Things I've Learned About English

During my time in Vietnam I've learned a lot about the differences between American English (AE) and British English (BE). For example,

• Americans drive down the street and make a right (or left) turn. Brit's make a right (or left) turning.
• You leave your car in "a car park" in England but in "a parking lot" in America.
• AE calls the place where you're supposed to walk across the road "a crosswalk." Because of the wide lines painted parallel to the sidewalk, BE calls it "a zebra crossing."
• A dot at the end of a sentence is called "a period" in AE. In BE, they call it "a full stop."
• BE prefers to say, "I haven't got ". Americans are much more likely to say, "I don't have ." (That topic was my most confusing class ever because it was hard to avoid switching back and forth between the two.)
• You may have noticed in the previous example that BE ends a quote with " and then a full stop. AE places the quotation mark after the period.
• AE hates the passive voice; BE seems to love it.
• "Sneakers" (AE) are "trainers" (BE) and "lorries" (BE) are "trucks" (AE).
• AE's "crazy" is "mad" in BE, but "mad" in AE means "angry."
• Americans do things "on the weekend" and don't like going "to the hospital." Brits do things "at the weekend" and don't like going "to hospital."
• England uses an IPA phonology chart which includes vowel sounds that most Americans never use. This is why some people don't understand me when I talk about my job until I pronounce it like Job (the name of the guy in the Bible.)
• In standard British English, /r/ is only pronounced if it comes before a vowel. My theory is that the colonists stole all the r's and took them to America. Whatever the reason, it accounts for the different pronunciations of words like war and turn.
• Word stress varies between the two types of English. For example, CONtroversy (AE) is pronounced conTROversy in BE.

There are differences in other languages too, like Spanish Spanish and Puerto Rican Spanish, French French and Canadian French, and northern, central and southern Vietnamese. It's part of the challenge of learning and teaching language.

Got any examples that make you crazy/mad?

It Gets Clearer Bit By Bit

Look at the first picture below. Can you tell where it was taken? How many people are in the photo? Are they men, women or children? What are they doing? Are they happy or sad? Is it winter or summer?

Now look at the next photo and try to answer the same questions.(Don't skip down to the third photo yet!) Where was it taken? How many people? Men, women or children? What are they doing? Are they happy or sad? Is it winter or summer?

Look at the third one. Don't look at the last one yet! Where was it taken? How many people? Men, women or children? What are they doing? Are they happy or sad? Is it winter or summer?

And here's the last one. What can you tell from the picture now?

As each picture gets clearer, you can get a better understanding of what is happening. Reading is like that too. Each time you read a text, you understand a little more about it. And you don't have to understand every single word to understand what's being written - just like you don't have to see every part of the photo to know what the picture is about.

Don't worry if we finish a unit and you still don't know every word used in the article. If you concentrate on getting the big picture and learning 10-15 new words each week, your reading ability will improve.

Topic Sentences

Topic sentences can be difficult to create when you're writing in a foreign language. Fortunately, there's a simple way to tell if you've written a good one. A topic sentence should have only one topic and say only one thing about that topic. So, to check your topic sentence, ask yourself two questions: What is the topic of this sentence? What does the sentence say about the topic? If you can clearly say what the topic is and what the "one thing" it says about the topic, then you probably have a good topic sentence. That simple, two-step check can make writing good topic sentences easier.

Here's something that might help you remember that your topic sentence needs one topic and one idea about that topic. Just think, "ớt ơi."

One topic, one idea.

Blogs & Wikis for Class?

In December I will be teaching an intensive 3-week writing course and I've been searching for a way that students can post their homework to a blog or wiki, revise it as the course proceeds, and view and comment on their classmates' work.

wikispaces.com may be a solution but I'm a bit concerned that it involves too much tech and tech English. It won't be that helpful if we have to spend a week on  how to navigate a site just to be able to turn in  homework. Of course, emailing assignments is one solution and we've used it successfully in the past, but I like the idea of students being able to see their progress, work together with their classmates and show off their work to others by sending them a link.

DAV students -- Do you think online assignments would work or is it too complicated? Would you like to post your assignments online?

Want to study at MIT?

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is one of the most famous universities in America. It's known for its science and engineering programs but offers other majors too. Most of us will never have the opportunity to study at MIT. Fortunately, MIT makes about 2,000 of their courses available free online.

