¡Hola! Mi nombre es Mallory y creo materiales, explicaciones y cuentos en el sitio web Really Learn English. Quería compartir con los usuarios de Subingles.com algunas ideas sobre cómo hacer que estudiar inglés no sea un deber sino algo que disfrutamos - ¡y mucho!

A veces, tanto estudiantes como profesores, sentimos que aprender un idioma es un sinfín de ejercicios y reglas de gramática. ¡Pero no tiene que ser así! Hay muchas maneras de hacer que el estudio y el contacto con el idioma inglés sea una experiencia divertida.

Y la verdad es que cuando algo nos interesa y divierte, nos enfocamos más y trabajamos mejor. Por eso es una excelente idea usar los cuentos para aprender inglés.

Bueno, pero ¿por qué? Primero, porque vemos cómo el vocabulario y las estructuras gramaticales que vamos aprendiendo aparecen en un contexto más completo que lo que vemos muchas veces en los ejemplos aislados de una sola oración. Segundo, muchas veces aparecen expresiones o frases hechas en los cuentos y esto también es algo que podemos aprender.

Además, podemos practicar la lectura y la pronunciación con los cuentos. Es una excelente idea leer los cuentos en voz alta a solas o con un compañero o una compañera, quien también puede aprovechar para practicar el entendimiento auditivo. Háganse preguntas después de la lectura y escriban respuestas completas o un resumen del cuento para utilizar el vocabulario y revisar si han entendido bien.

¡Pero lo más importante de todo es que los cuentos son para divertirse mientras estudiamos!

Listo, entonces ¿dónde los encuentro?

Hay muchos cuentos en internet. Los cuentos gratis en Really Learn English, por ejemplo, incluyen ilustraciones y finales divertidos para que toda la experiencia sea grata y atractiva. Verás que puedes escoger un cuento según tu nivel. Aquí los cuentos son cortos y manejables para que puedas leerlos de a uno o de a dos sin tener que dedicar tanto tiempo al ejercicio. Así no sólo es divertido estudiar, sino también cómodo y organizado.

Y porque siempre es importante hacer consultas si tienes alguna duda sobre la gramática, también tenemos una amplia sección de gramática inglesa explicada en español con ejemplos en inglés y traducidos al español. Estamos agregando más artículos todos los días y todo está para ti - ¡totalmente gratis!

Un pequeño cuento de Navidad “The Little Match Girl” de Hans Chistian Andersen, es una historia sobre los sueños y esperanzas de los niños, la moraleja no es el final del cuento como ocurre normalmente sino el cuento en si mismo.

Os recomendamos en primer lugar como siempre leer la historia intentando entenderla (si fuera necesario usando un diccionario para las palabras que nos resulten más complicadas) y después podemos ver el video de Disney&Pixar (son 6 minutos de duración) que nos ayudarán a comprender perfectamente la historia en inglés, ¡disfrutarla!

“Most terribly cold it was; it snowed, and was nearly quite dark, and evening-- the last evening of the year. In this cold and darkness there went along the street a poor little girl, bareheaded, and with naked feet. When she left home she had slippers on, it is true; but what was the good of that? They were very large slippers, which her mother had hitherto worn; so large were they; and the poor little thing lost them as she scuffled away across the street, because of two carriages that rolled by dreadfully fast.

One slipper was nowhere to be found; the other had been laid hold of by an urchin, and off he ran with it; he thought it would do capitally for a cradle when he some day or other should have children himself. So the little maiden walked on with her tiny naked feet, that were quite red and blue from cold. She carried a quantity of matches in an old apron, and she held a bundle of them in her hand. Nobody had bought anything of her the whole livelong day; no one had given her a single farthing.

She crept along trembling with cold and hunger--a very picture of sorrow, the poor little thing!

The flakes of snow covered her long fair hair, which fell in beautiful curls around her neck; but of that, of course, she never once now thought. From all the windows the candles were gleaming, and it smelt so deliciously of roast goose, for you know it was New Year's Eve; yes, of that she thought.

In a corner formed by two houses, of which one advanced more than the other, she seated herself down and cowered together. Her little feet she had drawn close up to her, but she grew colder and colder, and to go home she did not venture, for she had not sold any matches and could not bring a farthing of money: from her father she would certainly get blows, and at home it was cold too, for above her she had only the roof, through which the wind whistled, even though the largest cracks were stopped up with straw and rags.

