Tips on Top

Let me tell you today about a few mistakes that I come across quite often (maybe a bit too often) in my students' writing assignments.

Well, first of all there are the articles. The Japanese language doesn't have them, while the English language gives you too many choices: definite article? indefinite? none at all? Again, here too there are rules, and exceptions, and you'll probably learn to get them all right only after reading/ listening to a lot of English. But just one tip: use a/an when you mention something in conversation the first time, and where you can replace it with one without changing the meaning of the sentence. The second time you mention the same thing, and if you can replace it with this/that/these/those, use the. Here's how it goes:

Once upon a time there was a man who lived by the sea. The man went fishing every day. One day he caught a golden fish. The fish told the man: "If you let me live, I'll make three of your wishes come true!" The man thought for a while, and then said: "I want a big house!" The fish wiggled his tail, and the house appeared right in front of them...

Also, don't forget that superlatives (most, best, longest) need the, as in He's the most interesting person I've ever met, with the best sense of humor; so does same: We both say the same things at the same time.

This doesn't solve all the possible problems with articles, but at least helps you avoid making basic mistakes.

Another tip: one of the is followed by the plural, because it means that you are referring to just one object out of many similar objects: One of my colleagues will make a presentation at the conference. I ate one of the peaches you bought yesterday.

Note one more thing: almost is an adverb, a modifier, normally to be used with adjectives, that's why we can't say almost people, but instead we have to say almost all (the) people, not almost results, but almost all (of) the results, etc.

That's all for today, hope it's helpful!

Academic English Seminar& AESS Resources

Last week I had the first academic English seminar at KISOKO. There were a few problems: for example, I couldn't find the classroom, because I was convinced it was E513, which should have been a room on the 5th floor of the KISOKO building, the E wing. I was so convinced this was the correct location, that I even wrote so in the message I sent to the students (without checking the HP). So on the day of the first class, I went up to the 5th floor to find out that... there's no E wing on the 5th floor. I also met 2 of my students, also looking for the classroom, and started roaming the building together; our group got bigger and bigger, until we finally met someone who actually knew that e-セミナー室 is on the 5th floor of the D wing! Hurray! Because of my mistake, 2 more students arrived late (probably after going up and down, left and right, looking for the mysterious E wing, room 513...)

But finally we were all in the classroom, and the class started, only for me to discover that I didn't have a CD player for the listening exercises! Nobody's fault but mine... today though, that's covered too, and I'm looking forward to my second class :)

Another piece of news: since we have received all the books (but one) that we've ordered, you can come and borrow them now. You'll just need to fill in a simple form, with your name, lab, mail address, etc. Bring in your student ID too, please!

For the 字幕スーパー movies you'll have to wait a bit more, but they'll be ready soon! Also, a list of everything we have will be uploaded, as I have promised, so that you can easily decide what you want to borrow even before you actually come to AESS.

See you!

Useful Tip

Spelling in English is a complex art, with many rules, and even more exceptions. You would think that [oo] is pronounced [u:], like in "moon", "soon", "balloon", but then you find words such as "door" or "flood", where the same combination of letters sounds totally different. Or the other way round: words like "meet" and "meat", "there" and "they're" and "their", where similar or identical sounds are represented by different combinations of letters... Some of the pronunciation/ spelling problems are universal: all the learners, and even some of the native speakers have them, while others are shared only by the Japanese . I'm sure you know by now what I'm talking about: the problems with [l] and [r], [b] and [v], [s] and [th]...

Remembering all the rules and all the exceptions is difficult and time-consuming, but technology can help. One very easy way to avoid misspelling words is to use Microsoft Word (or just temporarily copy-paste your Latex document in Word), and let the Autocorrect function work its magic. All misspelt words will be underlined in red, and a right-click will give you spelling suggestions. If you have all the dictionaries installed, a green line will even show you some of the grammatical constructions that might be wrong.

Simple and useful, wouldn't you say? Try to use it once.

If you know any other useful tips, don't hesitate to share them with us!

Back in Business

The Golden Week is over. Finally spring has come, and developed quickly into summer (nearly 30 degrees yesterday); also, ALL the days of the GW were sunny and warm, which apparently sets some sort of meteorological record!

AESS is back in business, with some good news: next week we'll have our first Academic English seminar (from 1 to 2:30 on Thursday and Friday, room D513-515). The groups are small, but hopefully enthusiastic. Most of the students are worried about their ability to understand spoken English and communicate fluently with their peers, and we'll try to work mainly on that, but the menu will include some English writing on the side, too.

The next piece of news is that, from now on, to use AESS you need to make an appointment (with the seminar starting, I expect to be a little busier than before), by picking up a time slot in the schedule here, and filling in the information on the form here. Right now the online schedule is still "under construction", but the available times will be as follows:

Monday 10:00-12:00; Wednesday 13:00-16:00; Thursday 15:00-18:00; Friday 16:00-18:00.

Very soon, you will also be able to borrow books and software from AESS; we're still waiting for some to arrive, and then we'll catalogue them and get them ready for you. Now, you can see a list of the DVDs in the AESS library on the SYSPRO-GP home page, and a list of books will also be available in the next couple of weeks. Check the HP and this blog for information about the AESS resources and the ways to use them, as I will be posting about that soon.

Looking forward to seeing you all, in class, or in my office.