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TRANSLATED BOOKS
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- 2007/11/30(Fri) -
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I don't read those books translated from English to Japanese. Actually I've never read one anymore than several pages. Personally, I thought they were USELESS to me, though I felt (and endlessly feel) so sorry for those who translated them.
I remember it was John Irving's translated novel that I read at BOOK OFF many years ago, and after having read several pages I figured that was nothing like Irving at all. In other words, I had an impression that the translated book was pretty much the product of the translator who probably did the best he could based on the original novel. Well, I have no intention to blame the translator, since I'm so aware there's no way you can add some John Irving-ish flavor on Japanese sentence, so it's more like the Japanese language's fault, y'know! (BTW, it's funny more than half of the entire sales of his novels have come from those translated ones, though mainly from the ones in German and French.) And I think we all should admit the limit of the Japanese language while paying it our highest respect. I used to think that you want to read a translated novel, you shouldn't read it al all. But not anymore, though. That's mainly because I've come to realize that it's just so hard to encourage others to read English novels by saying things like that on and on. As a result, most of people stopped listening to me! What the hell! I guess I just didn't know the most effective, productive, and efficient way to make my English better doesn't always mean the best way to others. It's funny because the idea so simple and basic like that never occurred to me, I mean, NEVER. Sometimes I think I am so stupid. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking.  We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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UNFINISHED BOOKS
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- 2007/11/29(Thu) -
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Whenever I read a book, I think about the author. And I wonder what it had taken for him or her to complete it, and how long he or she had waited until his or her book was published, whether or not it's his or her first book or tenth. And that might be one of the reasons why I don't give up on it, or dump it, so easily, regardless of how difficult or complicated it is.
But under certain specific circumstances, I'd dump it so easily, and usually it occurs when I lose my respect to the author for the plot that makes the story extremely boring. Commonly the biggest turn-off is when the story shifts into a corny three-way love triangle involving; 1) a woman who has been so desperate and whose life's been so empty ever since she realized she married to a wrong man, 2) her husband whose life has been pretty much downfall because of endless misfortunes that keep on happening to him, 3) a guy who is an artist and respects women, and who is always there to fill the empty space in her lonely heart. Probably, she didn't like the artist at first, but then things happens, . . . , yet somehow she decides to be with the loser, saying "I just can't leave my husband like this!" Basically, this 'loved a wrong man' type of scenario turns me off. And I'd most certainly dump it unless I somehow like the husband character very much and I don't like the artist one. BTW, it's a big relief that we have BOOK OFF now so that we don't have to throw those unfinished or abandoned books away anymore, or that we don't have to feel guilty anymore whenever we find them totally deserted in the corner of the shelf. Now we can turn them in, hoping that someone who appreciates them more will be a new owner & reader. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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Watching dramas makes your English better
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- 2007/11/29(Thu) -
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I'm keenly aware that grammatically-correct English is not necessarily perfect.
I mean, grammatically-correct sentences don't always sound natural. The point is whether native speakers use those sentences or not. So, when I write something in English here on my blog, I use the expressions I've learned from my favorite American dramas as much as possible. In those dramas, many characters, who are native English speakers of course, say those lines （セリフ） in English. I think I can consider the lines as the right & natural ones. Even if those lines have some grammatical mistakes, at least native speakers understand what they are talking about. That's enough. It is so much better than to use 'grammatically-correct but unnatural' English. In this sense, I can say that I've improved my writing skills by borrowing 'real-life' expressions from those dramas. Without dramas, I couldn't've kept a diary in English like this. Watching dramas makes your English better, makes your English more natural. Believe it or not, this is what I really think. ◇ ◇ Karen ◇ ◇ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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GRAMMAR?
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- 2007/11/28(Wed) -
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It's grammatical to say "He has three Picassos," or "She has a Picasso," or "I had three beers." But it's not really easy to explain since there are many exceptions.
For instance, according to several grammarians, you can say "He has three Picassos," when you mean "He has three pieces of Picasso's art works," or "The National Museum of Modern Art bought three Gustav Klimts," meaning "The National Museum of Modern Art bought three paintings of Gustav Klimt." But you CANNOT say "I listened to three Mozarts," when you mean "I listened to three music pieces of Mozart." 'Beer' is an uncountable noun, but everybody knows it's OK to say "He had three beers," when it means "He had three bottles (or cans or glasses) of beer." However, you CANNOT say "He had three wines," when you mean "He had three glasses of wine." It at best means "He had three different types of wine." Probably, you cannot say "I had three Sakes," but I guess it's OK to say "I had three Chu-Hais." Also, it's likely to say "There's a Kurosawa playing at the theater," but very unlikely "There's a Redford playing at the theater." This is because the former represents one genre of movie, samurai films, and the latter doesn't any. So when someone says "a Kurosawa," it means Seven Samurai or Kagemusha, but never Dodesukaden or Dersu Uzala. The same is true for novelist. You can talk about 'a John Grisham' or 'a Thomas Harris', or like "I read three Grishams," but some people find it's odd to say "I'll spend some time with a Doystoyevsky" or "I read three Doystoyevskies." Well, I wonder how many teachers in Japan who teach English at highschool can explain this well. Or how many of us, English learners, can. Might it be unnecessary to know this type of 'grinding rule'? Or might that be the reason that we have so many problems with articles, such as 'a' or 'the'? ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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A ‘CLICHÉ’ CHASE
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- 2007/11/26(Mon) -
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I think 'love' is so powerful. And one of the best ways to build your vocabulary might be 'to love English words'. In other words, expanding the number of words you love might eventually increase the total number of words you know really well, since it's so unlikely that you forget your 'favorite words'.
