Blog criado porBruno Coriolano de Almeida Costa, professor de Língua Inglesa desde 2002. Esse espaço surgiu em 2007 com o objetivo de unir alguns estudiosos e professores desse idioma. Abordamos, de forma rápida e simples, vários aspectos da Língua Inglesa e suas culturas. Agradeço a sua visita.
"Se tivesse perguntado ao cliente o que ele queria, ele teria dito: 'Um cavalo mais rápido!"
“A FAIR-WEATHER FRIEND” is a sort of a friend you may find everywhere, and all the time. Footballers have those kind of friends more than anyone else does, I reckon.
If you cannot fully understand what I am talking about, I will try to make it clearer. A fair-weather friendis someone who is only your friend when things are going well. In other words, a fair-weather friend is friend who is only a friend when circumstances are PLEASANT or PROFITABLE. At the first sign of trouble, these capricious, disloyal friends will drop their relationship with you.
Do you think you have a lot of fair-weather friends?
Can you write a sentence or two using ‘fair-weather friend’?
A foul-weather friend, on the other hand, is a friend who only seeks you out if you have a problem, need a shoulder to cry on, a ride to town or someone to watch your dog, but otherwise they act as if they don't even know you. In other words, a foul-weather friend is the opposite of a fair-weather friend. Which one do you prefer, a foul-weather or a fair-weather friend?
I hope you have enjoyed this post. I also appreciate your visit! Feel free to read more blog post and leave comments if you feel like it.
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PORTAL DA
LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the
persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites
referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such
websites are, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
In some
instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here;
therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so.
Thank you very much.
Is something important missing?
Report an error or suggest an improvement. Please, I strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact me!
Did you spot a typo?
Do you have any tips or examples
to improve this page?
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Use one of your social-media
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I am always
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indicate the appropriate number below.
How would you rate this post?
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Steve Jobs
not only represents a brand, but actually a generation of users who follow in
the footsteps of his creativity. The impact that Jobs has had on everyone’s
lives can never be overestimated. Although you’re not always aware of it, his
innovations have affected everything around you, from movies, to computers,
music and mobile phones.
A lot of
people still keep asking: “Why is Apple such a successful brand?” In order to
answer this question, we should remember some of Steve Jobs’ key quotes, when he was just a
young visionary:
“Marketing is about values. It’s a
complicated and noisy world, and we’re not going to get a chance to get people
to remember much about us. No company is. So we have to be really clear about
what we want them to know about us.”
And boy, was
he right about what we remember! Not only were his products iconic, but they’re
also his legacy. The key to Jobs’ success is a combination of quality,
innovation, and market strategies that were designed extremely carefully. They
were so effective that Apple managed to reinvent products that were already
available on the market, and got consumers to think they had never seen
anything like them before.
Steve Jobs not
only reinvented Apple, but he redesigned and marketed thousands of products
that were actually already on the market (e.g. mp3 players). Steve was so
brilliant, that even when he was fired from his post as CEO of Apple, it didn’t
stop him from returning to his post the second time, and this time increasing
their sales.
1) MAKE A GREAT PRODUCT.
Since 1981,
we’ve observed success, strategy, inspiration, and innovation. Very few
entrepreneurs have managed to accomplish what Steve Jobs did: create an excellent
product. From its performance, to the physical space each one occupies, the
design, and the beautiful box it comes carefully wrapped in- when you buy an
Apple product you know what to expect. For Jobs: (and thousands on his team, of
course! After all, Rome wasn’t built in a day, or alone!) product quality comes
first and not just a great packaging and excellent marketing strategies. The
key is that the product is excellent. In his own words:
“It’s not about pop culture, and
it’s not about fooling people, and it’s not about convincing people that they
want something they don’t. We figure out what we want. And I think we’re pretty
good at having the right discipline to think through whether a lot of other
people are going to want it, too. That’s what we get paid to do. So you can’t
go out and ask people, you know, what the next big [thing.] There’s a great
quote by Henry Ford, right? He said, ‘If I’d have asked my customers what they
wanted, they would have told me ‘A faster horse’.”
