English Recordings

I like the moments when I am speaking English because my personality is a little changed from when I am speaking Japanese.

How about you?

At first, I wondered to myself why I was so assertive in English. My Japanese friends say that I am a good listener, though I seem to be a little too talkative when I speak English.

I feel sorry for my friends who communicate with me in English, because I actually enjoy the different me. I want to tweak my way of speaking. And I think it is better to change the way while I am using another language in order to understand and to be understood by each other.

Each language includes its own culture.

I can be more open and relaxed in English. Somehow I am not afraid of conflict. It is kind of strange that I am positive that I can work it out afterward, even in my imperfect English~

Yes, I need to study and improve my English skills so that I do not irritate my foreign friends. ^v^/

"The Beast Below" is the second episode of the British science fiction series Doctor Who's 2010 series. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 10 April 2010.

In the 29th century, the Doctor and Amy encounter Starship UK, a colony spaceship containing all of the United Kingdom except Scotland, who wanted their own ship, that evacuated Earth following devastating solar flares. On board, the Doctor attempts to comfort 12-year-old Mandy, whose silent tears are unacknowledged by the other passengers because, as the Doctor surmises, they already know what is wrong.

Amy follows Mandy and encounters a "hole" guarded by a "keep out" sign. Entering, she finds a tentacle-like creature and retreats to be confronted by four hooded figures, another of whom had previously reported the Doctor's presence to a masked woman. As the Doctor explores the engine room, the same masked woman appears to him. Introducing herself as "Liz 10", she confirms his suspicion that the ship is flying without engines.

Amy regains consciousness in a voting booth. Here, as all adult travellers on the ship experience every five years, she is shown the truth behind Starship UK and then has to choose whether to "protest" or "forget" what she has seen. Amy chooses to forget, but not before recording a message to herself to get the Doctor back to the TARDIS and away from the ship. Amy does not inform the Doctor of this, and, as he is unable to view the message due to not being human, he simply presses the "protest" button. This causes himself and Amy to be sent down a chute to the lower regions of the ship.

The Doctor and Amy land in the mouth of a large beast, which the Doctor causes to vomit and expel them to an overflow chute. Refusing to press a "forget" button and open the door to the main ship, they are attacked by two Smilers, the robotic creatures who keep watch over the ship. They are rescued by Liz 10, who reveals herself to be Queen Elizabeth the Tenth. She explains that she has been investigating the creature's infestation of the ship for her entire reign, working undercover against her own government.

The Doctor, Amy, Liz 10 and Mandy are then taken to the Tower of London, which is situated in the bowels of the ship, to investigate the beast. They find that the ship is powered by the last Star Whale, goaded by a ray penetrating its brain. The Doctor and Liz 10 are outraged at the cruelty being unleashed on the Star Whale, the latter demanding it to be set free. Hawthorne, who had been guarding the creature in the Tower, reveals that Liz 10 ordered the situation in the first place.

In a video message, Liz 10 explains how the British people faced destruction when Earth was devastated by solar flares. The Star Whale appeared as a "miracle", and they captured it and used it to power their space ship. Liz 10 has to decide whether to forget, as she has unknowingly done every ten years for centuries, or abdicate, freeing the Star Whale and destroying the ship.

The Doctor realises that Amy chose to forget about the Star Whale so he would not face the choice between humanity and the alien. He then decides to render the Star Whale brain-dead, ending its suffering but still saving the humans on-board. Amy, however, sees the Star Whale's fondness for children and realises that its torture was unnecessary; it volunteered to help the UK's citizens. She forces Liz 10 to press her "abdicate" button, and, after a brief period of turbulence, the Star Whale begins to transport the ship without torture.

Amy explains to the Doctor that she recognised the Star Whale's kindness as the last of its race as comparable to his own as the last Time Lord. About to tell the Doctor of her impending wedding, she is interrupted by a call to the TARDIS from Winston Churchill, who is face-to-face with a Dalek.

"The Eleventh Hour" is an episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC One and BBC HD on 3 April 2010.