Certainly, I love an English adjective, 'pertinacious', and that's probably because I am pertinacious. 'Cliché' is another one that I love and cannot live without. Y'know, 'cliché' as in, (FYI:'bias is in the eye of the beholder' might be the author's coined version of a 'saying' – 'Beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. The saying means that 'not all people have the same opinions about what is attractive'.) Anyway, cliché Cambridge Dictionaries Online AskOxford.com Merriam Webster Online Answers.com You get an idea that 'cliché' is like a phrase, expression, or idea that is used over and over so many times, and you'd be like "I've heard it two zillion times already! Please give me something new!" Or, you are watching TV, and a guy in your favorite show says something you totally expected, and you say "I knew that was coming." Well, that might be a cliché. BTW, the word for the next chase will be either 'cache' or 'jaunty'. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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PATHETIC SONGS
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- 2007/11/25(Sun) -
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I guess many of you have had this type of experience; One English song that you'd always liked turned out to be a big disappointment, after you got to know the meaning of the lyrics.
A friend of mine told me all about his version of this 'happy' disappointment. He loved a song called Hard Habit to Break by Chicago when he was a teenager. It's a kind of song that evokes old memories of the past, especially the memories of a girl he was dating with. One day he heard the song for the first time in so many years, and he was shocked because the song he used to know sounded totally different with the meaning now he understood. I was just smirking because I happened to know how corny & pathetic the lyrics are! First, I have to apologize to those who love the band and the song, but this is just my super-subjective interpretation of the lyrics, please forgive me. The first verse of the song goes like this, You can hardly find such a perfect opening line for a song as pathetic as like this!. When you hear one guy say something like "I guess I thought she would be here forever," you'd just know right away the guy is a pathetic loser! And please don't choose to create such a pathetic illusion! Both lines are like a total mega-cliché, King of trite, which you could only hear from those who were born so rich and raised with no discipline whatsoever on life. Actually this is a very nice sentence to test how deep your grasp on English is. So this guy doesn't mind to run for a convenient store to get whatever she wants at three o'clock in the morning and come back lying beside her reading The Bridges of Madison County while gently scratching her back when she is suffering from the worst monthly cramps. Or am I totally off? (BTW, I'm just like the one!) So, he didn't know how she'd felt all those years (or months, or days?), and she left him, and he regret deeply that he had no idea how much he really loved her, and he's now acting like a pudding-wimp. C'mon, man! Don't you guys think this sentence is useful? Y'know, you can say something like, "Living with you takes a lot of getting used to!" or "Reading his novels not only requires you a deep understanding of grammar but also takes you a lot of getting used to." Totally sounds like a spoiled wimpy kid who was born so rich and raised with no discipline whatsoever on life, and who keeps on refusing to grow up. Oh, please, . . . . TAKE IT LIKE A MAN! My Grandma would have killed me if she had overheard me saying things like that! ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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A BOOK TO REMEMBER
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- 2007/11/23(Fri) -
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There are many blogs that talk about novels written in English. Some of those bloggers read them at an amazing pace, like a book or two a week, or two or three books in two weeks. I used to read on average a 500-pages novel a week. But not anymore.
I've read hundreds of those 'English' novels, and now that I think I've already read enough novels to reserve for my re-reading for the rest of my life. So my current pace has dropped down to . . . a book per month, probably. Up to until I realized that I could have been able to learn more from revising them, I'd been so eager to read novels written by renowned novelists. And once I found a novelist with whom I hit it off so well, I would've locked on devouring most of his or her entire works. Probably, the first novelist on such account was . . . John A. Steinbeck, then I moved on to Ernest Hemingway. Well, that was long time ago, though, and I haven't read their novels for more than ten years at least. I guess everyone has a book to remember, the book that gives you not only literary contemplation of different views in one's life and insights but something more. In that sense, I won't forget my first encounter to this gigantic literature that I read through to the end. (A novel contains over 600 pages was literally 'gigantic' to me back then). The novel gave me a sense of accomplishment and courage to go on reading another. (However, the novel I read after that was Tender is the Night by Fitzgerald, which wasn't anything nearly gigantic.) I know it sounds corny but if there weren't East of Eden by John Steinbeck, my life with English literature could have been something totally different, seriously. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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COULD MR. BROWN BE SO BAD?
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- 2007/11/22(Thu) -
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Dan Brown, best known for the 2003 bestselling novel - The Da Vinci Code, has been financially the most successful thriller fiction writer so far in the 21st century. And on three occasions that I read his novels, I DID enjoy reading them, but I didn't particularly like them after all. But I'm sure I will buy his new novel that will reportedly be released some time in 2008.
