Friday, September 10, 2010

Tenses ထဲမွာ Simple Present Tense အသုံးၿပဳပုံ ကို ေလ့လာၿခင္း

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Simple Present Tense

The simple present tense can be used under these four conditions:


1. To express a present action:
2. To express a habitual action:
3. To express general truths or facts:
4. To show previously-scheduled actions:


1. To express a present action (မ်က္ေမွာက္ ကာလ ၿပဳလုပ္ခ်က္ကို သာမန္ ေဖာ္ၿပၿခင္း)

e.g. 1. I know that girl. She is my friend’s roommate.
ငါ အဲဒီေကာင္မေလးကို သိတယ္။ သူ က ငါ့ သူငယ္ခ်င္း ရဲ့ အခန္းေဖာ္ေလ။

2. Try hard to fulfill your wish.
မင္း ဆုေတာင္း ၿပည့္ဖို. ႀကိဳးစားပါ။

3. Stand up, all the students. Read out what you see on the board.
ေက်ာင္းသားအားလုံး မတ္တပ္ထပါ။ Board ေပၚတြင္ မင္းတို. ၿမင္ တဲ့ အရာေတြကို ဖတ္ပါ။

2. To express a habitual action – it’s typical, usual, and predictable (အေလ.အထၿဖစ္ေနေသာ ၿပဳလုပ္ခ်က္မ်ားကို ေဖာ္ၿပၿခင္း - ပုံစံေပါက္ေသာ၊ ထုံးစံၿဖစ္ေသာ၊ ႀကိဳတင္ေပာာကိန္းထုတ္ႏိူင္ေသာ)


e.g 1. Gary is very punctual.
Gary သည္ အခ်ိန္မွန္သူၿဖစ္သည္။
2. This book is interesting to read.
ဒီစာအုပ္က ဖတ္ခ်င္ေလာက္ေအာင္ စိတ္ဝင္စားဖို.ေကာင္းတယ္။
3. He smokes.
သူ ေဆးလိပ္ေသာက္တယ္။
4. They eat in the company cafeteria.
သူတို.ေတြ က ကုမၸဏီထဲမွာရွိတဲ့ စားေသာက္ဆိုင္မွာပဲစားတယ္။

Simple Present Tense ကို အေလ.အထအၿဖစ္ အသုံးၿပဳ ုေဖာ္ၿပရာတြင္ Adverb of Frequency မ်ားကိုထည့္သြင္း အသုံးၿပဳရတတ္ေသာေႀကာင့္ ေအာက္ေဖာ္ၿပပါ ႀကိယာဝိေသသန မ်ားကို က်က္မွတ္ထားပါ။

Always = အစဥ္အၿမဲ
Usually = လုပ္ရိုးလုပ္စဥ္
Generally = ေယဘုယ်အားၿဖင့္
Often = Frequently = မႀကာခဏ
Sometimes = Occasionally = တစ္ခါတစ္ရံ
Hardly = Rarely = Seldom = ႀကာမွတစ္ခါ
Daily = every day = ေန.စဥ္
Weekly = အပတ္စဥ္
Once a month = တစ္လတစ္ခါ
Twice a year = တစ္ႏွစ္ ႏွစ္ႀကိမ္
Every other day = Each alternate day = တစ္ရက္ၿခား

e.g. 1. Annie is never on time.
Annie သည္ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ အခ်ိန္မမွန္ပါ။

2. Bob’s parents are generally at home by 5:30 PM.
Bob ၏ မိဘမ်ား သည္ မ်ားေသာအားၿဖင့္ ညေန ငါးနာရီခဲြမွ ွအိမ္မွာရွိသည္။

3.Dr. Jones is in her office from 9:00 AM until 4:00 pm five days a week.
ေဒါက္တာ Jones သည္ သူမ၏ ရုံးခန္းတြင္ မနက္ ၉ နာရီ မွ ညေန ၄ နာရီ အထိ တစ္ပတ္လွ်င္ ငါးရက္ ရွိသည္။

4. Ahmed seldom gets up before 9:00 AM.
Ahmed သည္ မနက္တြင္ ၉နာရီ မတိုင္ ခင္ အိပ္ရာႏိူး ခဲသည္။

5. He frequently calls on his cousins in Pusan.
သူသည္ Pusan ၿမိဳ.ရွိ ဝမ္းကဲြေမာင္ႏွမမ်ားသို.မႀကာခဏ သြားေရာက္လည္ပတ္သည္။

6. They take a break every three hours.
သူတို.သည္ သုံးနာရီႀကာတိုင္း တစ္ခါနားသည္။

အထက္ပါဝါက်မ်ားတြင္ သတိၿပဳရန္မွာ Adverbs of frequency မ်ား သည္

(i) Verb to be ၏ အေနာက္တြင္ ထားေလ.ရွိၿပီး
(ii) အၿခားေသာ ႀကိယာမ်ား၏ အေရွ.တြင္ ထားရသည္ကို သတိၿပဳမိေပလိမ္.မည္။

သို.ေသာ္ Adverbs of frequency မ်ား သည္ phrase ( more than one word) စကားစု ( စကားလုံး တစ္လုံးထက္ပိုၿခင္း) မ်ားၿဖစ္ပါက ဝါက်၏ အဆုံးတြင္သာ ထားရသည္ကို သတိၿပဳမိေပမည္။

3. To express general truths and facts (ေယဘုယ်ၿဖစ္ေသာ အမွန္တရားမ်ား ႏွင့္ အခ်က္အလက္မ်ား ကို ေဖာ္ၿပၿခင္း)

1. A nickel equals five cents.
နီကယ္ၿဒပ္စင္ တစ္ၿပားသည္ ငါးဆင့္ၿပားဝိုင္းတစ္ၿပားႏွင့္ ညီမွ်သည္။

2. The bodies of insects have three parts.
အင္းဆက္ပိုးမ်ား၏ ကိုယ္ထည္မ်ားသည္ အပိုင္းသုံးပုိင္းရွိသည္။

3. Bronze contains both copper and tin.
ေႀကးညိဳတြင္ ေႀကးနီ ႏွင့္ သံၿဖဴၿဒပ္စင္ တို.ပါဝင္သည္။

4.The chemical symbol for iron is Fe.
သံ၏ ဓာတုေဗဒ သေကၤတမွာ Fe ၿဖစ္သည္။

5. The earth rotates around the sun.
ကမာၻသည္ ေနကို ပတ္ၿပီ လွည့္လည္သြားသည္။

6. The cow gives us milk.
ႏြားသည္ ကြ်ႏု္ပ္တို.အား ႏြားႏို.ကိုေပးသည္။

4. To show previously-scheduled actions (အရင္ တစ္ခ်ိန္က စီစဥ္ခ်မွတ္ထားသည့္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္ ကိုၿပရန္)

1. Jose leaves at 9:30 tomorrow morning.
Jose သည္ မနက္ၿဖန္ မနက္ ၉း၃၀ တြင္ ထြက္ခြါမည္။ (ႀကိဳတင္စီစဥ္ထားသည္)

2. Andrea can’t go with us next Tuesday. She has a meeting then.
Andrea သည္ လာမည့္ အဂၤါေန.တြင္ ကြ်န္ေတာ္တို.ႏွင့္ မလိုက္ႏိူင္ပါ။ သူမသည္ အဲဒီေန.မွာ အစည္းအေဝး ရွိသည္။

3. Hurry up! The meeting beings in five minutes!
ၿမန္ၿမန္လုပ္! အစည္းအေဝး က ငါးမိနစ္ ၿပည့္လွ်င္ စမည္။

အထက္ပါ ဝါက်ကို ေလ.လာႀကည့္လွ်င္ အနာဂတ္အဓိပၸါယ္ကို ရည္ညြန္းသည့္ အေႀကာင္းအရာမ်ားပါ ေသာ္လည္း ႀကိဳတင္စီစဥ္ေရးဆဲြထားသည့္ လုပ္ေဆာင္ခ်က္မ်ားၿဖစ္ေသာ ေႀကာင့္ Simple Present Tense ကို အသုံးၿပဳႏိူင္ပါသည္။

Thursday, September 9, 2010

Answers for Reading Practice (1)

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1. B
2. E
3. B
4. E
5. C
6. C
7. E

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Tag questions

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A tag question is a question added at the end of a sentence. A tag question following an affirmative statement generally has the form of a negative question, with the meaning: Isn't that true? In some languages, such tag questions are invariable. However, in English, tag questions vary, depending on the verbs and subjects of the preceding statements.

In the following examples, the tag questions are underlined. Contractions are usually used in negative tag questions. For example:

Affirmative statement

Are you not awake?
I am awake.
You are awake.
She is awake.
We are awake.
They are awake.

Affirmative statement with tag question

Aren't you awake?
I am awake, am I not?
You are awake, aren't you?
She is awake, isn't she?
We are awake, aren't we?
They are awake, aren't they?


These examples illustrate how the subjects and verbs of the preceding statements are repeated in tag questions. For instance, in the first example, the subject I and the verb am are repeated in the tag question. In the second example, the subject you and the verb are are repeated in the tag question.

