maxiewawa

If you want to cheat, here are the Korean numbers:

1 = 하나 7 = 일곱
2 = 둘 8 = 여덟
3 = 셋 9 = 아홉
4 = 넷 10 = 열
5 = 다섯 11 = 열하나
6 = 여섯 12 = 열둘

Try reading them as the cards come up, or if you’re feeling confident, say them without reading.

古い/furui (old)
安全/anzen (safe)
不便/fuben (inconvenient)
重い/omoi (heavy)
つまらない/tsumaranai (boring)
難しい/muzukashii (difficult)

In case you can’t follow (or if I’ve made too many mistakes for it to be intelligible, which is just as likely!):

The “old” object is my iPod 30G. Apple don’t actually sell them any more, so that’s why I chose it.
The “safe” object is a wrist pad for roller blading.
The “heavy” object is a chair.
The “difficult” object is my Japanese copy of ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’.
The “inconvenient” object is a pair of chopsticks. (As Seinfeld said, “You don’t see a guy plowing a field with a couple of pool cues, do you!”)
The “boring” object is a copy of a movie that I didn’t enjoy.

Max here.

No English assignment for today. Sorry, put away your pencils and notebooks.

Truth is that last week’s assignment has proved so difficult that I want to take this week to continue teaching it to my student.

To recap, I put together a (fictional) story and asked people to give their opinions on it. The original story is:

* I didn’t have a good day today. I went to a party last night, and drank a lot. I stayed out until late. I woke up later than usual, and ran to work in my pajamas. I arrived at work late, and my boss told me off for being in my pajamas. I was so tired that I fell asleep at my desk, and didn’t write the report that I was supposed to.

Here are some of the answers. Each uses the past participle correctly:

1.) You shouldn’t have had so much to drink. You should have limited yourself.
2.) You should have gone to bed earlier.
3.) Since you woke up late and in a frazzle, you should have called in to let them know you weren’t coming or to tell them you were late.
4.) You should have prepared better for your report.
5.) You should have drank some coffee to wake yourself up.
You should have called your workplace and told them you were sick. You should also try not to make a habit of being hungover and going to work.

My student has been having problems with the pronounciation of “should have” and “shouldn’t have”. There are so many variations: “should’ve, should have, shoulda” and “shouldn’t have, should not have, shouldn’a” and put that together with the complicated grammar… let’s just say I think we need a little more time.

This is why I haven’t put any new learning material up today.

———

Finally, I’d like to say a little about this whole series. This is the fourth video in my efforts to teach English online. I have to say that my one student (Aika) is doing quite well. She doesn’t make the same mistakes that she used to, which is basically why I started doing this in the first place.

Her English still isn’t perfect, but now whenever she makes a grammatical error I make a note of it and think to myself “i should make a video of that to try and explain it.”

In actual fact I never get a chance to show her the videos that I make, but make sure that she goes through everyone’s answers. It’s a little painstaking sometimes but it definitely helps.

My one disappointment is that not many learners seem to be responding. Any thoughts? I realise that my explanations are a little… long. Maybe I should be just getting into the material immediately without going through the long boring preamble. Anyway, I’m open to suggestions.

That’s all for today!