Anyway. Accroding to various sources, he decided to write his first book Digital Fortress after he'd read Sidney Sheldon's The Doomsday Conspiracy while on vacation and thought "Man, I COULD DO BETTER." He was 30 years old back then. Now, is it possible that this extremely successful novelist, who taught English btw, makes grammatical mistakes? Probably not that I notice, but some of those professional linguists have argued that on a vast number of sentences Mr. Brown's word combinations were questionable. For instance, take a look at the opening paragraph of the book; Those linguists argue,
Based on their spins, I rewrite the paragraph as follows, Well, what do you guys think? Before he became a full time writer, he'd been pretty much an unsuccessful musician, (though he taught English and Spanish at junior high for the bills). Early in the career he released several songs for kids, and one of them was Suzuki Elephants. Yes, I am dying to know what the song is all about! ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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The tenth anniversary
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- 2007/11/22(Thu) -
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This morning, when I woke up my husband, he said with a drowsy look on his face, "Oh... Today is our wedding anniversary!"
"Really?!", my son, who always sleeps next to my husband, woke out of sleep and cried out in surprise. "Oh, yes. But I totally forgot! Ha-ha!", I laughed. It's not that I was joking. Seriously, I completely forgot our anniversary... Every year, we don't plan anything special for our anniversary. We don't exchange presents each other. So there's no problem if I forget our anniversary. Anyway, it's really amazing that we've been together for 10 years! My husband & I got married on November 22, 1997. Yes, it's the tenth anniversary today! And you know what? The day 'November 22' is usually called いい夫婦の日 in Japan. Because 1122 sounds いいふうふ. That's all. Early in 1997, we didin't fix the date for our wedding. We just decided where our wedding ceremony & reception would be held. We selected a famous city hotel as a venue. We talked to a staff of the hotel in charge of our wedding in order to set the date of our wedding. She said, "I strongly recommend that you should select the date Nov. 22. It also falls on Tomobiki." "Oh, 1122 sounds pleasant. Besides, easy to remember," I replied. "We recommend that day because Nov. 22 is a special day. We called the day いい夫婦の日. Have you ever heard that?" "I've never heard that before!", we replied together. That was the first time I've heard the name いい夫婦の日. I guess the name was not that popular at that time. Most of my friends remember the date of our wedding anniversary BECAUSE it is いい夫婦の日. We should thank the staff who recommended the day and explained the meaning of the day well. It doesn't mean every couple who got married on Nov. 22 is a good couple, of course. I don't know if we are a good and ideal couple. I think he is a good husband. I don't know his true feelings, but he always says to me, "I'm so glad I chose you as my wife." Does that mean, "So far, so good"? My husband doesn't know this blog. But he knows I've been studying English every day. He is very supportive all the time. So, although I know he will have no chance to read this, I'm leaving a message for my husband. "Thank you for letting me behave willfully. Thank you for loving my children. Thank you in advance for your help & support." ◇ ◇ Karen ◇ ◇ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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WHY GRISHAM?
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- 2007/11/21(Wed) -
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Basically, I like any genre of novels, (though I haven't mentioned the names of my favorite writers here except Umberto Eco and of course Mario Puzo), and the longer the better usually, (YEAH, I'll forever be entrapped in the maze of this 760 pages of probably one of the most difficult & complicated novel ever written in the history of English literature!). But whenever asked by someone who is not so familiar with English novels, I'd always recommend books from the mystery/thriller genre, and among all, my No.1 pick would be John Grisham's The Firm. (But I have to remind you guys that I am not a big fan of his.)
There are a number of reasons why it is so. 1) It isn't so difficult, English-wise. I wouldn't call it 'easy' since it's written in English, but compared to others the language used in the novel is relatively 'easy', at least 'easier' than that of Stephen King, Thomas Harris, Dan Brown, Michael Palmer, or Robert Ludlum. Although I haven't read Sidney Sheldon any more than 10 to 20 pages, my impression was that it's easier than the Sidney Sheldon's English. 2) The story is easy to follow. It's much easier to visualize the scenes depicted in the novel than, say, those fantasy counterparts. You understand what they are doing and why they are doing easily, also nothing is very complicated in this novel. But it doesn't mean this book is boring, that might be one of the reasons why John Grisham is so popular. Plus, even though it's mostly all about a law firm, there aren't many special words that require special knowledge. 3) Most of them speak good, proper English. People in this book are mostly best lawyers. They are highly well-educated and they speak proper English. I think it's one of the most important factors to pick a novel, since, for us English learners, it should be a good story to learn English from as well as a good story to have fun with. In other words, it's safe to learn conversational English from the dialogues of this novel, and that scores a huge point. (There's NO WAY you can learn proper English from Irvine Welsh's books, unless your main purpose is to learn Edinburgh street vernacular!) One problem is, you can't think of anyone else but Tom Cruise as for the hero of the novel, Mitch McDeere. Well, it might be one great point of The Firm since you can watch the movie before you read the novel. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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A ‘PERTINACIOUS’ CHASE
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- 2007/11/20(Tue) -
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You might have had an experience in which you looked into an English-English dictionary for one word and eventually ended up looking up ten additional words because you didn't know the words used to defined the word that you'd originally looked up.
