Learn Basic Spanish Through English

You will never suspect, but the English language is a lot like the Spanish language - and more importantly, English can be a way to learn basic Spanish.
Many words in Spanish can be easily understood because they are very similarly spelled in the English equivalent of the word. Examples of these words, like atractivo, exactamente, posibilidad, and famoso are attractive, exactly, possibility, and famous respectively in English. There are a lot more of these words sounding almost the same and spelled similarly from Spanish in English. Knowing this, it leaves you fewer things to finally learn the basics of Spanish. Moreover, learning the basics of Spanish would also be made easier, knowing that the English language is something that you can turn to when trying to learn this second language.
Articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and even some pronouns in English have very simple equivalents in Spanish. Adding that to your new stack of similarly spelled Spanish words, you are definitely closer to finally grasp Spanish and be able to speak the language confidently.

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Here is a little rundown of some of the top 100 commonly used words in Spanish that are easy to remember:
1. de (of)
3. en (in)
4. ser (to be)
6. el/la (the)
7. que (that or what)
9. un (a)
10. se (himself or herself)
The words in the list above are very common; and most, if not all, are surely already familiar to you.
Gather the words you have just learned and try using them. Get someone who can speak both English and Spanish and try practicing with this person. Get as much assistance and ask if things are unclear, like how the verbs change in the different tenses and how prepositions are properly.

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Indonesian Food

I can say that Indonesia is 'heaven for food lovers'. You can find any kind of food from local to international dishes. But when you are travelling to Indonesia, don't waste your money to taste anything except the local food. Eating Indonesian food can be an interesting experience. The diversity of the country will bring you to taste variety of foods. Each of Indonesia's ethnic groups uses the country's entire rich array of the spices, but each has its own combinations and tastes: spicy, sweet, hot and sour.

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Padang cuisine (or Indonesian calls it Masakan Padang) is probably the most popular across the country. Padang or Minangkabau is the capital city of West Sumatra. Their local specialities are very delicious and you can find their restaurants in every region in Indonesia. Padang/Minang restaurants are easily recognizable by the neatly stacked food basins in their windows. What makes them unique is how they serve the food. Then you can choose which food you would like to eat ... they will bring you different kind of dishes, from stewed meats, fish, eggs, chicken and curry.
The famous-mouth-watering speciality from Padang is Rendang Sapi , a spice-encrusted dry beef dish cooked for a long time in coconut milk. But they have some other delicious meals such as Dendeng Balado - it's a beef served with a hot chilli sauce and Gulai Daun Pakis - its fern tips cooked with coconut milk or red snapper curries. But be aware, some of Padang dishes are very spicy. To cook 300 grams of chillies to 1 kg of meat is not unusual. If you are a spicy food lover, it's definitely for you. Manado, northern Sulawesi is a largely agricultural island where coffee, coconut, nutmeg and cloves are the big money-earners. Other Indonesians think that Minahasan food has to be plastered with chilli paste to taste good. Their speciality like Ayam Bakar Rica (grilled chicken) is usually very spicy. Other popular traditional dish is Bubur Manado - rice porridge with different kind of condiments and side dishes such as shredded chicken, sweet soy sauce, dried anchovies, and fried shallots and of course chopped chillies.
If you like less spicy food, some regions on Java have it. For example Jakarta's food tastes sweet because every dish seems to include palm sugar and sweet soy sauce ( kecap manis ). Semur - Dutch inspired smothered beef with Chinese-Indonesian sweet soy sauce, nutmeg and cloves - is one of their specialities. Other speciality like fried rice ( Nasi Goreng ) and fried noodle ( Bakmi Goreng ) originated from China but then were adapted to the Indonesian tastes until they became ones of Indonesia famous specialities. Otherwise Nasi Goreng and Bakmi Goreng can be found almost in every restaurant across the country.
In Yogjakarta, Central of Java, the typical dishes are Nasi Gudeg , made of young jack-fruit and boiled eggs stewed in coconut milk with a mixture of spices, so the taste is sweet; Ayam Goreng Kalasan - local organic free-range chicken, stewed in spices (coriander, garlic candlenut and coconut water) then fried, served with sambal and raw vegetables salad.
When you travel to East Java, toward Surabaya, you will find another traditional type of food. Sate Madura , a chicken satay from Madura (an island in East Java) is one among others that is really popular. Then there are also Soto Ayam Madura - a chicken soup, Rawon - a delicious beef soup that has black colour because it's made from Kluwak (Pangium edule) nuts, Rujak Cingur - a mixture of raw and boiled vegetable salad served with boiled beef snout (cingur) and poured with sauce made from peanuts, chilli and dried shrimp paste ( petis udang ), Lontong Balap - a healthy vegetarian dish containing compressed rice ( lontong ), fried tofu, lentho made of red soy bean, bean sprouts, and sweet soy sauce and Tahu Campur - a beef soup mixed with fresh vegetables, cassava cake, tofu and serve a mixture of dried shrimp paste ( petis udang ), chilli and garlic.
Bali as the most visited tourist place in Indonesia is filled with five stars hotels and villas all around the area, but that doesn't mean it has only international food atmosphere. There are two Balinese specialities, Bebek Betutu. Bebek Betutu is a duck delicacy, where the fowl is marinated with many different herbs and spices, wrapped in banana leaves and then baked over a low flame. You can also try Balinese type of satay or they call it Sate Lilit , made from fish minced meat with freshly grated coconut, prawn paste, garlic, chillies, lemon leaves and salt to compose a sticky, dough-like mixture then wrapped around using spears of fresh lemongrass as skewers, and cook them over fire coming from coconut husks rather than charcoal. It is served with either mild or peppery sauce.
Travelling around Indonesia can prove to be a real challenge for your cuisine curiosity. The country is not just offering the beauty, but also will spoil your craving for delicious food. If you want to taste something different, then Indonesia is the right place.

