What Do You Want?
Aika needs a few hours' notice before appearing on camera which is why she is hiding so much in this video. If you can't see it, have a look here.
Speaking American
There are some truly terrible English textbooks out there. Sometimes I'll open a textbook and find five mistakes on a single page. Here's one that I remember: "Who is good at teaching, a teacher or a director?" It should be "Who is better at teaching, a teacher or a director?" Students (particularly Chinese students) remember these mistakes, and when they eventually learn of the correct pronounciation/spelling/whatever, they always greet it suspiciously: "But I learnt to say 'who is good' many years ago, now you're telling me that I should have been saying 'who is better' all this time?"
What really ticks me off is the reaction that many English learners have when I point out how terrible the textbooks are. They say that this is "American English" and since I'm from Australia, that must explain why I'm having trouble with some of the strange expressions in the textbook. I always try to explain that American English isn't so different to what we speak in Australia, and that the textbook is plain wrong but my students are always suspicious that I don't really know what I'm talking about.
So I have decided to test it out. I'm particularly interested to know if the following sentences make sense to our American cousins. I suspect that they are as incorrect to Americans as they are to the rest of us, and that I really do understand English:
- When do we usually lay the table?
- When do you do your own room?
I don't want influence anyone's judgement (judgment!) of these sentences by pointing out where I think they are wrong; just let me know if they make sense to you.
Japanese Questions
The lesson on which this dialogue was based can be found here.
In case you can't see the video, it's actually really funny, watch it here.
I sound a bit girly in this video; I guess we can put it down the nervousness of performing on camera.
Talk With The World
Just this moment I joined up Talk With The World, a joint blog about people learning languages. My first post was just a short intro about myself, but I hope to make many more. I'm really excited to find some other people who have similar interests.
Japanese Introduction
This Youtube thing is like an addiction! I've taken a break from Korean, and today is my introduction in Japanese. This week's Newbie Lesson at JapanesePod101.com is about a guy just standing there and introducing himself, so I thought I'd do the same.
My Watch take 2
HyunWoo was nice enough to help me out, and here's take 2! I've taken out all the "um"s and "ahhh"s so it's much shorter. Amazing how just a little bit of help can make such an improvement.
This is the video Hyunwoo made for me.
While Studying Korean
My latest Korean video. You can so tell that I'm not really drinking anything out of that bottle, can't you!
Brushes With Celebrity
On my final day before leaving Tokyo the week before last, I stood in the corner of the office and took these ph
otos of everyone that was in the office that day. Some of the people you can see are featured on-air, and if you listen to as many language learning podcasts as I do, you'd recognise most of them.
I won't list everyone by name, since that would ruin the surprise if you actually get to meet anyone yourself. It's much more fun when you meet them in real life.
It's so strange hearing those voices "in the flesh". I remember an Actor's Workshop interview with the cast of the Simpsons; it was pretty crappy, basically the guy interviewing them just got everyone to do the voices, but I sat there enthralled. Hearing those voices which are attached so strongly to characters that I'm so familiar with come out of real peoples' mouths was really strange. Meeting famous voices from Innovative Languages was a similar feeling.
By coincidence today I met another famous podcaster, Jenny Zhu from ChinesePod.com . I was quite flattered that she recognised me, and remembered my online name (maxiewawa) immediately! I was waiting in line at a foreign supermarket on 淮海路 and spotted Hank, also from Praxis Languages. I recognised him from a Youtube video. He smiled after I introduced myself, and after I made it clear that I was a listener, without saying anything, he pointed to Jenny. We had a nervous conversation (well I was nervous, she wasn't) where I uncomfortably admitted that I worked for a ライバル会社 and kept saying 哇，两个名人，太紧张 but it was great to have a brush with celebrity.