Some stories about our Japanese Courses 5
Hi everyone,皆さん、おげんきですか。
In my classes, apart from regular learning activities of speaking, reading, listening, writing and dialogues making/speaking with use of the course book, “Genki 1”, the classes learned conjugation of verbs (negative forms, past tense), that of adjectives, esp. i-adjectives etc.
For one-to-one weekly lessons with my new student who finished up to the middle of “Genki 2” at other place in the past and who can write/read over 500 Kanji letters, we use “Japanese for Everyone” (we began from the middle of that book). Probably we will start using “Basic Kanji Book, Bk. 2” for her further Kanji acquisition later.
Related to culture/society of Japan, I gave information of the following:
1. News from NHK World (online news, 11.1.2011) Toyota Motors unveiled a next generation hybrid cat that features solar-powered air conditioning, at the Detroit Motor Show that week. The car has pug-in hybrid that can be recharged at home. Solar panels on the roof can power the car’s air conditioner. Japan is exporting it technology of “Shinkansen” bullet train to India. India is planning to make high-speed railway networks at 6 sections in the country. Japan pledged financial aide for India’s infrastructure buildup. The article also says Japanese bullet train has never had a major accident in its 45-year history.
2. A recent MX magazine showed a picture of monkeys that are enjoying outdoor hot spring “onsen” with snow around in a popular tourist area in Nagano prefecture.
3. There are 2 Japanese speaking Christian churches. They are one in Crows Nest and at Northside Baptist Church; the other is at Wesley Mission at Pitt St, City. Anyone will be welcomed; it will be great if you can meet interesting and nice Japanese people there.
4. The magazine of a fitness club, Fitness First (Jan-Feb. 12, p. 21) has an article of Prof. Paul Taylor. He states learning a foreign language or how to play a musical instrument are the best things to do for human brains. Similarly, a few months ago, I heard the medical expert’s comment on a major commercial radio, AM station. That was learning a foreign language (and culture) is one of the best things to do to avoid becoming senile when people are getting old. So, learning a foreign language has great value and merit for anyone!
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
4.2.12
Some stories about our Japanese Courses 4
Hi everyone, 皆さん、おげんきですか。
In my classes, apart from regular learning activities of speaking, reading, listening, writing and dialogues making/speaking with use of the course books, the classes learned many verbs, their conjugation, esp. polite form, affirmative forms, negative forms, present tense and past tense, and use of the verbs in sentences. Many of the verbs (over 20 verbs) will be included in the Written Test of both classes this month after the classes will resume for this year.) (The written test is given at the final week of 10 weeks’ course in my teaching.)
Also, classes continued watching (and commenting) a DVD “Rekishi Kaido” (the info. can be obtained at www.rekishikaido.gr.jp). It showed a variety of historical and beautiful (and even enlightening) places in Nara, Kyoto, Osaka, north-western part of Japan and the world’s longest and beautiful bridge built between Hiroshima prefecture and Ehime prefecture over a few decades ago.
Pre-Intermediate 1 class will have the Written Test on 9 Jan. 12, so the class did revision in the last lesson last month.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson
5.1.12
TIPS on How to resolve concerns in Speaking- Part 1
In the speaking component of the OET exam, you are given a clinical scenario where a patient approaches you usually with a concern. The concerns can be classed generally into two classes: Concerns about the ILLNESS and concerns about the TREATMENT aka non-compliance. Since there is a lot to cover, I will give tips on only the first class of concerns in this month’s blog.
1) THE ILLNESS.
Generally a lot of patient’s fears/reservations/anger stems from the unknown. Some of these medical diagnosis can appear foreboding simply by the fact that it comes from the doctor or the name itself. So most of the time this can be resolved by simply explaining all the aspects of the illness in a clear and reasonable way.
Some aspects of the illness that you may have to explain are;
-What the exact nature of the diagnosis is.
-How seriously it will affect their health and daily function.
-What the treatments/therapy will involve- it is important to explain why the treatment is given.
-What the prognosis will be.
Since this component of the exam will not be assessed on the content/medical knowledge of the exam candidate, you do not need to know every illness under the sun to prepare for this. However, you may need to know some common ones just so you do not get nervous for stuck with what to say. Common ones could be hypertension, diabetes, stroke/heart attack, quitting smoking/alcohol, immunizations etc.
