English Recordings

“So, this button is Play. No, that’s Stop!” I was explaining to Grandma how to use the new video. “Well, I must go now. I’ll come back tomorrow.” When I got home, I told Simon about Grandma. He said, “I myself explained it to Grandma three times, but she still didn’t understand.”

The next day I visited Grandma again. She was watching a movie. “How did you do that, Grandma?” I asked. “A nice young man next door helped me,” Grandma answered. “You don’t have to visit me everyday because I can ask the young man for help.” As I was leaving, I saw the young man next door. His hair was long, and his jeans were full of holes. Back home, I said to Simon, “I’m worried because the man may do bad things to Grandma.”

A few days later, I went back to Grandma’s. There were tulips on Grandma’s TV. She said proudly, “ The young man brought them for me.” I thought for a while and asked, “You don’t give him money, do you?” She said, “I gave him a few pence for helping me with the video. I’m going to give him a present if he gets a haircut. He wants a car!” “A car?” I said in surprise. “Why don’t you meet him? The young man will come at six to watch a movie,” Grandma said.

I ran home and told Simon about everything. “I can’t believe it. How can he get money for helping Grandma with the video? Easy money!” said Simon.

At six, Simon and I arrived at Grandma’s. “Come in and meet the young man, Daniel,” Grandma said, happily. There was a young man in front of the TV. He was in jeans and had short hair. His two front teeth were missing. He looked about seven. Grandma said, “Daniel lives with his dad, and I watch him while his dad is at work.”

At that instant, Daniel took out a cute red car from his pocket. Simon and I laughed and laughed. “It was only 50 pence at the store, and his dad pays me two pounds an hour for looking after him. EASY MONEY!” Grandma said.

I was close to being late this morning for class, but traffic was better than most days. Although, there was this one driver that was making me nervous since they kept drifting out of their lane and getting back in it without warning. I was literally afraid of getting next to them while I was driving due to how they kept on drifting like that. Luckily they weren't going the same way I was, so the rest of the drive was more peaceful.
When I got to school, I went ahead and started the computer up and chatted with one of my friends in class. She was close to falling asleep due to her weekend, so I showed her where the vending machine was since she mostly stayed in the classroom to do her work. We had an interesting conversation about her religion and I was able to learn the difference between the two groups of Mormons and hear how the actual Mormons are since she was part of the true Mormon group. The way that she was taught made a lot more sense than what I would hear from other religions that I know of. Of course this doesn't mean that I will become a Mormon straight away because I want to study religions before I make my choice of what I want to believe in. I did some of my work, due to how I was getting into the conversation and she worked on hers. Her project looks amazing and I just got to work a couple of details out on mine before I attach it to a body.

When I got home the first living thing that came to me was our family cat, Coco. Despite having been feed the first thing she does, as I am trying to fix my lunch and getting ready to do my laundry, is to ask for her snacks. She tries so hard to trick somebody and she does succeed at times, but ever since we came back from the lake two or three weeks ago she has been asking for a lot of food lately. My little sister stayed and feed her so I really don't know why she does that. When she wasn't whining for food, she comes and sits on my bag or on my legs if I was laying down. Then she stayed quiet until I went downstairs to get my clothes out of the dryer and she begins to meow again. Except this time it was time to actually give her dinner. She wouldn't stop trying to act cute as I was trying to let her food thaw out and trying to get my clothes upstairs. I can't help by laugh at how Coco would meow like crazy when food was coming or when she wants to play.
After I feed her, she was quiet for the rest of the day until my mama and stepdad came home and she whined as if she hasn't been feed. She never got her way, but it begins to drive my mama crazy when she meows constantly wanting more food. Even going into the kitchen has her looking at somebody as if they are supposed to give her food at that second. Coco is surely a glutton, but probably not as much as I am when it comes to food. Although, my body stays more of the same while she only gets a little fat. Even if it is my metabolism, I am should still get into the habit of exorcising on certain days of the week.
いいね!

I'm 178 centimeters tall, and I weigh about 76 kilograms.

Recently, I was practicing judo.
Judo is a martial art that was made in Japan.
Judo is also one of the favorite sports of Vladimir Putin, Russia's prime minister.
This amazing and elegant martial art, judo, was what I was practicing.
Judo improves the mind and body.("mind and body" = "brain and flesh", in a "metaphorical" way.)
For example, although I used to fight all the time when I was younger, when I took up judo, I started protecting people instead.("Conversely" never goes at the end of a sentence. Also, it is a little formal here.

