Three Reasons for learning Tagalog
1. Tagalog is an easy language.
- You say the words as you read them. There are no silent letters. Example: Salamat. (Sa-la-mat) or Thank you.
- Similar to the English language, words do not have gender. Both men and women say similar phrases to each other. Example: Kamusta ka? (ka-moos-ta ka?) or How are you?
- If you are a native/fluent speaker or just have a backgound of Spanish, you’ll find it easy to learn Tagalog as almost half of the words are derived from Spanish. Example: You will hear some Filipinos count in Spanish: uno (one), dos (two), tres (three) and so on.
In informal conversational Tagalog: Puwede ba akong umupo sa silya? (May I sit on the chair?) Puwede came from puede which means May I?; silya came from silla which means chair.
2. Filipinos are amongst the friendliest, warmest and hardworking people in the world.
Although majority of the Filipinos can speak English, you will find them willing to teach you Tagalog and you will feel more appreciated for learning the language.
3. Enjoy Filipino songs
Filipinos are known to be fantastic singers. Lea Salonga, Regine Velasquez, and Charice Pempengco are among those who have gained international success. Here is Regine Velasquez’s version of “Tuwing Umuulan at Kapiling Ka” with lyrics (To be with you, everytime it rains). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSES6fIk34o. This song describes how the strong pouring rain emphasises the singer’s feelings to the one she loves. Listen and enjoy the melody or ask a Filo to translate it for you. Not only do you enjoy the song more but you also learn Tagalog words!
Reading Hindi is Easier than ABC
In Hindi, what I read is the same as what you will! Cannot put your head around it? Try reading this – “PHONETIC”- and I bet nine out of ten times, what you will read it as will be very different from the next person! Why? Written English does not incorporate phonetic rules in it, i.e. there are no special symbols for sounds. Hindi, on the other hand incorporates the sound system in its written script. So if you know the vowels and alphabets, you can pretty much read eighty five percent of the Hindi Script. Don’t Believe me? Try this out:
The symbol आ pronounced as ‘aa’ of bAr and the symbol प pronounced as ‘p’ of Put combined together is read as आप = AAP which means ‘you’ and will always be read like AAP! The symbol ह pronounced as ‘hǝ’ of Hut and the symbol म pronounced as ‘mǝ’ of Map combined together is read as हम = HUM which means ‘us’ and will always be read like HUM! You have already mastered two words with the blink of an eye. Join us for more and you will vouch that it is easier than ABC!
Some Stories About Our Japanese Course 18
Hi everyone, 皆さん、こんにちは。
My Japanese classes/lessons included the practices to develop speaking, reading, listening, writing, interacting, constructing and creating dialogues as well as cultural skills and knowledge upon Japan. Also, we used textbooks (our major one is Genki Book 1), pictures, ads, children’s books, magazines, CDs, videos, DVDs, songs, gestures with songs etc. At the end of each class of 10 weeks, an exam was given (if the student wishes to have it as an open exam, that was done in that way.)
As for use of flash cards to increase knowledge of vocab, sentences construction and script reading skills, for the recent few weeks, I have been using “Hantai-kotoba-kaado” (Kumon) that has many beautiful cards in Hiragana and Kanji (Chinese characters) with use of words that are commonly used nouns, adjectives and verbs. Each card has lovely, cute or funny pictures that indicate the words concerned. Each card has a word on one side and its antonym (word of the contrary meaning) on the back. The cards were very useful, interesting to use and helpful to make sentences and short dialogues.
A few times, I used exciting pictures from magazines, including MX magazine, e.g. picture of a beautiful white baby lion that is in the UK zoo. The class listened to my Japanese sentences or students said some sentences in reference to the report on the article. For example, “The baby lion’s mother is Kya.”, “The white baby lion is cute.”
At Internet, you can see many articles on Japanese newspapers. About a month ago I saw gorgeous photos of “waves” of Japanese cherry blossoms in the middle of Tokyo, in Yomiuri newspaper (shimbun). However, the season was over and couldn’t show it to classes. And I found the inspiring article(s) of Japanese newspapers, so I reported that to classes. I believer such printed media has enormously contributed to Japanese democratization, world’s highest literacy rate and people’s life span, impressive peace and order in the society in the post modern times, their cherishing good, traditional values, practice and consistency, technological sophistication, communal attitude etc.
