http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/rss Tommy's latest journal entries Lang-8 Inc. Tue May 29 16:41:15 UTC 2012 Tue May 29 16:41:15 UTC 2012 Lang-8 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Lang-8
He give some capsules and pills to me. He said if I keep taking them, the pain will go away.

He suggested that primary I had my left upper wisdom tooth pull out. It is the left lower one that hurts, though. He said that since I had never had an adult tooth drawn, we should start with easier, upper one, which is anyway having to be pull out in the future.

Posted at Tue Jan 05 06:57:34 UTC 2010
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/330063 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/330063 Tommy Tue Jan 05 06:57:34 UTC 2010
Recently, I realized why it is difficult for me to keep writing. Since I has been making long entries, it takes much time to review them. From now on, I am going to make short journals. I might sometimes write essays or something, though.

Lately, my wisdom tooth has hurt so bad that I can't open my mouth wide. I heard that troubles with wisdom teeth lead to more serious ones. I have to see my dentist as soon as possible. Actually, the dentist's has been closed for a few days on the account of the New Year holidays.

Posted at Mon Jan 04 14:54:59 UTC 2010
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/329562 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/329562 Tommy Mon Jan 04 14:54:59 UTC 2010
We may see that thorough one of the hottest entries on Japanese weblogs these days, which is an episode of someone anonymous. Although its punchline is unrelated to articles or plurals, we can see that how bad we are at these things.


The episode is about what happened his English class.
Now I try to translate it into English.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In today's English class, we played a game. You write what you like on a paper, and exchange it with the student next chair. My next person was a cute girl, so my heart was throbbing.

Anyway, I just wrote "I like dog" on the paper, and gave it to her. She gave me hers.

Her paper said "I like you."

I was so surprised and must look upset. She suddenly said "Oh I'm sorry. I was wrong," robbing me of the paper from my hand.

"Here you are. I should have written this" said she, and gave me it again.

It said...

"I love you."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's not consider whether the punch line is good or not. As you noticed, in the above episode the "I" should have written "I like dogs," unless he likes to eat dog's meat. It's a common mistake by Japanese people. Interestingly, or unfortunately, almost every Japanese who read the episode did not notice this mistake at all.

Now you may see how bad we are at articles or nouns. As for me, I hope that someday I will be able to write correct English, so I must study rightly and continuously.

Posted at Mon Nov 16 19:51:44 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/285578 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/285578 Tommy Mon Nov 16 19:51:44 UTC 2009
Now I 'm a first year doctor course student, and my major is math. My future plan used to be to become a professor in college or a teacher in high school.

In Japan, we have to take the teacher-training course to obtain the license. I had been taking the course, but my interest for the job have gone out. A professor's way of organizing his class is so unacceptable to me that I had become to hate his class, him, then the teacher-training course. Thus I quit taking the course.

I know I should have hang in there, but I realized that I might not have wanted to be a teacher sincerely.

Anyway, my mind has been changed. I have been trying to an actuary. Since my plan includes working for foreign-affiliated companies, I will study English harder than before.

Posted at Sun Nov 15 18:33:44 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/284711 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/284711 Tommy Sun Nov 15 18:33:44 UTC 2009
Above all, the words クイズ and クラス are really often misused, I think.

A typical example is "昨日、フランス語のクラスで単語のクイズがあった。". I have to state that most of us Japanese felt really strange to this expression, though we barely understand it. クラス might be OK, but クイズ is the problem. We would say "昨日、フランス語の授業で小テスト(a short test)があった。" instead.

As you know, these words are firstly from quiz and class respectively in English. However I could say クイズ and クラス have lost their original meanings in Japanese.

In fact, クイズ usually means a game rather than a test. In the game one makes questions and the other one answers them. We also call the questions in the game クイズ, which are like riddles, but are not humorous, are simple and about facts. For example, "Who is the President of the United State?" and "What does りんご means in English?" are クイズ.

