How can you Improve Vocabulary Daily?
Learning a new language can be very overwhelming in the beginning when your vocabulary is quite limited. However, the excitement builds as you learn more and more words and can start to use them yourself.
Some quick and easy suggestions on how to improve you vocabulary on a daily basis includes:
Reading – Read anything that you can get your hands on; it doesn’t have to be a book. Magazines and graphic novels with lots of pictures can be really useful. You may not understand the word but will get a feeling for it through the pictures.
Writing – Write a simple story with the words that you already know and add pictures to help you associate the two. It doesn’t matter if the story is silly but it is fun to have a go and will definitely help you remember new words.
Listening – Try listening to the radio in the language of your choice (eg. BBC World Service), watch a movie or something fun like YouTube that can be spontaneous and harder to understand than a usual language learning CD.
Speaking – Practise your new vocabulary out loud by making up simple sentences and phrases with the words you have learnt. It doesn’t matter if the cat is the only one listening!
Remember, if you make it fun then you don’t feel like you are working so hard at studying.
By Vicky
My Best Korean Students and Their Special Wednesday
Hi my name is Ashley Jang and I am teaching Korean language at SLS. As a teacher, I am always very proud of all my students as they are proactive, fun and dedicated to learn my first language. Today, I would like to introduce one of my special Beg1 classes and their Wednesday regular dinner which happens before their Korean class each week.
Every Wednesday, before the 6.30pm class, my students (and I sometimes join too!) are meeting for an early dinner. What’s the menu? Korean food indeed! They meet at 4.30pm (normally Café Cya but they are always looking for some yummy ones!), eat dinner together (their favourite is KimChi Chigae), exchange Korean dramas and talk about K-pops as well as other cultural topics. Last week, we tried to order foods in Korean and I was shocked by their positive attitudes which made their mission accomplished (we haven’t even started that lesson yet!). Their last destination is Korean supermarkets for buying some Korean treats and drinks for sharing in the class and bringing it to their family. I found that their Korean is dramatically improving. Hence I have no doubt that they will speak my language fluently in no time! Are you a hungry K-pop fan? Come and join this group!
Written by Ashley Jang (Korean teacher)
What is Mandarin?
As we know, China is such a big country with 55 ethnic minorities. And most of the minorities have their own dialects. Besides, people from different regions of China have different accent as well. So, the Chinese government promoted Mandarin all around the country for a purpose of better communication and education from 1956.
Here are some background information about Mandarin. I hope it will be helpful for your understanding and learning.
In Chinese linguistics, Mandarin refers to a group of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of northern China. Because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is also referred to as the "northern dialect(s)" .
A northeastern-dialect speaker and a southwestern-dialect speaker can hardly communicate except through the standard language, mainly because of the differences in tone. When the Mandarin group is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, it has more native speakers (nearly a billion) than does any other language. For most of Chinese history, the capital has been within the Mandarin area, making these dialects very influential. Mandarin dialects, particularly the Beijing dialect, form the basis of Standard Chinese, which is also known as "Mandarin".
Be careful with your Cantonese!
In English, the length of vowel is quite important. If you are not cautious, “sheet” will become “shit”, and “beach” will become “bitch”. Same as English, length of vowel is important in Cantonese. Other than that, tones are very important in Cantonese too. If you change the tone, you change the whole word. The combination of wrong length of vowel and wrong tone in Cantonese can be hilarious, which is the case in the following.
This Tuesday night, my Cantonese beginners’ class was working on the unit about occupations. Teacher was one of the occupations. Its Cantonese is “Gaau6 si1”. As a native speaker, I had never thought this word could turn into something hilarious. When the class practiced its pronunciation, one of the students pronounced it as “Gau2 si2”. I just couldn’t help and laughed. Then the class asked:”Why is it so funny?” I explained:”Well, ‘Gaau6 si1’ is teacher, and ‘Gau2 si2’ is dog poo!” Then everyone just laughed.
