child’s educational progress or you may be required to have a minimum educational qualification as a homeschool teacher.

After you have all the state documentation and other matters taken care of you can proceed to the next step. A good next step would be to look for a home school support group. A support group is good because say, if you live in a friendly or curios type of neighborhood, you’re well meaning friends may try to influence your decision to home school. At the very least, they may put a lot of questions in your mind that have you making second thoughts. A support group that consists of like minded people will help support your decisions of your homeschool process and help downplay some of the criticisms, pressures and questions you will get from regular school goers. Many support groups organize fun events like visits to the zoo, museum, tours to the ice cream shop, etc. If your children hit it off with other home schooled kids in your group, they may be able to build lasting relationships with these kids that will not fade when their friends change schools. Home school support groups therefore provide an important avenue for your child’s socialization.

The third item you need to do is to select a homeschool curriculum. Depending on the method of homeschooling, you may choose various tools that aid you in the process. The internet offers a rich resource for homeschooling information. Do some research and look into the many homeschooling materials that are available.

When you homeschool, you should set certain ground rules. Homeschooling requires a lot of self discipline and hard work to make it work effectively. Here is a list of some of the things to keep in perspective:

1. Eagerness to learn
2. Hard work and effort – work ethic
3. Discipline
4. Time and patience
5. Schedule flexibility
6. Enthusiasm

It really boils down to knowing why you opted for homeschooling in the first place. Your motives and your reasons to homeschool are important pillars on which the whole basis of your child’s lessons and personal development plan depends. Consulting with your children to get their thoughts about curriculum choices, etc. is often helpful as well. Once you have every factor considered, select a curriculum or custom make a curriculum that best suits your child’s educational and personal development needs.

Record keeping is an important part of homeschooling as it is your record keeping that will be looked at or scrutinized later when your child transfers into another school or enters college. Look into all the various methods of record keeping and set up a schedule to update your records every so often.

Your homeschool day does not need to be a long drawn out day. Allow your child to have a part in the daily classroom activities and to what extent of time is involved with each subject covered. Flexibility and fun are the cornerstones of homeschooling. Be careful not to overload too many skills into single term or school year as you can experience burnout or end up skipping over details of over skills you really should not.

It is a good idea to prepare a skill list for your home school. Make the child learn the skills he is ready for as your child matures educationally.

Gentle parenting is the secret to successful homeschooling. Often home schooled children make great advances in learning and show more enthusiasm than they would otherwise. Homeschool kids also turn out to be surprisingly well balanced and well informed when they are taught at home.

Homeschooling Your Child is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

UK households generate a staggering thirty million tonnes of rubbish a year, of which sixty per cent comes from packaging. There has been a lot of publicity recently about waste that has been put out for recycling ending up in landfill sites. It is also clear that an increasing amount is being shipped to other countries to dispose of. It can be cheaper to transport it to other countries than to recycle it or fill up the landfill sites in the UK.

The European Union (EU) has recently ordered the citizens of the United Kingdom to roughly double their recycling rates by 2008. Governments across the European Union and America have announced plans to require more recycling. Unless the UK hits these targets, local council tax bills across the UK will soar unless local authorities hit their recycling targets to enable the UK to hit their targets set by the EU. The UK government already charges tax for dumping waste in landfill sites to encourage us to recycle more and this tax is due to increase.

This will punish local councils which continue to use landfills and council tax payers will pay the price for poor performance by not recycling themselves or by not having the facilities to do this. Its therefore cheaper to recycle then to dump in the landfill sites. The UK currently recycles 22 per cent of its household waste while some other EU countries recycle more than half. The UK proposes cutting the amount of waste put into landfill sites from 72 per cent today to 25 per cent by 2020.

Some Thing to Think About -The Future?

- Why do we use all that energy recycling paper to save the trees? There is the argument that paper should be recycled so that we save trees and forests but we now grow trees just to produce newsprint and other items. Is it a sustainable resource already?

- New landfills are constructed in the USA and this should happen in the UK on a large scale which would enable the UK to pipe the methane gas that they produce to local power plants supplying homes in a green and eco way.

- We need to ensure that any recycling programmes that are run are delivered effectively. That means tracing waste down the chain to its ultimate destination. Transparency should inform the whole waste management industry.