The newly regenerated Doctor struggles to steer the damaged TARDIS back to Earth, landing in the backyard of young Amelia Pond in Leadworth, a small village near Gloucester. Amelia becomes fond of the Doctor's oddness as she feeds him and shows him a scary crack in the wall of her room. The Doctor determines the crack is a crack in time and space itself, the other side housing an Atraxi prison. When the Doctor attempts to open the crack with his sonic screwdriver, the Atraxi send him a telepathic message that “Prisoner Zero has escaped" before they close the crack. The Doctor attempts to find the prisoner believing him to be at the edge of his vision, but is interrupted by the TARDIS’s Cloister Bell; he must take the TARDIS into the future to prevent its engines from overheating. He promises Amelia he will be back in five minutes; while he is gone, she packs a suitcase and waits for the Doctor.

The TARDIS rematerialses some time later at the same location. When he cannot find Amelia, he enters the house to find what he caught earlier; a door covered by a perception filter, but before he can enter it, he knocked out by someone using a cricket bat. He wakes up to find a policewoman having handcuffed him to a radiator. He soon learns she is actually Amelia - now going by the name Amy, the outfit as part of her kissogram job; it has been twelve years since he left, and Amy is quite upset at the Doctor for leaving her waiting that long. The Doctor is able to make Amy see the door through the perception filter, but cannot stop her entering it. Inside, Amy briefly sees the natural form of Prisoner Zero, the only form the Atraxi can detect, before she escapes with the Doctor's sonic screwdriver which has been damaged from Prisoner Zero's examination of it. He releases himself and with Amy escapes the house as the Atraxi begin broadcasting across all forms of communication that they will destroy the "human residence" unless Prisoner Zero is located in twenty minutes. The Doctor realizes this doesn't mean Amy's house, but the Earth itself. With the TARDIS sealed as it repairs itself, the Doctor must resort to conventional means to save the world.

The Atraxi isolate Earth and begin their search. The Doctor meets Amy's friend Rory, a nurse at the local hospital, and discovers from him that Prisoner Zero is able to take the form of any dormant person that it has established a psychic connection with, those of several coma patients in Rory's care. When they see Prisoner Zero nearby, the Doctor uses the sonic screwdriver to try and attract the Atraxi. The screwdriver is destroyed before the Atraxi arrive, and Prisoner Zero retreats back to the hospital. The Doctor directs Amy and Rory to the hospital to save the people inside while he gains the help of another of Amy's friends, Jeff, and his laptop to intercede in a video conference of several world experts discussing the issue. The Doctor gives both Jeff and the experts additional instructions, then commandeers a fire truck and races to the hospital.

Amy and Rory, after clearing the hospital, run into Prisoner Zero in another human disguise; the Doctor arrives in time to save them. He reveals that he has used a virus carried on a mobile phone to broadcast the message of repeated zeroes across all forms of media with the help of Jeff and the experts. The Atraxi, seeing this message, are able to center on the source of the virus - the phone the Doctor carries, which also carries photos of the patients it has linked to so that the Atraxi can identify it. Prisoner Zero reveals it has yet one more psychic link it has developed over the years; it takes the form of young Amelia holding the Doctor's hand, which causes Amy to fall into a deep sleep. The Doctor realises that Prisoner Zero is using Amy's dreams to create the disguise, and helps Amy's subconscious to dream of the natural form of Prisoner Zero she saw in her house, forcing Prisoner Zero to disguise itself as its own form. Before the Atraxi transport the being away, Prisoner Zero taunts the Doctor about the source of the cracks in time and space, and warns him that "the Pandorica will open, silence will fall". The Atraxi leave Earth, but the Doctor forces them to return. After dressing in a new outfit from the hospital's locker room in order to properly greet them, the Doctor tells the Atraxi that threatening to destroy the Earth could be punished by the Shadow Proclamation, and warns them that he is the protector of Earth and they should never return.

After the Atraxi leave, the Doctor finds the TARDIS key is hot, indicating it has finished repairs, and runs off to take it for a ride before Amy can catch up to him. The Doctor arrives back at Amy's house, now two more years since their last meeting; the Doctor apologizes for it and, after letting her inside the TARDIS, offers her to join him on adventures across space and time. Amy is willing but insists she must be back by "tomorrow morning", revealed to the viewer as being her wedding day.

Hi Peter,

What are you up to these days?

I wanted to let you know about an essay topic that I've been writing about: “What are you willing to give up to achieve your goals?”