Now, do you think that's too much to do, (like too perilous a way to go through), and say "That's why I don't want to use it!" or you feel lucky to have an opportunity to look up so many different words? I am always proactive and definitely feel like the latter. For instance, you want to know what 'pertinacious' means. Here you might need, fortunately or unfortunately, to look up almost every single word used to define 'pertinacious'. Then you start with 'adhere'. You might go like "So, 'adhere to' is like 'stick to', but what the hell 'suction' is anyway?" Then you go after 'suction'. And you go like, "Yeah, so 1-a) means something like 'sticking to an opinion, purpose, or design'." But you might also want to know what 'perversely', 'stubbornly', 'unyielding', and 'tenacious' mean so that you might have a better grasp on 'pertinacious'. And you have a big happy smile on your face, (I hope), and go after 'deviate', 'stubborn', and 'obstinate'. Again, you have a big smile (not a disappointment one, I hope) and go on looking up 'yield' and 'comply'. (And I hope the fact that 'to yield' also means 'to produce' as well as 'to surrender' or 'to comply' be a good surprise.) Although you've already known that 'obstinate' means 'refusing to yield or comply', in other words, 'refusing to surrender or to act in accordance with a request, order, etc, you might want to make sure just in case. Please remind you that your initial mission is to look up 'pertinacious', since the worst scenario would be to forget about it. And now, there's only 'tenacious' left to deal with. OK, now you take a deep breathe, and then go after 'adhesive' and 'retain'. But you've already known 'adhesive' has something to do with 'adhere', but just in case. Yeah, now you get an idea of what 'pertinacious' is like! You might not be able to define it, but that's OK. That's because we use so many Japanese words that we can't properly define in words but we somehow get by using them properly. BTW, I firmly think it's all up to you to choose which dictionary to use, English-English or English-Japanese. And I wouldn't want to force you to judge which one is better. We all study English for different purposes, and I respect them all, we all should respect them all. And every dictionary, regardless of E-E or E-J, has its own way to be of use! It's just the matter of how you use it! If you met someone who keeps on saying the one is better than the other, you should just ignore him or her. Oh, yes, that's exactly why I have been ignored by so many since . . . ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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SIDNEY SHELDON
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- 2007/11/19(Mon) -
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I hope it's not like some sort of phobia, but I just can't stand with the same author's books scattered all over in the bookshelves of BOOK-OFF, and I, sort of secretly, pick them one by one to sort them out. (For that, I deserve to get paid, seriously!) And there are always many of Sheldon's books (English), which means I've grabbed so many of them even thought I haven't read even one of them.
So what's the deal with Sidney Sheldon? Why is he so popular among English learners in Japan? Although my judgment is based on my sheer perception of his in-coming/out-going books in the shelf of BOOK-OFF (like the turn-over ratio), I bet his popularity among them is so undeniably real. A couple of weeks ago, I intently sandwiched his novels in between the ones of Stephen King and Dan Brown to see what would happen. After a week of so, about half of Sheldon's books were gone, while Kings' and Browns' seemed to be untouched. The other night, the number of Sheldon's book bounced back to normal, around 10 to 12, an amazingly swift re-fill as a used bookstore's standard. Are there any English seminars, something like "Reading Sidney Sheldon," out there now? Or are there many 'self-study books' that recommend his novels? There must be, or must have been, something out there to boost up his popularity. Anyway, another amazing thing about him is that he kept on writing best-selling novels till the very end of his career; he wrote The Other Side of Midnight at the age of 55, Rage of Angels at 63, The Master of the Game at 65, The Doomsday Conspiracy at 74, The Sky is Falling at 84, and finally Are You Afraid of the Dark? at 87! Can you believe this? Writing a mystery/thriller fiction novel at 87! Again, I've never read his novel. Whenever I open it and read a few pages, there's always something that so strongly keeps me away from getting into the story. Maybe it's got nothing to do with his style of writing or theme. Maybe it's just his popularity that repels me. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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SINGULAR OR PLURAL?
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- 2007/11/18(Sun) -
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Why don't teachers and parents think that exterminating innocent antes and other bugs in home and school are unethical?
Those professional linguists think the sentence above is in fact ungrammatical. Do you know why? That's because "exterminating innocent antes and other bugs in home and school” is a present-participle clause, which always takes a singular verb! So the grammatical version should be as follows, However, the following two sentences are perfectly grammatical. This is because 'moving fridges' in 1) is again a present-participle clause that precedes a singular verb, whereas 'moving fridges' in 2) is a plural noun phrase. Isn't this interesting? Well, I assume some of you guys might find this extremely annoying. (Meanwhile, my first impression was like, honestly, Whatever!.) So I wouldn't be surprised some of you would go like WHO CARES?. Anyway, "Moving fridges is dangerous” means 'It is dangerous to move fridges'. And "Moving fridges are dangerous” means 'The fridges that are moving are dangerous', (though this could only happen when you have more than one fridge and there is a enormous earthquake that moves fridges around in your kitchen.) So now it is clear why "Raising three sons are very hard” is ungrammatical, and it should be "Raising three sons is very hard. Well that's because you cannot say "The three sons that are raising are hard.” (I thnk!) Then how about 'smoking'? Like, "Smoking girls aren't healthy” vs. "Smoking girls isn't healthy,” though that's utterly unethical to smoke girls. But just for the sake of grammar? Is it possible? In other words, is it possible to say "The girls that are smoking are unhealthy”? Y'know, 'smoking' as in 'She's so smoking!'? ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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CAN YOU LIVE WITH IT?