You won't get college credit for it, but you can view course materials, lecture notes, videos of lectures, and even take exams. They even have an ESL course for Listening, Speaking and Pronunciation. The full list of courses, undergraduate and graduate, is at http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm.

Reading Hint for K36

Here's a link to the post I mentioned in class. It Gets Clearer Bit by Bit. If you've not seen it before, I recommend reading it.

Learning New Vocabulary

This afternoon we had a great visit with friends in a village just north of Hanoi. On the way back into town, one of my friends asked me how I remember Vietnamese words that are new to me. That's a good question, since I hear so many new words and forget them so easily. Like the English idiom says, they "go in one ear and out the other."

But I have had some success. Usually it comes when I can use the word or phrase a lot for 2-3 days after I learn it. I try to do this when I learn a Vietnamese proverb. Repeating it often and asking if I used it correctly helps me understand and remember.

If you want to try this method, just think up ways to use your new English word whenever you can. For example, if the word is "compromise," make a sentence about two friends who had a small disagreement and had to compromise. If you read news about a policy dispute somewhere, you can say something as simple as, "They need to compromise." If your English-speaking friend wants to take the bus somewhere and you want to go by xe om, say, "Maybe we can compromise and take the bus there and xe om back." Even if there's no one around who can speak English, you can say it to yourself and it will help.

It's an added bonus if you have friends who are native speakers or experts because, after you use the word, you can ask, "Is that the right meaning?" They can help you fine-tune your understanding of the meaning and help you use the correct collocations.

Good luck! Remember, "có công mài sắt, có ngày nên kim." Did I use that correctly?

Writing Classes in Hanoi

How's your writing? Would you like to work on improving it? Beginning in mid-April I will be teaching two private writing classes. There will be a fee, but the class size will be limited to 5 students in each class so they can receive focused attention.

• First Steps in Academic Writing is a high-beginner level class which will focus on basics such as writing good sentences, paragraph structure, and different kinds of paragraphs. This two-hour class will meet twice a week for six weeks (Tuesday, 6:30 - 8:30 pm and Saturday, 9 - 11 am). Writing assignments will be given as homework. If you are interested, send me a message on Facebook, or text your email address to 01227350749 and I will send you the details.
• Improving Your Writing is for high-intermediate and advanced students. This two-hour class will meet once a week for six weeks (Saturday, 1 - 3 pm) and will focus mainly on academic writing tasks similar to some of the IELTS tasks. Writing assignments will be given as homework and students will spend a lot of time editing and correcting assignments in order to recognize and avoid mistakes. If you are interested, send me a message on Facebook, or text your email address to 01227350749 and I will send you the details.

 Classes will begin on 19 April and 23 April and run till 28 May.

Vocabulary Plug-in

Do you use the Firefox web browser? Last week I found out about a plug-in that helps you learn vocabulary. It's not perfect every time (words with multiple meanings complicate things), but it helps. It's called ming-a-ling.

After you install it, you can choose a word and ask it to substitute the word in the language you want to learn. For example, I can never remember the correct tone for mưa, so one of the words I've changed is "rain." Now, whenever a web page loads with the word "rain" on it, ming-a-ling changes it to Vietnamese. For example, here's Yahoo's weather forecast for Hanoi tomorrow:

       Tomorrow: Considerable cloudiness with occasional mưa.
       High 64F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of mưa 50%.

It should work the same way with Vietnamese to English and the words you choose will show up in English when you read a Vietnamese web page.

If you're having trouble remembering a word, give ming-a-ling a try.

Reading the News Vocabulary for Unit 02

Reading the News Unit 01 Vocabulary

 Here are some vocabulary words from Unit 01 of Reading the News. You can click through them as many times as you want to learn or review them. Leave a comment if you think this is helpful.

Press the double arrow to advance to the definition.
(Or click here if it doesn't work below.)

Pronunciation Website

Last week in the K37 speaking class, we spent some time on /ʤ/, a sound that's hard to make and even harder to explain how to make. I mentioned a website that gives more information about it. The University of Iowa in America put together a demonstration. Click here to go to the website and then click on the American flag.

Shorten Your Summary

Sometimes you may be required to summarize a text in a certain number of words. How can you make sure you have the most important information in your summary?

One way to practice is to start with a text and start deleting the parts that you think are unimportant. When you re-read the text, the overall meaning should still be clear if you've kept the important information.

