Pronunciation Post #2

Hey guys! 

As promised, this is my second post on pronunciation. I’ve found out further flaws in my pronunciation and in this post I will tell you how to get rid of them.

Rachel's English

Rachel is just great! She knows exactly what to pay attention to when pronouncing a word. Not only does she explain thoroughly how the tongue needs to be positioned, but also how to deal with intonation of every single word. What I particularly like about her is the way she sets up her explanations in her videos. She uses videos of every-day life situations like birthday parties, road trips or thanks giving preparations. In these videos, people are talking in every-day English and therefore use natural collocations and useful idioms. Rachel then takes out a phrase of what someone has just said and goes into detail about the meaning and the pronunciation of a phrase. Not dry at all and very informative! Awesome for practicing :-)
A great example: http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/how-say-happy-birthday

Amy Walker

As I’ve already in detail written about her in my previous post, I’ll keep myself short here. But as I still struggle with the “shwah”- sound, as Amy calls it, I like to watch this video over and over again. I hope I’ll be confident about the “shwah” in January, when I take the vocabulary and pronunciation exam.

Perception of Spoken English Test

I took the test some days ago. It is so good to have an “objective” opinion (even though it’s a test online) on how I pronounce words. As a German speaker it’s almost impossible to detect my flaws in pronunciation when I’m talking, so I am pretty glad that there are pages on the web like this one. The result of the test is really OK, I just have to be careful with differentiating k and g when used as final consonants, as well as p and b. At the beginning of a word, I sometimes had difficulties to distinguish the f and the soundless th.

Go and test your perception of spoken English here!

Minimal Pairs
In order to practice k/g and p/b, I do exercises on this page or- again- watch an Amy Walker video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBQ-q_z_LM&feature=youtu.be 

This website also provides numerous helpful exercises.

TOEFL Test Preparation
In January, I take the TOEFL test. The test requires doing reading, listening and speaking sections. For the speaking section, I’ll have to talk about every-day situations, such as student life, hobbies etc. During the speaking section, I’m allowed to take notes for 20 seconds so that I can talk an entire minute about my chosen topic. I try to practice on a regular basis, so I get used to it and to acquire my strategy of taking notes in this short time. Additionally, I record myself and afterwards analyze what I could’ve done better.

Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! If you have any questions or suggestions, I would be glad to see some comments!

!!Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Pronunciation Post #1

“Good pronunciation should be one of the first things that you learn in English.”
http://www.antimoon.com/how/pronuncwhy.htm

Today, I start with my pronunciation diary which is about my strategy on improving my US-American accent. 

 Admittedly, I’ve never paid too much attention to the pronunciation aspect of learning English as I’ve always been pretty content with how I pronounce words. I’ve always been well aware of the fact that English spoken by a native sounds different, but I couldn’t find out how it differs from the way I pronounce words. Last week I found out. I was assigned to record my own voice while doing some pronunciation exercises in order to get some feedback from my English teacher. By looking at the evaluations, I was glad my pronunciation is OK. However, a couple of errors were found in my record:

·         p vs. b: paper pad, bed, bee

·         voiced z: sizes

·         $ 27.69: read out a price

I’m glad that I had my record evaluated because now I know exactly what needs to be improved. So, after I got the feedback, I took some time to find out how to boost my pronunciation skills best:

Amy Walker
She is out and away the best tutor when it comes to acquiring an American accent. Because of being immensely skilled in talking in a number of English accents, she knows what matters most to imitate an American native speaker. She even has her own website, called 21 Accents, which is worthwhile visiting! I made a list of the vowel sounds that are typically American and I think I will put it over my bed or somewhere else I often see it so I remind myself of working on my pronunciation regularly. Another good idea is to record my voice (although I don’t really feel comfortable listening to my speaking) in order to compare my pronunciation with, for example, Amy’s. Basically, I became enthusiastic about this idea while reading Dominik Abe Berger's blog. Thank you, Dominik!

