Anyway !!

Lets change the mood and study English !!

I will put more life into it from now on !! Oogesa kana..?

There are some words or phrases from which its hard to translate into other languages.

''Chutohampa' is a good example.

You can use this when you have something or sometime but its not enough for your original purpose to use it.

For instance, your class is finishing soon but you still have 10mins left.

Its not enough ttime to start something new.

You can say "The time is very chutohampa !!" in this situation.

I havent found a good english translation of it.

According to my teacher and boyfriend, there is no word like that in english.

If anybody has a good idea, please let me know !!

Nantekottaaa

Today, I skipped my class and am staying at home because of a stomach ache.

Nothing special to write, so let me write about what I have done so far.

Let me think...

After getting up at 10, I ate some breakfast and took a shower.

Since I had stomach ache, I just stared at the four walls for a little while.

Then, I had lunch with my boyfriend.

He usually comes back from work for 3 hours break time, then goes back to work.

I took a nap with him for the 3 hours and I got up as he was leaving for work.
At 5 I started browsing internet sites, eating some snack.

Eh,

is that all I did today?????,

Ahhhhhhhhh (((( ;°Д°))))

Im a hikikomori completely!!

* Hikikomori means someone who doesnt work and stays home, spending most of his or her time using a pc, reading manga or things like that.

...Anyway, thats no good !!!!!

Thats why I have been changing my body shape in a negative way ;´Д`)ノ

Someone help me...・°・(ノД｀)・°・

Japanese culture in Hawaii

I heard an interesting story about japanese american people and their culture, from my boyfriend, who is a 4th gereration japanese american living in Hawaii.

Long time ago some japanese people moved to Hawaii to get jobs in plantations.

Although native people had lived there already, they got accounted for quite high percentage of the Hawaii's population after they moved to Hawaii.

So they didnt have to lose their culture.

Even now they eat some japanese food, use some japanese words and even have a bon dance festival every year.Their mind seem to be stil japanese. It might depend on each family or person tho...

In addition, they speak English called Pijon English. It is very diferent from English of the mainlanders. To me, it sounds more like English of a japanese native speaker. As their ancestors were from Japan they might inherit some japanese accent from their ancestors.

When they moved to Hawaii, some had to move to the mainland bacause more japanese came in Hawaii than expected. Then, they made a small comunity there. But as their poplation was very small, it seemed to be the best way for them to accept american culture as it was. Now most japanese american people have american style of living and dont know much about japanese cluture.

Their population in Hawaii was big enough to keep their own culture. So they are more related to Japanese culture than japanese people in the mainland. Thats very interesting to me.

Antique collection show

Last Sunday, I went to an antique collection show to visit my boyfriends brother.

It was held in a big building.

We parked at a parking lot there and went in..

There were lots of sections which were owned by each participants.

I could find a lot of things like toys, manga, japanese stuff, jewelry, bags......

After browsing, we went to his section.

He collects many kinds of old things like watches, dolls or toys.

There was a doll which was as small as my index finger. I was surprised to hear the price. It was 800 dollars ヽ((◎д◎　))ゝ

It was more than I could understand....

I would buy something else if I had that much money.

After that, we went to a japanese restaurant called Taes BBQ.

The food is not that authentic japanese food as perhaps they are not japanese people, but they serve really good food. I like that (-^□^-)

I orderd Teri beef plate lunch. Its thin sliced beef and radish strips in it, with teri dip sause and two scoops of rice. Its a kind of a big meal but just 5 dollars and something !!

But I shouldnt go there so often because i tend to eat too much ^^:

Next time I would like to try Cheesecake factory.

Its different from ones in japan and not just a cheese cake shop .

Of course they serve some cheese cakes, which is people say very good, but it is a restaurant. You can drink alcohol there !!

I found the website.

http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/

Very exiting isnt it!!

I havent been there yet but usually there is a long line in front of it. So it must be really good !!

I did it again (￣□￣;)!!

I was about to upload my dialy as usual.