This is more than just a funny story. It also shows one of the difficulties of learning Cantonese, especially for speakers of non-tonal language, such as English. There are six tones in Cantonese, and it is quite difficult for English speakers to distinguish them because English is not a tonal language, and its speakers are not trained to pick up tones. Some people may worry about this. However, I think it is just a matter of time and practice. If you put enough effort into it, it is not difficult at all. At the end, these six tones are actually distinguishable.
Chinese character as a kind of visual art
Learning Mandarin usually starts from Pīnyīn, which is a phonetic system that helps people to speak Chinese language. However, Pīnyīn is only part of Chinese language because Chinese language actually consists both sound (Pīnyīn) and symbol (Chinese characters). Chinese character has a history of almost 5000 years, which is almost as long as Chinese history. The different writing systems of the world can be divided into two categories, which are alphabetic writing system and semantic writing system. Chinese writing system is semantic system in which people differentiate the meaning of words according to their forms.
Some Chinese learners said that Chinse characters were like pictures. I would say they are right, considering that pictographs are an integral part and the foundation of Chinese characters. Let’s have a look at some pictographic examples in Chinese characters as follows. You may notice that they are developed from concrete objects and can be regarded as a form of visual art.
1.1. The development of the Character “rì”, which means “sun”.
1.2. The development of the character “yuè”, which means “moon”.
1.3. The development of the character “shuǐ”, which means “water”.
There are a lot other examples about pictographic Chinese characters and we will be discussing them in the later sessions.
-Anne Ma
Letter from our IELTS Student
Hi Na Pham,
I am Deepak Agrawal, a student of your writing module training for IELTS. I am writing to express my heartfelt thanks to you on achievement of my IELTS 7.0 on all Modules.
I’ve received my results today, which just made me happier by seeing a score of 8, 8, 7 & 7. This does not only mean that I can apply for my VISA now but it also marks the end of the exam trauma. Attempting exams again and receiving undesirable results was making me little nervous about myself.
My learning journey with you would have continued had I been continuing to stay in Australia. It was not mere preparation of IELTS for me. You boosted my confidence (and I believe of everybody else’s as well) by your honest rating of the essays and pinpointing the problem most of the times. I am trying to practise writing in the “Na Pham” format all the times now.
I wanted to say you thanks for your efforts. Most of us choose a profession to pursue a living but your profession is changing lives for many peoples.
Thanking You….
Yours Faithfully
Deepak Agrawal
Occupational English Test Preparation: Reading Section
The reading section of the OET exam is for some the trickiest part of the whole exam. Part A in particular can be quite intimidating because of its very short time limit. To get through this part, the key strategy is to always be very conscious of time. The very first thing to do is of course to skim through the texts and read the titles in order to get an idea of which text is talking about what. The headlines often contain information on whom/what the text is about, where the information is from and how it might be relevant to the general topic. Also, it is a good way to see what type of information each text might contain. Sometimes, the texts are about a person’s personal experience with a disease or issue. Other times, it could be just a table containing statistics or other types of data. It could also be a health professional’s professional opinion, the description of an illness or disease, or even how to treat or manage a particular condition.
Once you have identified the subject of each text, you are ready to start answering some of the questions. Each time that a blank space comes up in the summary and answer sheet, you already know where the information that you are looking for is most likely going to be. You can then go straight to that text and skim through it quickly to get the information that you are looking for. Be careful when looking at data however! There can be some traps laid out for you. Really pay attention to the way that the questions are worded. “Adult men under 70” might be labelled as “males 18-69” in a text. You must make sure to understand what is being asked of you as well as what the text is actually telling you.
As always, you have been keeping a steady eye on your watch during this whole time. You notice that you have about one minute left and unfortunately, you know that there are still too many blanks on your paper for you to realistically hope to finish everything in time. Do not despair! It is now time to realize that the last points that you are going to scrape up are not going to come from finding the answers directly from the text. Read through the final questions and try to answer them either using your memory of the texts that you have just read or just common knowledge. Sometimes, all that the sentence is missing is just a preposition or an adjective which is an easy way to score an extra point or two. Fill in everything that you can and place your pencil down when they call the time, and be happy that you have accomplished all that you could.
