Most Used Abbreviations in English

When you start living in an English speaking country you realize that abbreviations are very common, at the beginning it seems a bit weird as in other languages they are not that common, but then you see their potential because they save a fairly amount of time.

Next is shown a list with the most used abbreviations in English. These abbreviations are sorted alphabetically and presented in a table with three columns: the actual abbreviation, its meaning in English and an example to see the context where it’s used.

Table 1: English Abbreviations

Abrev.	Meaning	Example of use
AFAIK	As Far As I Know	AFAIK there is no problem at all
AKA	Also Known As	She’s Victoria Beckham, also known as Posh
ASAP	As Soon As Possible	This needs to be done asap
BBL	Be Back Later	Now you have to wait, he’ll BBL
BRB	Be Right Back	One sec, I’ll BRB
BTW	By The Way	That’s really good news. BTW, she also finishes her studies
COB	Close Of Business	We need to finish this requirement by COB
DIY	Do It Yourself	If you want anything to happen you have to DIY!
FYI	For Your Information	Commonly used in the emails and when you forward a message to another person. FYI, original message
IDK	I Don’t Know	I’m sorry, IDK
IMO	In My Opinion	IMO, you’re wrong
LOL	Lots Of Laughs	Lol, that was really funny
NIM	Not In the Mood	I’m NIM to go out tonight
NP	No Problem	No problem at all, it was my pleasure
OMG	Oh My God	OMG! Isn’t that Cristiano Ronaldo?
TBA	To Be Announced	Prize for the winner is TBA!
TBC	To Be Confirmed	That is still TBC
TBD	To Be Defined	The room is yet TBD
UFO	Unidentified Flying Object	He believes he saw an UFO last night
VIP	Very Important Person	That’s the VIP area for the club
WTF	What the f**k?	WTF are you talking about man?

Do you know any other that is not mentioned above?

Halloween is coming…

But, what is Halloween exactly?
Halloween (also spelled Hallowe'en) is an annual holiday celebrated on October 31. This holiday has origins in the ancient Gaelic festival known as Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sau-an), which is derived from Old Irish and means roughly "summer's end".

The celebration has some elements of a festival of the dead. The ancient Gaels believed that the border between this world and the Otherworld became thin on Samhain, allowing spirits (both harmless and harmful) to pass through.

Why do children say "trick or treat"?
Trick-or-treating is a customary celebration for children on Halloween. Children go in costume from house to house, asking for treats such as candy or sometimes money, with the question, "Trick or treat?" The word "trick" refers to a (mostly idle) threat to perform mischief on the homeowners or their property if no treat is given. In some parts of Ireland and Scotland children still go guising. In this custom the child performs some sort of show, i.e. sings a song or tells a ghost story, in order to earn their treats.

To finish, some recommended videos from YouTube:

Classic video from Disney with the Donald Duck – Trick or Treat:



Link to video1 in YouTube

This is Halloween, the song from the Nightmare before Christmas movie:



Link to video2 in YouTube

The previous song with subtitles in English:



Link to video3 in YouTube

Happy Halloween!

References:
Information on the Wikipedia
Image in the post

Think in English, turn your email into English!

There are many ways for keeping your English alive, some of them require dedication or time consuming tasks but you can also do small things that can help you to keep in touch with the language. For instance, as simple as setting up your PC desktop's environment to English will make you think in English, so every time you copy a file, set a new device, install an application or turn your computer off you'll be interacting with your system...in English!

You can also change the language of your applications so every time you use your browser, copy-and-paste something or write a document in your word processor you'll be doing it in English. This also applies to sites where language settings can be changed, like Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail. As an example, let's see how to set up your Gmail account in English.

1. Go to Gmail and click on “Configuración”:



2. On “Idioma” select English (US) or English (UK):



3. Save your settings clicking on “Guardar los cambios”:



4. Now, your Gmail account is in English!



At the beginning it could be a little tough because you might be used to how things are written in Spanish, but after a while you'll find yourself working as you would do it with your PC set in Spanish.

You can even extend this idea to your cell phone, so every time you write a SMS or make a call, you'll be using what you've learned in English!!

Guest post from Luis M. Gallardo, you can visit his blog about Linux, Programming, Videogames and many other topics. Luis also collaborates in the planeta consolas blog.

Great video - Mr Duncan Channel Promo

There is no doubt that Mister Duncan is one of the best online English teachers; his videos are very creative and educational.

We’d like to share with you one of the latest videos that he has made (in order to promote his free channel on YouTube) that is simply wonderful.

In this video Mister Duncan shows off his big creativity and through a rhyme introduces you to his channel for learning English on YouTube:



Link to the video on YouTube

Every video in his channel is subtitled so it’s easier to understand them.

Don’t miss his channel on YouTube