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Factoring Numbers In Math

Introducing factors to kids in grade 4 to 5
Finding factors is introduced to kids in grade five (some schools do it in late grade four). To learn factoring, kids should be very good in times tables and they should know basic multiplication and division. Finding factors of a number is a basic math skill which enables students to deal with fractions, help kids to understand higher concepts in algebra, such as rational expressions or dividing polynomials.

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The key to learn factoring is to know prime and composite numbers. Students should know prime and composite numbers up to one hundred at least. This gives the idea for basic understanding of factoring.
First of all, students should know that what the factors are?
I tell my students that when a given number can be written as multiplication of other two numbers, then the other two numbers are called the factors of the given number.
For example; "2" can be written as "1 x 2 = 2", hence "2" have two factors, "1" and "2" itself.
Similarly, "6" can be written as "1 x 6 = 6" and also "2 x 3 = 6", hence "6" have four factors, 1, 2, 3, 6.
From above examples, it is clear that "number itself" and "one" are always the factor of a given number. From this we can define two kinds of numbers called prime and composite.
Prime numbers:
When a number has only two factors and which are " the number itself" and "one" then this is an example of a prime number. For example; numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, 47, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71, 73, 79, 83, 89, 93, 97 are all the composite numbers from 1 to 100.
In other words, prime numbers are the those which can't be divided by any other number (except number one).
Composite numbers:
Once students got the prime numbers, they can understand the composite numbers easily. Composite numbers are those which have more than two factors. For example; 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 and so on are the composite numbers.
In other words, these numbers are those which can be divided by other numbers (other than one).
Once students are comfortable about prime and composite numbers, they can start factoring.
If the number is prime then these are the only factors. But if it is composite then there are more factors than two factors.
For example; let's find all the factors of 32.
There is no other factor which can divide 32. Similarly students can write all the factors of any other numbers.

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Grammar 101

In the English language, rules are valid for around 90 percent of the time. The remaining ten percent is full of exceptions in spelling, pronunciation and other areas and it is important to know these exceptions to the rules. It can certainly be frustrating for learners of English to decipher irregularities, so, let's look at just a few of the most important grammar exceptions:
Here, we are looking at the present simple tense. This tense is used to describe habitual actions, preferences and opinions and facts and truths:
John walks to work every day. He prefers walking to taking the bus. Walking is good for the health.

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The present simple can also be constructed as positive, negative or interrogative:
John goes to the office every day. He doesn't like his job very much. Does he want a new job?
However, would the following sentence "John does want a new job" sound correct? If you think not, then you are partly right. In certain cases you can indeed use both the auxiliary verb (do, does) and the principal verb (want) together in order to form a positive sentence. This exception is allowed in order to add extra emphasis. John really wants a new job.
I don't think John wants a new job. He never goes to interviews. John does want a new job. He just lacks confidence.
Let's look at some other simple present tense exceptions:
Simple present used as a future tense
Now, to confuse things further, the simple present can also be used to describe future events that express beginnings and endings, departures and arrivals:
When does the train for Cairo arrive?
It arrives at 6 tomorrow morning.
Time lines
The simple present can also be used to write time lines or biographical outlines, even when the events have taken place in the past:
1965 - John Smith is born in London, England
1970 - John begins school at St Mary's School in Clapham, London
1981 - John leaves school and trains to be an electrician
1995 - John starts his own electrical engineering company
Time words
These can cause a great deal of confusion. Many time words are adverbs that describe frequency - sometimes, never, rarely, frequently, normally, usually, often, regularly, etc - and are generally placed before the main verb. Let's take a look:
John usually walks to work every day.
Usually John walks to work every day.
John walks to work every day usually.
Generally, placing the adverb before the main verb is the best construction (as in the first example), but many native English speakers use all forms.
These are just a few of the exceptions contained in English grammar.