Example:

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's navy fired warning shots to chase away a North Korean fishing boat that crossed their disputed sea border early Wednesday, the Defense Ministry said, in the latest flareup of tension on the divided peninsula just days before the Group of 20 summit in Seoul. The North Korean boat intruded on South Korean territory for about two hours before returning to North Korean waters early Wednesday, the ministry said. The fertile maritime border, the scene of three deadly skirmishes between the Koreas, is a key flashpoint because the North does not recognize the line drawn by the U.N. at the close of the 1950-53 Korean War.
          The firing comes just days after North Korea shot two rounds at a South Korean guard post in the Demilitarized Zone, prompting return fire from South Korean troops, according to Seoul military officials.South Korea is bracing for any possible North Korean moves to sabotage next week's Group of 20 summit of world leaders. North Korea has a track record of provocations when world attention is focused on the rival South.

 When you read what's left, the meaning should still be clear. In this example, you could remove a few more words and it would still make sense.

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea's navy fired warning shots at a North Korean fishing boat that crossed their disputed sea border just days before the Group of 20 summit. The North Korean boat intruded on South Korean territory for about two hours before returning to North Korean waters. The border is a flashpoint because the North does not recognize the line drawn by the U.N. at the close of the Korean War.
          The firing comes just days after North Korea shot at a South Korean guard post, prompting return fire from South Korean troops. South Korea is bracing for any possible North Korean moves to sabotage next week's Group of 20 summit. North Korea has a record of provocations when world attention is focused on the South.

That reduces it from about 180 words to about 125. The meaning is still there and it makes sense. Now you just need to put it into your own words, which will simplify it and probably cut the word count even further.

          South Korea fired warning shots at a North Korean fishing boat that crossed their disputed sea border just days before the G20 summit. The North Korean boat was in South Korean territory for about two hours. The border is a trouble spot because the North does not recognize the border the U.N. drew at the end of the Korean War.
          A few days ago, North Korea shot at a South Korean guard post and South Korean troops shot back. South Korea is preparing for possible trouble from North Korea before next week's summit. In the past, North Korea has caused trouble when world attention is focused on the South.

 Here are two ways to practice it yourself.

• Find an online that's easy for you to understand. Copy and paste it into a new document. Then delete the unnecessary parts and read it again to see if the important information is still there and it makes sense. Re-write it in your own words.
• Photocopy an article from your textbook that you need to summarize. Cross out the unnecessary parts and read what's left. It should still make sense and contain all the important information that was in the original. Then re-write it in your own words.

On an exam, you could do the same thing a little differently.

1. Mark the parts that you think contain the main points.
2. Read only those parts and see if the main message of the article is there and it makes sense.
3. Write a topic sentence and then add the main points that you marked. Be sure to put the main points into your own words!

On the Sidelines

"The foreign ministers of China and Japan met on the sidelines of a regional summit in Vietnam." That phrase, "met on the sidelines of [a different meeting]" has shown up at least twice in our listening class (Units 4 & 7) and here it is again. The annual Asean summit began yesterday and the foreign ministers of Japan and China met about their latest diplomatic argument, even though that was not the main reason that they came to Hanoi.

When leaders come to a meeting or summit and meet for a different purpose during that summit, you will often see it reported as they "met on the sidelines."

Collocations 01

This afternoon we talked about collocations in class. Here is some more information. The slides advance after 5 seconds but, if they go too fast, just pause them. Slide 8 has a few exercises. The answers are on slide 10.

Thee or Thuh?

This afternoon a student asked me, "When do you pronounce "the" /ði/ and when do you say /ðə/?" My  quick answer was something about a vowel sound but then when I started to give examples, it got confusing.

If you look around the internet, you'll find conflicting answers depending on the dialect of English being spoken. Dictionary.com says that it's /ði/ before a vowel sound and /ðə/ before a consonant sound.

The part that can be confusing is that it's before a vowel sound, not a vowel. EnglishClub.com explains that part. For example, "university" begins with a vowel but it's actually the sound of the consonant, /y/ (also written as /j/).

A Mom's Tough Standards, Imported From Vietnam

If you'd like to practice listening, click here for a conversation between a Vietnamese mother and her daughter about what it was like to raise a child in America. The mom, Teresa Nguyen, who is originally from HCMC, talks about how she tried to raise her daughter Stephanie in American culture while trying to preserve their Asian culture. After listening a few times, you can read the transcript here but be sure to listen several times first!