I did not have any idea about what to write when I first saw the topic. To be honest, I haven't given it much thought, but I know that I should. They say that if you want to achieve a goal, you should be willing to give up or sacrifice something, because your success is worth it. Now that I think about it, I've already experienced the joy of achieving a couple of my goals, once I was willing to give up something. If I am keen on something, I do my best and work on it until I've achieved my goal. If I wasn't who I am, I might not have graduated from university. University was difficult, but thanks to my motivation, I was able to graduate. You're probably wondering what it was I gave up, aren't you? Well, I stopped going to pubs and nightclubs. I was always learning, even during the semester when others were just having fun being students. But I didn't mind! It was the most important thing I had ever wanted to achieve. I wanted to get a master's degree and then to have greater possibilities in finding a good job. While on my long journey of getting my master's degree, I felt stressed out many times. I hate failure, just like any one else. When I did not pass some of my exams, I was deeply hurt. Thinking over it now, studying at university wasn't so very enjoyable, but my main point is – if you want to achieve something, it should be enjoyable, otherwise you will find it takes more effort than you are keen on.

Lately, I've been keen on learning languages. I've given up my free time, my hobbies – going to the gym, for example – and spending every waking moment learning English. I really wish to master English. This is the most important thing that I've ever experienced thus far in my life. I wish I could really let you know how seriously passionate I am about this. I am trying to do my best, but mastering it is extremely difficult. It takes a long time to become fluent in both speaking and writing. The more I learn, the more I realise that there are still a lot of things I don't know. But I won't give up, because I fancy it and I am able to give up almost everything to achieve this goal, my dream.

In my country, you only need to speak one language, at least – sure the more the better. It can seem like I've been giving up my free time and so on, but I don't feel that way at all. Can you imagine the possibilities I will have when I've mastered English? You have no idea, mate.

So do you see the point that I have been making? If you really want to achieve something, it is usually something that will influence your future, isn't it? My question to you is, is it really “giving up something”? Maybe so, but it is giving up something in order to achieve something else which can be so much better than the thing that you are giving up. Basically, we should all be thinking about those things that we are willing to sacrifice in order to achieve our goals.

I would love to know your opinions on this, and I hope that I have inspired you to think about this as well. I know that you always have interesting ideas about everything we talk about!

Best regards,
Jarda

As the recession continues, there are quite a few couples that are worried about whether they can afford to have children. According to research done by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, a family needs 10-20 million yen (about $100k-$200k) to raise a child from kindergarten to university. There are various factors responsible for Japan's declining birthrate, and one of them may be that some couples are reluctant to have children because of their economic anxiety.

To solve the problem, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) has come up with the kodomo teate, or child allowance, policy. Every family with children under 15 can receive 13,000 yen per child per month from this year, and the amount is expected to be raised to 26,000 yen from next year. Also, tuition for public high schools will be free from this year, while about 120k-240k yen a year will be provided for a child that goes to private high school.

When you exaggerate a fact, you state it much more extremely than it actually is. You can exaggerate things like numbers, sizes, lengths of time, emotions, degrees of like or dislike, and many other characteristics.

For example, if you've been waiting for someone for 15 minutes and are annoyed about it, you might say to them when they show up:

I've been waiting here since last year!

If you saw a movie that you liked and are enthusiastic about, you can say:

That was the best movie ever.

So here's how to exaggerate:

1. Pick a characteristic that you want to emphasize. For example, you are describing a tall man and want to emphasize how tall he is.
2. Pick a value that is much greater than the real value. The value you choose needs to be a lot higher than the true value, so that the listener can tell that you're not speaking realistically. So, for example, you can describe the tall man as "9 feet tall" (or "3 meters tall" if you use the metric system).
3. When you are speaking, make sure to stress the exaggeration. Say the part of the sentence louder than the rest: "I looked up and saw this man. And he was nine feet tall! So I said to him..."

English speakers use exaggeration often in spoken conversation, especially when telling stories. The reasons for exaggerating are to emphasize an idea and make it sound more interesting and entertaining.

Casual speech is a way of talking that you use with people that you are close to and trust. There are different words, phrases, and ways of speaking that you can use with your friends, your family members, and with people who are a similar age, social status, and personality to you.

