The ceremony for the draw is being held. It's too long and unnecessary! There is always such a
I wish the draw started soon.
----------
3:10am
The draw has already started.
The opening game will be South Africa vs. Mexco.
----------
3:30am
Finally, the draw was finished.
Here is the result.
I think England and Denmark, which I root for, can advance to stage 2. Goody!
188 days to go until the World Cup!
4 comments:
Looks like we have England first round. I am postponing our friendship until after the game.
At least we are not in group G though. . .
Yes! But I think both of them can advance to the stage 2. (^.^)
Group G is... horrible.
Thank you for your comment!
Hello Sand.
How did I arrive here? This is the story:
Blogger/Blogspot recently made a change to their system. At the top of each blog is a "Next Blog" link. If you click it, it takes you to another random blog. Well, now it is not so random; it takes you to another random blog talking about similar subjects (English and language learning, in your case). I arrived at your blog in three hops from the blog of Professor David Crystal who is a well known British linguist and the author of many books about the English language. I read his blog regularly.
I have read some of your past postings, and it is interesting to hear about your experiences learning English. You have asked for advice, and to have any strange English pointed out, so I will do that. I am a native English speaker (an Englishman living in England) so I can certainly write about British English.
I noticed three things that I would like to comment on. I will always give the reasons and explanations for my corrections and suggestions.
The first one is the subtitle of your blog, "One Japanese struggle against learning English". It is clear that you want to learn English and you are determined to improve, but it is a struggle. The phrase "struggle against learning English" has a different meaning. It means that you are reluctant to learn and you try to avoid studying. For example, imagine a schoolgirl who doesn't want to learn English, but her parents say it is very important for her to learn, and they arrange extra classes for her. She will "struggle against learning English"; she will try to avoid going to the extra classes and she will pretend to be ill so she doesn't have to do the homework.
The correct phrase for your blog subtitle is "...struggle with learning English".
The second comment is about your profile. It is perfect English except for one word: "everyday". This should be two words: "every day". It is a very common mistake, often made by native English speakers too, and you will frequently see it wrongly written as one word. There is a word "everyday", but it should only be used as an adjective to describe something that is so normal and common that we see it every day. For example: "Now the economy is bad and there is a recession, it is an everyday sight to see beggars on the streets" or someone says to you "Those are nice shoes!" and you reply "Oh, they are nothing special. They are my everyday shoes" (meaning that you wear them most of the time).
When talking about something happening daily or something you do daily, then you should write, for example, "I'm studying English every day..."
The third comment is about a word in the latest posting "The draw for the 2010 FIFA World Cup". The word is "excrescent". It is a very unusual and rarely used word. In fact, I didn't know the meaning and had to look it up in the dictionary. I guess you also looked it up, in a Japanese-English dictionary. It seems to express exactly the meaning you wanted, but my advice is to use a more common word. The problem with dictionaries is that they only tell you the meanings of words, but not how to use them, or which is the best word from a choice of several synonyms.
My recommendation is the word "superfluous". It has the same meaning, but is more common and has an extra benefit: alliteration. Your phrase becomes "...such a superfluous sideshow." Three words beginning with "s" (actually four, if you think of "sideshow" as a combination of two words). It sounds quite good to me. Well, you are not trying to write poetry or beautiful literature, but, by luck, you can create that nice little phrase.
I hope these comments are helpful, and that I haven't given you too much to read!
I look forward to reading more of your blog in the future.
Tim
Tim,
Thank you very much for visiting my blog and giving the useful advice. I modified them right away.
I didn't know "struggle against" has such a meaning and thought that it was the same as "struggle with."
Yes, I looked up the word "excrescent" in a dictionary. I couldn't find an appropriate word, then I chose it. "Superfluous" is a new word for me. It's good to know. Yes, it's 3S (4S). (^.^)
"Everyday" and "every day." I'm often confused. "Some time" and "sometime" too.
I really appreciate your detailed explanation.
Thank you very much!
Post a Comment