won't vs. want

I can't tell "won't" from "want" in hearing.

I know those phonetic signs are different and even can pronounce both words individually. But, when I hear what somebody says, I can't distinguish them.

For example, a friend of yours came to your place and said,
"I won't stay long." "I want to stay long."

Those have entirely opposite meanings.

He/she says "I won't stay long", but I answer, "sure! you can stay as long as you like".
It can happen.

What is his intention?

I can see office buildings, apartments, houses and so on through my window. There is a three-story apartment across the street. In a balcony of a room on the third floor of the apartment, futon is hung out every day. Every day. It's very rare case, I think.

One day, I found that the resident of the room was a non-Japanese guy (or guys). I was a bit impressed that non-Japanese had the habit of hanging out futon. Besides, every day!

But, his futon is always hung out until night. Hmm... It's a pity. Hanging out futon is very good but it should be taken in early.
It's none of my business though.

When I lived with my family, my mother used to scold me about futon. After 2pm, she always said "haven't you taken your futon in yet? Hurry up!" Around 3pm, she almost shouted, "there's no point in hanging out futon if you leave them till late!"

Now, I hang out my futon on the weekend and take it in at latest by 1pm.

It was raining all day today. In the morning, I looked out of the window without intention. Oh! He leaves his futon hung out although raining! Oh---! I wonder if he didn't come home last night so he couldn't take it in! Anyway, too bad!! It's a big trouble!

In case of the washing, it's often the case for people living alone. You hang out the washing in the morning, then it started raining before you get home, and then you say "oh, my god, my washing is..." (The washing also should be taken in early as well as futon though.) And I also have such an experience some times. But, futon!
It's not my futon but it's a shock!

After I get home, I found that the futon was still being hung out. I could see the light in the window so it seemed that the resident had already come home. I wonder why he doesn't take it in.
He means to wash his futon by rain?

My favorite characters's common points

As I wrote, my favorite character in "HEROES" is Matt.


I usually don't watch TV so much but I started to watch foreign dramas recently for learning English. So other my favorite characters are;

in "Full House", Joey


in "Dsparate housewives", Tom who is a Lynette's hasband


And, I wrote it a long time ago, my favorite character in the movive "The Lord of the Rings" is Sam.


Their common points are;
- They are not central players, but backseat players.
- They are sort of rustic.
- They are not cool or handsome so much.
(Sorry, I am talking about those "characters", not actors themselves.)

Yes, I like such a person, not only in TV dramas but also in my daily life.

So my favorite character in "Star Wars" is, of course! him!!
(The answer is here.)

The definite article

I am always annoyed about whether I should put article or not, especially the definite article.
As you can see from this blog, my way to use articles is entirely wrong. There is no "article" in Japanese. So it is very difficult.

For example, about proper nouns.
Basically "the" is not needed, but there are many (TOO many) exceptions.
"The" is not needed for place-name, such as country names, continent names, state names and mountain names. But for sea names, river names, Channel name and canal name "the" is necessary. Why?Hmm... first, I thought things in connection with water needs "the". But!! "the" is not needed for lake!!

If there is kind of "rule", I can guess even if new words come up. But there is no rule! So, even if I understand about above, a new word, for example "harbor" in this case, comes up, it's impossible to find "the" is needed or not. I need the rule! I want to know why! Why "the" is necessary in that case? Why... Too fuzzy.

Someone said that languages are fuzzy. Hmm... In case of mathematics, if I know basic formulas (=rules), I can solve complicated math problems using the basic formula. But in case of languages, what I need to do is just remembering.

That reminds me that I was a student who liked mathematics MUCH more than English.

Chiboust

I like sweet food. One of my favorite cake is Chiboust.

There is one shop which is famous for Chiboust around Shinjuku station, which means it's in my neigborhood.

I went there and ate it today. Yummy!

The same person or just resembling?

Probably I have written about it on this blog some times that I'm really weak at distinguish foreginers' faces. Their faces sometimes look the same for me.

This tends to be disadvantage when I watch foreign dramas and movies. For example, I occasionally misunderstand that a character A and a character B are the same person, or a character C is a different person from him/her in another scene. Then stories don't make sense.

Such being the case, I'm not sure but...
The police officer Matt, who is my favorite character in "HEROES", is acted by the same actor as Eric Wiess who is one of CIA members in "Alias"? Am I wrong?

I enjoyed meeting my friends.

I met two friends of mine last Saturday. It's been a long time since I saw them last.

We had dinner at a Spanish restaurant in Tokyo Midtown. I enjoyed conversation with them. I always enjoy it whenever I see them. They are very smart so their talks are interesting and useful.