In spoken English, the expression aren't I? is often used as a tag question. However, this is not considered to be grammatically correct in formal, written English.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Reading Practice (2)

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By the time a child is six or seven she has all the essential
avoidances well enough by heart to be trusted with the care of a
younger child. And she also develops a number of simple
techniques. She learns to weave firm square balls from palm
5 leaves, to make pinwheels of palm leaves or frangipani blossoms,
to climb a coconut tree by walking up the trunk on flexible little
feet, to break open a coconut with one firm well-directed blow of
a knife as long as she is tall, to play a number of group games
and sing the songs which go with them, to tidy the house by
10 picking up the litter on the stony floor, to bring water from the
sea, to spread out the copra to dry and to help gather it in when
rain threatens, to go to a neighboring house and bring back a
lighted faggot for the chief's pipe or the cook-house fire.
But in the case of the little girls all these tasks are merely
15 supplementary to the main business of baby-tending. Very small
boys also have some care of the younger children, but at eight or
nine years of age they are usually relieved of it. Whatever rough
edges have not been smoothed off by this responsibility for
younger children are worn off by their contact with older boys.
20 For little boys are admitted to interesting and important activities
only so long as their behavior is circumspect and helpful. Where
small girls are brusquely pushed aside, small boys will be
patiently tolerated and they become adept at making themselves
useful. The four or five little boys who all wish to assist at the
25 important, business of helping a grown youth lasso reef eels,
organize themselves into a highly efficient working team; one boy
holds the bait, another holds an extra lasso, others poke
eagerly about in holes in the reef looking for prey, while still
another tucks the captured eels into his lavalava. The small girls,
30 burdened with heavy babies or the care of little staggerers who are
too small to adventure on the reef, discouraged by the hostility
of the small boys and the scorn of the older ones, have
little opportunity for learning the more adventurous forms of work
and play. So while the little boys first undergo the
35 chastening effects of baby-tending and then have many
opportunities to learn effective cooperation under the supervision
of older boys, the girls' education is less comprehensive. They
have a high standard of individual responsibility, but the
community provides them with no lessons in cooperation with one
40 another. This is particularly apparent in the activities of young
people: the boys organize quickly; the girls waste hours in
bickering, innocent of any technique for quick and efficient
cooperation.

Adapted from: Coming of Age in Samoa, Margaret Mead (1928)


1. The primary purpose of the passage with reference to the society under discussion is to
A. explain some differences in the upbringing of girls and boys
B. criticize the deficiencies in the education of girls
C. give a comprehensive account of a day in the life of an average young girl
D. delineate the role of young girls
E. show that young girls are trained to be useful to adults

2. The word 'brusquely' (line 22) most nearly means
A. quickly
B. gently
C. nonchalantly
D. abruptly
E. callously

3. The list of techniques in paragraph one could best be described as
A. household duties
B. rudimentary physical skills
C. important responsibilities
D. useful social skills
E. monotonous tasks

4. It can be inferred that the 'high standard of individual responsibility' (line 38) is
A. developed mainly through child-care duties
B. only present in girls
C. taught to the girl before she is entrusted with babies
D. actually counterproductive
E. weakened as the girl grows older.

5. The expression 'innocent of' (line 42) is best taken to mean
A. not guilty of
B. unskilled in
C. unsuited for
D. uninvolved in
E. uninterested in

6. It can be inferred that in the community under discussion all of the following are important except
A. domestic handicrafts
B. well-defined social structure
C. fishing skills
D. formal education
E. division of labor

7. Which of the following if true would weaken the author's contention about 'lessons in cooperation' (line 39) ?

I Group games played by younger girls involve cooperation
II Girls can learn from watching boys cooperating
III Individual girls cooperate with their mothers in looking after babies
A. I only
B. II only
C. III only
D. I and II only
E. I, II and III

8. Which of the following is the best description of the author's technique in handling her material?
A. Both description and interpretation of observations.
B. Presentation of facts without comment.
C. Description of evidence to support a theory.
D. Generalization from a particular viewpoint.
E. Close examination of preconceptions.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The use of All, Both and Each

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In addition to being used as attributive adjectives and as pronouns followed by of, the words all, both and each can also be used in apposition. A word used in apposition immediately follows the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb or preposition, and refers to the same thing as the subject or object. In the following examples, the words in apposition are printed in bold type.
e.g. We both wondered what would happen next.
The boys all looked forward to seeing the circus.
I sent them each an invitation.

In the first two examples, both and all are used in apposition to the subjects we and the boys. In the third example, each is used in apposition to the object them.

Words used in apposition can be referred to as appositives. Like relative clauses, appositives can be defining or non-defining. Non-defining appositives must be preceded and followed by commas.

e.g. Our leader, Tom Smith, was prepared for any emergency.
In this example Tom Smith is a non-defining appositive, in apposition to our leader.

Defining appositives such as all, both and each are not preceded and followed by commas.

e.g. We each have our own ideas.
In this example, the defining appositive each is in apposition to we. It should be noted that although each is singular, the verb have must be plural to agree with the subject we.

When used in clauses with auxiliary verbs or with the Simple Present or Simple Past of the verb to be, all, both and each generally follow the first auxiliary or the verb to be, rather than being used in apposition to the subject of the verb.

e.g. The boys had all been looking forward to seeing the circus.
We are both very happy to see you.
In the first example, all follows the first auxiliary had. In the second example, both follows the Simple Present of the verb to be.

Money

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There was a man who worked all of his life and saved all of his money. He was a real miser when it came to his money. He loved money more than just about anything, and just before he died, he said to his wife, "Now listen, when I die, I want you to take all my money and place it in the casket with me. I wanna take my money to the afterlife."

So he got his wife to promise him with all her heart that when he died, she would put all the money in the casket with him.

Well, one day he died. He was stretched out in the casket, the wife was sitting there in black next to her closest friend. When they finished the ceremony, just before the undertakers got ready to close the casket, the wife said "Wait just a minute!"

She had a shoe box with her, she came over with the box and placed it in the casket. Then the undertakers locked the casket down and rolled it away. Her friend said, "I hope you weren't crazy enough to put all that money in the casket."

"Yes," the wife said, "I promised. I'm a good Christian, I can't lie. I promised him that I was going to put that money in that casket with him."

"You mean to tell me you put every cent of his money in the casket with him?"

"I sure did. I got it all together, put it into my account and I wrote him a check."


(Thanks Jessica)

Monday, August 2, 2010

The Blind Girl

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There was a blind girl who hated herself just because she's blind. She hated everyone, except her loving fiance. He is always there for her. Blind girl said that if she could only see the world, she would marry her fiance.

One day, someone donated a pair of eyes to the blind girl and then she can see everything, including her fiance.

Her fiance asked her, "now that you can see the world, will you marry me?" The girl was shocked when she saw that her fiance is blind too, and refused to marry him.

Her fiance walked away in tears, and later wrote a letter to girl saying. "Just take care of my eyes dear."

Moral: This is how human brain changes when the status changed. Only few remember what life was before, and who's always been there even in the most painful situations."You learn to love, not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly."

Reading Practice (1)

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The pioneers of the teaching of science imagined that its
introduction into education would remove the conventionality,
artificiality, and backward-lookingness which were characteristic;
of classical studies, but they were gravely disappointed. So, too, in
5 their time had the humanists thought that the study of the classical
authors in the original would banish at once the dull pedantry and
superstition of mediaeval scholasticism. The professional
schoolmaster was a match for both of them, and has almost
managed to make the understanding of chemical reactions as dull
10 and as dogmatic an affair as the reading of Virgil's Aeneid.
The chief claim for the use of science in education is that it
teaches a child something about the actual universe in which he is
living, in making him acquainted with the results of scientific
15 discovery, and at the same time teaches him how to think logically
and inductively by studying scientific method. A certain limited
success has been reached in the first of these aims, but practically
none at all in the second. Those privileged members of the
community who have been through a secondary or public school
20 education may be expected to know something about the
elementary physics and chemistry of a hundred years ago, but they
probably know hardly more than any bright boy can pick up from
an interest in wireless or scientific hobbies out of school hours.
As to the learning of scientific method, the whole thing is palpably
25 a farce. Actually, for the convenience of teachers and the
requirements of the examination system, it is necessary that the
pupils not only do not learn scientific method but learn precisely
the reverse, that is, to believe exactly what they are told and to
reproduce it when asked, whether it seems nonsense to them or
30 not. The way in which educated people respond to such quackeries
as spiritualism or astrology, not to say more dangerous ones such
as racial theories or currency myths, shows that fifty years of
education in the method of science in Britain or Germany has
produced no visible effect whatever. The only way of learning the
35 method of science is the long and bitter way of personal
experience, and, until the educational or social systems are altered
to make this possible, the best we can expect is the production of a
minority of people who are able to acquire some of the techniques
of science and a still smaller minority who are able to use and
40 develop them.
Adapted from: The Social Function of Science, John D Bernal (1939)


1. The author implies that the 'professional schoolmaster' (line 7) has
A. no interest in teaching science
B. thwarted attempts to enliven education
C. aided true learning
D. supported the humanists
E. been a pioneer in both science and humanities.