- If a study in undertaken and it concludes that it costs more to recycle than to bury the used and manufacture the new from scratch, then we could start landfills just for plastic, one for glass etc. then if we do run out of them we can dig them all up in one go for recycling. For example, if the throwing away of plastic continues and continuing oil shortages mean that it is more cost effective we can recycle them all at once by mining the landfills and it would be cheaper and easier then continuous recycling.

- At present, only an estimated fifteen per cent of UK households have access to kerbside collections, if they these collections do not cover glass, paper, plastic etc. then how far do you have to drive to the nearest recycling centre and how much do you have to collect at home to ensure that you are not making more damage by driving then the amount of energy you are saving by recycling? What about the financial cost to collect the recycling or to take it to the recycling centre? What about the energy taken to recycle it? Is oil really running out? How much landfill is available?

Is Recycling A Waste Of Time, Money And Energy? is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

For many people, choosing the college they would like best is hindered simply by the expense of going there. Life is expensive and sometimes parents and teens cannot come up with enough to make it happen. College scholarships can be the answer for many families and they do not even know it.

If you or your teen is in the midst of searching for colleges that might fit well, make search that inquiring about college scholarships that are offered is a top priority in your search. Most schools offer at least a few college scholarships each new year. Sometimes these scholarships are based on a student’s high school grades. But – fear not – not all college scholarships are based on grades! You will be surprised at how many different kinds of college scholarships are given for a variety of reasons.

So, your first step to finding financial relief from the huge expense of college is to research, research, research. Take your time and be thorough. Call counselors at each prospective school and see what college scholarships may not be advertised in their information. Visit a local library or do an internet search and you will be shocked at the amount of information that is available about college scholarships. College scholarships can be given through the college or your choice of through a variety of other institutions and organizations, so do not be too discouraged if your top choice does not have a lot to offer. Look for ways to earn college scholarships from every source you can think of. There are often local businesses that will partner with students in a work-and-study kind of deal. Some employeers will even offer college scholarships to the children of their employees, so be sure to check that out.

In your search for the perfect college some schools may end up too expensive to consider. But, if you take the time to really research college scholarships, you may be surprised at what kind of school you can afford to attend. Your top choice might be just a couple of college scholarships away!

Finding College Scholarships is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

So, what are the options? Most of us do not want to go back to school to get yet another degree. The good news is that getting your precertification training for addictions counseling is easy. You can take online courses such as those offered at http://www.allceus.com or http://www.last-homestudy.com, go to conferences or take college courses. In most states, any addictions certification is sufficient. The National Association for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC) and the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) both offer national addictions certifications. Your other option is to get certified in your home state. Many states now have boards that offer certification as an addictions professional. The down side to state certifications is that they do not transfer if you move out of state.

But I am doing addictions counseling now and am not certified. Why should I jump through all of those hoops? Well, there are several reasons: Ethics, effectiveness, earning potential. All professional codes of ethics state that you must be appropriately trained to provide services to your target population. Therefore, if you are licensed or certified in mental health or psychology, you are expected to gain the extra education necessary to effectively serve your population. As I stated earlier, addictions counseling is far different than traditional Rogerian talk therapy. To be effective as an addictions counselor, you must understand the addiction, how it has become the persons best fiend, why they do not want to give it up and cognitive-behavioral and solution-focused strategies to help them make the change. Finally, earning potential. Addictions certifications open up a whole new set of employment opportunities. Additionally, many agencies will pay more for someone with an addictions certification, versus someone with only a mental health counseling license or no license at all.

In this age of addictive behavior: alcohol, drugs, eating disorders, gambling, the internet and sex, it is vitally important that clinicians can identify and treat addictive behaviors. In persons with co-occurring disorders, it is even more important, because alcohol or drug abuse and eating disorders all impact the dosage and effectiveness of psychotropic medications. Visit NAADAC at: http://naadac.org/documents/index.php?CategoryID=3 for more information.

Addictions Counselor Certification: Why Should I Get It? is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

The purpose of this article is to help you to the next level and show you what this amazing subject has to offer.

A fetal Doppler uses sound waves to notice the sound of the infants cardio activity. The sound waves bounce off of the little ones heart and are sent back to the listener. The baby heart monitor sends these sounds, also known as high frequency waves into an inquiry badge close to the device.

