Give it a What?

I found an idiom "Give it a shot" the other day. I learned it a long time ago, but I've completely forgotten it.

A couple of days later, I saw another a similar idiom "Give it a go", and I wondered what the difference was. I checked the dictionary but I couldn't find any specific difference.

I tried using Google Ngram which Tim kindly let me know. (Thank you, Tim!)

The result of a comparison;

 Hmm... Almost the same, but around 1985, it was inverted. But yet, no big difference.
 

By coincidence, just after I checked Google Ngram, I found an idiom "Give it a try."
So I tried checking Ngram again including "Give it a try."

Wow, "Give it a try" has been used overwhelmingly.
I somehow feel that "Give it a try" is subtly different from the other two.

Dont't speak so fast.

As one of resources for my learning English, I watch (or more precisely "listen") TED talks videos, one or two videos a week.

http://www.ted.com

Today, I listened the following.

He speaks so fast that I can't understand at all what he are speaking!!!
I saw the transcript and I found that he didn't say so difficult things. However, even though I listen to it seeing the transcript, I can't keep up with his speaking at all.

It is obvious that it's impossible for me to work abroad. In Japan, most of non-Japanese at companies in Japan speak slower and clearer. I guess there are many people in English speaking countries who speak like him.

M learning English never seems to end.

Value of human lives

The hostage crisis in Algeria ended up death of 37 hostages.

The situation the news were reporting indicate that most of the hostages weren't killed by the terrorists, but by the Algerian government army.

It's obvious that the purpose of the government army was just breaking down the terrorists from the beginning and their aims never included rescuing the hostages. Although it's important not to give in to terrorism, that would be unthinkable in Japan.
For example, when terrorists were moving to another place by five cars carrying the hostages in each car, the government army bombed them and the four cars of five were completely destroyed. Hard to believe!!

This reminded me of what one Chinese told me, who lived in Japan.
When he came to Japan, he was really impressed that Japan was a country which valued human lives. It felt strange to me first, but he explained some examples of how much China ignored human lives.

I think there are more countries where human lives are taken incredibly lightly.

7 Japanese people were killed in this hostage crisis in Algeria, and 3 Japanese people still remain missing.

Weekday Veg

I wrote "I should have more vegetable-focused diet" on this blog about a week ago.

However, I found that it's very difficult to cook perfect vegetarian foods.
As I need to increase the number of my recipes of vegetables, I was searching on the Internet. One of recipes I've found is a "baked Tofu with cheese."

1. Coat Tofu with flour
2. Coat them with beaten egg
3. Bake them with grated Parmesan cheese

Yummy!! (and easy!)

But!!

I realized that vegetarians never eat eggs and cheese, right?

But I don't mind. I'm not a vegetarian. Shouldn't be so strict!

Helping people is...

When I was walking along the street, one homeless person was standing holing a magazine up.

The magazine was "The Big Issue." You might know it. It is intended to help homeless people earn income and get back into society.

The Big Issue
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Issue

As I had been writing on this blog, what I was trying to be involved in is helping poor children in the world receive education. Actually I'm not so interested in the philanthropy toward Japanese people, because, even though some people are under terrible situation in Japan, their situation is MUCH better than people other than Japan I want to help. And homeless people in Japan are different from ones in other countries. Japan is a country where people can live without becoming a homeless person. In fact, there is NO street children in Japan.

I passed by the homeless person. I hastened to somewhere. However, I was having a feeling I wasn't sure about. Then, although I was already a bit far from him, I turned back to him and bought the magazine.

I realized that to help someone is not logic, but something urge which you can't help doing. In fact, the people who made great results in philanthropy areas started doing something immediately just after they thought so, such as Mother Teresa, John Wood and so on. In contrast, I do nothing special yet, I've been saying I want to help children though.

Water leak

Today, when I entered the vanity unit in my place, I saw the floor flooded. I didn't understand what happened for a while. Then I found the leak in the ceiling.

I called the management company of my apartment, and told the person upstairs what was happening and asked to shut off the main water as the person of the management company.

After a while, workers came and fixed it. Whew... It had me worried there for a while, but so far, so good.

It was good that today was a holiday. I spent half a day for it. And I thought that being a victim is better than being a person who caused damage. The person upstairs profusely apologized, although it's not her fault but the facility's.

"Pursue" vs. "seek"

I was creating a document for my job, and I was wondering which word I should use.

After creating vision and develop the strategies, which expression should I use, "seek the vision and the strategies", or "pursue the vision and the strategies"?

So, I searched the Internet for "difference between pursue and seek."

Hmm... It's hard to choose...
From several explanations on the Internet, I ended up using "pursue", because I felt that "pursue" contains something like nuance of "achieve", I'm not sure though.

Subtle differences of nuance in other languages are really difficult to grasp.

Snowing

It's surely colder this winter than usual. And today, we are having the season's first snow in Tokyo where it rarely snows in.

Here it is the scene from my apartment's window.

Although the picture can't show how much it's snowing, it's a lot snowing from left to right, not from top to down, because it's also windy. I can hear the sough of the wind.

I was going to a coffee shop to study something related to my job. The coffee shop is in the building next to my apartment, but the snow and strong wind discourage me... Whew...

Fortunately today is a national holiday, so many people don't need to go to work. But there might be some small panics tomorrow morning because people in Tokyo are not used to snow.

Tofu hamburger

I've thought I should have more vegetable-focused diet. Today, I tried cooking Tofu hamburger.

Tofu hamburger doesn't includes any meat, but only Tofu (soybean curd) and lotus. Very healthy! Also very cheap!!

Tofu doesn't has so much taste of its own, so you can make and put your favorite sauce on it. I recommend Ankake or Teriyaki sauce for it, both are Japanese unique sauces.

Next time, I'm planning to making Bagna càuda sauce.

Drobox

I've been thinking that I should use "Cloud Computing" and finally I decided to do it.

First, I needed to decided which clouding service (for individual) I use. My blog and email is Google so I wondered if I should use Google Drive. Then I ended up using Dropbox.

https://www.dropbox.com


I've installed it to my PC and smart phone. It seems to be nice. It's simple and easy to use.

Trend color??

According to an article, the trend color this year is "Monaco Blue."

Monaco blue?? I checked what kind of blue it is on the Internet.

Here it is;

Humm...
I wonder why it was named "Monaco" blue.




By the way, I visted a shrine today as usual New Year, I didn't do at the 1st this year though.

Kumano shrine with typical New Year's days' fine blue sky and skyscrapers

The challenge for my English is still strengthen listening..

The first transcript I use for my English learning in 2013 is about the Berlin Wall.

In the transcript, the phrase "the wall came down" appears some times. Even though I know what the speaker says, every time I hear it, I can hear it "the walking down", I listen to it many times though.

I'm now in a family restaurant. A non-Japanese father and son are sitting at the table next to me and they are speaking in English. I can't understand what they are saying, especially the boy's talking. Whew...

I wonder if he is around 5 -6 years old. He is very cute anyway!

Happy New Year 2013

I'm going to be focused on two things this year,

- To live a healthy and regular life
- To build my network of contacts

.;*~*;..;*~*;..;*~*;. I wish all of you a Happy New Year!! .;*~*;..;*~*;..;*~*;.