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- 2007/11/18(Sun) -
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I haven't had a nice, peaceful relationship with those who think those who don't think grammar is the most important thing in English don't really know anything about English. Yet I am a bit different from those who don't care much about grammar.
First of all, I don't hate grammar. IN FACT I love it. But I just don't like the idea of learning grammar from grammar books ONLY. Second, I don't buy such a misconception that 'being impeccable means being fluent'. As Karen pointed out in her previous piece, it is quite possible that you sound so utterly unnatural or strange even thought you don't make any grammatical mistake. I think it's a good idea for a beginner to start with grammar books, but once you've reached to a certain level, the level that you mostly understand newspaper articles if you use dictionaries, you should stop sticking to those grammar books and switch to other sources such as novels, newspapers, movies, TV shows, and etc. Grammar is like a manual for a language, and I think you wouldn't be fluent unless you try it by yourself. Like, you wouldn't know how to use your cell phone unless you actually use it. RIGHT? But still you also need a manual book since you can't use it properly without a basic knowledge of how the cell phone works. For short, the knowledge of grammar doesn't make you fluent but you cannot be fluent without it. Yeah, it's like, y'know, "Grammar - Can't live with it, can't live without it!" ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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HIS BLOG
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- 2007/11/17(Sat) -
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Once there was a very creative blogger that I really liked. It was more than 4 years ago and now I don't even remember his name.
His blog was filled with his hatred toward English grammar. he kept on saying he hated English over and over (though more like jokingly it seemed), and he started every entry with his highly critical F-word laden comments, like, "This motherf**ker, this motherf**king English article like 'a' or 'the' is one thing I just can't stand with!" or "What I f**king hate the most is this motherf**king Present Perfect!" or something like that. HOWEVER, he somehow managed to make it very EDUCATIONAL in fact. For instance, while attacking on English articles such as 'a' or 'the', he explained why he hated it so much by 1) briefly providing us the background history of 'a' and 'the', 2) giving us several possible reasons why it's so hard for us to use them properly, 3) showing us that how well-known grammar books explain them so improperly, and 4) suggesting how to deal with them successfully. In other words, he basically explained everything about articles grammatically! He sounded so angry and so unhappy with English. He complained about English grammar, and he attacked on one by one while cursing it all the time. But once you read it, you'd know how much he loved English, and that made his blog so interesting. One day he revealed that he was actually a high school English teacher, and then he just closed it down and disappeared. And that was pretty much the end of his story. Whenever I visited his blog, I wished I could have had a teacher just like him. And now one thing I really regret is that I failed to save his pieces. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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HOW LUCKY WE ARE NOW
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- 2007/11/16(Fri) -
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I really think we are very fortunate to have so many Japanese bloggers who tell us about their experiences, approaches, methods, and etc with regard to English. 20 years ago when there was no Internet, the main source available to obtain information about English and learning English was very much limited to those how-to books. Moreover, it wasn't so easy, if not impossible, to listen to honest, non-commercial voices of English learners who have struggled through English but achieved certain fluency with their own ways invented by themselves.
So now it might be quite possible to say we have a new era of learning English here in Japan. And we should make sure we go for taking the best out of the advantages available to us now, such as learning from others' failures as well as success stories through Internet. It might also a good idea to find your role models, someone you can look up to, but as far as I know, you can learn from anyone regardless of one's level. In other words, it is quite possible that advance learners learn a great deal from beginners, and that should be the beauty of learning a language, I believe. ◆ JOE ◆ We're participating in ranking. We'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers us up so much! |
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DRAMA
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- 2007/11/15(Thu) -
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One thing I like about myself with regard to English is my willingness & eagerness to try anything (that sounds reasonable) to make my English better. And as long as English goes, I'd listen to others' ideas and suggestions and actually exercise it for a certain period of time before making a proper judgment. In other words, I WOULDN'T SLASH IT UNLESS I'VE TRIED IT FOR A WHILE.