Occupational English Test Preparation: How to Speak Without Getting Stuck
5 minutes may seem like a short time, but if you encounter a topic or situation that is unfamiliar, the 5 minutes can feel like an eternity.
OET speaking session is a dialogue between you (the health professional) and the interviewer (the patient). However, the majority of time is devoted to you to show off your speaking skills. The interviewer will be advised to speak minimally unless prompted by you with questions.
TIP 1
After the interviewer introduces the scenario, ask questions to clarify or establish the situation/concern more fully. e.g. So how long have you had this pain for? What is exactly is it about the drug that you are concerned about?
TIP 2
If you need more time to think about your response but you don’t want a big gap of silence, mirror or reflect the concerns or questions the interviewer raises. This is not only good for you to buy time but also a great way of expressing empathy and demonstrating that you comprehend fully what they are saying. e.g. So from what I can understand Mr/s …., you are worried about your son’s lack of concentration at school. I can see that it must have been so serious that you considered the possibility of an underlying medical complication. I am sure that coming up with a diagnosis would clear a lot of things up for you.
TIP 3
Don’t ever assume that the patient knows everything about the medical concern that they are coming to you with. That is why they are consulting with you. Describe and define every basic aspect of Ambien pro their health condition. e.g. Hypotension -> define it/ ask the patient if they fully understand what it is. Particularly if they have concerns with compliance, going into a bit more detail scientifically may be more persuasive for the patient.
TIP 4
If you need to explain to the patient about a certain procedure or therapy, ~remember!~ although the interviewer can see you, the examiner can’t as the role-play is voice recorded. Therefore, make a concerted effort to describe every little detail in words, however obvious it may sound. It is not the knowledge that they are grading you on but your speaking fluency. e.g. using a walking frame: be descriptive right down to which hand/foot goes where and when.
TIP 5
If you have no idea about the disease condition/treatment, hypothesise. e.g. That sounds like a respiratory condition which the doctor will be able to clarify to you about. However, from my understanding of respiratory conditions in general, it is important that you are supplied with sufficient oxygen and make sure that your airways are cleared of mucus or any foreign particles etc.
TIP 6
Remember to speak slowly ad clearly. This will not only stretch out the time and minimise the amount of mistakes that you may say but also dilute out any thick accents.
IELTS in a Nutshell – Be Prepared
The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is the English exam taken by over 1.4 million people around the world each year as a step towards an international career or education.
If you have taken up the challenge, congratulations and good luck. The biggest tip that I could give you would be this – BE PREPARED!
Like any girl I love surprises; a box of chocolates, a bunch of flowers. But when it comes to something as important as a test, I like to know what I am up against and what is expected of me well before I sit my bottom on that chair at crunch time.
If you are taking the IELTS test, make sure you know what is expected of you and set goals to make steps, even if they are small ones, to achieve those goals.
Make sure your goals are reasonable for each category (reading, writing, listening and speaking) and take into consideration that you may be weaker in some areas than others so allocate more time to work on these with your teacher.
Read ever piece of information or tip that you can, and keep an eye on this blog which includes some great advice on improving your skills by our expert tutors.
All About Cantonese
Before writing this blog I didn’t know anything about the Cantonese language so I decided to do some research and I came up with the following:
1. Cantonese is one of the most widely-spoken languages or dialects in China, is the main language of Hong Kong and is used by Chinese communities around the world.
2. Although it often plays second fiddle to Mandarin, which is considered the official language of mainland China, is has been around for about 2000 years compared to the 700-800 years of the former.
3. People who speak Cantonese don’t necessarily understand Mandarin and vice versa. I am sure a common misconception in Australia is that they are both very similar.
4. Like many Asian languages, Cantonese is tonal and it has at least six to nine tones that you need to master to be understood.
5. There is a great market out there in the world for this language skill.
Wow, the last point is definitely a reason to study the language if you are looking to stand out against others in your field of http://healthsavy.com expertise. What are you waiting for?
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