Miguel Angel E. recently returned from a tropical resort holiday in Mexico, and I've returned from a holiday in London, England (definitely NOT a tropical resort - but still worth visiting), which means we're both rested, relaxed and ready to resume our weekly conversation sessions.

It's therefore fitting that today's session is the first one documented here in my new blog as part of English Conversation 2.0.

I had expected that, because it had been a while (more than a month) since he last spoke English with me (and was staying in another Spanish-speaking country meanwhile), his English speaking skills were going to be rusty.

However, Miguel Angel surprised me today...

I was pleased to see that he was demonstrating much greater English verbal agility than before, and he wasn't making those same old little mistakes he used to make repeatedly. I'm not sure what to attribute this to except the fact that he's better rested than usual. Right away we got into a special use of the adverb terribly (in this context meaning very much, a lot) as in:

I'm sweating terribly.

Then I introduced Miguel Angel to the word soaking (present participle of the verb to soak), which can function as an adjective emphasizer (meaning completely, totally). This term is used to describe something that's completely wet (from water, the rain or other liquids), in constructions such as:

I'm soaking wet!

Meanwhile, from talking of his experiences in Mexico last month, Miguel Angel taught me a simple fact about Mexico that I was totally unaware of (from my native-English speaker bias): I've always known the capital city of this country as Mexico City; however, he informed me that in Mexico it's officially referred to as México D.F. (along with Ciudad de México or simply México), because the city is also the Federal District (Distrito Federal).

Our conversation today also took us back to another favourite topic of ours: movies! During our session I was amused to hear the ring tone on Miguel Angel's business (mobile) phone play a version of the theme song from The Exorcist (1973). We started talking about this and other classic American movies from the 1970s (my favourite period) and he and I discovered that we also share a love for the classic horror flick Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). I can't tell you how great it feels to meet people who share my cinematic tastes!

I rounded up our session finally by introducing Miguel Angel to a useful phrase that has two somewhat different meanings in English: used to.

As an example, I gave him these two sentences...

1. I'm used to (drinking) Cruzcampo.
2. I used to drink Cruzcampo.

And their different meanings...

1. accustomed - "I'm accustomed to (drinking) Cruzcampo."

Notice that, for this meaning, the verb 'to be' is required (I'm used to, we're used to, etc.), but the present participle verb is optional (as it's usually understood).

2. did something repeatedly in the past but no longer - "I did drink Cruzcampo for years, but now I only drink Coronita."

Now that I've introduced him to these phrases and meanings, you can be sure that I'm going to use them again in my conversations with Miguel Angel to test whether he remembers them and can apply them himself!

Overall, this was an excellent session I think for both of us. I felt in top form as an English instructor, and I attribute some of that to the holiday I took last month!