English Recordings

Hi, everyone, how are you? How have you been today?
I found an internet site, it`s a place of learning Enlish in/(use?)Chinese.
So, I would like to introduce it to Chinese friend who is learning English.
I think it`s very helpful/(useful) for/(with? /to? )person who is learning English and Chinese at the same time, as looks like me.
I hope it will be a help to you(Chinese firends who is learning English ).
** Have a good dream!**
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(2010.10.3)안녕하세요?
오늘 하루 어떻게 보내셨어요?
제가 인터넷 싸이트를 하나 알았는데, 중국어를 영어로 배우는 곳이예요.
영어를 배우는 중국 친구들에게 이곳을 알려 주고 싶었어요.
제 생각에는 꽤 괜찮은 곳 같아요.
더군다나 나처럼 영어와 중국어를 함께 배우는 입장에서는 아주 효과적인 것 같아요.
여러분에게도 많은 도움 되기를 바랍니다.(영어를 배우는 중국 친구들에게)
**안녕히 주무세요.**
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你好！　你今天一天过得怎么样？
我看到／发现了一网站，是用汉语来学英语的地方。
我想给学英语的中国朋友们介绍这个网站。
我觉得还可以。
尤其对像我这样同时学汉语和英语的人来说非常不错的／（有用的）地方。
希望对你们也有帮助。

　　＊＊祝 好梦＊＊
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==<dictioanry / example sentences> =

• 차 한잔 어떻습니까?
How do you like tea? or May I offer you a cup of tea?

• 거기에 가는 것은 어떻습니까?
What do you say to our going there?

• 어떻습니까, 산책이나 할까요?
What do you say to a walk? or How about going for a walk?

• 이 약을 마셔 보는 것이 어떻겠습니까?
What do you say to trying this medicine?
or
What[How] about trying this medicine?
or
Suppose you try this medicine?
or
Why don´t you try this medicine?

• 잠깐 쉬는 게 어때요?
How[What] about taking a break?

• 나와 저녁 식사 같이 하는 게 어때요?
Won´t you join me for dinner?
or
What do you think of having dinner with me?

Voldemort summons the Death Eaters and reveals that a servant of his at Hogwarts ensured that Harry would participate in the tournament, win it, and thus be brought to the graveyard. Harry tries to disarm Voldemort with the Expelliarmus spell at exactly the same time that Voldemort uses the Killing Curse. Since the wands are twins, the two spells meet and interlock, causing a bond between the wands that displays the "echoes" of Voldemort's most recent victims, including Cedric, James Potter, and Lily Potter. The echoes provide protection to Harry, allowing him to escape with Cedric's body and leave Voldemort behind in a rage.

Harry, carrying Cedric's body, returns to the school grounds. Moody rushes Harry to his office, where he reveals that he was Voldemort's servant and attempts to kill Harry himself. Moody is stopped by Dumbledore, Severus Snape, and Minerva McGonagall. Dumbledore feeds Moody Veritaserum, and they discover that "Moody" is actually Barty Crouch, Jr., who was smuggled out of Azkaban and was using a Polyjuice Potion to impersonate the real Alastor Moody. Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, arrives at Hogwarts but refuses to believe Dumbledore's and Harry's word that Voldemort is back.

Harry is crowned Triwizard Champion and awarded with 1,000 galleons. Days later, Dumbledore makes an announcement at the gloomy Leaving Feast, telling everybody about Voldemort. While leaving the Hogwarts Express on King's Cross Station, Harry gives his winnings to Fred and George so they can start a joke shop.

One night, Harry and Krum are startled when a dishevelled Barty Crouch, Sr. emerges from the forest, mumbling nonsense and demanding to see Dumbledore. Harry runs for help, but when he returns with Dumbledore, they find Krum unconscious and Crouch missing. Harry learns more about the Crouches when he sees one of Dumbledore's memories in the Pensieve, a memory-storing tool. The memory shows Barty Crouch, Jr., a Death Eater, sentenced to Azkaban by his father for helping Bellatrix Lestrange torture Frank and Alice Longbottom, Neville's parents, into insanity.

The third and final tournament task involves navigating a labyrinth filled with magical obstacles. Harry and Cedric successfully help each other navigate the maze. They reach the Triwizard cup and agree to take hold of it simultaneously, making both of them winners. The Cup turns out to be a portkey that transports them to an old graveyard in Little Hangleton, where they see Pettigrew and a deformed Lord Voldemort. Pettigrew kills Cedric and ties Harry to the Riddle tombstone. He then uses a bone from Voldemort's father's grave, some of Harry's blood, and his own cut-off hand in a magical ritual that restores Lord Voldemort to a new body.

The new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor is Alastor "Mad-Eye" Moody, a former Auror and Dumbledore's friend. In class, he illegally talks about and demonstrates the three Unforgivable Curses: the Imperius Curse, which forces the victim to do the caster's bidding; the Cruciatus Curse, a spell that tortures its victim; and the Killing Curse, Avada Kedavra. Harry learns he is the only known person to have survived the Killing Curse, cast against him by Voldemort when he was a baby.

In the first of the three tasks of the Triwizard Tournament, the champions are to collect a golden egg guarded by a dragon. Harry completes the task with hints from Rubeus Hagrid and Moody. Following the first task, Ron and Harry mend their broken friendship. The second task requires retrieving something important that was taken from each champion and hidden in the Hogwarts lake. Ten minutes before the task, Harry is given gillyweed by Dobby so he can breathe underwater. Harry finds the four "important objects" of the tournament's contestants: Ron, Hermione, Cho Chang, and Fleur’s little sister, Gabrielle Delacour. He is forced to rescue Gabrielle along with Ron when Fleur does not come, so he loses the challenge but gains points for 'moral fibre.'

