English Recordings

What is necessary to learn English well?(2)

The problem
The problem with learning and teaching English as a foreign language is that all English learners want to speak English well; however, most learners don't want to spend time on learning English on their own. (Which is probably why they sign up for English classes and hope their teacher will force knowledge into their heads.)

This lack of motivation means that learners basically don't spend their own time on learning English, and if they do, they don't do it regularly. For example, a typical learner might study English phrasal verbs for 12 hours before an English exam. However, he will not read a book in English for 30 minutes every day. He just doesn't feel that learning English is pleasant enough, so he will only do it if he has to. The problem is that a huge one-time effort gives you nothing, while small, everyday activities will give you a lot.

Negative attitudes
One of the reasons why people don't want to spend their time on learning English is that they associate learning English with unpleasant things. When they think "learning English", they think about boring English classes, boring exercises and boring homework. Even if they know they need English in their career, that might not be very motivating if the job itself is boring! In their minds, learning English is something they have to do, not something they want to do.

영어를 가르치고 배울 때 겪는 가장 큰 문제는, 모두가 영어를 잘하고는 싶어한다는 것입니다. 그런데 자기 스스로 공부해나가는 것은 싫어하죠. (그래서 영어 강의를 신청하고, 강사가 여러분의 머릿속에 지식을 집어넣어 주길 기대합니다.)

공부하려는 동기가 생기지 않으니, 스스로 공부하려 들지 않는 것이고, 공부를 한다고 해도 꾸준히 못 하는 겁니다. 예를 들어, 시험 보기 전에 12시간 동안 동사구를 공부할 수는 있습니다. 그러나 매일 30분 동안 영어책을 읽는 건 안 하죠. 영어가 즐겁지 않으니까, 꼭 필요할 때 말고는 공부하고픈 마음이 안 생기는 겁니다. 여기서 문제는, 한 번에 몰아서 하는 공부는 별 소용이 없고, 조금이라도 매일 하는 공부가 훨씬 낫다는 것입니다.

여러분이 이처럼, "r" 발음을 연습하거나 영어 문장을 매일 분석하려는 마음이 안 생기는 사람이라면, 먼저 해야 할 일이 있습니다. 일단 이것들을 공부하고 싶은 마음이 들게 만드세요. 즉, 스스로 동기를 유발시켜야 합니다. 다행히 여러분의 의욕을 불태울 수 있는 검증된 방법이 있습니다.

What is necessary to learn English well?

Changing your life
Learning English requires action. You may know all the learning tips, but if you don't start doing things, you will achieve nothing. The fact is, if you want to learn to speak English well, you must change your life. Here are some examples of things you will have to do:

1-read a book in English for an hour every day, analyzing the grammar in sentences and looking up words in an English dictionary

2-listen to an audiobook or other recording in English, stopping it frequently, trying to understand what is being said, and trying to imitate the speaker's pronunciation

3-spend 30 minutes in the afternoon practicing the pronunciation of the English "r" sound

4-carefully write an e-mail message in English, using a dictionary or a Web search every 20 seconds to make sure every word is correct, and taking 5 minutes to write one sentence

5-think about an English sentence you've read, wondering if it could say "a" instead of "the" in the sentence, and trying to find similar sentences on the Web to find out the answer

6-walk down the street and build simple English sentences in your head (talking to yourself in English about the things you see around you)

What kind of person would do all these crazy things? Only one kind. The kind of person who enjoys doing them. If you want to learn to speak English well, you're going to have to become that person. Have you ever heard of anyone who became successful by doing something he hated?

영어 공부는 행동이 필요합니다. 영어 공부법을 많이 알고 있더라도, 실천하지 않으면 아무것도 이룰 수 없습니다. 사실, 영어를 잘 하려면 생활을 바꿔야 합니다. 꼭 실천해야 하는 활동 몇 가지를 소개합니다.