One of them is an associate professor. She attends conferences held in the world and gives presentations in English. The other friend is now a housewife but she can speak not only English but French. Whew... I really respect them.

My bad listening comprehension #9

The sentence in this time is;
"Most companies don't go as far as allowing..."

I can hear "most companies don't quest ...", even if I hear it repeatedly.
"Go as" and "quest". Those are entirely different though...

At the last my wrong listening is; "might go" --> "Michael".
(Ref: http://sandfriend.blogspot.com/2008/04/my-bad-listening-comprehension-8.html )
It seems that I tend to hear "K" for "g". My ear is very strange, and... probably isn't cut out to hear English?

One more my bad listening.
"They'd be encouraged to work harder."
I can hear;
"They'd been carzed to..." (There is no word "carzed" though.)

Terrible. My listening skill is really terrible.

It's impossible to suffer from insomnia.

Recently, I have a trouble to fall asleep, although I'm sleepy. Why?

When I'm too tired from terriblly busy work, I sometimes get into such a situation, but I'm neither busy nor tired now. Besides, as I often wrote on this blog, I primarily love sleep and in fact I really can sleep even all day.

It's after 3 o'clock at the midnight now...

Japanese language spoken in the drama "HEROES"

In the U.S. drama "HEROES", there are two Japanese, Hiro and his co-worker Ando. Hiro speaks Japanese well, although every Japanese people can know from his accent that he is not a Japanese.
But I can't understand well what Ando says. Why don't the filmmakers choose an actor that can speak decent Japanese for the part of a Japanese?

By the way, I wonder why Japanese subtitle is often different from what they speak.

Barack Obama

Obama declared victory in the contest for the party's nomination the other day. I feel contented with this result. I　don't mean I supported him. I was just feeling disapproval of Clinton. (I like Mr. Clinton, though.)

At the same time, Obama was selected as one of the healthiest 25 people in the U.S. magazine of fitness or something. I don't think he looks healthy so much. Hmm... there are so many unhealthy people in the U.S.

The contest for the party's nomination was really warming up. Then, Can Obama win against McCain?

"to ---" vs. "--ing" In case of "NEED"

I didn't know there is a "need --ing" pattern.

What I learned is;

"The batteries in the radio need to be changed."

"Need --ing" can be used instead of "need be done".

"The batteries in the radio need changing."

Another example sentence is;

"This room needs redecorating. (= to be redecorated)"

I saw "need --ing" pattern for the first time. I wonder if native speakers use this pattern often.

My room needs arranging as soon as possible.

Gerunds or To-infinitives

After English verbs, there are cases that gerunds or To-infinitives follow those. Depending on verbs, some verbs have to be followed only by gerunds and some verbs have to be followed only by To-infinitives. It's difficult.

More difficult thing is...
Some verbs can be followed by both gerunds and To-infinitives but in case of some of them, the meanings are different.

For example, "try".
I had thought that "try" was the verb followed by To-infinitives but I found it could be followed by both. But! the meanings between "try to ---" and "try --ing" are different. The similar things apply to other verbs...

If I mistake to choose gerund or To-infinitive, (and I think it is often the case), it would be at risk for making somebody misunderstand by what I don't intend to say. Dangerous. Very dangerous. Especially on business.

Movie: The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The movie "The Chronicles of Narnia - Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia" will be released soon, so before that, there was "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" on TV.

As well as movies like "Lord of the Rings" and "Harry Potter", it seemed that a lot of money was used for making this movie. But the story was very simple. I think adults can enjoy "Lord of the Rings" but "The Chronicles of Narnia" is just for children.

I wonder if it is the difference of tastes.

Book: The Dalai Lama, FREEDOM IN EXILE

This book is an autobiography of the 14th Dalai Lama.

While I read this book, I had an impression that he was not something special, but just an ordinary person, like us. He sometimes gets angry, is sometimes excited at something interesting and sometimes feels depressed. There is no difference from us.

What prompted me to start having interest in Tibetan Buddhism was one TV program about Tibet.
In the program, many Tibetan appeared and their characters were... how can I say... very impressed. I wondered why their characters were so excellent, wonderful, great... I don't know an appropriate expression. Then I guessed that it was due to Tibetan Buddhism. That's why I had interest in Tibetan Buddhism.

Before reading this book, I read another book in connection with the 14th Dalai Lama. It was what he talked in his lecture when he came to Japan. I felt he (his speech) was something special. (And some of those were a bit difficult to understand.) Especially he talked about love and benevolence. I thought his mind transcended usual human mind. But what he talked was from Tibetan Buddhism doctrine. I found it from his autobiography that the Dalai Lama himself was just one ordinary person. I'm more and more interested in Tibetan Buddhism.