The book opens with Harry Potter having a dream about Frank Bryce, the ex-caretaker at the Riddle family mansion, who is caught eavesdropping on a deformed Lord Voldemort and his servant, Peter Pettigrew. In Harry's dream, Bryce is killed by Voldemort. Later in the summer, Harry, Hermione Granger, and the Weasley family take a trip to the Quidditch World Cup. While there, Death Eaters, Voldemort's servants, storm the grounds, harass some muggles, and run away when they see the Dark Mark in the sky.

Albus Dumbledore announces during the welcoming feast that the school will host the Triwizard Tournament, an inter-school competition. One student from each of three magical schools will be chosen by the Goblet of Fire to compete. The other two magical institutions, Beauxbatons Academy, and Durmstrang Institute, arrive at Hogwarts two months into the school term. The champions chosen by the goblet were Fleur Delacour from Beauxbatons, Viktor Krum of Durmstrang, and Cedric Diggory of Hogwarts. Mysteriously, Harry is also chosen, even though he did not submit his name. Ron Weasley is instantly infuriated, thinking Harry submitted himself, and their friendship suffers.

Throughout the three previous novels in the Harry Potter series, the main character, Harry Potter, has struggled with the difficulties that come with growing up and the added challenge of being a famous wizard. When Harry was a baby, Voldemort, the most powerful Dark wizard in history, killed Harry's parents but mysteriously vanished after unsuccessfully trying to kill Harry. This results in Harry's immediate fame and his being placed in the care of his muggle, or non-magical, Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon, who have a son named Dudley Dursley.

Harry enters the wizarding world at the age of 10, enrolling in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He makes friends with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger and is confronted by Lord Voldemort trying to regain power. In Harry's first year he has to protect the Sorcerer's Stone from Voldemort and one of his faithful followers in Hogwarts. After returning to the school after summer break, students at Hogwarts are attacked after the legendary "Chamber of Secrets" is opened. Harry ends the attacks by killing a Basilisk and defeating another attempt by Lord Voldemort to return to full strength. The following year, Harry hears that he has been targeted by escaped murderer Sirius Black. Despite stringent security measures at Hogwarts, Harry is confronted by Black at the end of his third year of schooling, and Harry learns that Black was framed and is actually Harry's godfather. He also learned that it was Sirius and James Potter's friend Wormtail who actually betrayed his parents.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is the fourth novel in the Harry Potter series written by J. K. Rowling, published on 8 July 2000. The book attracted additional attention because of a pre-publication warning from J. K. Rowling that one of the characters would be murdered in the book. 3 million copies of the book were sold over the first weekend in the US alone.

The novel won a Hugo Award in 2001; it was the only Harry Potter novel to do so. The book was made into a film, which was released worldwide on 18 November 2005.

@"Your Japanese is Good!"

Yesterday, I read an interesting article in the Japan Times；its author, Mark Schreiber, has been working in Japan for 20 years.

He mentioned some flattering sounding phrases told by Japanese people.

There is a phrase, "Nihongo ga ojozu desu ne", meaning "Your Japanese is good" (in English), which people have been saying to him for years.

He says in the article, "It took me a while to realize that such a remark was probably never really intended as a compliment in the first place. Rather, it should be taken as encouragement, meaning something akin to "Wow!, I actually understood what you just said."

Well, I personally would not say this, unless I am really impressed by someone's Japanese. However, I guess this is generally true.

He chose to use this phrase as an example. Does it mean that the phrase "Your English is good" is used in a different situation in the West?

Actually, I am not very comfortable at hearing "Your English is good" because I know it is not true. I just blush, and feel embarrassed. Unfortunately, I can't take it with genuine pleasure because I still think of it the Japanese way. It is often just an encouragement, not a compliment in Japan, just as the author says.

However, if the phrase "Your English is good" is used by westerners in a way that is different way from what I imagine, I should take it as an honest compliment, right?

Would you say "Your English is good" to non-native English speakers of just like Japanese people say to non-native Japanese speakers? In what kind of situation would you say it?

I am very curious.

Where has the male-dominated society gone in Japan?

Lots of young men are becoming herbivores!: This is what has been reported in the media more and more these days, which means that they are becoming more passive.

It's said that Japen's twenty- and thirty-something males are disinterested in careers and are apathetic about the rituals of dating, sex and marriage! （^^；）

What is happening to them?

A columnist, Maki Fukasawa, coined the term "soshoku-danshi", which is literally translated as "herbivorous male" and it's become one of the cultural buzzwords in Japan today.

Those grass-eaters seem to want to live with their moms, which is the coziest place, and spend too much time on clothing and cosmetics.

The number of young men in ballet schools has been increasing.

Now, many have started complaining about their new life style.

I guess that Japan has expected men to be very manly, like warriors, to pay for everything, to get good jobs and work overtime for their companies at the expense of their families and even their health.

This is actually what the post-war samurais, now in their 60s, were doing. I appreciate their hard work, because they did a lot for Japan; however, it has resulted in some unexpected consequences as well.

Now, young grass-eaters have started saying, "What can be bad about that?"

I don't have any clear answers regarding this; It's a really complex issue.

They might be waiting for carnivorous women as their partners...