Credit for pointing this link out goes to Ms. Melia, an American teacher who taught at DAV in 2007. Thanks, Melia!

Stone Soup

After posting the cookbook link on Twitter, I realized you might want to see where the term "Stone Soup" comes from. It's an old European folktale that has been told in many countries and in many forms. Sometimes it's called "Nail Soup" because the main character uses a nail instead of a stone. Sometimes, as the picture below shows, the whole village gets involved instead of just one woman.

Here's the story, adapted from Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts.

A beggar knocked at the farmhouse door. "I can't let you in because my husband is not at home," said the woman who answered the door. "And I don't have anything to give you." Her voice showed that she did not like the beggar and wanted him to go away.

"If you don't have any food, then I could give you some of my soup stone," said the beggar. He pulled and ordinary-looking stone from his pocket.

"Soup stone?" said she, suddenly showing interest in the stranger.

"Oh yes," he said. "If I just had a potful of water and a fire, I'd show you how it works. This stone and boiling water make the best soup you've ever eaten. Your husband would thank you for the good supper, if you'd just let me in to show you how it works."

The woman's suspicions yielded to her desire for an easy meal, and she opened the door. She boiled a pot of water, the beggar dropped in his stone and then he tasted the boiling water. "It needs salt, and a bit of rice," he said.

"I have a little salt and rice," she said. She got it out of her cupboard and he put it into the pot. He tasted it again. "Much better!" he said. "But a good soup needs a few vegetables and potatoes. Do you have any?"

"Oh yes," she said, her enthusiasm for the miracle soup growing. She quickly found some potatoes, onions, carrots, and beans.

After the soup had boiled awhile, the man tasted it again. "It's almost done. The stone is working. A few pieces of meat and it would be perfect!"

The excited woman ran out to the yard and quickly killed a chicken. She plucked the feathers, cut up the meat, and put it into the pot.

When the meat had cooked, the woman filled a bowl for the beggar and for herself. They ate until they were full and there was still enough left for her husband.

The beggar thought the husband would be home soon, so stood up to leave and said, "Thank you for letting me use your pot and your fire." He took his stone from the bottom of the pot, licked it clean, and put it back into his pocket.

"Please come again," said the happy woman.

"I will indeed," said the beggar. Then he disappeared into the woods.

Read What You Already Know

One way to improve your English reading is to read something in English that you're already familiar with in Vietnamese. For example, a news item about the Red Shirts in Thailand is easier to understand if you've read the news about Red Shirts in Vietnamese first. It makes it much easier to guess unknown words and follow the train of thought.

Another thing you can do is read English versions of Vietnamese stories. You may know this one which is on the internet at a University of Pittsburgh website that has folktales from many different cultures.

One Cow More

A stupid man went to market and bought six cows. He rode one home and drove the others before him. On the way he counted them, but could see only five. Again and again he counted them. He was certain that he had lost one and was afraid he would be scolded by his wife.

She was waiting for him at the gate of their house. As soon as he saw her he said tearfully, "I've lost one of our cows. I don't know it could've happened. I was very careful."

"How many cows did you buy?" asked his wife.

"Six, but now I can see only five," answered the stupid man.

His wife looked at him and laughed, "You foolish man, there isn't one cow less, there's one more!"

For an English version of Cam and Tam, click here.

The Road Not Taken

If you'd like to read something a little lighter than international relations this summer, here's a famous poem by Robert Frost. He was an American poet who lived most of his life in the northeastern part of the country until he died in 1963.

The poem is about a time when he came to an intersection and had to decide which road to take. He decides to take the one that most people did not use and he thinks that will make a big difference in his future. The last 3 lines of the poem are the most well-known part.

"The Road Not Taken"

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood(1),
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(2);

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear(3);
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(4).
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.

(1) wood = forest
(2) undergrowth = the small bushes and plants that grown under the tall trees.
(3) wanted wear = he thought that path needed/wanted someone to go down it because the grass growing on the path showed that few people had been using it.
(4) these 2 lines, and the 2 before them, mean that both paths seemed to be about the same. They lay covered with leaves and no one had walked on them to make the leaves turn color. trodden = walked on.

English poetry is most often based on timing or rhythm and similar-sounding words (rhyme). If you read this aloud you'll notice an ABAAB rhyming pattern in the last word the lines. The last word of the 1st, 3rd and 4th lines rhyme (A) and the last word of  the 2nd and 5th lines rhyme (B).