A: She's a baker. Conversely, she's also a scientist.
B: Though James is running for president, conversely, he's also running for mayor.

Conversely always goes between the "two complete ideas". It is a "joining word.")
Furthermore, judo allows you to protect yourself if you are ever in grave danger.
When you consider all of that, I think it stands to reason that judo is a wonderful martial art.

Winnie under the sea
It’s summertime for Winnie the Witch and her big black cat, Wilbur
“Where do you want to go for a holiday, Wilbur?”
Winnie finds a little island with blue sea, golden sand and coconut trees.
The blue sea is full of beautiful fish.
“they look lovely”
“They look delicious”
Winnie takes her suitcase, Wilbur jumps onto her shoulder and off they zoom into the sky on Winnie’s broomstick
Look! here’s the island. It looks lovely!
Winnie and Wilbur land on the beach and they find a lovely hut
Winnie puts on her flippers and her goggles and she dives into the water.
Wilbur climbs a coconut tree and he has a sleep.
Winnie is having fun in the sea. The sea is full of fish. There are dolphins, there are sea turtles, there’s coral. It’s beautiful.
Winnie wants Wilbur to see it, too!
“Look Wilbur! Come and see the fish! You’ll love them!”
Wilbur wants to see the fish but he hates getting wet, he hates water!
Then, Winnie has a great idea, she waves her magic wand five times and shouts “abracadabra”
and Wilbur is no longer a cat! He’s a cat-fish!
Wilbur, the cat fish dives into the water and swims with the fish.
He ‘s having fun playing with the fish!
Winnie wants to be a fish, too! But she can’t be a fish! she needs to hold her magic wand. What can she be?
She has a great idea. She waves her magic wand five times and shouts “abracadabra!”
and she is an octopus! an octopus with orange and yellow legs, holding a magic wand!
It’s fun being an octopus. Winnie the octopus waves her eight legs and floats in the seaweed, around the coral, over the rocks!
There are a lot of fish swimming with them : tiny fish, big fish, clown fish, swordfish, jellyfish …..and, suddenly…..a sea lion.
The sea lion flips its tail and Winnie loses her wand! Down and down it goes….into the wreck of a pirate ship.
“Where is my wand? “
“Have you seen my wand?”
Help me find my wand, please!
Winnie and Wilbur don’t want to stay under the sea for ever. Winnie wants to be a witch again and Wilbur wants to be a cat again!
Where is Winnie’s magic wand?
Is it stuck in the anchor? NO
Is it under the ropes? No,
is it behind the big crab? No
Is it in the shell of the hermit crab? No,
Is it in the coral? No
is it in the sand? No,
is it in a sea anemone? No,
Is it in the shark’s tummy? No
Is it in the treasure chest? YES!
Winnie grabs her magic wand, waves it five times and shouts “abracadabra!”
and a witch and a big black cat float back to the beach
“What an amazing adventure, Wilbur! It is really beautiful under the sea!”
Then, Winnie has a great idea. There is a little yellow boat on the sea. Winnie waves her magic wand five times and shouts “abracadabra!” and there, on the sea, there is a yellow submarine
Look at Winnie and Wilbur! They’re in the submarine and they can now see the sea and the fish in their submarine. “It’s lovely and dry here!” Wilbur says

Plot
Eveline is a nineteen- year-old girl, who lives with a drunken, violent father and a younger brother and sister in a modest house in Dublin. Her life is spent in dusting and cleaning the house and taking care of her family, since her mother has died some years before. She also works as a shop assistant at the Stores, but she gives all the money she earns to her father and every time she has to do the shopping for her family, there is a quarrel about it. At the Stores too, she is ill-treated and exploited by her superior. She has got a boyfriend, Frank, who has asked her to follow him to Buenos Aires, where he has got a house and where he wants to marry her. She is tired of her sordid routine and she has decided to escape with Frank. He has already bought the tickets for the passage to Buenos Aires and that next day they are leaving together.
The first part of the story is set in Eveline’s living-room and describes Eveline’s thoughts the night before the escape. She is torn between desire to escape her hard life and duty, between the need of freedom and adventure and the attachment to her home and her shabby, but well-known life. The key point, the epiphany of the story, is the sound of a street organ: it reminds her of the night that her mother died (also in that night they had heard an organ player in the street and her father had cursed at him and all foreigners and had paid him to move off). The sound of the street organ reminds her to the promise she had made to her mother to ‘keep the home together as long as she could’ . At the same moment she realizes that she is doomed to live ‘a life of commonplace sacrifices closing in final craziness’, like her mother. This epiphany gives her the courage to leave the house and meet Frank at the port, to pursue her ‘right to happiness’.
But at the end, she is unable to act: when she is on the quayside, she is like paralysed and is not able to get on board of the ship (‘All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart’). She is overwhelmed by all her fears, she is passive (like a ‘helpless animal’), resigned, frightened by any change. The father’s house is dusty, but it is known, safe. She gives up her chance of happiness because she realizes that her life is in Dublin- Her affection to Frank turns out to be a very weak and superficial feeling, compared to family ties and duty.