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Seven Developing Nations Vital to the World Economy

Sometimes we become preoccupied with the major nations involved in our global economy, rather than look beyond China, Russia and the United States. Who are these Seven developing countries?
1. Bolivia
This tiny impoverished South American nation is potentially the worlds largest supplier of lithinun, a resource used for car and solar batteries. High up in the Andes, huge deposits of this vital mineral have been discovered.
2.Indonesia
As well as being the Worlds largest gold producers, Indonesia is the "Raja of coconuts", exporting 20 million tones of coconut products alone in 2010.
Both emerging and developed nations depend on coconut oil for cooking and for ingredients, without Indonesia's huge production of the humble coconut, many of the produce you find in your supermarket shelves would simply disappear.

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3. Ivory Coast
The enigmatic King of chocolate, despite the fact most cocoa farmers rarely escape poverty, the world needs this vital ingredient to produce the billions of chocolate related products we consume everyday.
4. Kazakhstan
Since the promised green energy revolution never materialized, many developed nations like the United States, France, Germany and the UK have opted for the short term option of nuclear energy.
5. Malaysia
Malaysia just tops Indonesia as the worlds largest producer of palm oil, a vital ingredient in produce from cooking oil to washing powder.
Engines can actually run on palm oil, as we also look for alternative sources which need to replace our over dependency on oil. Both Malaysia and Indonesia export the bulk of this essential resource throughout the world.
6. South Africa
A nation previously known for its vast resources in diamonds and gold, in the next decade of the 21st century, South Africa is getting to be known for its vast resources in platinum. Platinum is used for building engines, the same engines that run our cars, and trucks. One reason many global automakers relocate their car production to South Africa, including Mercedes Benz.
7. Thailand
One of the worlds largest producers of natural rubber, a resource needed to produce anything from condoms to tires. Resource poor countries which produce millions of vehicles a year, exported over half their rubber from Thailand in 2010.
Resource poor countries are usually developed nations. These nations were at the forefront of the global economy, but recently face new challenges as emerging countries like China have proved that the producers of these resources, can also match and better the traditional manufacturing nations which are dependent on importing these key resources.
The next decade of the 21st century could become an era of development for these producer countries, whilst those needing these vital resources may compete for their control.

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Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics

Why anybody would want to get a bachelor degree in math is a mystery. When you think about it, when you get out of college with a bachelor degree in math, what can you possibly do with it besides teach? You're certainly not prepared for any practical applications. Sure, you could get a job as an actuary but is that REALLY why you majored in math in the first place? Well, for those of you who still want to get a bachelor degree in math, hang onto your hats because the ride you're in for is far from easy. Math is probably one of the hardest disciplines anybody could possibly want to go through. The math courses alone are so hard that no other courses are needed to make your four years of college a living nightmare. Think we're kidding? Take a look at just the math curriculum itself and then decide if this is something that you think you can tackle with no sweat.

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Your first two semesters of college math throw you right into the fire. This is where you learn Calculus. The courses are usually Calculus I and II. Calculus is probably one of the most difficult courses ever devised by man. How anybody even thought of this stuff is a puzzle. Talk about math that you're never going to use in your life unless you become a scientist or an engineer.
Your next two semesters, or year two, give you a break from calculus. This is where you take Advanced, or Abstract Algebra. This is where you learn about matrixes and things like that. This is more math that you're never going to use as long as you live. Engineers don't even use most of this stuff.
Now you've reached year three and you're back to Calculus again. This is where you finish up your training in Calculus with Calculus III and IV. The concepts in these courses are so abstract and so far removed from any real world math, you'd have to be a near genius to understand this stuff.
By year four, if you're still a math major, you're down to what they call "Independent Research" where you basically are on your own, but under the guidance of your advisor. You'll do some kind of major paper on math principals or maybe even Newton for all you know. You still have 24 more courses to fill in your time with. Because you've chosen one of the science majors, you're also going to have to take at least two semesters of either chemistry, physics or some other related science. Yes, we are talking about some more ridiculously hard material.
So if you really want to be a math major, just remember one thing. You will most certainly earn your bachelor degree in math. If you survive it.

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