English Conversation Course

Dear Students, As the course is about to finish, please vote for the best presentation made this term. Justify your choice.

Without computer keyboard communication of our era would be completely impossible. Therefore, computer keyboard deserves at least a short summary of its advantages and secrets. First keyboard, similar to this which we know came into existence in 1951 – it was a part of UNIVAC. It was a separate device which was called Unityper. It was based on typing machine created by Remington company. http://bi.gazeta.pl/im/0f/25/db/z14361871Q.jpg The most popular keys were : space , a key to move back and „E”. Thanks to that notice Microsoft drew up lots of ergonomic keyboards . One of them has space divided – its left site was also an additional moving back key. Why it was put in that specific place? Because for some reason people do not use left thumb to write. Even if they can write with all (nine) fingers. Arrangement QWERTY has more efficient alternative. In year August Dvorak has patented keyboard arrangement which was competition for a classic QWERTY. Dvorak's a...

http://thetartan.org/2012/12/3/news/ Language affects on our moral decisions. Such conclusion results from psychologist's research made by American and Spanish team. Thinking and speaking foreign language we react in emotional way. A simple example- a person who is going to make a love confession, could think for a while and imagine would it be easier to say this words in mother language or in, for example, English. Would it be easier to say „kocham Cię” or „I love you”? According to american-spanish team poles would be definitely less stressed saying it in English. The team claims that language has a lot to do with emotions and morality. Very common survey to see our choices connects with morality is, so called, trolley test. Participants of such test are shown two situations. In the first one on the platform they see very quickly riding trolley with five people inside. It is known that they cannot do anything and that the trolley will crash and the passengers...

Millennials – pampered youth people, tech savvy, kidults (kid + adult) who don't want to work for 8 hour at a desk and often have flexible approach to goal-setting. Will  they emerge stronger from the economic downturn? Definition of millennials from http://dictionary.reference.com/ : “A term used to refer to the generation, born from 1980 onward, brought up using digital technology and mass media; the children of Baby Boomers; also called Generation Y” There is a heated dispute about adjusting to an economic downturn . Some people think that millennials use some abilities to endure the crisis while others are against this point of view. Both opinions should be taken into account when considering this problem.       Firstly, flexible goal-setting is an excellent solution not only during the economic downturn but also in  times of prosperity. This method acknowledges the presence of chaos and unpredictability of modern times, where ...

Today, our life cannot exist without energy. In XXI century, electricity is a fundamental thing like a water. Of course, we are talking about civilized countries. Unfortunately, there are still places without running water or power. In Poland are places where people take water from the well and they don’t have sewerage.  PressTV, MP/MHB   Let’s focus on the energy. Everything in the contemporary world is dependent of energy. From ordinary bulb to big data centre or manufactory . What would happen when a car factory   stopped working of energy fault ? Such situation was in VW factory in Wolfsburg this year. Four backup generators didn’t help. Every minute break in production caused great costs. VW spokesman didn’t want to talk about financial losses. This is just one example. It’s fair to say that we are addicted to energy. Power failures can be triggered by a variety events, from natural disaster to the cyber-attack by some hacker.   Yes, more IT in powe...

             It’s quite hard to imagine a place on Earth which people haven’t yet discovered. We’ve got science and brave travelers, archeologists and advanced technology. And yet, there is a country which guests only 7000 tourists per year, has only one airport, one asphalt road and has been isolated for decades. Welcome to Bhutan, a small landlocked country in Southern Asia . Being one of 7000 tourists is hard to achieve but a possible ambition. Bhutan is located at the eastern end of Himalayas , the highest mountains in the world. They have 20 peaks over 7000 meters . The top peak in this country is Ganghar Puensum ( 7570 m above sea level).It’s the highest unclimbed mountain in the world. Last four expeditions were unsuccessful. So, you can still be the first! Bhutanese heritage is based on the ancient Tibetan culture and Buddhism, which was the only religion in the whole country to 2006. Culture is very unique and rich, because th...

Google bought the company Word Lens, an impressive application that translates languages in real-time using a smartphone the iPhone and Android built-in camera . Back to 2010, a company called Quest Visual realesed a small application called Word Lens. Hardly seemed possible, but the application translates different languages in real-time using only a smartphone camera. It is very comfortable for anybody who travels. In such situations using Word Lens makes the people "understandable" by  simply holding the phone equipped with the application and the camera which instantly translates from one language into the second one. Currently, users can translate between English, Portuguese , German, Italian , French, Russian and Spanish. It is easy to understand why Google does not want to own it in the range of its products- its declared goal is to make all information in the world search in any language - and Google Translate generally doing quite well, at least on the website. T...

Traveling is one of the most popular hobbies of people around the world. But why they like to travel and how they enjoy the traveling experience is not the same. Just as we like the same things for different reasons in our life, when it comes to traveling also people have different attitudes towards the activity. Let’s explore some of the reasons why people like traveling. Relaxation is number one on a list of these reasons. After a whole year of earning a living some people prefer to spend hard earned money relaxing, that means to unwind and revitalize the body and the mind. It may be a destination of their preference in their own country or a foreign country. Recently more people have followed the fashion and visited far away countries and continents such as Asia or Australia. These who cannot afford to spend lots of money on traveling choose Egypt or Tunisia – foreign countries for little money. Visiting family and friends is another reason why people like to travel. It is a hug...

Google unveiled a prototype model of the car, as we can read on the official blog. It is known that the company wants to completely eliminate the drivers involved in the process of moving cars, and presented a model to be another step towards the realization of this vision. And it is a quite strong and big step. The vehicle is devoid of  three elements without which a car can not exist. These are: the steering wheel, accelerator and braking pedal. In addition, the car will not find a traditional rear-view mirrors or stereo. Removing such elements is a brave move made by Google and on the other hand it seems to be impossible to drive such a car. But following Google's information the clue is that the driver can always take control of the vehicle and does not need to keep the steering wheel because of  a total control carried out  by computers.  At the conference, Sergey Brin, one of the founders of Google, said that the project has changed the world of people who a...