1-매일 1시간씩, 영어로 된 책을 읽으면서, 문법과 문장 구조를 분석하고, 사전에서 단어를 찾아보세요.
2-오디오북이나 다른 영어 테이프을 들으면서, 무슨 내용을 말하고 있는지 수시로 멈춰가며 파악하고, 발음을 흉내 내세요.
3-영어의 "r" 소리를 매일 오후 연습하세요.
4-아주 주의 깊게 영어 이메일을 써보세요. 20초마다 사전이나 인터넷을 찾고 실수가 있는지 점검하면서, 5분에 한 문장씩 만들어 가세요.
5-영어 문장을 읽을 땐, 생각을 하면서 읽으세요. "a" 대신 "the"는 쓸 수 없는지 질문해보고, 비슷한 문장을 인터넷으로 검색해서 답을 알아보세요.
6-길을 걸어가면서 간단한 영어 문장을 머릿속으로 만들어보세요. (주변의 모습을 자기 자신에게 영어로 말해보는 겁니다.)

도대체 누가 이런 수고를 마다하지 않을까요? 딱 한 부류의 사람뿐입니다. 이런 일들을 즐기는 사람이죠. 영어를 잘하려면, 그런 사람이 돼야 합니다. 짜증 나는 마음으로는 할 수 없습니다. 자기가 싫어하는 일에 매달려서 성공한 사람의 이야기를 들어본 적이 있습니까?

'How to Learn a Foreign Language' ?
('어떻게 외국어를 배워야 하는가 ) May 26th 2010 02:50

I found this sentence 'How to Learn a Foreign Language' ? ' by chance, and I felt it was a sentence written just for me.
우연히 '어떻게 외국어를 배워야 하는가 ?' 라는 이 문장을 발견했어요. 그런데 , 바로 나를 위한 글인것 같아요.
'How to Learn a Foreign Language ' ? Yes! It`s for me!
When I was a student, it was really poor conditoin for learning foreign language .
There wasn`t any mp3, internet, video,...etc, there were only books..
and after graduating, there was almost no opportunity to use English.
내가 학생이었을때는 (하하..너무 너무 오래전이라서^.^) )외국어를 배우는 환경이 참으로 열악했습니다.
mp3,인터넷, 비디오...등등도 전혀 없었으며 오직 책만 있었습니다. 더군다나 졸업후에는 거의 영어를 써 볼 기회가 없었습니다. 어떻게 외국어를 배워야 하는가 ? 네, 바로 나를 위한 것이었습니다.
Then after , these days I found many friends are learning foreign languages on lang-8 site , I would also like to learn English from now on ^^.
For my own pleasure ~ ^__^;;not a for an exam.
As a pleasure ~ ^__^;;not a for a exam.
I feel like it will make me happy and it will give me pleasure .
그리고 그뒤에 여기 lang-8 사이트에서 많은 친구들이 외국어들을 배우는 것을 알게 되었습니다.
나도 이제 영어를 배우고 싶습니다.
시험을 위해서 가 아니고, 즐거움을 위해서.
그건 분명히 나를 행복하게 하고 ,나에게 기쁨을 줄겁니다.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
extract from ★=> http://www.rhinospike.com/audio_requests/asad100101/1306/#recordings
1) Spend the time! 시간을 할애 하세요.
By far the most important factor is how much time you are immersed in the language. The more time you spend with the language, the faster you will learn. This means listening, reading, writing, speaking, and studying words and phrases. This does not mean sitting in class looking out the window, nor listening to other students who do not speak well, nor getting explanations in your own language about how the language works. This means spending time enjoyably connected to the language you are learning.

2) Listen and read every day! 날마다 읽고 들으세요!
Listen wherever you are on your MP3 player. Read what you are listening to. Listen to and read things that you like, things that you can mostly understand, or even partly understand. If you keep listening and reading you will get used to the language. One hour of listening or reading is more effective than many hours of class time.

3) Focus on words and phrases! 단어와 구절에 집중하세요!
Build up your vocabulary, you’ll need lots. Start to notice words and how they come together as phrases. Learn these words and phrases through your listening and reading. Read online, using online dictionaries, and make your own vocabulary lists for review. Soon you will run into your new words and phrases elsewhere. Gradually you will be able to use them. Do not worry about how accurately you speak until you have accumulated a plenty of words through listening and reading.