Related to the above topic, one of the article reports (from INA Globa Press Article, “Yomiuri Shimbun – The giant of the Japanese press”: “With more than 10 million copies sold everyday, Yomiuri Shimbun is not only the largest daily newspaper in Japan, but also the largest in the world. The circulation of Yomiuri Shimbun is greater than that of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street combined. Around 50 million newspapers are sole each day in Japan, where 90% of the public reads newspapers. —– (in p. 7 of that article,) Yomiuri Shimbun was founded in 1874 (i.e. soon after the end of Edo Period and start of Meiji Period); Asahi Shimbun was in 1879; Mainichi Shimbun was in 1872 and Nikkei Shimbun was in 1876; Sankei Shimbun was in 1913.
The above first four newspapers are national newspapers and its circulation rates are all extremely high in the world’s standard. Also, there is an English newspaper, The Japan Times. All of Yomiuri, Asahi, Mainichi and Nikkei newspapers have English versions daily.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
3.5.13
Did you know… The new pope eats Argentines?
I came across a newspaper article just after the new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was announced as the new head honcho of the Catholic Church.
So… is the new pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio, a cannibal who favors his Argentinian fellow-countrymen as a delicious meal, just like the headline in a German newspaper suggested? Admittedly, I have no idea what kind of diet Francis, the 266th pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church prefers but I’m pretty sure that he is not after human meat. So you might wonder, why do I ask the question whether Pope Francis craves for humans for supper?
A German newspaper wrote: “Der neuePapstisstArgentinier”, which means “The new Pope eats Argentines”. Actually, (at least I’m pretty confident that’s the case) the writer of this newspaper articles wanted to say this: “Der neuePapstistArgentinier” (“The new Pope is Argentinian”). So, what led to this linguistic accident?
The conjugated forms (2nd and 3rd person singular) of the German verbs “sein” (to be) and “essen” (to eat) share one and the same sound chain, that is, “ist” and “isst” are so-called homophones – the pronunciation of both these forms is identical – but orthographically they mean two totally different things. In order to make sure that you do not walk right into the same trap, here’s an overview of the correct conjugated forms of both the German verbs sein and essen:
| sein (to be) | ||
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st person | ich bin – I am | Wirsind – we are |
| 2nd person | du bist – you are (informal)Siesind – you are (formal) | ihrseid – you are (informal)Siesind – you are (formal) |
| 3rd person | er/sie/esist – he/she/it is | siesind – they are |
| essen (to eat) | ||
| Singular | Plural | |
| 1st person | ichesse – I eat | wiressen – we eat |
| 2nd person | du isst – you eat (informal)Sieessen – you eat (formal) | ihresst – you eat (informal)Sieessen – you eat (formal) |
| 3rd person | er/sie/esisst – he/she/it eats | sieessen – they eat |
As you can see, German shares one and the same form for English “you”, “she”, and “they”, which is “sie” and “Sie”, respectively. When you refer to your immediate counterpart in personal communication make sure to use a CAPITAL letter in formal address.
Unfortunately, the editor’s mistake is irreversible but one thing is for sure: he or she is most probably a laughing stock in the office and definitely among members of the language police. My final remark: Spell-check can save lives!
Danny Ruch – German Teacher
Tips on Translation from Vietnamese into English
1. Vietnamese grammar
Vietnamese grammar revision training is essential as it will help the student gain better insight of different structures in the Vietnamese language. Students can become more confident when choosing a suitable structure when translating Vitnamese into English.
2. Different ways to practise translation
Studies suggested that instead of being given a 200-word text, teachers should give 10 sentences of the same syntactic structure in Vietnamese. By doing this, a student can certainly master the way of handling subjects in a given structure. This is a particularly effective way for a limited competency English learner.
3. The lack of knowledge of both Vietnamese and English.
If students cannot master the characteristics of Vietnamese and understand the difference between the two languages, they will end up producing sentence forms that are very unnatural and awkward.