By the way, there was the following sentence in the book;
"I wished China behaved as civilized people when......"

I've also always thought the current China is far from a civilized country. So I really feel it strange that the IOC chose China as a host country. So now, a pile of problems came out.

Idiom "be supposed to"

This idiom seems to be used often. I often hear it in English conversation. But I couldn't understand its meaning enough even if I checked a dictionary.

Thanks to Murphy book, finally I somewhat started to grasp the meaning. So when I heard the idiom in a drama the other day, I was really happy to be able to understand it! But it will take me some time to be able to use it in my conversation.

If I want to put an article on my blog in the daytime of weekday, I have to do it by sending the article through my cell phone, because we are not supposed to use the Internet for private purposes in most office.

A word "memory"

"She has a good memory for names."

At first, I thought she has a kind of good experience or affairs about her name, somebody praised her name or something. (I missed the plural form of name.)
So I thought it was a bit strange example sentence. But...

The meaning of the sentence was that she is good at remembering names.

Oh, I've learned the idiom "have a good (bad/poor) memory for" before. At that time, I wondered how I could distinguish meaning of memory between "ability of remember" and "good or bad affairs in the past". I might have written about that on this blog.
Then I thought the same thing again in this time.

I have a really poor memory for English learning.

My sleep addiction

Woo... I went to back to laziness. My decent life lasted just one day.

Self-hated.

Is it impossible for me to overcome temptation of sleep?

Full day!

For a very lazy person, I spent a sort of massive (full?) day today. Good good.

I should go on it. I will try not to go back to usual too lazy Sand tomorrow.
First of all, get up at fixed time!
It is the worst difficulties for me who LOVE to sleep.

I hope to be able to write a good result here at the end of tomorrow.

Backache

I have a backache for a while and it isn't getting better.
I have to be very careful with my back.

New knowledge

I'm learning new things from my new English grammar book "Murphy book".

I also found several my misunderstandings. For example;

"I'm going to" and "I will"
"Could" and "was able to"
I had thought those two words were completely the same meaning.

Thanks to Murphy book, I understood the differences but I need time to think before I speak...

Will, would, can, could, shall, should etc... How to use auxiliary verbs is one of difficult parts of English for me.

I was losing my wallet again.

I left my wallet in the bath room of a restaurant AGAIN! It is really stupid of me!!

The wallet was back to me safely as well as the last time. Money, cards, driver's license, everything remained in the wallet.

At this point, I can't help giving thanks to such a good country Japan!

Japanese like "corner".

I'm in a restaurant now. I'm sitting on the right side table. The left and the middle tables were vacant. A man came and sat in the middle table!! Why?!?!

It might not be strange in other countries and for non-Japanese but it's quite strange for us Japanese.

Japanese tend to avoid sitting beside an unacquainted person. If ONLY the middle table is vacant, everyone sits in it of course. But both the left and the middle tables were vacant, in this case, almost ALL Japanese sit in the left table. The same applies to sheets in the train.
That's why I felt it strange.

Besides, he is a suspicious action. He is talking to himself and sometimes looking at me. I'm a bit scared.

By the way, if every table were vacant? Japanese also sit in the side (corner?) table. The same is also true of sheets in the train, benches in parks and so on.

Japanese seem to prefer corner. In fact it's more comfortable than sitting in the middle place.

Big earthquake in China

There was an earthquake of magnitude 7.XX (I forgot...) in China. It caused extensive damage. It's really terrible.

Chinese medias report the scenes Wen JiaBao visits disaster areas, or someone is recued. They never report real terrible damage. It's "the China". China uses even such a terrible situations for politics. Horrible.

China declined some offers of help from foreign countries. It is said that one of reasons is China wants to avoid that their imperfections of infrastructure etc come out.

I remembered one Chinese person's word. He said that China was the country which didn't value human lives. I was very impressed because it was said by a Chinese himself.

Dalai Lama said in his book that human lives were made light of for China because of its huge population.

Movie: THE CHAMP

I watched very very old and famous movie, "THE CHAMP". In spite of very famous movie, I had never watched it. Of course I had known it well and had heard about it well, about the genius child actor, too.

But I was really impressed with his acting. I was crying crying. What a great actor he was!
Actually I recorded it just for English learning. It was really good to record and watch it. I watched it twice in a row.

Probably he is in his 30's now. I wonder if he is still active in the front line.

Incomprehensive Japanese

I like toddlers very much and I have some favorite toddler's blog sites. One of them is written in French. So I always have the site translated using Google language tool.

Until now, there was no translation from French to Japanese so I had used French-English translation, but Google language tool seems to have been updated. I found French-Japanese translation the other day.

