Humor4u

Playa de los Cristianos (Tenerife) has been named the best winter sun holiday destination in Europe by Holydo , a holiday rental search engine in the UK. Spain tops the list of winter sun destinations, but other featured destinations are Agios Nikolaos in Greece, Siracusa in Italy, Luz in Portugal and Cala Rossa in France. A list of the sunniest cities in Europe  has also been published by Holydo Magazine , and, surpisingly enough, Zaragoza ranks number 12 in Europe! In this article, which is suitable for B2 students, you can find descriptive adjectives and other interesting words like: average , whopping , dreamy, charming, a coastal [town], to beat , to check out, waterfront [restaurants], nearby [abandoned castles], stunning [streescapes], breathtaking [beaches], impressive [cliffs], turquoise [waters]. If you are already looking for ideas to travel in 2023, or you just want to do a little bit of online travel while it is cold and foggy outside, you can read this article f...

Travel + Leisure magazine  has just published the  50 Best Places to Travel in 2022 , for their affluent American readers, featuring Alaska (left) among other national and international destinations.  C1 students can do some virtual travel with the article 50 Best Places to Travel in 2022 , they can look at the beautiful pictures and pick up English words galore, as the text is packed with descriptive adjectives, nouns and verbs like: a far-flung destination, a thrill, travel restrictions galore, albeit, to cross off [destinations], the hospitality industry was hit hard, downtime, to venture, to reap [the benefits], valiant [efforts], to teem with [fresh-air activities], to be raring, to make up for, splashy, hard-hit destinations, buzzy, stateside, to hold back, wellness, farm-to-table living, to stretch, overlooked, unspoiled [villages], picturesque, stunning, sleepy, underdog, harbinger, an eco-lodge, glamping, a [food] hotspot, local produce, an eager [traveler], vast...

On International Women's Day, Rappler , publishes the video " In Contested Cybercrime Laws, Activists and Women Are in Dange r" (6':49") about the repression of women's activism around the world.  Authoritarian regimes and dictatorships have passed cybercrime laws that punish feminist activists and other dissidents with imprisonment like Loujain-Al-Hathloul in Saudi Arabia, but also in other parts of Asia, like Myanmar, Thailand, Fiji, or the Philippines, where María Ressa, the CEO of Rappler   and winner of the 2021 Nobel Prize for Peace ,  has been accused of "ciber libel" and has been jailed for writing critical articles against President Rodrigo Duterte's brutal anti-drug policies. At the end of the video, three women activists leave a final message: Momoko Nojo (Japan), Marine Maiorano Delmas (France) and Frida Guerrero (Mexico).  This video with subtitles contains a lot of legal vocabulary, but the subtitles can allow even B2 students t...

You can celebrate International Biodiversity Week (18- 22 May) by watching the first episode of the Netflix documentary " Our Planet ", which has just been released on YouTube.  The stunning beauty of the images, the music, and the impeccable English on the voice of Sir David Attenborough will surely open an imaginary window to the wonders of our natural world and the fragility of its future preservation. Subtitles are available, so this 49':27" documentary can be enjoyed by B2 students and above.

Shoppers in the UK are rushing to the supermarkets to stockpile toilet paper, hand sanitiser, tinned food or pasta as fears to the spread of coronavirus grow (B2 level).  If you want to find out more about the pychology of panic buying, and how it has been observed in different crisis and natural disasters all over the wold, you can read this longer article (C2 level). 

Crazy Rich Asians is the first Hollywood release featuring an Asian and Asian-American cast since 1993's The Joy Luck Club .  It has been a box-office hit worldwide, making $230 million (Warner Bros invested $30 million in the movie). Film critic Richard Lawson describes it as a "fairy-tale romp, full of direct Cinderella references that has some muddied messaging about wealth.  Mostly it just whisks us away on a whirlwind tour of an almost fantastical world.  Crazy Rich Asians is breathless fun -but rather weightless too" (Vanity Fair). The richness of the language and the style make reading  this review a C2 task. But in mainland China, the reception of the film has been quite different.  Katrina Yu, writing for Aljazeera, explains that Crazy Rich Asians has been a box office flop in China, it has only made $1.5 million, an "atrocious performance" according to independent China film industry consultant Jonathan Papish.  The film is not seen as "a celeb...