2) DON’T SELL PRODUCTS,
SELL DREAMS.
Apple’s
strategy involves selling their consumers a global package of dreams, personal
experiences, and status, and it makes almost all other products go unnoticed if
they don’t carry the Apple logo.
As we said
before, Apple managed to reinvent products that were already on the market. You
know when you buy an Apple product, you’re not only buying a great piece of
modern technology, you’re buying a little piece of ideology to put in your
pocket. By carrying it, you adopt the visions that Steve Jobs had: dreams can
be fulfilled, take a position in life and stand up for it, don’t squander your
life living by someone else’s rules. Be true to yourself. Apple is different
from all other brands because for Steve Jobs, consumers weren’t just consumers,
they were people. People with dreams, hopes, and ambitions, and he got Apple to
create products to help them achieve their dreams and goals.
Apple has
always been innovative, from their products to how they market their message.
An example is when they launched their famous Apple commercial “1984″ (which we
can see below). It demonstrated why 1984 wasn’t like”1984″ after it came out.
It was like some sort of marketing-event, where the campaign itself was so
revolutionary that the media even covered it like an event.
3) FOCUS ON THE
EXPERIENCE.
Think
different. Think like Nike and Apple. Focus on creating a universe of
sensations, experiences, and values that the person gets when they buy your
product. Analyze how it feels to use and buy your products, and think about
what you need to improve, and what you need to focus on. When you purchase your
Apple MacBook Air, you’re not only buying a computer where you can do your
work, edit pics/videos, and connect with
your friends. You’re buying Apple’s belief that people with passion can change
the world and make it a better place.
In Nike’s
case, they do sell a commodity, but when you think Nike, you think about the
whole experience. When we say Nike, it doesn’t feel like we’re talking about a
fleet of factories with the best calibrated machines or a company that just
sells shoes, it feels like we’re talking about a lifestyle. Nike represents
passion, crossing your limits, training, enduring and accomplishing your goals.
Nike doesn’t even mention selling shoes in their ads, and that’s the key to
their success.
4) TURN CONSUMERS INTO
EVANGELISTS, NOT JUST CUSTOMERS.
One of
Apple’s most important strategies is getting the consumer to want to recommend
the brand, and without being paid for it. Like other iconic brands such as
Harley Davidson, (the great motorcycle company that doesn’t just sell bikes,
but rather a subculture, and a lifestyle); Apple users are advocates, sponsors,
and fans of the brand. We’ve seen it in the classic fight between designers:
which is better for designing computer graphics, Mac or PC? IPhone users preach
that its the only option for cellphones all the time, right? Apple users are
like evangelists who represent a way of thinking, a new generation, and a
mission, something bigger than themselves. They’re part of the team and
understand the vision of the company. Side note, while Apple managed to get
their customers to be really loyal in the most profitable way, that is, by
turning them into fans, Harley Davidson meanwhile, actually got them to take it
even further: the consumers choose to tattoo themselves with the brand’s logo
as a symbol of membership and belonging. Now we’re talkin about brand power!
5) MASTER THE MESSAGE,
(and now that we’re on the subject, the delivery too).
You can have
a great product but if communication fails, it’s like watching a stand-up
comedian do a gig in a completely different
language. Jobs gave us some of the best speeches in corporate history.
He preached against PowerPoint presentations, saying you only have to use them
when it’s really necessary. Mastering the topic, the message, and knowing how
to present it without visual aids, speaks much more than a cute drawing created
with some elegant color scheme. For large groups, PowerPoint is excellent but
Jobs hated when people brought in presentations into meetings, because he saw
it as a sign that they didn’t completely dominate the topic they were
presenting.
6) DECISIONS SHOULD BE
MADE BY A GROUP, NOT A COMMITTEE.