4. Tense and Aspect in Vietnamese
The tenses and aspects in Vietnamese and English are expressed differently. This can be understood easily from the example below:
Lan ăn cơm
“Lan” can be translated into English as “is eating rice”, “ate rice”, “eats rice” or “has eaten”, depending on the context.
5. The markers đã and đang do not accurately specify past and present tenses.
Đã in sentences (a) and (b) does not indicate actions happening in the past. As we can see, Đã in (a) expresses a truth in the present, and in (b) it expresses an action happening in the future.
(a) Bây giờ tôi đã có nhà.
I have enough houses now
(b) Nếu ba tháng nữa em mới về thì anh đã đi Mỹ rồi
If you go back in three more months, I’ve been to America already
6. Adverb of time
In (a) “Tuần trước” (last week) in Vietnamese is the adverb of time implying the past. No tense marker is needed in this sentence but the verb “go to work” has to be changed into “went to work” in English. “Sẽ” in sentence (b) is used to state uncertainty of an event; it is appropriate to talk about the future. However, “sẽ” is not a tense marker but an aspect marker. Therefore “sẽ” can indicate a future time frame but not in all cases.
(a) Tuần trước Hoa đi làm.
Last week Hoa went to work
(b) Hoa sẽ nở
A Flower will blossom
7. Verb “to be”
In English, the verb to be has many forms: am, is, are, was, were, be, being, and been. There is only one word for verb to be- là. Therefore, when translating from Vietnamese to English, a student should be very careful with the subject in order to decide the appropriate verb form.
(a) Tôi là học sinh
I am a student
(b) Anh ấy là người yêu của tôi
He is my lover
8. Phrasal Structures in Vietnamese
There is a difference between Vietnamese and English adjective phrases. The general rule is the adverb of manner precedes the adjective. For example:
rất đẹp
very beautiful‟
hơi đẹp
bit beautiful
9. Some students know the translation rule very well; however, they don’t have sufficient practice of all kinds of linguistic structures and patterns. As a result they may make grammar mistakes when translate into English.
10. Topic-Comment structure of Vietnamese
As Vietnamese speakers like to mention a topic first and then elaborate on that topic later, it is common that the majority of students admit the complexity of the Topic-Comment structure of Vietnamese. Students have a tendency to be more correct in translating Vietnamese sentences whose subjects are apparently recognizable through a clear semantic.
11. The identification of dropped subjects from Vietnamese into English
Vietnamese people in general have the habit of speaking without a subject whenever it can be inferred from the context. Many students are incapable of locating the subject and often translate incorrectly. Therefore, it is a great burden for students to translate a subject in English with an obligatory constituent in order for people to understand thoroughly.
12. Passive voice
Vietnamese people prefer the active voice to the passive voice. Therefore, students should not translate two languages word by word but understand the whole idea and start to translate.
13. The omission of pronouns in Vietnamese:
Students should be aware that the subject in Vietnamese spoken language is often omitted but not in English. Consequently, they must analyse the source text to find the missing subjects, direct objects or indirect objects in order to avoid mistranslation
14. “Double subject” constructions of Vietnamese:
This means the topic is not identical to the subject. The relationship between the topic and the subject can be possessive or inclusive. The strategy is to recognize the link between the subject and the topic.
How to count from 1 to 10 in Chinese
|
Chinese character |
Pin Yin |
English meaning |
|
一
|
yī |
One |
|
二
|
èr
|
Two |
|
三
|
sān
|
Three |
|
四
|
sì
|
Four |
|
五
|
wǔ
|
Fine |
|
六
|
liù
|
Six |
|
七
|
qī
|
Seven |
|
八
|
bā
|
Eight |
|
九
|
jiǔ
|
Nine |
|
十
|
shí
|
ten |
Love IELTS Speaking exams?
1. Listen carefully and answer the question correctly
Don’t be nervous in the IELTS Speaking exam, the examiner will know it obviously. Be yourself, don’t memorise any answers from any sources, it will result in a bad score. Pay attention to the verb tense, noun forms, conjunctions and intonation.