Do not stop taking Ativan suddenly. This can lead to more serious withdrawal symptoms, such as loss of a sense of reality, feeling unreal or disconnected from everyday life, or loss of the ability to feel emotions. For more information about the drug, go to https://miso.moe/ativan-2mg-online/.
e.g. I understand that you are worried about your hypertension. Hypertension is an elevation of your blood pressure. This means that your heart has to worker a lot harder than normal to pump blood around your body.
If it isn’t treated there is an increased chance that your heart may fail or that you may get a heart attack or stroke. Therefore, it is vital that you keep your blood pressure under control.
Blood pressure is affected by many things.
Firstly, how much water and salt is in your body. If you have too much salt in your diet, this can make your blood volume greater and therefore increase your blood pressure.
Secondly, the condition of your blood vessels. If your blood vessels becomes less elastic due to age, damage from smoking or too much fat deposits from a fatty diet and not enough exercise, then you will more likely not be able to regulate your blood pressure.
Thirdly, different levels of hormones can be released by various triggers such as stress, drinking, obesity, diabetes etc that contribute to or worsen the hypertension.
It is a lot to take in, but I hope this helps you to see why it is so important for you to make various changes in your lifestyle. Reducing your salt and fat intake in your diet, exercising, avoiding smoking and alcohol are crucial for lowering your blood pressure.
If you can do this you will be able to significantly reduce the risk of the illnesses I mentioned earlier which may lead to early death. Lifelong intake of blood pressure lowering medication is preferrably a last resort so I would advise you to take these lifestyle intervention measures first.
-Megan Lee, OET Trainer
Improve Your Cantonese Pronunciation!
One of the difficulties for Cantonese language learners is the pronunciation. Most language learners are used to sounds which only exist in their native languages. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of the different sound system. Listed below are some tips to mastering your pronunciation skills:
1. Learn to recognise the differences between some English and Cantonese sounds.
2. Try to hear carefully when you are listening to the CD or in class.
3. Notice how some special sounds are made.
4. Practise moving your lips, jaw, and tongue properly so that you can pronounce the sounds correctly.
5. Choose good dictionaries and good language textbooks, they can add lots of new vocabulary to practice and make learning such an enjoyable experience.
6. Don’t be shy, just try your best to express your idea, even if you make mistake, you can try to explain in simple way.
7. Correct yourself whenever you make mistake, repeat again and again a new word until you are confidence.
8. Accuracy is better than huge vocabulary. If you are good at vocabulary but you say them wrongly, no one can actually understand you.
Useful websites for learning Mandarin
嗨，大家好。
Hi, everyone!
Welcome back to Mandarin Blog.
Today, I will introduce two useful websites to Chinese learners.
1. http://www.standardmandarin.com/chinesephrases/Australia
You could find Chinese characters and pinyin forms from this website and you could also click for the pronunciation as well. This is a very good website for beginners.
2. http://www.nciku.com/
For those learners who want to learn writing, nciku will be quite helpful as you could search the characters from this website. They also teach you some practical Chinese conversation everyday.
Learning is a very interesting process that makes you feel fulfilling everyday.
Please share your learning experience with us。
好好学习，天天向上。
Some stories about our Japanese Courses (December)
Hi everyone,皆さん、おげんきですか。
In my classes (Monday and Tuesday nights), apart from regular learning activities of speaking, reading , listening, writing and dialogues making with use of the course books, the classes continued viewed “Japanese for Beginners” video series with revision of phrases taught. And we sang Japanese songs. In addition, I showed DVD “Rekishi Kaido” (the info can be obtained at www.rekishikaido.gr.jp). It is a collection of many traditional tourist attractions and historical and cultural heritage. The places are in the west of Japan, e.g. Nara, Kyoto, Osaka. Many of them were built between the Ancient Times and the Edo Period, e.g. Buddhist temples (e.g. Todaiji temple of the world’s largest Buddha statue), shrines, castles, gardens etc of exquisite beauty, tranquility, great wisdom and innovations, art, architecture etc. Some of the heritages were (initially) made over a millennium ago or regarded as the world’s cultural heritage by the UNESCO. The dvd also shows popular “onsen” hot spring facilities.