No wonder
there aren’t any monuments of committees. Important decisions should be made by
a group designated to decision making. A
small group who trusts in each other and in their instincts because they are
all immersed in the company’s objectives. You should always encourage the team
to discuss ideas, but then only leave those most suitable to make the final
decisions.
7) FIND AN ENEMY.
Think about
Coca Cola versus Pepsi and all their media battles over time. Make it clear who
the enemy is, and try to get people to take a side. Choosing sides is part of
human behavior and was introduced as an idea by the French social psychologists
Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon. The herd mentality or mob mentality is what
happens when the collective consciousness occurs in a group of people
influenced and pressured by the masses to adopt certain behaviors, follow
trends, and/or purchase products. The desire to belong and to explain the
disorder of the world makes consumers feel better about belonging to the ideology
of a brand that matches their own thoughts and values. If you don’t stand up
for what you believe in, you’ll go unnoticed. And what better way to state what
you believe in, than stating clearly what you DON’T believe in?
Apple is well
aware of this, so obviously so are its users, and you know it’s been made clear
exactly who the enemy is: Bill Gates and what Microsoft brought to market, as
Jobs puts it: bad taste. The biggest enemies of Apple are, complexity, lack of
good taste, and conventional thinking, all aspects that Jobs made abundantly
clear, that Microsoft possesses. Jobs stated: – “The only problem with
Microsoft is they just have no taste. They have absolutely no taste. And I
don’t mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way, in the sense that
they don’t think of original ideas, and they don’t bring much culture into
their products.” For Jobs, an important
part of the development of a product is the aesthetics, and that the homogenous
design that represents the brand is a style that you find in absolutely all of
their products.
8) KEEP THE DESIGN
SIMPLE, AND WHEN YOU GET THERE, SIMPLIFY IT EVEN MORE.
It’s the
essence of the coveted Apple products. No other competing product beats their
level of simplicity. From the user experience to its aesthetic design and
delicate work put in to make their products intuitive. So, one thing is
absolutely clear: less is more.
9) YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE
THE FIRST, BUT YOU’VE GOT TO BE THE BEST.
As we’ve
mentioned a few times, Apple didn’t invent MP3 players, Smartphones, Tablets or
computers. However, they did redefine and invest all their efforts to create a
world where their products gave us a before and after of new technology. Even though
other competition was already on the market, Apple took those same products and
improved the user experience, navigability, weight, packaging, and distribution
channels. They achieved better design, size, they listened, paid attention, and
managed to design products that are super convenient to carry with you
everywhere you go.
10) INNOVATE OR DIE.
Steve Jobs
knew that the key was diving into the user experience and identifying what they
need, and what they want. Thinking outside the box, and constantly providing
products and services that meet those needs. Apple remains a precursor in the
current market, and has recently launched some apps that measure your health
and can automate your home with its new iOS 8.
The IOS 8 operating system was presented by Tim Cook at conference
number 25 for enterprise developers, according to Reuters. The software
includes, among others, HomeKit and HealthKit, perfecting the comfortable,
simple and practical lifestyle that Apple seeks to provide with their products.
Healthkit allows users to control their health and provides them with a data
base where their information is recorded along with their info from other
fitness related applications. HomeKit, meanwhile, allows the user to control
their locks, lights, garage doors, etc.. from the device.
From the
Genius Bars to Apple Stores, the vision and personal beliefs of Steve Jobs are
alive in the legacy of the coolest products, whose sales efforts reach even the
packaging. He believed that you don’t only have to innovate, but you’ve got to
think and dream big, believe in something and then fight for it. And if you
want to stand out in a highly competitive market, you need to take risks, but
mostly you need to be different or else you’ll just blend in with the rest.
PORTAL DA
LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the
persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites
referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such
websites are, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
In some
instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here;
therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so.
Thank you very much.
Is something important missing?
Report an error or suggest an improvement. Please, I strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact me!
Did you spot a typo?
