The Hague Convention

Hello, everyone! Today, I would like to introduce myself and show one topic.

Self-introduction
I'm Ayaka Sueo. I was born in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Because of my father's job relocations, besides Sapporo, once I lived in Thiba, Yamanashi and Shizuoka. So, I used to go to Tokyo Disney Resort very often when I was a child. I love Disney. One of my future's dreams is going to all Disneyland in the whole world. Therefore, I want to improve my English skills, especially speaking in this class.

Issues of international marriage -The Hague Convention
Nowadays, many people have international marriages and divorces. When they divorce, what happened to their children? In many cases, one of the parents leaves from the other with taking their children. Then, children never see the half parent. To change this situatuon and rescue those children, the Hague convention was established.

To get more information, please access this link. www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/hague-convention/

What do you think about the Hague convention?

Daylight Saving Time (DST)

Hello, everyone! I'm Kazuki Watanabe. 

I was born in Hirosaki, but where I spent the longest time in my life is Koriyama in Fukushima prefecture. I have been to Korea and learned English and Korean language for a year. I would like to improve my English communication skills especially speaking and listening through this class. 

The topic which I recommend is about Daylight Saving Time (DST). It is because that I have heard about power shortage in Japan so many times after the earthquakes on March 11th, 2011 and I think there is a possibility that DST contribute saving electricity. please check the following articles out and think about it.

http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst/

Thank you for reading my post.

Hello, my name is Kyoauke Machida

 Hello, my name is Kyosuke Machida. In this term I take Advanced English class, then startd use the blogger! I have to post a disucussing topic here, but first of all, I introduce my self.
 I was born in Aomori and have lived here for 20 years. Since junior high school student, I have played basketball. My hobby is playing basketball and reading "Manga" ! I work at Izakaya "Za Watami". So please come to there when you wanna drink !

 Next I post a topic about English education in japan. Students are worried about making mistakes in English. Who is responsible for instilliing in students this fear of making mistakes? teacher? students? system of how to teach english? I'm going to post a link of this topic. This news says that this problem is a teacher's fault. is it really only teacher's responsibility?

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/01/10/our-lives/teachers-must-nurture-critical-thinking-confidence-in-english-for-a-shot-at-2020-goals/#.U1C8GqyKDcs

Reliability of information on the internet

Hi everyone!
I'm Enkhbat Enkhbaatar. I have taken this class before but didn't post anything on this blog. So, I decided to retake the course and will try to be more active and vigorous this time. Some of you might know me quite well. Anyways, let me introduce myself here. I am Mongolian citizen and came to japan in 2011 as a regular student. I was born and raised in Moscow because my parents were studying in Russia for long time. I was able to speak and understand in Russian language fluently but since my parents returned to Ulanbaatar I had almost no chance to communicate in Russian, so now I only understand in  Russian. As you know, I am in Professor Philip's seminar and researching about Cuban Missile Crisis. When I asked you about the Crisis, none of you even heard of it. So, please check this out.     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_missile_crisis or you can watch the movie here 'The thirteen days'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEL45ffs2x4.

Today, during the class, I recommended topic about the purpose of education but it seemed to me quite broad topic, so how about discussing reliability of information on the internet which I found it very interesting. Here is one article which explains how to judge the reliability of information on internet. http://www.mhhe.com/mayfieldpub/webtutor/judging.htm.
Looking forward to reading your posts. Thank you!

ICJ orderd halt whaling

In March 31, ICJ ordered to Japan  halt whaling in Antarctic.
ICJ judged the scientific investigation can't justify whaling.
And this judgment affect Japanese Pacific Whaling.

I agree with research whaling. Because the research discover the effect of environment change for ecosystem.
The whale which by-product of the research whaling in Antarctic is about 20% of domestic traffic. And it's used with out being wasted.