4) Take responsibility for your own learning! 당신의 배움에 대해 책임감을 가지세요.
If you do not want to learn the language, you won’t. If you do want to learn the language, take control. Choose content of interest, that you want to listen to and read. Seek out the words and phrases that you need to understand your listening and reading. Do not wait for someone else to show you the language, nor to tell you what to do. Discover the language by yourself, like a child growing up. Talk when you feel like it. Write when you feel like it. A teacher cannot teach you to become fluent, but you can learn to become fluent if you want to.

5) Relax and enjoy yourself! 느긋하게 당신 자신을 즐기세요!
Do not worry about what you cannot remember, or cannot yet understand, or cannot yet say. It does not matter. You are learning and improving. The language will gradually become clearer in your brain, but this will happen on a schedule that you cannot control. So sit back and enjoy. Just make sure you spend enough time with the language. That is the greatest guarantee of success.

One of America's largest producers of food and drinks has decided to grow seaweed and use it in its food production. They have chosen to build the farms in an area ten kilometers long on a coast in the south of India.

For a long time, people in India have been collecting natural seaweed from beaches for use in cooking. This is the first time the seaweed has been farmed.

The problem with people taking seaweed from beaches is that seaweed will soon disappear. Then there will be no more seaweed left. But if they build seaweed farms, then there will be lot of seaweed for a long time. Also, there will be many jobs for the local people and this will bring in some more money to this area.

The chosen area will cut up into one hundred small farms, Each farm will have one family to take care of it. It takes around forty-five days for the seaweed to grow.

A skilled reader will read many words in each block. He or she will only dwell on each block for an instant, and will then move on. Only rarely will the reader's eyes skip back to a previous block of words. This reduces the amount of work that the reader's eyes have to do. It also increases the volume of information that can be assimilated in a given period of time.

A poor reader will become bogged down, spending a lot of time reading small blocks of words. He or she will skip back often, losing the flow and structure of the text, and confusing his or her overall understanding of the subject. This irregular eye movement makes reading tiring. Poor readers tend to dislike reading, and they may find it harder to concentrate, and understand written information.

Speed Reading can help you to read and understand written information much more quickly. This makes it an essential skill in any environment where you have to master large volumes of information quickly, as is the norm in fast-moving professional environments. What's more, it's a key technique to learn if you suffer from "information overload", because it helps you to become much more discriminating about the information that you consume.

36.
Like its largemouth cousin, the smallmouth bass is a
native of the Mississippi drainage, which makes it a true
heartland fish. Whereas the largemouth likes slow or still
water with lots of food-holding weeds, the smallmouth
prefers clean, rocky bottoms and swifter water, ideally in
the range of 65° to 68°F. In waters warmer than 73°F,
you can forget about finding one. In lakes, smallmouth
often school up, which means that if you catch one, you
can catch a bunch. In rivers and streams, they are more
solitary. The smallmouth has a series of dark vertical
bands along its sides. The dorsal fin is one continuous fin
(as opposed to the separated dorsal fin of the largemouth).

37.
Starting in the 1960s, people began flooding into
Chattanooga, a former factory town, to explore its caves,
rivers, and cliffs. Before long more than 3,800 caves
surrounding the city had been discovered. The nearby
Ocoee was among the most paddled rivers in the country
and six major climbing sites sprang up within an hour’s
drive of city limits. But in spite of this boundless outdoors
potential, there remained the problem of Chattanooga
proper, a post-industrial wasteland that made the city the
kind of place you would visit but would never want to live
in. Not, that is, until lately. Over the past decade,
Chattanooga has made an incredible urban comeback:
electric buses, organic markets, and a 120-million-dollar
riverfront restoration project completed last year. In
addition, beautiful modern architecture such as the
post-modern museum and the newly remodeled aquarium
plays a big role in the comeback of Chattanooga.

38.
In practical situations where there is no room for error,
we have learned to avoid vagueness in communication. A
fire chief, for example, needs to issue his orders with
absolute clarity. In imaginative situations, however, there is
the danger that too much specificity can limit your
imagination. Let’s suppose that the same fire chief has
asked you to paint a picture on the side of his firehouse. If
he tells you what he wants it to look like right down to the
last detail, he has not given you any room for your
imagination. However, if the assignment were stated
somewhat vaguely, then you would have more room to
think and be more creative.