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This is the
text I'd like to share with you today. As you might have already noticed, I always share some texts that I read. Man, I do read a lot. You have no idea of how
much!
Dr. Kelly
Neff, a renowned psychologist and author, wrote this one.
It is basically about
an interesting subject - Stop Over-Thinking!
8 Ways to Stop Over-Thinking and Find Peace
in the Present Moment
We all do our
best to stay positive, but occasionally we can slip into negative thinking
patterns that can wreak havoc on our lives. We might worry about our past
mistakes or current stresses, and how these could lead to negative outcomes in
the future. We might obsess about or over-analyze regular experiences and
interactions, reading into them things that aren’t actually there. We might
find that as soon as one bad thing happens, we associate it with all the other
bad things that have happened in our lives and begin to feel miserable. We
might feel anxious in the present, having a hard time getting out of our own
heads as we worry and obsess about the things that could go wrong.
If you find
yourself in this place frequently, you are what psychologists call a ruminator,
or, an over-thinker, and this way of thinking can be harmful to your health.
Psychologists have found that over-thinking can be detrimental to human
performance, and can lead to anxiety and depression, especially in women, who
are much more likely than men to ruminate on stress and disappointments than
men.
As a
psychologist and recovering over-thinker myself, I have a lot of compassion for
people who end up in these spiraling negative thought patterns. Many
over-thinkers are lovely, intelligent, nurturing people who value relationships
and care deeply for the people in their lives. Unfortunately, they often push
away the very people that they are worrying about or seeking support and reassurance
from, because they can become obsessive, anxious, depressed, negative and
difficult to be around. This is not a switch in the brain that can be easily
flipped off, but rather, a pattern from which it requires dedication and work
to recover. Based on research in psychology and my personal experiences, here
is my advice for how to stop over-thinking and find peace in the present
moment:
1) Accept
that You Have a Problem with Over-Thinking.
The first
step to healing is acknowledging that you have a problem. If you feel like you
can’t get out of your own head and over-thinking is stopping you from living a
happy life, making decisions, getting things done, or forming meaningful
relationships, then you have a problem. If you find yourself spiraling into
negativity and depression when a bad thing happens, you have a problem. If your
anxiety about the future is stopping you from enjoying the present, you have a
problem. Burying your head in the sand or denying this reality will only make
the situation worse. If you are not sure if you have a problem, ask your
friends and loved ones to be honest with you, because they are usually the ones
who will see it even if you cannot.
2) Forgive
Yourself: Our Brains are Hardwired This Way
Once you can
admit that you are an over-thinker, forgive yourself, because the brain is
actually wired to make over-thinking a natural tendency. According to
Psychologist Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, the leading expert in this field, “the
organization of our brains sets us up for over-thinking” because our thoughts
and memories are intrinsically woven together, not compartmentalized. So when
stressors are triggered or you get into a bad mood, it can unlock a ‘cascade’
of racing negative thoughts that have nothing to do with the original trigger
for the bad mood. Nolen-Hoeksema gives the example of “when poor job
performance causes you to think about your aunt who died last year.”
Furthermore,
when something bad happens or someone is feeling negative, they are more likely
to think negative things and also see connections (that may not actually exist)
between all the bad events that have happened in their lives. The more
frequently this happens, the more likely the individual is to engage in this
over-thinking pattern in the future.
While the
brain might be wired to make these associations, once you become aware you can
begin to solve the problem.
Portal da Língua Inglesa: Something about countable and uncountable nouns.: Well, you have to teachcountableanduncountablenouns in English today, right? Good luck with it; it is going to be quite difficult if your students are Brazilians. And why is that? Well, because in Portuguese, they can countbread,meat, andfruit, but in English, they cannot.
They will probably use the interlanguage -- the type of language produced by second- and foreign- language learners who are in the process of learning a language.
Some correct answers will depend on the context or on what you really want to say.
Everybody knows that ‘egg’ is countable, isn’t that right?
If you have seen the first picture and I do like Irish
literature, you must be waiting for more, right?