URL is here
http://news.yahoo.com/japan-considers-curtailing-whale-hunt-further-media-061319796.html;_ylt=AwrSyCSOuE9TvSUAd.fQtDMD

http://news.yahoo.com/world-court-rules-japans-whaling-not-scientific-ends-095413929.html

11H2088 Takuya Horikawa

Slang?

There are some words that have been used in Chicago but its doesn't appear in my eng-eng dictionary..

1.lavalier
2.veg (it does exist but I don't think thats the real meaning, it said the meaning is vegetable)
3.nerts
4.girder( it does exist in the dictionary but I don't think that was what they try to say in the movie)
5.onyx(same as above)

About the movie "Ｃｈｉｃａｇｏ"

In the latter half of this movie, after Roxy was judged innocent, one woman shot one man and then she was arrested in front of the courthouse.

It was the sudden incident to me, therefore I do not understand why she killed him.

Is there anyone who knows the reason?

About the dance party in the movie `Little Women`.

As I was watching the movie `Little Women` in the class, I noticed few soldiers were in the dance party with other gentlemen and ladies. I thought that only high-society people could attend that kind of dance party, but the soldiers were not even a commissioned officer, they were sergeant and corporal according to their chevron on sleeve. So now, my question is that were anyone allowed to join that kind of party or not.

Free audiobooks and eBook

Hey guys, I just found something cool!!

http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/

From this website, you could download free audiobooks and eBooks
There are many kind of book you can find here.. Check it out.. :)

HOW TO IMPROVE OUR ENGLISH SKILLS

Could everyone share what did you do to improve your english skills? I got problem especially in listening and writing skills..
1.  I watch same movie for many times so that I could catch up what they were saying, but it seems like doesn't work for me..
2. I'm started to learn back english grammar, but I don't have idea from where and what the best way I could start..
3. What is the best way to improve our english pronunciation? I thought by listening english music and sing it is the best way, however, my english pronunciation never get better.. Do someone got some advice or idea to share to improve this skill?

YOUR FAVOURITE MOVIES

I just wonder what kind of movie that was very famous during your childhood time, of course english movie. For example in Malaysia, the famous movie at that time (1998-2002)

1. Baby Day Out
2. Harry Potter
3. James Bond
4. Home Alone
5. Zorro

In our country, there are no dubbing for english movie but subtitle are provided..(in Malay language of course)

So, what about Japan... I just wonder why all english movie in Japan were dubbed since they wish to improve their english. So,everyone could learn english by watching the movie.
What do you think?

question about Blues Brothers 2

Hi! Did you spend good weekend? I had a part time-job this weekend and had lots of

assignment. So I couldn't enjoy weekend.

After watching the movie all, I still have some questions.

1 Who is the lady? I could understand she tald brothers about her family, but I couldn't understand her connection with brothers.

2 Finally the brothers were arrested by police. But I couldn't understand why their band members were also arrested?

It was so fun movie. And if I have an opportunity,I want to watch another version.

American humor in the movies

I would object to this review's apparent assumption that American humor is monolithic, when in fact it is wildly diverse, from highbrow of various sorts (Steve Allen and Woody Allen should never be confused, just for example) to vulgar slapstick of various sorts. Charles Chaplin seemed to combine all levels in his comedy, but then he was an expatriate Briton who never became an American. He just worked in Hollywood. And the article did note how American humor has changed over time, although ignoring how diverse it remains at any given time.

But I have to recommend this article if only for the following observation:

Yodo-san, as he was affectionately known throughout the Japanese film industry, could as easily tell you why John Belushi was so scintillating in “The Blues Brothers” as weep over the line about life being like a box of chocolates in “Forrest Gump.” He was a living, breathing incarnation of IMDb.com long before the Internet.

I didn't know which was your favorite scene and/or song in the movie, and I had so many myself. Maybe I'll just put this one on the blog for you to enjoy, and you can tell us what else you liked about the movie. If you liked it.



Oh, heck. Why don't I include my favorite song, the only actual 12-bar blues in the film?