Antimoon Pronunciation Test
-> http://www.antimoon.com/how/test-pronunciation/test.php
On this page you can test your pronunciation. It will only take you 2 minutes and at the end of the page there is some advice what can be done to improve pronunciation skills, dependent on how well you did on the test. I took the test just some minutes ago and I believe I again did OK, although making some mistakes. One of the tips they’ve given me is to visit this website to download a software that apparently perfects your pronunciation. Unfortunately, I can’t afford buying it. Another suggestion on accent reduction is to look up pronunciations in dictionaries. Admittedly, I’ve hoped I can resist working with the phonetic alphabet. Well, but now I think I should really begin to force myself using it. Not only is it one of the things the website recommends to do to boost pronunciation skills, but I was told by actual people that it would be very beneficial. Ok… it’s time to give in then, I guess. But as working on my pronunciation is surprisingly fun, I hope that studying (with) the phonetic alphabet will be a pleasure too!

What is your approach to improving speaking in the one accent you’re opting for? Let me know, as I’m always open for new strategies and ideas :-)

That’s it for today. You will read more on pronunciation soon!

Have a nice evening!

Vocabulary Post #2

Hey you guys!

This is my second post on how to improve my vocabulary, as an assignment by my English teacher in charge of vocabulary and pronunciation. As I kept my first post on this topic pretty short, I've spend more time on this one. I'll tell you how I take advantage of the web, of blogs from other students and how I cope with acquiring 700 words I will be tested on in about 5 weeks. 

Of course, the internet offers an indefinite number of websites related to language and language learning. My problem, though, was that I never knew where to begin my research in this sea of websites. Thanks to my English course, I've already come across many good-quality monolingual dictionaries, news pages, etc. which proof to be very beneficial

TED is one of my favorite websites recently. Not only is it inspiring listening to "ideas worth spreading" but it is a great opportunity to improve English by watching these people talk. There are plenty of different topics covered such as global issues, entertainment or business. They certainly cater for all tastes. Watching these videos is an entertaining way to expand my vocabulary as I feel like investing my time in something that interests me and therefore makes it easier to keep new words in mind.

Monolingual dictionaries. There is no excuse not to use them and get rid of those bilingual ones! OK, it's not that bad to use bilingual dictionaires once and again, but from experience I can say it is more effective not to. My Top 3 monolingual dictionaries are the Longman Dictionary, Merriam-Webster and The Free Dictionary. I like the Longman and M-W dictionaries because it is easy to navigate on their websites, there are clear definitions of provided and more or less enough sample sentences. This is an important aspect, as the word is used in different contexts which makes easier to understand its meaning. I appreciate The Free Dictionary because I don't know any other dictionary dedicated to this great extend to idioms. By the way, dear reader, you could contribute to my effort in learning new words as well :) As I am still in search of a dictionary providing good collocations, please share your knowledge with me and let me know where I can find one. I would be very grateful!

For several weeks, I've intensified taking advantage of anglo-speaking news, like The Atlantic, The Economist, BBC News, and CNN and. Reading the news has become almost as relaxing as to browse through the local newspaper when having breakfast. The small difference is that you don't enjoy the usual buttered bread but words. A great diet, I can tell you and either way, your breakfast comes with a cup of coffee ;-) But frankly speaking, it is somehow pleasant to find a word you're about to learn in an interesting article. It makes it so much easier to remember it thanks to the context! Now that's learning by doing :) 

By looking at some fellow students' blogs, I became motivated to write words that are hard for me to remember on post-its (idea taken from Alissa). I will put them in places I often pass by to force myself to learn them. Another way to acquire a new word is to research of its word family (seen in Sohpie's blog). Although thi requires a lot of time, I can well imagine that this will have a positive effect on me expanding my vocab. In Marlene's blog, I read about SKeLL, the Sketch Engine for Language Learnin, which is a corpus for British English. Although I opt for American English, I believe it's useful in several cases. The corpus is easy to handle and doesn't overwhelm you with information, which some others do. 


To learn the words we will be tested on in January, I gathered some colleagues in order to create a glossary together. Writing down the definitions, synonyms, antonyms and sample sentences of 700 words is just too much to do the work alone. As soon as the glossary will be finished, I will mark all the words with (for a German speaker) a difficult pronunciation. Other than that, I might add some pictures I can associate the words with to remember them better. To support my learning process, I'll do the exercises in the Porter book, as if I'm not mistaken, all of the words are used from this book. 





With the help of these strategies, I am optimistic and I will do my best to take the exam well-prepared. 

Have a nice day!