2. The author’s attitude to secondary and public school education in the sciences is
A. ambivalent
B. neutral
C. supportive
D. satirical
E. contemptuous

3. The word ‘palpably’ (line 24) most nearly means
A. empirically
B. obviously
C. tentatively
D. markedly
E. ridiculously

4. The author blames all of the following for the failure to impart scientific method through the education system except
A. poor teaching
B. examination methods
C. lack of direct experience
D. the social and education systems
E. lack of interest on the part of students

5. If the author were to study current education in science to see how things have changed since he wrote the piece, he would probably be most interested in the answer to which of the following questions?
A. Do students know more about the world about them?
B. Do students spend more time in laboratories?
C. Can students apply their knowledge logically?
D. Have textbooks improved?
E. Do they respect their teachers?

6. Astrology (line 31) is mentioned as an example of
A. a science that needs to be better understood
B. a belief which no educated people hold
C. something unsupportable to those who have absorbed the methods of science
D. the gravest danger to society
E. an acknowledged failure of science

7. All of the following can be inferred from the text except
A. at the time of writing, not all children received a secondary school education
B. the author finds chemical reactions interesting
C. science teaching has imparted some knowledge of facts to some children
D. the author believes that many teachers are authoritarian
E. it is relatively easy to learn scientific method

Sunday, August 1, 2010

"Rather"

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A) We use rather as an adverb of degree:

Modifying an adjective:

• The film was rather good.


Modifying an adverb:

• It happened rather quickly.


Notes:

1. It is stronger than fairly, but not as strong as very.

2. It can modify a noun, often coming before the article:

3. It's rather a problem.

4. It can modify some verbs: I rather like it.

B) To express preference

Rather than:

Rather than is normally used to compare parallel structures:

• Let's take the train rather than the bus.

• Rather you than me!

• I decided to write rather than email.


Would rather:

Would rather + infinitive without 'to':

• I'd rather leave now.

Would rather + pronoun + past tense:

• I'd rather he came early.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Used to

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Used to do

We use 'used to' for something that happened regularly in the past but no longer happens.

•I used to smoke a packet a day but I stopped two years ago.
•Ben used to travel a lot in his job but now, since his promotion, he doesn't.
•I used to drive to work but now I take the bus.
We also use it for something that was true but no longer is.

•There used to be a cinema in the town but now there isn't.
•She used to have really long hair but she's had it all cut off.
•I didn't use to like him but now I do.

'Used to do' is different from 'to be used to doing' and 'to get used to doing'

to be used to doing

We use 'to be used to doing' to say that something is normal, not unusual.

•I'm used to living on my own. I've done it for quite a long time.
•Hans has lived in England for over a year so he is used to driving on the left now.
•They've always lived in hot countries so they aren't used to the cold weather here.

to get used to doing

We use 'to get used to doing' to talk about the process of something becoming normal for us.

•I didn't understand the accent when I first moved here but I quickly got used to it.
•She has started working nights and is still getting used to sleeping during the day.
•I have always lived in the country but now I'm beginning to get used to living in the city.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Five Speaking Rules you need to know!

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1. Don't study grammar
This rule might sound strange to many ESL students, but it is one of the most important rules. If you want to pass examinations, then study grammar. However, if you want to become fluent in English, then you should try to learn English without studying the grammar.

Studying grammar will only slow you down and confuse you. You will think about the rules when creating sentences instead of naturally saying a sentence like a native. Remember that only a small fraction of English speakers know more than 20% of all the grammar rules. Many ESL students know more grammar than native speakers. I can confidently say this with experience. I am a native English speaker, majored in English Literature, and have been teaching English for more than 10 years. However, many of my students know more details about English grammar than I do. I can easily look up the definition and apply it, but I don't know it off the top of my head.

I often ask my native English friends some grammar questions, and only a few of them know the correct answer. However, they are fluent in English and can read, speak, listen, and communicate effectively.

2. Learn and study phrases
Many students learn vocabulary and try to put many words together to create a proper sentence. It amazes me how many words some of my students know, but they cannot create a proper sentence. The reason is because they didn't study phrases. When children learn a language, they learn both words and phrases together. Likewise, you need to study and learn phrases.

If you know 1000 words, you might not be able to say one correct sentence. But if you know 1 phrase, you can make hundreds of correct sentences. If you know 100 phrases, you will be surprised at how many correct sentences you will be able to say. Finally, when you know only a 1000 phrases, you will be almost a fluent English speaker.

So don't spend hours and hours learning many different words. Use that time to study phrases instead and you will be closer to English fluency.

Don't translate

When you want to create an English sentence, do not translate the words from your Mother tongue. The order of words is probably completely different and you will be both slow and incorrect by doing this. Instead, learn phrases and sentences so you don't have to think about the words you are saying. It should be automatic.

Another problem with translating is that you will be trying to incorporate grammar rules that you have learned. Translating and thinking about the grammar to create English sentences is incorrect and should be avoided.

3. Reading and Listening is NOT enough. Practice Speaking what you hear!
Reading, listening, and speaking are the most important aspects of any language. The same is true for English. However, speaking is the only requirement to be fluent. It is normal for babies and children to learn speaking first, become fluent, then start reading, then writing. So the natural order is listening, speaking, reading, then writing.

First Problem
Isn't it strange that schools across the world teach reading first, then writing, then listening, and finally speaking? Although it is different, the main reason is because when you learn a second language, you need to read material to understand and learn it. So even though the natural order is listening, speaking, reading, then writing, the order for ESL students is reading, listening, speaking, then writing.

Second Problem
The reason many people can read and listen is because that's all they practice. But in order to speak English fluently, you need to practice speaking. Don't stop at the listening portion, and when you study, don't just listen. Speak out loud the material you are listening to and practice what you hear. Practice speaking out loud until your mouth and brain can do it without any effort. By doing so, you will be able to speak English fluently.


4. Submerge yourself
Being able to speak a language is not related to how smart you are. Anyone can learn how to speak any language. This is a proven fact by everyone in the world. Everyone can speak at least one language. Whether you are intelligent, or lacking some brain power, you are able to speak one language.

This was achieved by being around that language at all times. In your country, you hear and speak your language constantly. You will notice that many people who are good English speakers are the ones who studied in an English speaking school. They can speak English not because they went to an English speaking school, but because they had an environment where they can be around English speaking people constantly.

There are also some people who study abroad and learn very little. That is because they went to an English speaking school, but found friends from their own country and didn't practice English.

You don't have to go anywhere to become a fluent English speaker. You only need to surround yourself with English. You can do this by making rules with your existing friends that you will only speak English. You can also carry around an iPod and constantly listen to English sentences. As you can see, you can achieve results by changing what your surroundings are. Submerge yourself in English and you will learn several times faster.


5. Study correct material
A common phrase that is incorrect is, "Practice makes perfect." This is far from the truth. Practice only makes what you are practicing permanent. If you practice the incorrect sentence, you will have perfected saying the sentence incorrectly. Therefore, it is important that you study material that is commonly used by most people.

Another problem I see is that many students study the news. However, the language they speak is more formal and the content they use is more political and not used in regular life. It is important to understand what they are saying, but this is more of an advanced lesson that should be studied after learning the fundamental basics of English.

Studying English with a friend who is not a native English speaker is both good and bad. You should be aware of the pro's and con's of speaking with a non native speaking friend. Practicing with a non native person will give you practice. You can also motivate each other and point out basic mistakes. But you might pick up bad habits from one another if you are not sure about what are correct and incorrect sentences. So use these practice times as a time period to practice the correct material you studied. Not to learn how to say a sentence.

In short, study English material that you can trust, that is commonly used, and that is correct.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Say or Tell?

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Say and tell have similar meanings. They both mean to communicate verbally with someone. But we often use them differently.

The simple way to think of say and tell is:

* You say something
* You tell someone something

More Examples:
You say something
You tell someone something
Ram said that he was tired.
Ram told Jane that he was tired.
Anthony says you have a new job.
Anthony tells me you have a new job.
Tara said: "I love you."
Tara told John that she loved him.

But, of course, it is not always so easy. Here are a few rules to help you.

Personal object
We usually follow tell with a personal object (the person that we are speaking to). We usually use say without a personal object:

* She told me that she loved John.
* She said that she loved John.
* He told everybody that he had to leave.
* He said that he had to leave.

Say "to someone"
With say, we sometimes use "to someone":

* He said to me that he was tired.
* Tara said to Ram that he had done very well.
* Anthony said to her, "I hope you come soon."
* "I'd like to sleep," she said to him quietly.

Direct speech
We can use say with direct speech. We use tell only with direct speech that is an instruction or information:

* Amanda said, "Hello John. How are you?"
* "That's great'" she said.
* He told her: "Open the door quietly."
* She told me, "I have never been to England."

We can use say with direct questions, but we cannot use tell:

* She said: "Do you love me?"
* The policeman said to the prisoner, "Where were you at 8pm?"

Reported speech
We can use say and tell to talk about reported information:

* She said that it was raining.
* She told me that she would call at 2pm.

We cannot use say or tell to talk about reported questions. We must use ask (or a similar verb):

* She asked if I had ever been there.
* They asked what I wanted to eat.
* She asked where he lived.
* He asked if she wanted to go home.

Orders, advice
We use tell + object + infinitive for orders or advice:

* She told him to sit down.
* They told me not to wait.
* Tell Neil to have a holiday and forget her.