Her little hands were almost numbed with cold. Oh! a match might afford her a world of comfort, if she only dared take a single one out of the bundle, draw it against the wall, and warm her fingers by it. She drew one out. "Rischt!" how it blazed, how it burnt! It was a warm, bright flame, like a candle, as she held her hands over it: it was a wonderful light. It seemed really to the little maiden as though she were sitting before a large iron stove, with burnished brass feet and a brass ornament at top. The fire burned with such blessed influence; it warmed so delightfully. The little girl had already stretched out her feet to warm them too; but--the small flame went out, the stove vanished: she had only the remains of the burnt-out match in her hand.

She rubbed another against the wall: it burned brightly, and where the light fell on the wall, there the wall became transparent like a veil, so that she could see into the room. On the table was spread a snow-white tablecloth; upon it was a splendid porcelain service, and the roast goose was steaming famously with its stuffing of apple and dried plums. And what was still more capital to behold was, the goose hopped down from the dish, reeled about on the floor with knife and fork in its breast, till it came up to the poor little girl; when--the match went out and nothing but the thick, cold, damp wall was left behind. She lighted another match. Now there she was sitting under the most magnificent Christmas tree: it was still larger, and more decorated than the one which she had seen through the glass door in the rich merchant's house.

Thousands of lights were burning on the green branches, and gaily-colored pictures, such as she had seen in the shop-windows, looked down upon her. The little maiden stretched out her hands towards them when--the match went out. The lights of the Christmas tree rose higher and higher, she saw them now as stars in heaven; one fell down and formed a long trail of fire.

"Someone is just dead!" said the little girl; for her old grandmother, the only person who had loved her, and who was now no more, had told her, that when a star falls, a soul ascends to God.

She drew another match against the wall: it was again light, and in the lustre there stood the old grandmother, so bright and radiant, so mild, and with such an expression of love.

"Grandmother!" cried the little one. "Oh, take me with you! You go away when the match burns out; you vanish like the warm stove, like the delicious roast goose, and like the magnificent Christmas tree!" And she rubbed the whole bundle of matches quickly against the wall, for she wanted to be quite sure of keeping her grandmother near her. And the matches gave such a brilliant light that it was brighter than at noon-day: never formerly had the grandmother been so beautiful and so tall. She took the little maiden, on her arm, and both flew in brightness and in joy so high, so very high, and then above was neither cold, nor hunger, nor anxiety--they were with God.

But in the corner, at the cold hour of dawn, sat the poor girl, with rosy cheeks and with a smiling mouth, leaning against the wall--frozen to death on the last evening of the old year. Stiff and stark sat the child there with her matches, of which one bundle had been burnt. "She wanted to warm herself," people said. No one had the slightest suspicion of what beautiful things she had seen; no one even dreamed of the splendor in which, with her grandmother she had entered on the joys of a new year.”

Fuente:online-literature.com

Esta noche es Halloween o la noche de Todos los Santos, es una fiesta que se celebra internacionalmente la noche del 31 de octubre, el significado de ésta festividad es la unión del mundo de los vivos y el reino de los muertos, por eso algunas de las actividades tipicas de Halloween ademas del "truco o trato" es la lectura de historias de miedo, por eso,  os dejamos el cuento de los Hermanos Grimm "The old witch", ¡Feliz noche a tod@s!

The Old Witch by The Brothers Grimm

There was once a little girl who was very willful and who never obeyed when her elders spoke to her – so how could she be happy?

One day she said to her parents, “I have heard so much of the old witch that I will go and see her. People say she is a wonderful old woman, and has many marvelous things in her house, and I am very curious to see them.”‘

But her parents forbade her going, saying, “The witch is a wicked old woman, who performs many godless deeds – and if you go near her, you are no longer a child of ours.”

The girl, however, would not turn back at her parents’ command, but went to the witch’s house. When she arrived there the old woman asked her:

“Why are you so pale?”

“Ah,” she replied, trembling all over, “I have frightened myself so with what I have just seen.”

“And what did you see?” inquired the old witch.

“I saw a black man on your steps.”

“That was a collier,” replied she.

“Then I saw a gray man.”

“That was a sportsman,” said the old woman.

“After him I saw a blood-red man.”

“That was a butcher,” replied the old woman.

“But, oh, I was most terrified,” continued the girl, “when I peeped through your window, and saw not you, but a creature with a fiery head.”

“Then you have seen the witch in her proper dress,” said the old woman. “For you I have long waited, and now you shall give me light.”

So saying the witch changed the little girl into a block of wood, and then threw it on the fire. When it was fully alight, she sat down on the hearth and warmed herself, saying:

“How good I feel! The fire has not burned like this for a long time!”

Podéis ver su traducción al castellano en el siguiente link.

¡Qué paséis un terrorífico Halloween!