Someone suggested me to read & summarize newspaper articles to expand my vocab, and I've been doing it everyday ever since, for years and years, and probably some time in 20 or 30 years from now eventually I'll make up my mind to say if it is effective or not. Yeah, I'm this much thoughtful and conscientious. Many suggested me to watch English TV shows and DVDs to dictate or to do shadowing or etc, and I've been doing that for years and years. For this, I don't have to wait around another 20 years to reach my own verdict because so many others in the blogosphere have proven the effectiveness of the method. Well, obviously Karen is one of them. Knowing that Karen will write about it later, I wouldn't want to dig into details to spoil it, but one thing I am very sure is that watching dramas, movies, and various TV shows not only improves your listening complehension but also enhances your vocabulary, grammar, and writing skills. YEAH DEFINITELY it makes your writing so much better. I've learned tens of thousands of very important expressions, phrases, sentence structures from watching them, yeah! Without them, I wouldn't be here! ◆ JOE ◆ I'm participating in ranking. I'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers me up so much! |
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grammatically correct
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- 2007/11/15(Thu) -
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As I said before, I liked English when I was a student. I think those who like studying English at school usually like to study English grammar. I was one of them.
Previously, I put some sentence as the description of my blog on the ranking site Blog-Mura. "I am very careful about grammatically-correctness when I write English." But... don't get me wrong! I was not saying, "My English is grammatically correct." I just try hard to avoid silly grammatical mistakes. After all, I deleted the part "grammatically correct" from the description a couple weeks ago. My friend Joe doesn't like the idea that people judge someone's English abilities based on the knowledge of English grammar. I totally agree with him. I don't think all of the people who get the perfect score on the grammar test can write beautiful & wonderful English. I know that, but I don't know why, it is so hard for me to stop being grammar-oriented. Whenever I am stuck with one of those grammatical problems, he says, "You should NOT pay TOO MUCH attention to grammar. Some ungrammatical sentences could sound fine and make sense. Native English speakers don't feel something's wrong in those sentences." I know, I know. You don't have to say that again, Joe. Why am I so obsessed with grammar too much? That's just because I just like rules or something systematic. These days, I've tried NOT to be obsessed with grammar too much. The important thing is to make my English sound natural. What is natural? I believe those lines （セリフ） on dramas are very, very natural. Maybe, next time, I'm talking about the relation between dramas and writing. ◇ ◇ Karen ◇ ◇ I'm participating in ranking. I'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers me up so much! |
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CARPENTER
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- 2007/11/14(Wed) -
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In a sense I might be one of those cult followings, I tend to be more willing to try something not so well-known, off-off Broadway type of thing. I hadn't tried any of Country/Folk music until probably 12 years ago when I met one girl who introduced me to the genre. Among all of those twining-singers, I thought Mary Chapin Carpenter was pretty cool. Especially, her No. 1 hit in the U.S. country chart, Shut Up and Kiss Me. Besides all, I knew back then I was one of those few people who knew about this country/folk singer & songwriter, along with the facts, provided by the girl, that Carpenter was a daughter of a wealthy businessman, and graduated from Brown University, and she spent several years in Japan when she was a kid. I was thrilled by the idea. Yeah, I am so pathetic! (I'm very much aware of that, of course.)
Anyway, I like the way she sings the part I'm just a little nervous about my heart and Ooooh shut up and kiss me and her voice. And the reason why I suddenly started writing about those songs that I secretly love is that I heard them all the other day at the coffee shop. Apparently they had one of those cable radio stuff and tuned to the 90s-hit channel of something. BTW, these songs (this one and two songs mentioned in the previous post) aren't for teens, y'know, they are all just too archaic for them, but if you are over, say, 35, they all might sound pretty cool, though. If you are interested you can check them all out on, of course, YouTube! EDIT: You go to YouTube and type "Paula Cole" and "I believe in love", you get the promotion video of the song, but please don't get freaked out by just looking at her 'cause she isn't . . . very pretty, (though she is very attractive, of course!) ◆ JOE ◆ I'm participating in ranking. I'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers me up so much! |
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CONFESSION
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- 2007/11/13(Tue) -
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This weird thing in my mind.
First of all, I shall remind you this: what we see here, what we say here, or what we hear here stays HERE! Basically the genre of music I love pretty much swirls around Alternative/Heavy Rock. But I have this crazy little thing in the corner of my tiny heart that has made me, from time to time, crush on songs that I usually dismay. Like, a cheesy, corny love song called 'I believe in love' by Paula Cole Band is one of them. Y'know, the song goes with like a boy and girl met in school, singing The god in you, the god in me, stood together like two trees, and she was so shy to ask him out for a cup of tea or something, but again singing Then in my Mercury, hand on hand, hand on knee, mercy, mercy, mercy me, I'm totally like, "WHATEVER!" But in the chorus part, which goes And I believe in love to be the center of all things. . . . And I believe in love to be the way, she sings TO BE in falsetto, and that particular part GOT ME! I just LOVE THE WAY SHE SINGS THAT PART SOOOOOO MUCH! Yeah, definitely, I'd fall for whoever be able to sing it just like she does. So did Jennifer Paige's 'Crush'! It goes like, they shouldn't go deep to analyze what's going on because it doesn't take a scientist to figure it out. Then she sings, It's just a little crush, Not like I faint every time we touch, Sha-la-la-la, Sha-la-la-la, and I just LOVE her voice & the way she sings It's just, and Not like I faint, and Sha-la-la-la, Sha-la-la-la . . . . It just sounds very feminine and vulnerable. BTW, some of you might remember this song from the episode of 90210, (I am not a fan or anything, don't get me wrong!). ◆ JOE ◆ I'm participating in ranking. I'd really appreciate it if you could vote for this blog, which cheers me up so much! |
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WHEN THINGS . . .