Phrases
Here are a few fixed phrases with tell. We cannot use say with these phrases:

* tell (someone) a story
* tell (someone) a lie
* tell (someone) the truth
* tell the future (= to know what the future will bring)
* tell the time (= know how to read a clock)

Right and wrong
Read these examples of correct and incorrect usage:

Causative Verbs

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When a subject does not do a work himself/herself, and takes the help of some other person or force that person to do that work, then we need to form a sentence with the help of a causative verb.

1. GET
Use get according to tense, B. Place object after the causative verb, C. Main verb always in 3rd form::

CV + Object + V 3rd (main verb).

1. I have got the sums solved.
2. She will get the letter written by Ravi.
3. Are you getting your house pained?

2. MAKE
Use make according to tense, 2. Object is the person who is compelled, 3. Main verb always in first form::

CV + Object + V 1st form (main verb)

1. He made me laugh.
2. She made the children clean the room.
3. Who is making her cry?
4. Please don't make him tell a lie.

3. HELP
Use help according to tense, 2. Object is the person who is helped, 3. Main verb always in first form::

CV + Object + V 1st form (main verb).
(In these sentences a person is helped to do a certain things).

1. Help the guests wash their hands.
2. She helped the children do the work.

4. HAVE

(Same as get in use and meaning)

1. I have had the sums solved.
2. He will have the letter written by Merry.
3. They had the tiger killed by the hunter.

5. KEEP

CV + Object (person) + V 1st form + ing.
There is generally a period of time in these sentences.

1. They kept her washing the clothes for 2 hours. (They compelled her to wash the clothes for 2 hours)
2. Did you kept him waiting for one hour?

6. CAUSE

CV + Object (person) + V 1st form.
Instead of a person there are circumstances, things etc. which compel a person to do a certain thing.

1. Fatigue caused him to sleep. (Due to fatigue he slept)
2. Does poverty cause people to commit crime?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Children (by Kahlil Gibran)

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"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable."

What's a parable?

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A parable is a short story that illustrates a religious, spiritual or ethical situation.

These types of stories are excellent to learn from, often simplifying a complex situation and allowing you to learn the concept via a simple story.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Some important rules every writer should know

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1. Agreement – Agreement in a sentence refers to all of the parts of the sentence corroborating with each other. For example, you wouldn’t say “John have two pieces of toast and I has three.” You would instead say, “John has two pieces of toast and I have three.” The subjects and verbs need to be in agreement. Without sentence agreement you have all-out civil war in your sentence and no one knows what is going on. If your sentence parts don’t agree with each other you will have to jump in and mediate, causing hard feelings all around.

2. Tense – Tense refers to time. What time is it in your sentence? Whatever time it is it should remain consistent throughout your whole piece of writing. If it was last week you are talking about, stay there. There are three tenses in writing, past tense, present tense and future tense. Here is an example of writing with mixed tenses: “Carrie wondered how she is going to finish in time, but Joe will help her.” This sentence contains all three tenses, past in “wondered”, present in “is” and future in “will”. Pick a tense and stick to it! The sentence could read “Carry wonders how she will finish in time, but Joe will help.”

3. Spelling – One of the most important things, and without it, you can kiss your credibility goodbye. Spell checkers are poor substitutes for knowing how to spell and can leave behind more errors than you realize. There are many different forms of words and your spell checker does not know which form you wanted to use. For example, “When Mark washed they’re care, he forgot too putt on the wax.”

4. Run-On Sentences – A run-on sentence is one that is just too darned long! Not only is it too long, it is incorrect. Usually, a run-on sentence can be made into two or more sentences with a little punctuation and style. An example of a run-on sentence might be: “We walked over to the commissary to get something to eat but it was closed so we didn’t know what to do so we kept walking until we saw a restaurant and decided to go in and get something to eat but Andrew didn’t want to eat there so we kept going for another mile.” This sentence could have gone on for another mile too! Break up the sentence into smaller, more coherent parts.

5. Punctuation – It is very important to know your punctuation, even if you never plan on using a semicolon for the rest of your life. The most important thing to learn is where to put your commas, a common mistake among writers. Commas are used to separate parts of sentences that stand alone, such as those that are parenthetical. For example “There were too many flowers, not that I minded, but they took up most of the room.” Avoid using commas after conjunctions like “but” and “and.” Semi-colons and colons take up an entire chapter, read about them in your style book!

6. Usage – If you are going to use a word, you really ought to know how to use it. Some writers think big words look impressive but actually the reverse is true if the word is used incorrectly. Words don’t have to be big to be misused, consider its vs. it’s.

7. Capitalization – Words at the beginning of sentences aren’t the only ones worthy of capital letters. Always capitalize proper names such as people and places. Titles of all kinds deserve capital letters and so do acronyms.

8. Point of View – The point of view refers to whoever is telling the story or “speaking.” When you write a letter you are writing in “first person” which includes I, me, my, we and our. Second person writing occurs when we talk about you and yours and third person includes he, she, they and theirs. In third person writing, the author does not interject himself into the story.

9. Sentence Fragments – A sentence fragment is an incomplete sentence that does not include both noun and verb. An example of a sentence fragment might be, “Really dumb.” Make sure your sentences reflect a complete thought unless you are writing dialog.

10. Wasted Words – A big no-no. Sometimes we throw in words just to round out our sentences, or we over-describe something, like, “The really ugly puke-green dress was hanging on the wall.” Do we really need to point out that a puke-green dress was really ugly? Economize your words and you will have fewer chances for grammatical errors.

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Difference between a curriculum vitae (CV) and a resume

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What is the difference between a curriculum vitae (CV) and a resume?
The primary differences between a resume and a curriculum vitae (CV) are the length, what is included and what each is used for.

A resume is a one or two page summary of your skills, experience and education. While a resume is brief and concise - no more than a page or two, a Curriculum Vitae is a longer (at least two page) and more detailed synopsis.

A Curriculum Vitae includes a summary of your educational and academic backgrounds as well as teaching and research experience, publications, presentations, awards, honors, affiliations and other details. In Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia, employers may expect to receive a curriculum vitae.

So when can we use a CV and a resume?

The difference between CV and resume does not only affect the length and the amount of information present but also the purpose to apply for a job post. Those job seekers in the US who are applying for an academic position will more likely to use a CV but for all other job types, a resume is enough. Meanwhile, employers from Europe, Asia and Latin America all prefer a CV over a resume.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Basic Guide to Essay Writing(1)

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An essay can have many purposes, but the basic structure is the same no matter what. You may be writing an essay to argue for a particular point of view or to explain the steps necessary to complete a task.

Either way, your essay will have the same basic format.


If you follow a few simple steps, you will find that the essay almost writes itself. You will be responsible only for supplying ideas, which are the important part of the essay anyway.

These simple steps will guide you through the essay writing process:

1.Decide on your topic.

2.Prepare an outline or diagram of your ideas.

3.Write your thesis statement.

4.Write the body.

(a)Write the main points.
(b)Write the subpoints.
(c)Elaborate on the subpoints.

5.Write the introduction.

6.Write the conclusion.

7.Add the finishing touches.

Preposition Usage

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* Place (in, on, under, over, near, beside, etc.)

“Your book is on the table.”

* Direction (to, toward, into, through, etc.)

“The football player ran through the stadium to the other end.”

* Time (in, on, at, etc.)

“We can meet at five o’clock.”

* Agent (by)

“This book was written by a famous author.”

* Instrument (by, with)

“I heard the news by television. (Communication)

“She came by bus.” (Transportation)

“He opened the door with a key.” (Instrument or tool)

TIP:

We use by + no article for communication and transportation.

Examples: by phone, by radio, and by bus, by car

* Accompaniment (with)

“I like spaghetti with white sauce.”

“Mrs. Vajiona went to Thassos Island with her husband Georgios.”

* Purpose (for)

“He went to the store for milk and bread.

TIP:

Never, Never use for + verb + ing to express the purpose of the verb.

Example: “He went to the store for buying milk and bread.” This is wrong usage and a common mistake!

* Partition / Possession (of)

“They painted the front of the building white and green.”

“He broke the top of the table with his fist.”

* Measure (by, of)

“We buy our olive oil by the 16 kilo container.”

“Please buy a quart of milk from the market.”

* Similarity (like)

“Mary walks like her mother.”

* Capacity (as)

“Bill worked as a fireman until a year ago.”

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Glossary of English Grammatical Terms - 3

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Preposition
Prepositions indicate relationships between different parts of the sentence. Common prepositions are:

from, toward, in, about, over, above, under, at, below

Examples:
Clouds are over the earth and below the moon.
John went toward the mountain at 3:00 O'clock.

Pronoun
Pronouns are words used instead of a noun.

Demonstrative pronouns are this, that, and such.

Example:
That is pretty.

Pronouns like who and which are interrogative pronouns when they introduce questions.

Example:
Which is pretty?

Pronouns like who and which are called relative pronouns when they introduce clauses.

Example:
The flower, which is on the table, is pretty.

Indefinite pronouns are each, either, some, any, many, few, and all.

Example:
Some are pretty.

Helpless love

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Once upon a time all feelings and emotions went to a coastal island for a vacation. According to their nature, each was having a good time. Suddenly, a warning of an impending storm was announced and everyone was advised to evacuate the island.