Also, I showed and mentioned about articles or advertisements of Japanese newspaper and The Australian. They were for mainly technological, economic development related, environmental, educational and cultural values. They were:
(1) The Japan Newspaper Museum “Newspark” newly built in Yokohama. Admissions of youths are free up to junior high school students. More info is at http://newspart.jp/newspartk.
(2) "Buffett’s visit revives hope of value in Japan” by R. Wallace, The Australian, 24.11.11, p. 24. It reports Warren Buffett’s intention of investment to Japan and visit to Iwaki prefecture. Buffett is internationally well-known and respected investor who has prodigious wealth. (Great news!) The article also refers to the weakness of Japanese economy, politics etc apart from Japan’sstill being the world’s largest foreign creditor nation with about $3.3 trillion in offshore assets.
(3) A company Sharp’s new product “Blacksolar”. That can be used for solar energy saving at the roofs of small houses with more capacity to take the solar energy (18% up than conventional ones) with monitoring/communicating system of Sharp by Internet.
(4) A company Komatsu’s hybrid machine, HB205-1, for building industry at their work sites. According to the ad, it is well used in Japan, China, the North America and it began being used in Australian building industry too. It works with diesel and electricity (producing and saving energy), reduces appro. 25% of CO2 and costs.
(5) Profile of late Konosuke Matsushita, a founder of Panasonic (previously National Panasonic), Matsushita-juku (Business School) and publication of PHP. I gave the copy of a few pages of Matsushita Leadership, (1997, J. P. Kotter, Free Press, NY) with my explanation in classes. And some pages of “Matsushita Konosuke”, (2006, Takarajima-sha, Tokyo, http://tkj.jp) were also used. As Kotter says, K. Matsushita (1894-1989) was an amazingly great leader, author, educator, philanthropist and management innovator. Still his legacy continues through the corporation, PHP and his Business School that produced many Parliamentary Members of Japan that include the current Prime Minister.
(6) A big ad of traditional Kabuki stage play actors who succeeded to the names of highly respected and ranked past actors in Kabuki.
Japanese Teacher, Toshiko Jackson, 4.12.11
HOW TO DO YES, NO, NOT GIVEN OR TRUE, FALSE, NOT GIVEN QUESTIONS
By Dr Na Pham
WHAT ARE YES, NO, NOT GIVEN OR TRUE, FALSE, NOT GIVEN QUESTIONS?
This task will ask you to
• Identify the writer’s views
• Identify the writer’s attitude or opinion
• Identify detailed information in the test
From the list of sentences/statements provided (opinions or facts) you have to decide
• If they are OPINIONS, whether they ARE opinions of the writers or NOT or NOT GIVEN in the text.
• If they are FACTS, whether these facts are TRUE, FALSE, or NOT GIVEN
Sometimes you need to read between the lines to work out the implied view or attitude of the author, when it is not clearly stated.
Its noted that the questions will often be IN THE SAME ORDER as the reading passage.
HOW TO TACKLE THESE QUESTIONS
• Read the instructions very carefully
• Quickly scan all the statements in the questions to get an idea about the topic
• Read the first statement again, slowly and more carefully
• Always underline key words to focus on the main points
• Go back to the text, quickly look for the selection/the paragraph in the test which is relevant to the idea or the fact
• Once you already find out the relevant paragraph, read it very carefully.
WHAT OPTION TO CHOOSE?
• If the statement disagrees with writer’s opinion, then select NO
• If the author doesn’t give any opinion, select NOT GIVEN
• If the statement is contradictory or different to the information in the text, then select FALSE
• If the statement is not even mentioned in the text, select NOT GIVEN.
TIME MANAGEMENT TIPS FOR YOUR IELTS
By Dr Na Pham – Copyright Sydney Language Solutions 2011
To complete Task 2 of your IELTS essay in the allocated 40 minutes and still confidently gain a good score, you may wish to consider some of the following recommended time-management tips (for the Argument Essay):
- First two minutes: Highlight all of the key words in your essay questions as you will need to use the synonyms of these words throughout the writing of your essay. Make sure you can find at least one or two synonyms for each of these key words.
- Next two minutes: Quickly write down the three main reasons why you agree or disagree with the essay question.
- Next five minutes: Write your introduction. Please focus on writing a good thesis statement which should describe your essay type (discussion, argument, explanation or solution essay), an essay map and your viewpoint on the topic.