The high frequency waves dont trek very well so it is necessary to use a gel or oil to help things along. The sound conductor is practical straight to the mothers belly and the baby heart monitor is located over the matter and enthused until sound is detected.

The little heartbeat is larger through an earpiece and orator built right into the baby heart monitor. The role wearing the earphones can hear the infants beats and like every precious instant, at slightest until somebody else asks for a chance.

During the next part, we must change to a more serious side to fully communicate the subject matter in a way for all to understand.

The baby heart monitor is very reliable to use. It has been tested and released by the United States governmental agencies responsible for such regulations. No negative affects have been found in over thirty living of use. The baby heart monitor is the same technology worn in hospitals everyday on thousands and thousands of patients.

Some claim that there are great benefits for with the badge while others think that too many sound waves can not be good for the developing fetus. The Food and Drug Administration recommends that you gossip to your physician and get permission before with a home baby heart monitor. This is forever good procedure.

Since the baby heart monitor can be fairly a posh investment for such a short-term ingress many parents prefer to rent one. Renting a baby heart monitor is really less posh and the parents can forever change their minds and asset the part if they so decide.

The renting choice is an appealing aspect unfilled by the manufacturers and the variety to asset the entry gives parents even more incentive to try the device. After all, most families have a baby in their coming plans, whether immediate or extended. A baby heart monitor is a great entry to have.

If you could take the main ideas from this article and put them into a list, you would a great overview of what we have learned.

Hear Your Soon-To-Be-Born Baby is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

Yes and no.
We have potential, which is a power in itself, but unused and undirected potential is NOTHING.

Are we powerless prior to controlling?

I would say we are not powerless, but ignorant (Which is a version of powerlessness, I guess.)

We don’t know that we have power and don’t know to know to test it.

The end of all powerlessness begins with awareness.

A Samurai Warrior would learn this by practicing a meditation of sitting on the top of a mountain with his arm extended and sword pointing skyward in a position ready to fall. He would meditate on that fleeting moment when a balanced piece of metal would turn into an unpredictable falling/killing weapon. His awareness was on the potential of the weapon. When he learned that then he could study the application of it’s power.

What is power?
What is power like?
How great is power?
Where is power now?

To Know. To Will. To Dare. To Keep Silent.
These were the powers of the Sphinx and they remain dormant in all of us to one degree or another.

You don’t know what you don’t know. Thus you must seek knowledge in whatever realm you wish to control.

You must Will and Dare to use that knowledge.

To keep silent. This is where power turns to craft. It is the most subtle application of power. So subtle it may seem that things are all happening in your favor when in fact they happen by your design.

A bolder resting precariously on a cliff, a bow string pulled tight, these have a quality of potential force, What the Chinese strategist, Sun Tsu, called “shih”. With just the right action and the force is unleashed.

The silent art of power and control is to see the potential force in everything and arrange it so that, if released, it works in your favor.

The keys to this power are first to know what you want far into the future and to know it in rich and glorious detail. The next step is to develop a precise and detailed plan to your goal and to meditate upon it day in and day out. By having this constantly on your mind you will function with the greatest efficiency toward your goal.

You will see the world about and know “This action will lead me to my goal. This action will lead me nowhere.”

This task that is unnatural for most of us because of our natural tendency to focus on the thoughts of the present and to respond to the urgencies at hand. To master this skill we must alter our thinking and see every action that we perform as an act of manipulating “shih”.

To do this is the height of Sphinx-like power and makes mere men to seem magical as if they controlled the forces of nature.

POWER: We want it. We have it. We DON’T use it. is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

Currently, only banks and broker-dealers are obliged to retain e-mail and instant messaging documents for three years under U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules. Beginning July 2006, all public companies will also be required to do so under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Notwithstanding these laws, your custom and practice should be to maintain copies of all email correspondence. Email is considered evidence and courts are hammering businesses that do not maintain email records. Judges are often ruling that the failure to maintain and produce email records means the business in question is hiding key evidence.

In the recent Perelman v. Morgan Stanley litigation, a judges ruling on the failure of Morgan Stanley to produce email was key factor in the issuance of a $1.45 billion verdict. Based on the failure to produce email records, Judge Elizabeth Maass issued a pretrial ruling that effectively found Morgan Stanley conspired to defraud Perelman in a 1998 deal. Morgan Stanley is not the only business defendant to have this problem.