The announcement caused sudden panic. All rushed to their boats. Even damaged boats were quickly repaired and commissioned for duty.

Yet, Love did not wish to flee quickly. There was so much to do. But as the clouds darkened, Love realised it was time to leave. Alas, there were no boats to spare. Love looked around with hope.

Just then Prosperity passed by in a luxurious boat. Love shouted, “Prosperity, could you please take me in your boat?”

“No,” replied Prosperity, “my boat is full of precious possessions, gold and silver. There is no place for you.”

A little later Vanity came by in a beautiful boat. Again Love shouted, “Could you help me, Vanity? I am stranded and need a lift. Please take me with you.”

Vanity responded haughtily, “No, I cannot take you with me. My boat will get soiled with your muddy feet.”

Sorrow passed by after some time. Again, Love asked for help. But it was to no avail. “No, I cannot take you with me. I am so sad. I want to be by myself.”

When Happiness passed by a few minutes later, Love again called for help. But Happiness was so happy that it did not look around, hardly concerned about anyone.

Love was growing restless and dejected. Just then somebody called out, “Come Love, I will take you with me.” Love did not know who was being so magnanimous, but jumped on to the boat, greatly relieved that she would reach a safe place.

On getting off the boat, Love met Knowledge. Puzzled, Love inquired, “Knowledge, do you know who so generously gave me a lift just when no one else wished to help?”

Knowledge smiled, “Oh, that was Time.”

“And why would Time stop to pick me and take me to safety?” Love wondered.

Knowledge smiled with deep wisdom and replied, “Because only Time knows your true greatness and what you are capable of. Only Love can bring peace and great happiness in this world.”

“The important message is that when we are prosperous, we overlook love. When we feel important, we forget love. Even in happiness and sorrow we forget love. Only with time do we realize the importance of love. Why wait that long? Why not make love a part of your life today?”

The important things in life

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A philosophy professor stood before his class with some items on the table in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with rocks, about 2 inches in diameter.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles, of course, rolled into the open areas between the rocks.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He then asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous “Yes.”

“Now,” said the professor, “I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The rocks are the important things – your family, your partner, your health, your children – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.

The pebbles are the other things that matter – like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else. The small stuff.”

“If you put the sand into the jar first,” he continued “there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. The same goes for your life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take your partner out dancing. There will always be time to go to work, clean the house, give a dinner party and fix the disposal.

Take care of the rocks first – the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.”

Clever sheep

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Once there lived a sheep. He was very clever but a little careless.
One day a wolf cornered the sheep.
"You can't escape, " said the wolf.
"I know," said the sheep, softly.
" You are great! So please grant me a last wish, you please sing a song so that I may dance one last time.'
"Certainly, said the wolf proudly and throwing back his head began to howl.
Hearing him howl the farmer's dogs rushed to the spot and drove him away.

MORAL: Don't attempt anything that is beyond your ability.

Love or Friendship …………. Gary R. Hess

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What do you want from me?
Do you want my love?
Or do you want my friendship?

You confuse me through what you say
You say you love me
But don't seem to care

Why don't we just be friends?
Nothing more
Nothing less

Perhaps you still have feelings for me
But why don't you show them?
Why must you hurt me this way?

I still love you
But I just want to know
Do you feel the same?

The Road Not Taken …………..Robert Frost

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sunday, July 11, 2010

SUCCESS Quotes and Sayings

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Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.
~Author Unknown

The two hardest things to handle in life are failure and success.
~Author Unknown

Success and failure. We think of them as opposites, but they're really not. They're companions - the hero and the sidekick.
~Laurence Shames

Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom.
~George Smith Patton

Success is blocked by concentrating on it and planning for it.... Success is shy - it won't come out while you're watching.
~Tennessee Williams

Some people dream of success... while others wake up and work hard at it.
~Author Unknown

Saturday, July 10, 2010

ေန႔စဥ္ေလ့လာစရာလက္ေတြ႕အသံုးခ် အဂၤလိပ္စာ (အပိုင္း-၁)

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အဂၤလိပ္စာကို နည္းမ်ိဳးစံု ၊ ေထာင့္မ်ိဳးစံုကေန ေလ့လာေနၾကသူေတြအတြက္ ေန႔စဥ္ ေျပာဆို ေရးသားရာမွာ အေထာက္အကူျဖစ္နိဳင္ေစဖို႔ ၊ ေကာင္းနိဳးရာရာ ေလးေတြကို မွတ္စု အေနနဲ႔ ေျပာျပတာပါ။ မသိေသးတဲ့ ေ၀ါဟာရ အသစ္ေတြသာ မကဘဲ ျဖတ္သန္းေနရတဲ့ ေန႔စဥ္ဘ၀ မွာ လက္ေတြ႕ အသံုးျပဳနိဳင္ရေအာင္ အတတ္နိဳင္ဆံုး ၾကိဳးစားျပီး ရွင္းျပေပးပါမယ္။ ပံုမွန္အားျဖင့္ ဘာသာစကားတစ္ခု ကို ေလ့လာမယ္ဆိုရင္ သက္ဆိုင္ရာ ေ၀ါဟာရ (Vocabulary) ေတြကို အထိုက္အေလ်ာက္ အဆင့္ဆင့္ သိသင့္ သလို အဲဒီ ဘာသာစကားရဲ႕ ၀ါက် တည္ေဆာက္ပံုေတြ အျပင္ အသံုးအႏႈန္း (Usage) ေလးေတြကိုပါ သိထားသင့္ပါတယ္။

ပထမဆံုးအေနနဲ႔ Fussy ဆိုတဲ့ အသံုးေလးကို စတင္ မိတ္ဆက္ခ်င္ပါတယ္။

(၁) Fussy = Difficult to please, not easily satisfied
ျမန္မာလို တိုက္ရိုက္ ဘာသာျပန္ရင္ေတာ့ ဇီဇာေၾကာင္ေသာ၊ ေၾကးမ်ားေသာ ေပါ့။

ဒီေနရာမွာ အဂၤလိပ္စာ ေလ့လာသူေတြ အေနနဲ႔ အက်ိဳး ပိုျပီး ရွိေစမယ့္ နည္းေလးတစ္ခုကို ေျပာခ်င္ပါေသးတယ္။ ေ၀ါဟာရ တစ္ခုကို ေလ့လာရာမွာ အဲဒီ ေ၀ါဟာရ တစ္ခုထဲသာမကဘဲ တျခား အဓိပၸါယ္ တူတဲ့ စကားလံုးေတြကို တတ္နိဳင္သမွ် တြဲမွတ္ေစခ်င္တယ္။ အဲဒီ အေလ့အက်င့္ဟာ ဘာကို အေထာက္အကူ ျပဳေစသလဲဆိုေတာ့ စာပိုဒ္ေတြ ေရးတဲ့အခါမွာ စကားလံုး တစ္မ်ိဳးထဲကို ထပ္ခါ ထပ္ခါ သံုးရတဲ့ ဒုကၡ ကေန လြတ္သြားေစတာပဲ။ မိမိ စာကို ဖတ္ေနတဲ့ သူကလည္း စကားလံုး တစ္မ်ိဳးထဲကို ဖတ္ရတဲ့အခါ ရသ အေနနဲ႔လည္း ေပါ့ေလွ်ာ့ခံစားရသလို ၊ မိမိကို ေ၀ါဟာရ ေခါင္းပါးသူလို႔ ျပစ္တင္ခံရတာ မ်ိဳးလည္း မျဖစ္ေတာ့ပါဘူး။
အဲဒီထက္မက ပါဘူး။ ေနာက္ပိုင္း အဂၤလိပ္စာကို အဆင့္ျမင့္ ပိုင္းေလ့လာတဲ့ အခါမ်ိဳး ၊ TOEFL – IELTS – GMAT – SAT – GRE စတဲ့ စာေမးပြဲေတြ ေျဖဖို႔ ျပင္ဆင္တဲ့ အခါမ်ိဳးမွာလည္း ဒါေတြဟာ အသံုး၀င္လာပါလိမ့္မယ္။ ( အေသးစိပ္ကိုေတာ့ အဲဒီ စာေမးပြဲေတြနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တဲ့ အေၾကာင္းေတြ ေရးတဲ့အခါမွာ ရွင္းျပပါမယ္။ )
အခု Fussy ဆိုတဲ့ ေ၀ါဟာရ ကို ေနာက္ထပ္ ေျပာလို႔ ရတဲ့ စကားလံုးေတြ ကေတာ့ choosy ၊ finicky ၊ picky ၊ selective ၊ fastidious ၊ particular တို႔ ျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ ဒီေျခာက္မ်ိဳးထဲလားဆိုေတာ့ မဟုတ္ပါဘူး။ ရွ္ိပါေသးတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ ဒီေျခာက္မ်ိဳးေလာက္ဆိုရင္ဘဲ ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလး လံုေလာက္မယ္ထင္ပါတယ္။
အသံုးအႏႈန္းေလးၾကည့္ရေအာင္။