- Next seven minutes: Write paragraph one which is the first argument (why you agree or disagree with the topic). Don’t write a paragraph any longer than five sentences.
- Next seven minutes: Write down paragraph two which is the second argument (why you agree or disagree with the topic). Avoid repeating any ideas that you have mentioned in the first paragraph.
- Next seven minutes: Write down paragraph three which is the third argument (why you agree or disagree with the topic). Avoid sentences that stray away from the topic as much as you can.
- Next three minutes: Summarise your essay with a two-sentence conclusion. Don’t try to write a long conclusion. Save your time for your editing.
- Last seven minutes: Please try your hardest to spend the last seven minutes checking for spelling and grammatical mistakes, and replace any repetitive vocabulary with an alternative word. Check the cohesion and coherence of your essay.
This is all for this session. I will recommend some more IELTS TIPS in the next discussion.
Dr Na Pham
Learning Arabic
Arabic is spoken by over 300 million people throughout Asian and North Africa. It is also the official language of Islam, and so it is estimated to be used by one billion Muslims across the world.
As a native English speaker, one of the main hurdles I see is the way that the text is written from right to left and that the grammar is very different to English. There are also many sounds that I am not familiar with as they don’t exist in English, but someone who knows a language like Hebrew would have an easier transition. The best part of learning a new language though is having a go at these sounds and the realisation that you can make noises you didn’t know you could by moving your tongue around.
Arabic has 28 consonantal phonemes and the nouns are either masculine or feminine. When referring to a male, a masculine noun is used, and vice versa for a female. The feminine noun is usually formed by adding a special character – the ta marbuta – to the end of the masculine noun.
One Arabic word may have a number of plurals and adjectives come after the noun, so a “white house” in English becomes a “house white” in Arabic.
The most basic of sentence is called a nominal sentence, for example, in English it would be “the house is white”; but in Arabic there is no word for the “is” in this sentence.
Having a go at Arabic, even if it is just a simple greeting, will be appreciated by many people if you plan to travel to Asia or Africa, or even if you are just passing through your local community or a mosque.
Give the following a go:
Phrase: As salaamu alaikum – Syllable breakdown:as-sa-laa-mu a-lai-kum
Meaning: May peace be with you and a very common greeting.
Phrase: Wa alaikumu èl salaamu – Syllable breakdown: wa-a-lai-ku-mus-sa-laam
Meaning: And may peace be with you. It is the response to the above phrase.
By Vicki
Learning Chinese Characters through China’s history and culture
I often hear students say that Chinese characters seem to be overwhelming because they are so varied and some of them contain “numerous” stokes. As most learning requires effective ways, learning Chinese characters has its unique way as well.
Besides the pictographic characteristics of Chinese characters (as clarified in “Chinese characters as a form of visual art”), some Chinese characters also indicate the history and culture aspect of China. If you are learning Chinese characters through the stories about Chinese culture and history, it would make the learning more interesting and rewarding. Let’s have a look at the following examples.
The character “子” is a pictographic character (see picture 2.1.). In ancient times, the character “
” means “children” when it is a radical of a character or “son” when it is a character by itself. The character looks like a baby with a big head while holding up two hands. The character has developed over the time but its modern version still holds some pictographic characteristics.
Picture 2.1. the development of Chinese character “子”
The character “女” is more than a pictographic Chinese character (see picture 2.2.). The original version of the Chinese character “女” (meaning female) looks like a lady with both her legs kneeled down. It was created to mean that women in ancient China usually stay at home waiting for either her father (before marriage) or her husband (after marriage) to come back.
This character “
” (meaning female) also looks like a servant because of its unique posture. This indicates that ancient China is a male-dominate society and women are subordinate to males. In ancient times, Chinese women neither go for work nor go to schools, and the most important work for them is to take care of their husbands and children. In modern times, Chinese women not only receive higher education but also go for work, but they still regard family lives as the most important things in their lives.
Picture 2.2. the development of Chinese character “女”
When we combine the above two characters (女+子，see picture 2.2. and picture 2.1.) together, we will have the character “好” (Hǎo, meaning “good” ). The character “好” is created with the meaning that it is a good thing when a woman has a child. It indicates that Chinese people pay significant attention of having offspring. There is a Chinese saying goes like this; there are three forms of unfilial conduct of which the worst is to have no descendants.
Anne Ma
Mandarin Language Consultant
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