All I had to do to upload it was to click "save".

However, as my pinky touched some buttons on the keyboard accidently, everything I wrote had disappeared (((゜д゜;)))

This happens to me often.....There is no way to get it back, isnt there... ???

kuseni

Sometimes I cant explain what I exactly mean in English and feel a kind of annoyed.

I guess many people feel the same.

Here is a good expression that you can use a lot in everyday situations.

How do you say when you want to mean 「○○くせに～。」？

I think this can be very useful especally if you are a girl.

For instance,

You and your bf were going to meet at a restaurant at 7. But he doesnt appear on time. You are waiting for him and the time is already 8.At last he calls you and says "Im sorry, I was watching my favorite TV show and forgot about our appointment!!", Then you would say "What? Watching TV and forgot about me!?悪いとおもってないくせに、謝らないでよ！！”

How would you say this in English?

This time, you can say "Dont apologize to me as if you were sorry!!"

"As if" means 「まるで。。。のように」 and it is a subjunctive clause which modifys the main clause "Dont ...".

So if i tranlate "Dont apologize to me as if you were sorry!!" literally, it would be　「まるで悪いと思っているように、」.

It might not be a literal translation of it but he will understand what exactly you mean rather than "Dont apologize to me even though you dont feel sorry!",,which is a literal translation of 「悪いとおもってないくせに、謝らないでよ！！」.

You can also say..

She asked me if I had recovered - as if she had really cared.

彼女は私が回復したか尋ねた。なんとも思ってないくせに。

He looked happy - as if nothing had happend.

彼は幸せそうに見える。何にもなかったかのように。

She is nodding her head - as if she were understanding.

彼女はうなづいている。ほんとはわかってないくせに。

He asked the same question　several times - as if he hadnt understood yet.

彼は何度もおんなじことを聞いた。答えをもう知ってるくせに。

NOTE Im writing what I learned from my teacher for review, and its written in English for practice.

So please dont mind me if it is not correct or it doesnt make sence at all...(＞＜;)

Pronunciation

Since I started learning English,　I had never been really careful about my pronounciation.

I mean, I always tried to sound like English by copying the native speakers , but I hadnt quite get how to pronounce until recently.

The reason why I started worrying about my pronunciation was that some people could understand my English but the other didnt, and I noticed it was making me less confident and talkative.

If I can pronouce correctly, more people can understand my English, and I can be more confident and talk to more people.Then I can improve my English skills. That is what I thought, very simple!!

Now I take a pronunciation class at my school.

My teacher is an older lady from California, who has taught English in Japan for several years.

She always tells me to put my tongue out when I pronounce "th " sound, so I try but it is really hard for me! I also cant do "L" sound very well. I still have so many problems!!

When in the world can I speak perfect English!?

In class I found that knowing the spelling of the word can sometimes lead you to the correct pronunciation,

For instance, my pronuciation of "Saturday" was like さたでー　before as most of beginners seem to do, but now I can try to pronounce like "Sat-ur-day"......This is a little bit too hard to explain in English for me.....w

Anyway, in other words, it means being able to pronounce words correctly can help you remember the spelling, too. So I think it is good idea not to study like only pronunciation or writing but to learn English in several ways as native speakers also do at school,

For people who have never learnt pronuntiation and are having trouble pronouncing words correctly, I would recomend you to practice it in a proper way.

The shortest way round is the longest way home.

One of my problems is that I dont have any sence of direction and lose my way all the time.

I hate it because sometimes this causes me a serious trouble.

So I had been thinking the reason why Im like this.

Then finally I found why!!!

I think people who lose their way easlily tend to try to find a shortcut.

For me its the same.Most of the time a shortcut doesnt work for me and I lose my way.

I think that is because I didnt quite realise that

* Streets dont always run parallel.

* Streets have ends. (///∇//)

In addition to it, while walking Im thinking about things which have nothing to do with where i am going .

Also I try first and then think.

As this saying goes, I will choose the easiest way that I usually use or just follow a map(･ω･)b