2. Practice is a habit
Genius is trained; therefore, you need to be trained for any kind of exam. You should definitely not sit for an exam which you don’t know anything about. Understand the structures and know the strategies.
3. Long answer
It is highly recommend that you extend your answer properly. Give an explanation for your answer with demonstrations and examples. Not only yes or no answers, please!
4. Maintain good eye contact
Don’t look down at the floor or stare at the table, it may be considered as disrespectful to the examiner. Remember, good eye contact and body gesture will be highly appreciated.
5. Can’t understand the question clearly?
In the speaking test, candidates are asked to be interactive, not just answer all the questions and leave. Therefore, do not hesitate to ask the examiner if you are not sure about the question. Trying to answer a question you do not understand thoroughly may lead you to answer it incorrectly and therefore lose marks!
How To Improve Your Vocabulary for IELTS Speaking
Vocabulary, to state the obvious, vocabulary simply means words. To state the obvious about IELTS, vocabulary is an important part. IELTS is more about how you use the words than the words themselves, however relevant vocabulary is important. The choice of your words will depend on the subject you are asked about.
You’ll receive questions on entertainment, relationships (your family, your friends), clothing, food, colour, hobbies, interests, leisure, time, fitness, health, your “home” (either where you are from or where you are now, famous people (not necessarily world famous but as long as you state they are well known you are answering the question), songs, music and dance, travel, history, historic sites, general scientific questions and your favourite place (practically any location is a place).
To find the relevant vocabulary, do some light research on the subjects and related items. Practically all information on the listed subjects can be found on the internet, in books (reference books, non-fiction, even fiction), dictionaries (online and printed). It’s all just a matter of knowing your preferences, experiences, opinions, ideas on these subjects. To prepare for questions on your favourite film or TV programme read a web page about it, maybe two, and consult dictionaries if you’re unsure on what the words mean and when to use them. To answer questions on relationships, consult look at articles, books, websites on families and friendships in general. If you want to talk about your favourite clothes, read books, magazines, catalogues, internet sites.
Winning the IELTS Listening Test
1. Write what they are looking for
Whether they want a number, True, False, one word or “no more than three words” in the answer, follow the instructions exactly, otherwise your answer will be 100% wrong.
2. Timing is extremely important!
The listening part is only played once; there is no excuse or chance to repeat it. Therefore, stay awake and concentrate. Don’t go to sleep late the night before because you can never imagine the consequence of it. Within the set time limits, students need to finish all answers correctly and completely in order to achieve a high mark.
3. Before the audio track starts
Have a read of all the questions and the printed answer on the exam papers in the very first 90 seconds. Make the most of these times; be ready, set, and go!
4. Don’t be distracted
The confusing part is when you may see all the answers on the answer sheet. However, there is only one correct answer. Therefore students need to understand the whole conversation, don’t be distracted!
5. Spelling
Pay a great deal of attention to your writing, try to make it easy for the examiner to read. You will lose marks even if you miss a single letter in a word. Check all the words you have problems with and practise them.
OET Writing: Treasure Vs. Trash!
The writing task of the OET is a test of your resource of English language skills as well as your ability to comprehend the situation presented to you.
It is this comprehension of the stimulus material that is vital to helping you determine what to include (in other words, TREASURE) in your letter and what NOT to include (i.e. TRASH).
So how should you decide what’s treasure? Consider the following:
- Your purpose/reason for writing the letter –for example, if you are writing a referral letter for a patient with a SPECIFIC condition (e.g hip replacement) then you should only include the relevant, important details regarding that complaint (e.g. aspirin given, dressings applied daily, etc.)
- Your audience – think about who you are writing to and WHAT they already know. For instance, if you are writing to the parents of a young patient, then they will already know her medical background/family background, etc. so you don’t have to include it! However, if you are referring them to a new medical professional, then the medical/family background should be outlined.
- Your current situation –always keep in mind what is going on with the patient/situation at the moment and what role your letter plays in the situation. This will help you to choose the appropriate language and tone to express your letter.
Sometimes you may get 3 pages of case notes and this can seem quite overwhelming. By considering the things I have mentioned above, I hope you can confidently break the case notes down into a well-written letter.
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Carol, OET teacher
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