I tried it. Hmm... It seems that I might as well use French-English. I completely can't understand Japanese which Google language tool translated. I have known that every Internet translation system translates into Japanese very oddly. You can say it's not Japanese. haha.
Very easy example is...
There was a French sentence which means "I played piano".
A sentence translated into English means;
"I made piano".
I can understand.
A sentence translated into Japanese means;
"I am piano". What??

I know, I know. Grammar of Japanese language, especially word order, is much different from English, French, German, Italian... (Japanese and Korean are the same.) So I can understand that there is limitation to translate from those languages into Japanese.
I just want to read my favorite site in my language...

Arranging my room #2

As I wrote, my room is empty. Things which there are in my room are;
My favorite picture of Greece, a mini sansevieria which I have already introduced on this blog and a note PC.

I am enjoying this TOO simple life so far. But I need a desk. At the moment, I use a desk in the library standing diagonally opposite. haha.

I am trying to be in a flood of English.

On TV, I'm trying watch nothing but the programs in English. When I watch TV news, I hear them in English. And I am recording TV programs which are broadcasted in English, such as dramas, movies and so on, one after another.
For example;
CSI New York, Alias, HEROES, Re:Genesis, Sponge Bob, Nature Dramatic (I don't know its correct title in English), Desperate Wives (I don't know its correct title too.), CBS Documentary and so on.

Many kind of genres. It doesn't matter if I'm interested in or not. It's the point that it's broadcasted in English.

But it's difficult to understand them perfectly. Depending on the programs, I can't understand AT ALL. But If I'm interested in a program, I want to understand it perfectly, such as HEROES. In that case, I watch them in English at first, then watch in Japanese or with Japanese subtitles, and then I watch them in English again. It's good for studying English.
But of course, it takes me a lot of time, so it is not mandatory activities. When I turn on the TV, I watch them.

The programs which I can't understand English are crime dramas, such as CSI and Alias. Unexpectedly, English in Desperate Wives is easy to understand. Actually I can't understand well English in Sponge Bob, because voices of characters are not normal. Too high or too low? Anyway, abnormal. So I also can't understand Sesame Street. I respect toddlers.

By the way, foreign dramas broadcasted in Japan are just from the U.S. and Korea. How about other countries ones?

Gas leak alarm

Yesterday, a person from a gas company came to my place to set up a gas leak alarm.

Its alarm is,
In case gas leak;
Woo---! Woo---! Pippippippi! Isn't gas leaking?

In case imperfect combustion occurs (CO is increasing);
Woo---! Woo---! Pippo Pippo! The air is foul and it's dangerous. Open the window to ventilate.

Very big noise. I live by myself so there is no person in the room in the most time. If it alarms while I am out, I wonder if it continues to alarm with such big noise.

What's wrong forwith my watch?

I looked at my watch to check the time and it was 4:30 pm.
Today is a national holiday so the library closes at 5. 30 minutes to go. I thought I would go to the library to return a book and check another book.

Then I got to there but it was closed. Why??

I asked a custodian if the library was closed today. He said it closed at 5 because of national holiday.
??? But it's still 4:30...
I asked him again what time it was now. He answered "6:10".

What?!?!

I couldn't understand for a while what happened.

My watch is run out of battery? No, it works. Low battery? No. Its second hand would move by two seconds to notify low battery. It is moving by a second.

It broke down? No---! It's my favorite. I have been using it about 15 years.
It's TAG HEUER so it should be very strong. When I bought it, a shop staff said, "TAG HEUER watches are very strong. Even if an owner (me!) died, this watch could survive". I don't think he spoke a good similitude but he is right.

I adjusted my watch to correct time. It's 7:47 pm now. It is working correctly so far.
I hope there is no problem to my watch.

Arranging my room #1

As I wrote before, I threw electrical appliances away on the occasion of the moving. I have thrown away not only them but also furniture.

I need to buy electrical appliances as soon as possible but I won't buy furniture hastily. I want to choose them carefully. I won't buy until I find favorite ones.

I've already gone to some furniture and housewares shops. But don't be in a hurry. It's a bit inconvenient that there is no furniture but it's OK. I will enjoy looking for favorite furniture and the process until my place becomes perfect.

I started watching "HEROES".

I started watching American popular TV drama "HEROES".

One of Heroes is a Japanese whose name is Hiro, so there were some scenes in Japan. Some of them were unnatural.

He teleported himself from on the Japan's subway to the US. But it was easy to find that was not Japan's subway. There isn't such a train in Japan. I'm sure that's the subway of New York. So I felt that he teleported from America to America.

Another is the scene that he stared the clock.
Numbers of the clock were Chinese numeral! I have never seen such a clock!!

By the way, my favorite character in HEROES is the policeman so far.