• Tell me what you want to eat before I make dinner because I know you’re a fussy eater.
ဒီ၀ါက် ကို ေသခ်ာမွတ္ထားမယ္ဆိုရင္ တစ္ေန႔တာ ေျပာစရာထဲက တစ္ခုမွာ သံုးလို႔ ရလာပါလိမ့္မယ္။ before I make dinner ဆိုတဲ့ ေနရာမွာ ကိုယ္က ဆိုင္တစ္ဆိုင္မွာ ၀ယ္ဖို႔ အစားအစာ မွာဖို႔ ဆိုရင္ before I order the food လို႔ ေျပာင္းသံုးရံုပါပဲ။ ေနာက္တစ္ခုက .. I know you’re a fussy eater ေနရာမွာ ေနာက္တစ္မ်ိဳးေရးလို႔ ေျပာလို႔ ရေသးတာက I know how fussy you are. ဆိုျပီးျဖစ္ပါတယ္။ မင္းဘယ္ေလာက္ ေၾကးမ်ာလဲ ငါသိတယ္။ ဆိုျပီး ေျပာတာပါ။ အဲဒီမွာ a fussy eater ကိုလည္း ေျပာစရာေလးရွိပါေသးတယ္။ ခုနက ေျပာခဲ့တဲ့ တျခား စကားလံုးေတြကိုသံုးတာပါ။
A fussy eater အစား picky eater , choosy eater, finicky eater စသည္မ်ိဳးေတြလည္းေရးလို႔ရပါတယ္။ အဘိဓာန္ (Dictionary) ေတြမွာလည္း ဥပမာေတြ အေနနဲ႔ ေတြ႔ရမွာပါ။
(a) The children are such picky eaters.
(b) She is very choosy about what she eats and drinks.
(c) I am very selective about the books I read.
(d) He is terribly finicky about his food. Or He is a finicky eater.
(e) He is very fastidious about how a suitcase should be packed.
(f) All my children were fussy eaters.
(g) He’s so fussy about the house – everything has to be absolutely perfect.
(h) She’s very particular about what she wears.
(i) She’s a very particular person.
စသျဖင့္ အမ်ိဳးမ်ိဳး ေရးနိဳင္ေျပာနိဳင္ပါတယ္။

• She’s not very fussy about whom she goes out with, providing he’s well-off.
အခု ၀ါက် ထဲမွာလည္း ေလ့လာသင့္တာေတြ ပါပါတယ္။ ပံုမွန္ဘာသာျပန္ရင္ေတာ့ ခ်မ္းသာတဲ့သူသာျဖစ္ပါေစ သူမကေတာ့ ဘယ္သူနဲ႔ဘဲ အျပင္သြားရပါေစ သိပ္ေရြးမေနဘူး။ ဆိုျပီးေတာ့ပဲ ေျပာရမွာေပါ့။ well-off ဆိုတာ rich နဲ႔ အတူတူပါပဲ။
အခုေလာက္ဆို Fussy နဲ႔ ပတ္သက္ျပီး ေတာ္ေတာ္ေလးေတာ့ သံုးတတ္သြားမယ္လို႔ ထင္ပါတယ္။ ေျပာျပခဲ့ျပီးတဲ့ ၀ါက်ေတြထဲမွာ အေသးစိပ္ရွင္းျပခ်င္တာေလးေတြေတာ့ ရွိေသးတယ္။ ဒါေပမယ့္ လိုရင္းမေရာက္မွာစိုးလို႔ သီးျခားေဖာ္ျပရွင္းျပေပးပါမယ္။ ဒီ က႑ ေလးကေတာ့ Usage အပိုင္းေလးကို အဓိက ထားတာမို႔ အသံုးအႏႈန္းနဲ႔ ပတ္သက္တာေလးေတြကို ပဲ ဦးစားေပးေဖာ္ျပခ်င္ပါတယ္။

ဆက္လက္ေရးသားပါဦးမည္

၀ိုင္ (Y)

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Direct Object & Indirect Object

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few English verbs, such as to describe, to distribute, to explain and to say, can take an indirect object only when the indirect object is preceded by a preposition. In the following examples, the direct objects are printed in bold type, and the indirect objects are underlined.
e.g. He described his experiences to the reporters.
They distributed the leaflets to their friends.
We explained the situation to the participants.
She said something to her teacher.

These verbs cannot take an indirect object which immediately follows the verb. One reason for this may be to avoid creating sentences which are ambiguous or confusing. For instance, a sentence which began with the words He described the reporters... would create the impression that it was the reporters who were being described. When the reporters is preceded by the preposition to, there is no ambiguity.

Indirect objects

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In addition to taking direct objects, some verbs also take indirect objects. In the following examples, the direct objects are printed in bold type, and the indirect objects are underlined.
e.g. We gave the child a toy.
I sent the man the information.

In these examples, the words child and man are said to be the indirect objects of the verbs gave and sent. Indirect objects refer to things which receive indirectly the actions described by the verbs. In the above examples, the words toy and information are the direct objects of the verbs.

Indirect objects usually refer to living things.

It is possible for a sentence containing an indirect object to be rewritten by placing a preposition before the indirect object. When this is done, the original indirect object can be regarded either as the indirect object of the verb, or as the object of the preposition.

For example, the sentence We gave the child a toy, can be rewritten as follows:
We gave a toy to the child.
In the rewritten sentence, child can be regarded either as the indirect object of the verb gave, or as the object of the preposition to.

The following examples illustrate the position of the indirect object in a sentence. The direct object, toy, is printed in bold type, and the indirect object, child, is underlined.
e.g. We gave the child a toy.
We gave a toy to the child.

When an indirect object is not preceded by a preposition, the indirect object must be placed before the direct object. Thus, in the sentence We gave the child a toy, the indirect object child is placed before the direct object toy.

However, when an indirect object is preceded by a preposition, the indirect object must be placed after the direct object. In the sentence We gave a toy to the child, the indirect object child is preceded by the preposition to. Therefore, the indirect object, child is placed after the direct object toy.

The object which is placed last in a sentence tends to receive greater emphasis than the object which is placed first. Thus, the word order of a sentence can be varied in order to give greater emphasis to one object or the other. For instance, in the sentence We lent the teacher a book, the direct object book is slightly emphasized. However, in the sentence We lent a book to the teacher, the indirect object teacher is emphasized.

Direct objects

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Most of the verbs examined so far have been in the Active Voice. When a verb is in the Active Voice, the subject of the verb refers to the person or thing performing the action described by the verb; and the object of the verb refers to the person or thing receiving the action described by the verb.

In the following examples, the objects of the verbs are printed in bold type.
e.g. He read the book.
I did not see the balloon.
They ate the potatoes quickly.
She rode her bicycle along the sidewalk.
Do we understand it?

In these sentences, the verbs read, did see, ate, rode and do understand are in the Active Voice; and the words book, balloon, potatoes, bicycle and it are the objects of the verbs. These objects are said to be direct objects, because they refer to things which receive directly the actions described by the verbs.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

"Do" or "Make"

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The two verbs 'do' and 'make' are often confused. The meanings are similar, but there are differences.

'Do' for Activities

Use the verb 'do' to express daily activities or jobs. Notice that these are usually activities that produce no physical object.

do homework
do housework
do the ironing
do the dishes
do a job

'Do' for General Ideas

Use the verb 'do' when speaking about things in general. In other words, when we do not exactly name an activity. This form is often used with the words 'something, nothing, anything, everything, etc.'

I'm not doing anything today.
He does everything for his mother.
She's doing nothing at the moment.


Important Expressions with 'Do'

There are a number of standard expressions that take the verb 'do'. These are standard collocations (verb + noun combinations) that are used in English.

do one's best
do good
do harm
do a favour
do business

'Make' for Constructing, Building, Creating

Use 'make' to express an activity that creates something that you can touch.

make food
make a cup of tea / coffee
make a mess

Important Expressions with 'Make'

There are a number of standard expressions that take the verb 'make'. In a number of cases the verb 'do' seems more appropriate. These are standard collocations (verb + noun combinations) that are used in English.

make plans
make an exception
make arrangements
make a telephone call
make a decision
make a mistake
make noise
make money
make an excuse
make an effort

Determiners

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Determiners are words that are used with nouns to clarify the noun. They can clarify:

* to define something or someone
* to state the amount of people, things or other nouns
* to state possessives
* to state something or someone is specific
* to state how things or people are distributed
* to state the difference between nouns
* to state someone or something is not specific

There are different types of determiners. There type of determiner depends on the type of noun. Singular nouns always need a determiner. Plural nouns the determiner is optional. Uncountable nouns the determiner is also optional.

There are about 50 different determiners in the English language they include:

* Articles: a, an, the
* Demonstratives: this, that, these, those, which etc.
* Possessives: my, your, our, their, his, hers, whose, my friend's, our friends', etc.
* Quantifiers:few, a few, many, much, each, every, some, any etc.
* Numbers: one, two, three, twenty, forty
* Ordinals: first, second, 1st 2nd, 3rd, last, next, etc.

Friday, July 2, 2010

Positive Statements & Negative Statements

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Positive statements don't have to have a positive meaning. It is possible to have a sentence that is positive grammatically with a negative connotation.

Example:
* I know you you will fail your test.
* We forgot to do our homework.

Negative states are statements that contain the word(s) not, don't, can't etc. Negative statements can be grammatically negative with a positive connotation.