Question and comment for BLUES BROTHERS

Hi!I'm Sachiyo.
Did you enjoy today's English class movie BLUES BROTHERS? I really enjoyed it. I have some questions and comment about it.

Questions
1 Who is the lady tried to kill Jake and Elwood? Why she have to kill them?
2 At the car chase, why the brothers dicided to crash into the shopping mall?Why Elwood is good at driving a car?
3 At their first concert, why there is the wire netting in foront of the performer? Is it popular in U.S? Why did the audience throw bottles?

I have many favorite characters, Matt's wife, sister, Ray and of course brothers.
I want to see it all as soon as possible. But actually I couldn't understand jorkes in it. Why don't we have a class about how to understand American jokes? It is probably interesting!

The history of English in 10 minutes

I came across an informative YouTube video about the history of English that I hope you enjoy:

Questions about Psycho

Questions about Psycho

Good evening everyone. I’m Sachiyo. Did you enjoy today’s English class movie Psycho? Actually I couldn’t understand the contents of it. So I ask you 5 questions about it.
1 Who is the man appeared at the first scene? And how is he related with the woman?
2 Why did she steal money?
3 Why did she run away with that money?

4 Why did police man chase her?

5 Why did the motel owner feel affection for her?

The movie was so difficult for me to understand and listen what they talked about. So I couldn’t take any note and get new vocabularies. Next time how about to watch it with English subtitles?

Sachiyo TANDO

Countries I would love to go

I have been to the US, the UK, New Zealand, South Korea, and Singapore. As for the US, the UK, and New Zealand, the purpose of staying there was to learn English. For Singapore, it was to switch planes.

    I used to wanted to be a backpacker and wanted to visit every country in the world. Now, I do not really want to be a backpacker but I still want to go to every country, even to the North Korea.

    One of the places that I would love to visit Taiwan next because it is relatively close to Japan and I have heard that the food there is nice. I love bubble tea. (๑ᴖ◡ᴖ๑)

    Another place that I want to visit is Hawaii because the climate there is nice. Also, I am interested in volcanic activities. I have heard that in the Hawaii island, we can see lava going into the ocean.

    Eventually, I will visit every country in the world, hopefully.

Where in the world have you been? (or would like to go)

I really enjoyed today's report, but then it was by one of my students. Maybe the rest of you can tell us a little bit here about places you've been to and others you'd like to visit. I've been to Japan (OK, I know you knew that, but to me it's an exotic overseas location). But I won't tell you that. I guess I'm the only one here who's been to Africa, except Ryo's been to a corner of it in Egypt. How about I post a photo of the lecture I gave at Bayero University, Kano last time I was there?

No? OK, how about Nigerian tofu?

OK, how about something more touristy, like a cool refreshing waterfall on the plateau?

Kurosawa's movie

 Здравствуйте!
Yesterday, I had watched the movie; Dersu Uzala. This movie was my first Kurosawa's movie. I  heard Russian words after so long. I learned Russian languages in my high school.

• До сьидания. → See you!
• Правила → a rule
• Пожалуйста → please
• Вы всегд можете. → You're welcome. 
• Это → this

I heard these words from this movie.
I want to study and learn Russian languages and conversation more.
Thank you for reading.
 Дасвидания!

My first Kurosawa movie: Dersu Uzala

We have finished watching ''Dersu Uzala' directed by Akira Kurosawa. It was my first Kurosawa movie, so do everyone else. I was surprised that the character was based on the real person. The ending was a bit sad but it was like a spice for the movie. I just thought that, for Dersu, it was the tiger that led him to the fate. Overall,  I, unexpectedly ,enjoyed the movie. ^_^

   About the similarities between the Altaic languages and Japanese language: even though both types of language has SOV word order, that does not mean anything when we talk about the relationship between those languages, since 43% of the languages in the world has SOV order. Even with the Korean language which seems to be quit similar to the Japanese language, it can not be said that those two are related because those languages does not share the basic terms.

    I am looking forward the presentations next week!