Here are some easy examples of things that people do in casual conversation:

* Use contractions: "That's not true," "What're you doing?" "Where'd he go?" "This's a good idea," etc.
* Use slang: "Slang" is language that's only recently been created. It may be popular among some people, but not everyone has started to use it yet. Young people usually use a lot more slang than older people. Here are a few examples.
* Use simplified grammar: An example of something that people do in casual conversation is drop "that" from clauses. They say "I thought you were leaving" instead of "I thought that you were leaving."

There are lots of other characteristics of casual conversaton as well. I try to point these out when I introduce phrases on this site.
When to be casual

All languages have casual and formal ways of speaking, but different cultures have different rules for when to use them. In some cultures, you speak more formally to people who are older than you. In other cultures, your wealth and job status are more important. Casual language is more common in some cultures and less common in others. These things also change over time within a culture.

In modern English, you decide how formally you speak with someone based on how close you are with them. "Closeness" means how well you know each other and how much of your personality you have shared with each other. Another important point is that casual speech is more common and more accepted in a lot of situations than formal speech.

Here are some guidelines for when to speak casually:

* Use casual English with your family and friends. If you speak formally with these people, it may seem like you're angry with them or trying to push them away.
* Speak casually with people that you meet socially. If someone is introduced to you by a friend, you should treat that person like a friend as well. Casual language sounds friendlier. So you should treat the new person as a friend.
* Use casual English with people that you know pretty well, even if they are above you in position. When you start a new job, it's normal to be somewhat formal with your boss for the first few days, but you should gradually start to become more and more casual with each other as you get to know each other better.
* Use it with people who are working for or serving you if you want to sound friendly. Speak casually to waiters, receptionists, employees, students, and other people who have to serve you, if you want these people to see you as friendly. If you want to seem strict or if you're angry, use more formal speech.
* Write casually if you're writing for a large audience. School essays are meant only for a teacher to read, so they should be written formally. The same goes for academic papers, official reports at work, and so on. But blogs, tweets, advertisements, and other writing that's meant for a large audience is usually better when it's written casually.

Today, I would like to pick up the expression " Time is Money."

I found an interesting survey conducted by Prof. Richard Wiseman in England.

He measured the speed of life in some major cities throughout the world. The experiment was conducted by British researchers who secretly timed thousands of pedestrians' walking speed.

The professor says that people in fast-moving cities are less likely to help others and have higher rates of coronary heart disease.

My guess before seeing the result was that the fastest city would be New York or Tokyo.

According to the survey, the fastest city is Singapore!!! I am sorry about the result, which said nothing good. Watch out for heart disease.

Surprise! Tokyoites were 19th, not so fast!
New Yorkers were 8th!

You want to buy a second-hand car, but the price is too high. Write a letter to the owner offering to pay 10% less. If he accepts the lower price, you are prepared to pay cash.

Dear Sir,
I have read your advert on the Internet saying that you are selling a used vehicle. I've been looking for an older, inexpensive car for a couple of weeks to give to my son. This will be his first car, and since he has only had his license for a month, I don't want to spend too much money on it. I looked at pictures of your car and it seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. However, I would like to arrange for a time we could meet so I can personally check the interior and exterior. Does it come with spare parts such as tires, motor, transmission, etc.?
Also, I was wondering if I could get a 10% discount. If so, I can pay in cash at our meeting, after I've checked the car.
Let me know what you think and when it would be possible for us to meet - the sooner the better, since my son has been borrowing my car recently...

Regards,
Jarda

Antonin Scalia (born 1936) is an American jurist who serves as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He is currently the second most senior Associate Justice, following Justice John Paul Stevens. In 1982, he was appointed as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit by President Ronald Reagan.

In 1986, Judge Scalia was appointed by Reagan to the Supreme Court to fill the seat as associate justice vacated when Justice William Rehnquist was elevated to Chief Justice. While Rehnquist's confirmation was contentious, Scalia was asked few difficult questions by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and faced no opposition.

Scalia was unanimously confirmed by the Senate, and took the bench on September 26, 1986. In his near quarter-century on the Court, Justice Scalia has staked out a conservative ideology in his opinions, advocating textualism in statutory interpretation and originalism in constitutional interpretation.