Example:
* I know you didn't fail your test.
* We did not forget to do our homework

Difference between "That" & "Which"

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That - "That" is used with restrictive phrases.

Restrictive phrases are phrase. that are essential to the sentence.

Which - "Which" is used with nonrestrictive phrases.

Nonrestrictive phrases are phrases that state non essential information. A phrase is considered nonrestrictive phase if the phase can be omitted from the sentence.

Examples:
* The shirt that you lent me is in my bag.
* The shirt, which is red, is in my bag.
* The house that I wanted to buy has been sold.
* The house, which I didn't want to buy, has been sold.
* The food store that I go to all the time is closed today.
* The store, which is near my house, is not open today.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Glossary of English Grammatical Terms - 2

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Article
English has three articles:

the - The "definite" article refers to specific objects.
a, an - The "indefinite" articles refer to unspecified members of a class. The article "a" is used before a word starting with a consonant sound and "an" is used before a word starting with a vowel sound.

Examples:
"the mouse", "a mouse", "an orange mouse",
"an honor" (H is silent), "a horse" (H is aspirated).

Auxiliary Verb
Auxiliary verbs are used with other verbs to express moods or tense.
Common auxiliary verbs are:
will, would, may, might, shall, should, can, could, must

Examples:
"Mary will sing.",
"Mary can sing."

Consonants and Vowels

English uses 26 letters: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

AEIOU are vowels.

BCDFGHJKLMNPQRSTVWXYZ are consonants.

Interjections
Interjections express strong feeling or emotion and have no grammatical relation to any other word in a sentence.
Some common interjections are: Oh, Alas, Aha, Bah, Whew.

Examples:
"Aha! I found it!".

Glossary of English Grammatical Terms - 1

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This glossary provides definitions and examples of basic components of English grammar.

Action Verb
Action verbs specify the action performed by the subject.

Examples:
"John ran to the store."
"Mary swims very well."

Adjective
Adjectives modify nouns and have three forms or degrees:

* Positive - new
* Comparative - newer
* Superlative - newest

Adverbial Particle
Adverbial particles are prepositions that are considered part of the verb because they change the meaning of the verb. Some verbs allow one or more words between the verb and the particle.

Example:
"Turn off the lights.",
"Turn the lights off."

Adverb
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs.

Example:
"Mary walks gracefully".
"She is very pretty".

The Window (Author: Unknown)

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Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room. One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour a day to drain the fluids from his lungs. His bed was next to the room's only window. The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end. They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation. And every afternoon when the man in the bed next to the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed would live for those one-hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and color of the outside world. The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake, the man had said. Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats. Lovers walked arm in arm amid flowers of every color of the rainbow. Grand old trees graced the landscape, and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance. As the man by the window described all this in exquisite detail, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine the picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon the man by the window described a parade passing by. Although the other man could not hear the band, he could see it in his mind's eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words. Unexpectedly, an alien thought entered his head: Why should hehave all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything? It didn't seem fair. As the thought fermented, the man felt ashamed at first. But as the days passed and he missed seeing more sights, his envy eroded into resentment and soon turned him sour. He began to brood and found himself unable to sleep. He should be by that window - and that thought now controlled his life.

Late one night, as he lay staring at the ceiling, the man by the window began to cough. He was choking on the fluid in his lungs. The other man watched in the dimly lit room as the struggling man by the window groped for the button to call for help. Listening from across the room, he never moved, never pushed his own button which would have brought the nurse running. In less than five minutes, the coughing and choking stopped, along with the sound of breathing. Now, there was only silence--deathly silence.

The following morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths. When she found the lifeless body of the man by the window, she was saddened and called the hospital attendant to take it away--no words, no fuss. As soon as it seemed appropriate, the man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone.

Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look. Finally, he would have the joy of seeing it all himself. He strained to slowly turn to look out the window beside the bed. It faced a blank wall.

Moral of the story:

The pursuit of happiness is a matter of choice...it is a positive attitude we consciously choose to express. It is not a gift that gets delivered to our doorstep each morning, nor does it come through the window. And I am certain that our circumstances are just a small part of what makes us joyful. If we wait for them to get just right, we will never find lasting joy.

The pursuit of happiness is an inward journey. Our minds are like programs, awaiting the code that will determine behaviors; like bank vaults awaiting our deposits. If we regularly deposit positive, encouraging, and uplifting thoughts, if we continue to bite our lips just before we begin to grumble and complain, if we shoot down that seemingly harmless negative thought as it germinates, we will find that there is much to rejoice about.

Usage of "During, In and For"

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During, In and For

During means from the beginning to the end of a particular period of time.

It rained during the night.

There was not even a whisper during the whole service.

During can also be used to talk about things that happened continuously or several times between the beginning and the end of a period of time.

I used to visit him during my stay in Boston.

The baby woke up several times during the night.

During and For

During is used to say when something happens; for is used to say how long it lasts.

It rained for three hours.

It rained during the night.

I was sleeping during the service.

The service lasted for more than three hours.

I don't remember the exact date, but it was during the winter.

During and In

We use both during and in to say that something happens inside a particular period of time.

I woke up during/in the night.

It rained during/in the week.

We prefer during when we stress that we are talking about the whole of the period. In cannot be used like this.

There was not even a whisper during the whole service. (NOT … in the whole service.)

We were on holiday during the whole of May.

Sunday, June 27, 2010

What is a morphological process?

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Definition: A morphological process is a means of changing a stem to adjust its meaning to fit its syntactic and communicational context.

Here are some kinds of morphological processes:

1.What is affixation?
2.What is prefixation?
3.What is suffixation?
4.What is circumfixation?
5.What is infixation?
6.What is modification?
7.What is reduplication?

Note: The process suppletion, though not strictly morphological, typically encodes the same type of information as the above morphological processes. It is often discussed in conjunction with them.

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Morphemes

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Morphemes are what make up words.
Often, morphemes are thought of as words but that is not always true.
Some single morphemes are words while other words have two or more morphemes within them.
Morphemes are also thought of as syllables but this is incorrect. Many words have two or more syllables but only one morpheme.

Banana, apple, papaya, and nanny are just a few examples. On the other hand, many words have two morphemes and only one syllable; examples include cats, runs, and barked.

Definitions

morpheme: a combination of sounds that have a meaning. A morpheme does not necessarily have to be a word.
Example: the word cats has two morphemes.
Cat is a morpheme, and s is a morpheme. Every morpheme is either a base or an affix. An affix can be either a prefix or a suffix. Cat is the base morpheme, and s is a suffix.

affix: a morpheme that comes at the beginning (prefix) or the ending (suffix) of a base morpheme. Note: An affix usually is a morpheme that cannot stand alone. Examples: -ful, -ly, -ity, -ness. A few exceptions are able, like, and less.
base: a morpheme that gives a word its meaning. The base morpheme cat gives the word cats its meaning: a particular type of animal.

prefix: an affix that comes before a base morpheme. The in in the word inspect is a prefix.

suffix: an affix that comes after a base morpheme. The s in cats is a suffix.

free morpheme: a morpheme that can stand alone as a word without another morpheme. It does not need anything attached to it to make a word. Cat is a free morpheme.

bound morpheme: a sound or a combination of sounds that cannot stand alone as a word. The s in cats is a bound morpheme, and it does not have any meaning without the free morpheme cat.

inflectional morpheme: this morpheme can only be a suffix. The s in cats is an inflectional morpheme. An inflectional morpheme creates a change in the function of the word. Example: the d in invited indicates past tense. English has only seven inflectional morphemes: -s (plural) and -s (possessive) are noun inflections; -s ( 3rd-person singular), -ed ( past tense), -en (past participle), and -ing ( present participle) are verb inflections; -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) are adjective and adverb inflections.

derivational morpheme: this type of morpheme changes the meaning of the word or the part of speech or both. Derivational morphemes often create new words. Example: the prefix and derivational morpheme un added to invited changes the meaning of the word.

allomorphs: different phonetic forms or variations of a morpheme. Example: The final morphemes in the following words are pronounced differently, but they all indicate plurality: dogs, cats, and horses.

homonyms: morphemes that are spelled the same but have different meanings. Examples: bear (an animal) and bear (to carry), plain (simple) and plain ( a level area of land).

homophones: morphemes that sound alike but have different meanings and spellings. Examples: bear, bare; plain, plane; cite, sight, site.

by Kirsten Mills Edited by Mark Canada, Ph.D.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

What is Morphology and Morpheme?

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Morphology is a field of linguistics focused on the study of the forms and formation of words in a language.

A morpheme is the smallest indivisible unit of a language that retains meaning. The rules of morphology within a language tend to be relatively regular, so that if one sees the noun morphemes for the first time, for example, one can deduce that it is likely related to the word morpheme.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Mother

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A man stopped at a flower shop to order some flowers to be wired to his mother who lived two hundred miles away.

As he got out of his car he noticed a young girl sitting on the curb sobbing.

He asked her what was wrong and she replied, "I wanted to buy a red rose for my mother.

But I only have seventy-five cents, and a rose costs two dollars."

The man smiled and said, "Come on in with me. I'll buy you a rose."

He bought the little girl her rose and ordered his own mother's flowers.

As they were leaving he offered the girl a ride home.