Way down deep in the deep blue sea...I spy......
I spy a seahorse going to school
I spy a hermit crab hiding in his shell
I spy a starfish under the sand
I spy sea turtles walking on the beach
I spy an octopus waving at me
I spy a dugong eating seaweed
I spy sea anemones attacking a crab
I spy dolphins jumping out of the sea
I spy a swordfish playing with a seahorse
I spy a huge whale swimming by my boat
I spy a pirate boat on the bottom of the sea
I spy a treasure box and lots of gold coins
I spy a terrifying shark chasing terrified fishies
I spy Mama waiting for me

slight inexactitude
to rebuff or to repulse White’s attack
disconcerting move
to be tethered to the kingside
lofty rating
to extricate one’s king from the corner
copious sacrifices
to resuscitate one’s old defensive skills
tactical acumen
odds game
till the print wore off the books
to plop a knight on e7
opening joust
to press home an advantage
to net a pawn
to make good inroads against White’s king position
tactical mêlées
no-holds-barred attacking play
to saunter back to the board
first fumbling steps
a little flub
to crack open a tactics book
insipid play
to discombobulate White’s development
under the rigours of a practical game
to cram opening variations
impudent idea

(June 30, 2013) I visited my parents yesterday afternoon.I hadn't seen them for a long time.My sister's family came too.My mom made dinner for us.So we ate doenjang stew that my mom made and vegetables that my parents grew in the yard for dinner.Even though they are not expensive foods, we could feel that they were filled with my mom's love.My mom always makes delicious doenjang stew .I am really really thankful for my mom and father's love!My parents are old, however they are healthy.I hope my father and mother can live a long and healthy life!
Picture 1: The dinner with doenjang stew that my mom made, and vegetables that my parents had grown.
Picture 2: The vegetables that my mom and father are planting in their garden.

1. John's been stringing Mary along for years.
2. The doctor was found guilty and stripped of his medical license.
3. He stumbled over the words when he read his speech.
4. He stumbled on the notebooks in a yard sale.
5. What magazines do you subscribe to?
6. He's always sucking up to her boss.
7. He had to sweat it out until the other workers arrived.
8. More and more people are switching over to Internet banking.
9. He shut himself away in his office.
10. Many of the working poor are being shut out of the health care system.
11. He can shut out the rest of the world when he's working.
12. The Blue Jays shut out the Phillies 3–0.
13. Mr. Miles spoke on behalf of all the parents at the school.
14. People speaking out against human rights abuses.
15. Mom, can I sleep over at Ann's tonight?
16. How could you have slept through the earthquake?
17. Everyone knows he's sleeping with Diana.
18. Let's sleep in tomorrow morning - we won't have another chance for weeks.
19. Were I a man I could sleep around the way I want.
20. My Dad signed over his shares to me.
21. Both sides signed off on the agreement.
22. I'll sign off now, but will write again next week.
23. Several guys signed on as volunteers.
24. Could you sign this paper out, please?
25. I'll sign both of us out.
26. Please type the password and sign in.
27. Sign for a parcel, please.
28. I scrounged around for Ann, but she was nowhere to be found.
29. Johnny set himself about improving his Spanish before a trip.
30. The civil war set brother against brother.
31. The movie's realistic characters set it apart from other gangster pictures.
32. They should set politics aside and do what is best for the country.
33. It set me back a fortune!
34. The rules of the game were clearly set down.
35. Winter's setting in early this year.
36. Call the doctor's office and set up an appointment.
37. Hudson accused his partners of setting him up.
38. Please stick around for a while.
39. My wife has always stuck by me.
40. Don't stick your tongue out at me!

The Guards are members of the British Army. They protect the Queen. They guard Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
Every day the guards on duty at Buckingham Palace change at 11.30 a.m. The ceremony is called "the Changing of the Guard". It is very popular with tourists.
The Guards are on duty at their post for two hours. They mustn't move, talk or laugh !