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- 2007/11/12(Mon) -
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Some of you might have had this type of experience in which you named the band or singer you like and whom you addressed to (native English speakers) gave you puzzled look or a look of disapproval or more obviously picked on your taste of music. You might get one of those if you are over 35 and say "I like Motorhead, Sarah Brightman, and Backstreet Boys." That might be a tad too extreme case, but in more subtly cases I wonder how they'd say if you are a big fan of bands that don't usually fall into the same label. For instance, I wonder how those religious people would think if I say I'm such an enthusiastic fan of XTC and U2 (in fact I like them both), since the former is labeled as anti-Christian while the latter as an icon of Christian Rock band, and especially if two of my favorite songs are 'Dear God' and 'With Or Without You'. XTC was an English band which was pretty big back in 80s, and the song 'Dear God' was no doubt their most controversial song, the basic message of which is highlighted by the last line of every verse "Can't believe in you." Also the lyrics contain such lines as "And all the people that you made in your image, See them starving on their feet, 'Cause they don't get enough to eat from God." Or " And all the people that you made in your image, See them fighting in the street, 'Cause they can't make opinions meet about God," and "Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make mankind after we made you?" Excluding the religious aspects of the song, I just like it as the way it is, and I think it's just OK to say it. Also, I tend to pretend to be a total jerk to abuse f-words even on an occasion where I am required to make a proper remark when things have become unnecessarily complicated. Y'know, when things don't seem to go anywhere, all you can do is . . . BTW, I feel sad, though, because these things might be the core factors that have made today's conflicts more rampant everywhere in the world. ◆ JOE ◆ |
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NEWS
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- 2007/11/11(Sun) -
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In the last two years, the U.S. and Colombia have captured thirteen drug-smuggling submarines!
Lengths of the submarines vary, ranging from 50 to 100 feet with the loading capacity of five to ten tons of cocaine. One of the main reasons that those drug-smugglers have built submarines is that their transit routes have been destroyed by drug fighters. Meanwhile, the main concern disclosed by these incidents is that 1) it is now clear that anyone can in fact build a submarine, and 2) if they can smuggle tons of cocaine into the U.S., certainly they can smuggle massive amount of various deadly devices and explosives! According to a big study, ‘overweight’ doesn’t necessarily mean ‘unhealthy.’ Obesity might increase the risk of death from heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease, and some kinds of cancer. And overweight does increase the risk of death from diabetes and kidney disease but it doesn’t cause higher risk from heart disease or cancer. Meanwhile, compared with normal weight, overweight shows much lower death risk from Alzheimer’s, emphysema, lung cancer, Parkinson’s disease, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. The study suggests about 100,000 lives were saved every year because of being overweight! Google’s plan isn’t just targeted to develop only software for cell phones but also an open platform cell phone application. For short, this future Google application will make it possible that your cell phone works just like your PC, regardless of the types of cell phones. Google says it’ll be around $200 or less, because of the revenue provided by the ads. If it was Microsoft, it would be like ‘sell the software’, and if it was Apple, it would be like ‘sell the phone’! And Google makes it buried in ads, JUST LIKE A PC. 12000 Script writers in the States (members of Writers Guild) are on strike, demanding a larger share of the money that producers make from the DVD and Internet sales. Night shows have already switched to re-runs, and those popular serialized TV dramas will be cut off awkwardly, and suddenly there’ll be no more new episodes! According to the ABC news, the number of TV shows that don’t require script writers, such as those amateur featured reality TV shows, will increase dramatically. ◆ JOE ◆ |
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NEWS
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- 2007/11/10(Sat) -
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A 25-year-old Nebraska female teacher who ran off with a 13-year-old boy was arrested in Mexico!
Reportedly they seemed to have no plan and were living out just day by day, though the boy later told the police that he wanted to see his birthplace. The trunk of the car driven by the teacher was loaded with clothes, toiletries, blankets, pillows, bottled water, family photos and Disney DVDs. The boy who is an illegal immigrant in the U.S. might not be able to return to Nebraska. He confessed that they had had sex twice previously. The female teacher faces state charges of kidnapping, child abuse and contributing to the delinquency of a minor in Nebraska, and she also faces federal charges of transporting a minor across state lines or a foreign border for sexual activity. Well, she left her own 8-year-old daughter behind! WHY? A genetically altered super-mouse outruns ordinary one. On the mice-running machine, the genetically altered super-mouse kept on running nearly 6 hours while the ordinary one dropped out after 10 minutes. Scientists at the lab claimed no one should apply this technology to human, but people are already thrilled by the idea of super-human. Hillary Clinton didn’t do well in the last debate with her Democratic rivals. Actually, so didn’t Obama, Edwards and etc. . . By the way, this stupid Japanese man (myself) didn’t know Ms. Hillary Clinton is a democrat, considering her policies and stuff, . . . ha ha ha, just kidding. Mr. Kim Jong-il is Internet savvy! He revealed and presented the fact to South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun at the summit, saying literally though in Korean “I am an Internet expert!” In addition, according to several sources, Mr. Kim demanded former Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s email address when she was there in 2000. And of course Madeline gave him a fake address and got the hell out of there! (JUST KIDDING, again, OK?) Japan’s fingerprinting policy for non-residents and visitors raises some critiques. The funniest I’ve had so far argues that the policy (for non-residents and visitors for preventing terrorism) excludes the ethnic group that has actually carried out recent terror attacks: Japanese! ◆ JOE ◆ |
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POPULARITY METER!