She said, "Yes, please! You can take me to my mother."

She directed him to a cemetery, where she placed the rose on a freshly dug grave.

The man returned to the flower shop, canceled the wire order, picked up a bouquet and drove the two hundred miles to his mother's house.

My Father When I Was ...

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4 years old : My daddy can do anything.
5 years old : My daddy knows a whole lot.
6 years old : My dad is smarter than your dad.
8 years old : My dad doesn't know exactly everything.
10 years old : In the olden days when my dad grew up, things were sure different.
12 years old : Oh, well, naturally, Father doesn't know anything about that. He is too old to remember his childhood.
14 years old : Don't pay any attention to my father. He is so old-fashioned!
21 years old : Him? My Lord, he's hopelessly out-of-date.
25 years old : Dad knows a little bit about it, but then he should because he has been around so long.
30 years old : Maybe we should ask Dad what he thinks. After all, he's had a lot of experience.
35 years old : I'm not doing a single thing until I talk to Dad.
40 years old : I wonder how Dad would have handled it. He was so wise and had a world of experience.
50 years old : I'd give anything if Dad were here now so I could talk this over with him. Too bad I didn't appreciate how smart he was. I could have learned a lot from him.


Ann Landers

Sunday, June 20, 2010

Geography Jokes

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1. "It's clear" said the teacher, "That you haven't studied your geography.
What's your excuse ?"
"Well, my dad says the world is changing every day . So I decided to wait until it settles down !"

2. Teacher: What can you tell me about the Dead Sea?
Pupil: Dead ?, I didn't even know he was sick !

3. Teacher: Where is the English Channel ?
Pupil: I don't know, my TV doesn't pick it up

4. Teacher: Why does the statue of liberty stand in New York harbour ?
Pupil: Because it can't sit down !

5. Pupil: My teacher was mad with me because I didn't know where the Rockies were.
Mother: Well next time remember where you put things !

Thursday, June 17, 2010

USED vs LOVED

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While a man was polishing his new car,
his 4 yr old son picked up a stone
and scratched lines on the side of the car.
In anger, the man took the child's hand
and hit it many times not realizing
he was using a wrench.

At the hospital, the child lost all his fingers
due to multiple fractures.

When the child saw his father.....
with painful eyes he asked, 'Dad when will my fingers grow back?'
The man was so hurt and speechless;
he went back to his car and kicked it a lot of times.

Devastated by his own actions......
sitting in front of that car he looked at the scratches;
the child had written 'LOVE YOU DAD'.
The next day that man committed suicide. . .

Anger and Love have no limits;
choose the latter to have a beautiful, lovely
life & remember this:
Things are to be used and people are to be loved.
The problem in today's world is that people are used while things are loved.

Let's try always to keep this thought in mind:
Things are to be used,
People are to be loved.

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character;
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

Neurological Test

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I hope you will enjoy this Short Neurological Test

1- Find the C below.. Please do not use any cursor help.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO



2- If you already found the C, now find the 6 below.

99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
69999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999
99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999

3 - Now find the N below. It's a little more difficult.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

This is NOT a joke. If you were able to pass these 3 tests, you can
cancel your annual visit to your neurologist. Your brain is great
and you're far from having a close relationship with Alzheimer.

High Phone Bill

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The domestic phone-bill was exceptionally high. This prompted the man of the house to call for a family-meeting after dinner.

Dad : People, listen carefully, this high usage of our telephone is unacceptable. You have to limit the use of it. I do not use the home telephone at all, because I use the one at my work-place.

Mum : Same here. I hardly use our home telephone as I also use my office's telephone.

Son : Me too. I never use the home phone. I always use the mobile provided by my company.

Then they all looked at the foreign maid.

Maid : So, what is the problem, huh? Don't we all use our work-place telephones?!!!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Word Stories

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The following are some etymologies* of words that have come up in this and previous years. (Etymology = n. (pl. etymologies) an account of the origins and the developments in meaning of a word.)

Anaconda Probably a modification of Sinhalese henakandaya 'a slender green snake' (WNC)

Brainwash Although now associated mainly with spy movies, to brainwash originated as a military term during the Korean War. The word is a literal translation of the Chinese phrase HSI NAO, 'to wash the brain.' We call such cases of native word forms put together with a borrowed meaning "loan translations" or "calques". Another pair of loan translations is to save face/ lose face, both of which literally translate Chinese expressions.

Cappuccino 'milky coffee drink, originating in Italy'
Named after the color of the robes of the Capuchin monks, which, like the drink, are light chocolaty brown. The word is from Italian Cappuccino, which is the Italian name for the monks' order. The Capuchins themselves got their name from the hooded robe they wear; cappuccio means 'hood' (a diminutive form of Late Latin cappa 'head covering, cloak')

Catalyze 'to induce a chemical reaction; to engender a change'
Comes from cata 'down' + lyze 'loosen, break'. A catalyst (the noun form of the word) causes things to break down chemically; this breaking down causes further chemical reactions, and this aspect of the process is represented by the modern meaning.

Catholic 'universal'; when capitalized, the name of the church of Rome.
From cata 'down, entirely'' + hol 'whole' + ic 'ADJ'. The church, emphasizing the all-embracing nature of the religion, called itself catholic in the sense of entirely universal. Something of this sense survives in the phrase catholic tastes, meaning eclectic or non-parochial tastes. But the word stuck to the church most strongly, and became essentially its proper name, distinguishing the Catholic religion from other religions.

Hoosegow 'jail'. From Spanish juzgado 'justice', used to refermetonymically to the institutions for administering justice, specifically to the place of confinement for lawbreakers. Comes from the old west, from areas that had been under the jurisdiction of Mexico. American settlers simply pronounced the word as it sounded to them. It spread, and became a slangy or jocular American term for jail even outside the southwest.

Ketchup The name of this most American of condiments originates from the Malay word koetsiap, which literally means 'seafood sauce.'

Lord A native word, going back to an ancient compound hlaf weard, literally 'loaf ward'--the guardian of the stock of bread in a household. Since this was usually the master of the household, the word came to mean specifically that in Anglo-Saxon (in the somewhat reduced form hlaford). Hlaford was used by Christian missionaries to translate the Latin word for 'master', Dominus, when referring to God. Lord in its ordinary social sense became a respectful term of address for a householder of means, then a title for a major landowner, and finally a hereditary title independent of land ownership. Unlike its counterpart German Herr 'lord, master', it never became an ordinary form of address prefixed to mens' last names; that role was taken on by Mister, from Latin magister 'great one'.

Money n. From Old French monee, literally 'coined', from Latin moneta, from the honorific name of Juno Moneta, 'Juno the Guardian, Juno the Warning Goddess'. From the metonymic association of Juno with her temple, which was the place where money was coined. Similar etymology for mint in the sense of 'place where money is coined'.

Paparazzo n., pl. paparazzi. A reporter or photographer, esp. a free-lance one, who doggedly searches for sensational stories about or takes candid pictures of celebrities for magazines and newspapers.
This word is an example of eponymy, or naming a concept after a person associated with that concept. In this case the person is a fictional character, one Signor Paparazzo, a character in the movie La Dolce Vita by Federico Fellini (b. 1920), in the 1960s. In the movie, Paparazzo was a street photographer. The name was apparently taken from the dialectal Italian word paparazzo, a kind of buzzing insect.
In its current sense, the word is usually found in the plural, since such photographers are often found in insect-like clusters around celebrities. Paparazzi became a household word after the tragic death of Princess Diana while she was being pursued by paparazzi in Paris. (AWAD)

Vermicelli Italian for 'little worms', from the resemblance of the pasta to wriggly worms. Ultimately derives from Latin vermiculae 'little worms'.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A Box Full of Kisses

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The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to put under the Christmas tree. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy."

The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, "Don't you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside? The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They're all for you, Daddy."

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. It is also told that her father kept that gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Four Easy Ways To Learn English - By:George Williams

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1. Preparation
There is no need to start from the beginning, since you already a fairly good notion of English. Take stock of your current skills and find out where you are weak. Once you know what you need to learn...all you have to do is learn it.

So, pick out something from your list of things that you know you need/want to learn. Take a few minutes to analyze why you want learn this information, and make sure you focus on that particular point while studying. It is super easy to get side-tracked onto other topics.

If you do see something of interest while you are on your search for information...make sure to take note of it so you can come back at a later time. But for now...FOCUS on the task at hand!

2. Practice
Now that you know what you know what you want to learn, jump over to Google or Yahoo and do a quick search on your chosen topic of interest. From there you should be able to find sites that will provide you with tools and resources such as audio files, video files, exercises, and tests to practice what you want to learn.

3. Use
Alright! You are ripping, raring, and ready-to-go! You studied what it was you wanted to learn, and now you need to put it into use in real life situations. Use what you just learned on your friends and acquaintances. Hit the forums and try out what you now know. Try to use it at least thirty times to really assimilate it well and make it a part of you.

4. Evaluate
Once you are done for the day, sit down for a few minutes and evaluate how you did. Did you learn everything that is required? Are you still weak in certain areas of this topic?

If you have a strong determination to learn English, take note of these things. Start making plan now and start practice it tomorrow. Make sure to do these four steps everyday, and you will steadily see your skills progressing. So now...just go do it!