So, here’s another very interesting picture (and
comments as well).
On March 14th 1887, Sylvia Beach, owner of the
Paris-based bookstore Shakespeare and
Company Bookshop, was born in Baltimore. Beach moved to Paris at the age of
14, when her father, a Presbyterian minister, was sent to France.
She fell in love with the city. In 1919, she opened
her bookstore, Shakespeare and Company, which became a gathering place for
American writers in Paris in the 1920s, including F. Scott Fitzgeraldand Ernest Hemingway.
Beach was a strong supporter of writer James Joyce,
who lived in Paris from 1920 to 1940. The Irish writer had achieved fame with
his 1915 novel, A Portrait of the Artist
as a Young Man, and had started publishing his masterwork Ulysses in serial form in an American
magazine called the Little Review. However, the serialization was halted in
December 1920, after the U.S. Post Office brought a charge of obscenity against
Joyce's work. Beach published the book herself in July 1922. It wasn't until
1933 that a U.S. judge permitted Ulysses
to be distributed in the U.S.
PORTAL DA
LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the
persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites referred
to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites are,
or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
In some
instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here;
therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so.
Thank you very much.
Is something important missing?
Report an error or suggest an improvement. Please, I strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact me!
Did you spot a typo?
Do you have any tips or examples
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this page?
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I was once
supposed to give a speech during my graduation party back in 2006, or something
like that. Well, I did not have to worry much because all I had to do, apart
from stammering a lot, was, guess what!?, read an old piece of paper and wait
for some fellow students clap their hands.
Taking a look
on YouTube, I have found lots and lots of speeches. Great ones, inspiring ones,
very creative ones, and funny ones as well.
I would like to
share a couple of speeches with you.
God, I wish I
had found those videos in 2006! I would have made a funny one in order to have
the chance to look back I laugh a lot about that wonderful year!
Have a great
week, everyone! See you around!
PORTAL DA
LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the
persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites
referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such websites
are, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
In some
instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here;
therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so.
Thank you very much.
Is something important missing?
Report an error or suggest an improvement. Please, I strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact me!
Did you spot a typo?
Do you have any tips or examples
to improve this page?
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this page?
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Here’s to the
crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the
square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with
them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some
may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy
enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.
“Esta é uma homenagem aos loucos. Aos
inadaptados. Aos rebeldes. Aos desordeiros. Às fichas redondas nos buracos
quadrados. Aos que enxergam as coisas de forma diferente. Eles não gostam de
regras e não sentem nenhum respeito pelo statu quo. Você pode cita-los,
discordar deles ou vilaniza-los. O único que você não pode fazer é ignora-los,
porque eles irão mudar as coisas. São os que fazem avançar o gênero humano.
Ainda que alguns os vejam como loucos, nós vemos seu gênio, porque as pessoas
que estão suficientemente loucas para pensar que podem mudar o mundo… são quem
os mudam”.
About the video: Featuring: Albert Einstein, Bob
Dylan, Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Branson, John Lennon & Yoko Ono,
Buckminster Fuller, Thomas Edison, Muhammad Ali, Ted Turner, Maria Callas,
Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart & Bernt Balchen, Alfred Hitchcock, Martha
Graham, Jim Henson, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pablo Picasso. The commercial ends with
an image of a young girl, Shaan Sahota, opening her closed eyes, as if to see
the possibilities before her.
PORTAL DA
LÍNGUA INGLESA has no responsibility for the
persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-partly internet websites
referred to in this post, and does not guarantee that any context on such
websites are, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
In some
instances, I have been unable to trace the owners of the pictures used here;
therefore, I would appreciate any information that would enable me to do so.
Thank you very much.
Is something important missing?
Report an error or suggest an improvement. Please, I strive for accuracy and
fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact me!
Did you spot a typo?
Do you have any tips or examples
to improve this page?
Do you disagree with something on
this page?
Use one of your social-media
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