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- 2007/11/10(Sat) -
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"If I had to choose only five books to read for the rest of my life, . . . . . . . . . ."
A hypothetical question like this drives me crazy. Well, one thing I'm sure is that one of them is The Godfather, and I also need a dictionary, but for the rest . . . . Anyway, anyway, . . . After having been to several used bookstores here and there, I've found out that in Japan two of the most popular novelists for books written in English are definitely J.R.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling. Anywhere you go, you'll find at least five or six copies of their books. Yeah, I think the number of those used books sold at used bookstore is sort of like a popularity-meter here. Also, Sidney Sheldon seems to have won a huge popularity here in Japan. They always carry at least five or six of his novels at 'BOOK OFF' that I go very often, like almost everyday after work. (There were eight copies of his novels there last night.) And, the punch line here is, I've never read either of their novels, except gone through several pages of them at the store. I've found Tolkien's stuff very attractive, but it sounds just way too archaic to use it for English educational purposes, and that was what pretty much repelled me for grabbing it. Also, I've read several pages of five or six of Sheldon's novels, but his writing style (I don't know why, though) didn't attract me. Interesting things that I found out about Mr. Sheldon include 1) he'd been a script writer before he wrote his first novel "The Naked Face" at the age of 56!, 2) it's been pointed out by various sources that most of his readers are women. (Mr. Sheldon himself said that the reason might be because he likes to write about women who are talented and capable while keeping their femininity.) So, in a way his novels are like a fantasy novel for women? ◆ JOE ◆ |
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HOW SMALL?
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- 2007/11/09(Fri) -
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So I was at Starbucks, sitting alone on a patio chair like chair outside, watching abruptly those who were walking by, some of them probably headed to the station and others to the next destination, and I was wondering if there’s anyone among those who have ever visited this blog, entries posted either by Karen or me. It wasn’t like I was so desperately lonely, but late in the evening I just like to spend an hour or so peacefully, sipping my favorite Ice Café Mocha Grande and reading a book or news articles or engaging myself in some passersby-watching kind of pathetic things. Two girls and a guy (probably all late twenties) sitting right next to my table were talking about English, apparently they’d been in one of those English conversation schools or salons around before they came and settled right next to mine, going on and on confabbing about their teachers or instructors and other students or customers endlessly. Well, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop their conversation, but, y’know, they talked so loud as if they were trying to tell me something, apparently that was neither my action nor my voluntary reaction but strictly their actions causing my ossicles to vibrate. And of course I tried hard to pretend I hadn’t heard a thing, gazing bluntly up at the sky while putting on my best preoccupied look. But it’s just too hard to keep on holding it especially when the conversation got your nerve! From time to time I’d felt as though they were skinning my skin, and I was just biting my lips so hard, and wished they were leaving soon. I am not really crabby, but their bigotry directed at other English learners were just unbearable.
Exactly, yeah, the easiest solution was to get myself the hell out of there, but y’know, I was there FIRST, and I didn’t feel like accepting the idea of me leaving instead mostly because 1) I’d feel like I was defeated, 2) I’d feel like they defeated me, and 3) I was afraid it might have given them the sense of victory! YES, I’m this small! Finally, the three, all Japanese, started speaking in ENGLISH. Well, I had nothing against the idea that they did that for educational purposes, but none of them ever nailed me with their English, which was in fact pretty much contradicted to what they’d claimed at so loud! ◆ JOE ◆ |
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FIRST LADY?
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- 2007/11/09(Fri) -
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Should we know what kind of person the wife of prime minister of Japan is? HELL NO! But are we so strange? WELL, NO! According to one poll, the 89% of the French think that they don’t care about their president’s marriage and it is strictly none of their business. The German chancellor Angela Merkel’s husband takes no interviews, makes no public appearance, and still teaches at a Berlin university. Cherie Booth, also known as Mrs. Tony Blair, had tried to stay pretty much away from the press, and she kept on practicing law while her husband was busy being prime minister of Britain. By contrast, Americans care deeply about their president’s spouse. And strangely, even a Japanese guy like myself has gotten used to paying some big attention to what those first-lady candidates do and say. Besides that, I have this crazy belief that John Kerry could have won the last presidential election if Kerry had had Laura and Bush had had Teresa instead. I mean, John Kerry seemed to be such a great guy, but I just couldn’t believe how on earth a guy like him could have ended up marrying a woman like Teresa Heinz. And who knows, some of those guys in the States might have felt the |