Bye for now :) 

The pictures are not mine, I've taken them from 

https://fbcdn-profile-a.akamaihd.net/hprofile-ak-xfa1/v/t1.0-1/p160x160/528550_10150712204063308_54187003_n.jpg oh=6af64c48c917845a6ff72df808b1972a&oe=54E5A1B1&__gda__=1427379246_296ec762d190918a0ce793e94e14cf14 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDw5PtsgATdNbgulkpP7H-SzGa7P7P3qJftbvwNeERe-Uxi05dRZ-N_8ORAc7YRuIwpqO7UcAXv4bVNnKH1SH9_KA-35XwzxbNlmi_NHSLH2i_sw0VPhfi0v__sFpHIbzQbTRevSZrKKQ/s400/The+Atlantic+Magazine.jpg 

http://kathywelton.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/14255682-teamwork-and-strategy-concept-in-word-tag-cloud.jpg 

Summary Writing

Hey guys!

This is my entry on one of our main topics in this semester, namely summary writing. This may do not sound that complicated, and with the right techniques, indeed it is quickly done. However, it requires a lot of practice to make a flawless summary. A couple of weeks ago, we were supposed to prepare a summary under exam conditions for then getting feedback from our English teacher. Mine was better than I had expected, but it had left space for improvement, that is for sure. I’ve provided my summary made in class with a correction based on the feedback I got. First though, I’ll give you a quick instruction of how I learned to create a summary.

 

1)      Don’t think too much and REALLY don’t try to understand everything!! (It took me a long time to actually get it ;-)

2)     Read the text and pay attention to the key aspects. Should the text be about complex topics, keep calm and try to infer from the language and how it changes throughout the text what to pay attention to. For example, at the beginning of the text there was positive language used for a new introduced theory. Throughout one paragraph, the language changes and there are words like “however”, “but”, “error”, “problem” etc. Later, you can find out more about it. For now, to see the development of the text is your framework.

3)     Read the text one more time and create a shopping list (subheadings with bullet points) and then a mind map. This helps you to connect your ideas and to deviate your text from the original. Unless you do a mind map, you tend to stick to the structure of the original text, which is not exactly the idea of a summary.

4)     Plan your paragraphs and add information when necessary.

As promised, here is my first attempt of making a summary under exam conditions. Here is the link for the original text.

Before

The article Great profits during the Great War? deals with innovations made during World War One and asks the question if this was done out of pure patriotism.

During wartime, Britain put much effort in improving the infrastructure of weaponry. Realizing that other means than private industries were needed in order to win the war, Britain established the Department of Scientific Industrial Research, also DSIR.

Numerous companies, however, refused to serve the state. The only company willing to contribute to the state’s warfare was the Marconi Company. The obviously patriotic company facilitated wireless communication for Britain during the war and made it possible to track German navy and airships.

It was evident that the Germans had an advantage over Britain due to interception. The British reaction was the invention of the Fullerphone , a device that hindered the Germans from   further intercepting.

Although the texts says that both Fuller’s invention and the support of the Marconi Company were a great support for the British to win the war, the Marconi Company was more richly awarded than Fuller. Both brought their interests into conflict with the British government, namely claiming to not being fairly compensated for their significant work during the war. Fuller thereupon reached the rank of major general and the Marconi Company was paid enough to become a telecommunications giant.

The text ends on an ambiguous note; how should inventors like these be awarded? Were they looking for recompense or were they benefitting by other means? 

Analysis:

• too many words
• weakly linked paragraphs
• sticking to shopping list- scheme
• some misunderstanding of the original article

After

The article Great profits during the Great War? by Elizabeth Bruton and Graeme Gooday in The Guardian of 28 October 2013, questions whether scientists and engineers provided the British government with their victory-leading invention for pure patriotism or profit.  

In 1915, the UK government established the Department of Scientific Industrial Research (DSIR), encouraging scientists and private firms to form industrial research associations. However, none was willing to cooperate with the state, except the seemingly patriotic Marconi Company. The Marconi Company’s contribution to British warfare resulted as highly valuable as the company facilitated wireless communication for the country. Most beneficially though was the tracking of German navy and airships. Another device the British government benefitted from was the Fullerphone, a device that hindered the Germans from intercepting.

At a Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors, the Marconi Company and particularly the Fullerphone were deprived from rich awards. Furthermore, The Marconi Company had not been compensated several years. A post-war dispute with the British government ensued with Marconi’s lawyers accusing the state of exploiting its intellectual property. The amount of the final compensation has remained unknown.