33.
Imagine that you are in a meeting. Your party and the
other party are sitting across a table. You ask a question on
a particular subject and the answer is unsatisfactory. What
would be the best response? It is none at all. So if you are
seeking more information or a different kind of information,
ask for it by remaining silent. When there is a long pause
in the conversation, people feel an overwhelming need to
fill it. If someone has finished speaking and you do not
play along by taking up your end of the dialog, that person
will automatically start to elaborate. Eventually, they may
say what you want to hear.

34.
A forest fire in Brazil affects the weather in Moscow by
creating huge dust clouds that eventually float over Russia.
Every element in an ecosystem depends on every other
element, even the so-called nonliving elements such as
minerals, oxygen, and sunlight. Yes, light is an integral
element of all life. The sun is food for many of earth’s life
forms. Physicists speak of photons of light as being
interchangeable. When the light from an object hits a
person, only some of it bounces off. Most of the photons
are absorbed into the person. Its energy becomes that
person’s energy. This is how incredible interdependence is
― everything is constantly becoming everything else.

35.
The graph above shows the growth rate of total output in
the U.S. from 1960 to 1999. The growth rate of total output
is equal to the growth rate in the number of hours worked
plus the growth rate of labor productivity. The 1960-1969
period displayed the highest growth rate of total output of
all the periods in the graph. The growth rate of total
output declined from the 1960-1969 period to the 1980-1989
period. The only period where the growth rate in the
number of hours worked exceeded the labor productivity
growth rate was the 1980-1989 period. The 1990-1994
period showed an increase in the growth rate of total output
from the 1980-1989 period. The 1995-1999 period displayed
the second highest growth rate of total output and the greatest
labor productivity growth rate of all the time periods.

30.
Figures A and B demonstrate how dew point is measured by a dew point hygrometer. In Figure A, light is transmitted from a laser and reflected off the mirror onto a receiver that measures the intensity of the observed light. When the
mirror temperature is above dew point and the intensity of the transmitted light is 10 mW/cm2, the intensity of the observed light is the same. In Figure B, when the mirror temperature is at dew point, dew drops cover the surface of the mirror. When the transmitted light hits the dew drops, it becomes scattered. As a consequence, compared to the intensity of the transmitted light, that of the observed light measured by the receiver is increased.

31.
Responses to survey questions are influenced by events, and we should consider this when reviewing the results of a survey. The reputation of an airline, for example, will
be damaged if a survey is conducted just after a plane crash. A computer company lost its reputation in company surveys just after major news
coverage about a defect in its products. On the positive side, surveys by a beverage company about its image showed very favorable public attitudes just after its massive investment in the Olympics. Consequently, surveys should be conducted when the organization is not in the news or connected to a significant event that may influence public opinion. In neutral context, a more valid survey can be conducted about an organization’s reputation, products, or services.

32.
War seems to be part of the history of humanity.
Countries, regions, and even villages were economically
independent of one another in the past. Under those circumstances, the destruction of our enemy might have
been a victory for us. There was a relevance to violence and war. However, today we are so interdependent that the concept of war has become outdated. When we face
problems or disagreements today, we have to arrive at solutions through dialog. We must work to resolve conflicts in a spirit of reconciliation and always keep in mind the interests of others. We cannot destroy our neighbors! We
cannot ignore their interests! Doing so would ultimately cause us to suffer. Therefore, the concept of violence is now unsuitable, and nonviolence is the appropriate method.

1. wishy washy

Definition:
Indecisive or not reliable.
Example:
Rosie was always wishy washy about our plans to get married, so I knew she would run away before our wedding day.

2. wimp

Definition: A weak or fearful person; someone who lacks courage.

Example:
Don't be such a wimp -- riding a bike can't hurt you!

3. watered down

Definition: Weakened or diluted; something that has been made less powerful or potent.
Example:
The movie is a watered down version of the book.

4. kick your ass
Definition:
To beat decisively; to give a severe beating; to rough someone up.
Example:
Don't mess with the bouncer unless you want him to kick your ass.

5. up your sleeve

Definition:
A hidden advantage; some form of trickery lying in wait.
Example:
Be careful doing business with Tom -- he's always got something up his sleeve.