In the summer of 2004, UBS bank was found by a judge to have willfully destroyed email evidence in a discrimination case. UBS was ordered to pay costs and a jury returned a $29 million verdict.

Email Policy

To protect your business, you must have a procedure in place to maintain email communications generated through the business. Failure to keep these records can lead to rulings in litigation that your business willfully destroyed evidence. If this occurs, the judge may issue significant monetary sanctions, automatically find you liable or take other harsh steps that assure a victory for the Plaintiff. As if such developments are not bad enough, there exists a second risk associated with email communications.

Maintaining email communications, however, can have a downside. The problem arises, of course, when a communication contains statements that are damaging to your business. Yes, the proverbial catch-22 situation.

To avoid such disasters, your business must develop a clear policy on email communications and train all employees to comply with that policy. Employees must understand the business environment is not one in which jokes, flippant remarks and so on should be made in email communications.

Critical Business Procedure – Keep All Email Communications is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com

The point of the article was really to warn others against falling into the same trap if possible. This particular Spanish textbook and others like it are full of quizzes and exercises that are designed to test the readers ability to retain and understand the information that is being taught. I didnt spend enough time working through the various chapters or attempting all of the exercises. In hindsight I know it would have been better to spend as much time as I needed in order to cover everything that the book had to offer.

In this article I want to talk some more about the same Spanish textbook, in particular about how it dealt with teaching Spanish verb formations. Learning how to form Spanish verbs can be very frustrating for native speakers of English. This is because they are formed very differently. In Spanish it is often not necessary to use subject personal pronouns (I, you, he, she etc) with verbs like it is in English. Look at this simple example:-

I live in England. = Vivo en Inglaterra.

Notice in Spanish no word for I is used. This is because much of the time the way that a Spanish verb is formed will automatically indicate what subject personal pronoun is being referred to (I, you, he, she etc). At first this can seem very confusing and then later on it can still seem very confusing! The difficulty is that there are so many different ways that one single verb might be formed. Not only does the verb change depending on which subject personal pronoun it is used with but it also changes depending on what verb tense is being used (present, past, future etc).

Unfortunately, you will have to learn how Spanish verbs are formed even to have a very basic conversation. There is no escaping it!

Spanish verbs can be split into those that are regular and those that are irregular. The benefit of learning how to form Spanish regular verbs is that once you know how to form one verb in one particular tense you can apply the same formation rules to all regular verbs. You only need to know how to form the verb once!

So, what are the best ways to go about learning how to form Spanish verbs? There are without doubt a lot more regular verbs in Spanish than there are irregular ones so learning the formation rules that apply to regular verbs is probably a good start. Some of the most very common verbs in Spanish are irregular however, so sooner or later you will have to study these too!

The Spanish textbook I was using started to introduce verb formations right from the very beginning but didnt include any detailed explanations about them until perhaps half way through the book. I was putting sentences together using different verb formations without really knowing why. Of course a sentence without a verb is not much of a sentence so being subjected to them right away was unavoidable.

To begin with it is probably a good idea to start making sentences with verbs by concentrating on remembering what the verb in its infinitive form means rather than trying to learn how it is formed in different tenses.

Infinitive verb examples (to live = vivir / to eat = comer / to talk = hablar)

You are still learning, simply by remembering what lots of different verbs means. Later on at a point, which best suites, you, you can begin to look at different verb tenses and formations. For me, the Spanish textbook I was using didnt explain in sufficient logical detail how verbs were formed. I was keen to understand this quite early on in my studies. My textbook approached the subject on a piecemeal basis, which seemed a little too disjointed for me. I would have preferred to learn about verbs as a separate topic rather than having them introduced them bit by bit!

Whichever way you decide to learn about verbs, one thing you will almost certainly want in your possession is a verb conjugation (formation) book. This is a book that will tell you how every conceivable verb in the Spanish language should be formed in all tenses. (Some books are more in depth than others!)

Verb conjugation books and more about what my basic level Spanish text book taught me is what I intend to continue talking about in my next article.

Learning Spanish – Part 6 – Whats The Best Way to Learn Spanish Verb Formations? is a post from: Reference Education Center | nenadsky.com