The article concludes with the aforesaid question and an open end.

Analysis:

• concise summary 
• well linked paragraphs
• using a mind map -> less paragraphs, different structure than the original text

As you can see, I’ve already analysed both of them but don’t hold back to leave a comment if you find more. I would very much appreciate it!

Have a nice evening J 

Vocabulary Post #1

Hey guys!
In this entry you're going to read about my strategy on learning vocabulary.
Acquiring vocabulary is doubtless something that takes learning and time. One needs to be patient when it comes to learn a language. It is impossible not to do this step by step because you can easily overwhelm yourself sitting before seemingly endless vocab lists. Of course, this isn’t very attractive and quickly puts you off. So, to know how to learn vocabulary effectively and for a long term is essential. Here is my personal strategy of extending my vocabulary slowly but surely:

In my opinion, a word can only be learned, if you use it passively as well as actively. In other words, I am not able to use a word when studied solely from a vocab list. This particular word has to be read, listened to, and spoken by myself. Otherwise, I am very likely to forget about it and have to look it up again and again in my dictionary. For example, I am reading some article online. I catch up a word its meaning I’m not entirely sure about. I look it up then, and write down its different usages and so on. But this is not enough. Additionally, I need to hear it on a different occasion in a different context so that I feel comfortable using it actively myself. To put it in a nutshell, my key of learning vocab is variation.

What really helps me to keep on practicing, are cards. I always write them by myself out of normal paper sheets in a college block. I cut them in small pieces and write on the upper side the word I want to learn. The other side gets covered in meanings, examples and sometimes translation in another language if I think that helps additionally. Studying with cards is like a game and it makes me remember words easier.

Lately, I’ve been studying vocab on the vocabulary.com website. Before knowing this great website, I preferred not to study online, as I think I am basically more concentrated if I hold a piece of paper in my hands, being able to highlight important information and not having to stare at a screen. But with vocabulary.com it’s no problem studying online really. You can create your own lists, share lists and learn them in different kinds of ways. So, again something that I like: variation.

Last but not least, the good old mind map, something that didn’t really interested me when I first got in touch with it in secondary school. Now, many people I know continually tell me how brilliant this tool is so I’ve tried it out (again) and I have to admit, this is one of the most practical programs when it comes to studying vocab. I still need to improve my handling with this new device but I suppose it will help me a lot in the future.

What are your strategies to learn vocabulary? Do you still stick to endless vocab lists or have you developed a particularly clever way to extend your thesaurus? ;-) Share your ideas!

The Economics of Robinson Crusoe in a Mind Map

My first year at university has almost passed…

Hey guys! This will be my last post for this semester. I know, you hear this almost every day, but isn’t time passing too fast? When I was younger I swore to myself that I would never sound like my grandmother and only a few years later, I already do J

Honestly, I didn’t know anything of what I would get myself into. I didn’t have the slightest idea of what the study I’d chosen would be like. I didn’t even know where the right rooms were. Nothing.
Everything was so strange at the beginning.

Although I thought I would need months to get into my new rhythm of life, in the end I got used to it surprisingly fast. I think this is because of the way the students at particularly my faculty are. As we are studying translation, we are in touch with very different people, from different cultural background. But we have one thing in common, namely being open-minded and tolerant towards others. Moreover, the cooperation between students and teachers is the complete opposite of what I remember from school. In school, I often had the feeling that the teachers were not really enthusiastic about being able to teach something new to students. Unfortunately, there was neither encouragement, nor enthusiasm in class many times. At university, teacher and students work together and I have the feeling of learning something that really makes sense and I can take advantage of.

In only 9 months, I have the feeling of having taken huge steps. I’ve learned so many interesting things that I will never forget. We’ve covered such a great variety of topics and each of them called my attention, no matter if it was about history or cultural stuff. There were uncountable aha moments in comparison to school that I’ve even enjoyed studying for my exams ;-) This makes studying in my faculty something very fulfilling. By the time, it has also got easier to cope with a great amount of stuff to study, for example vocab. Although I’ve had my ups and downs, I would say that I am a motivated student.

I’m really glad of having chosen this study. Although they’ve said that next year is going to be very hard, I’m eager to take more challenges in the upcoming semesters in order to keep studying what I’m passionate about and to continue expanding my horizon.