The following web page (in Japanese) is a good reference of クイズ.
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA

As I wrote, クラス might be OK for some of us, but seems unnatural at least to me in the above sentence. In my opinion, "クラス" means a home room or group in a school. It seems rather difficult for me to define クラス exactly, so I lists some correct and natural expressions.

私は桜中学に通っており、私のクラスは3年B組です。(I go to sakura junior high school and belong to 3-B.)
金八先生のクラスには問題児が多い。(There are a lot of problem children of Mr. Kinpach's students.)

日本語の授業は佐藤先生のクラスを取っている。(I take Prof. Sato's Japanese class.)
佐藤先生の授業は分かりやすい。(Prof. Sato's lesson is easy to understand.)

I am not a teacher, so I might be wrong. I recommend that anyone interested in this topic check some Japanese-Japanese dictionaries.

At last I present the definitions from an online dictionary.

クラス：(１)学校などにおいて，組み分けしてできた生徒の集団。学級。級。組。
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn/217602/m0u/%E3%82%AF%E3%83%A9%E3%82%B9/

クイズ：問題を出して相手に解答させる遊び。また、その問題。
http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn/52040/m0u/%E3%82%AF%E3%82%A4%E3%82%BA/

Posted at Sun Sep 13 06:32:12 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/235442 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/235442 Tommy Sun Sep 13 06:32:12 UTC 2009
"英語で発信しよう！" is for high school students and people who have finished high school, and treats essential and practical English grammar which we need in writing and speaking English. I want to call the book to be a minimum grammar textbook, and state that this kind of book should be read in Japan. (Which is more natural; "this kind of one" or "this kind of book"?)

There is a sentence in the preface of the book: This is not like a book which is popular in Japan and just force the reader to memorize standard phrases and sentences without grammatical explanations. The author also state that, this kind of books are useless, though they might be useful in some situations. I totally agree with him.

Regrettably we have to admit that some Japanese are very poor at using English grammar well. (I hope that that is not the case with me.) Moreover they hate grammar. In general, Japanese people tend to consider that they do not need to learn English grammar to speak English. That is often the case with especially people who have not graduated from university or have graduated from not good one. They claim that native English speakers and they themselves became able to speak English and Japanese respectively without studying grammar. OK, we might need to learn grammar if we consider just being able to speak like a very young child to be enough. Still, I believe that their statement is completely wrong in any points if we want to write or speak English correctly.

Posted at Thu Sep 10 23:07:42 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/233825 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/233825 Tommy Thu Sep 10 23:07:42 UTC 2009
To my surprise, some people corrected this part as "全国42都道府県の少なくとも295校で." Of course, "少なくとも" is also correct and often shown as the equivalent of "at least" in English-Japanese dictionary. However "少なくとも" sound a little strange or long for me in this sentence.

I thought they mistook "以上" as "more than" like most of the Japanese people.

In mathematics and law, "295以上" means "more than or equal to 295," which is the same numbers as "少なくとも295 (at least 295)." There may be some minor differences between the above two Japanese expressions, but the ranges of the numbers they mean are absolutely the same.

In fact the Education Ministry guidelines say that students must study the difference between "以上(more than or equal to)" and "より多い(more than)" in the class of arithmetic in 6th grade at the elementary school.

However, since really many Japanese people, even highbrows, use "以上" as "more than," disappointingly these days "以上" often means "more than."

Therefore I could say "以上" is an ambiguous word. Also "以下(less than or equal to)" has the same problem as "以上".

In the end I would like suggest you to use the following words instead of "以上" and "以下" in the important situations.

少なくとも = at least = more than or equal to
より多い = more than
高々 (たかだか) = at most = less than or equal to
より少ない = 未満 = less than

Posted at Wed Sep 02 12:05:23 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/227470 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/227470 Tommy Wed Sep 02 12:05:23 UTC 2009
I really want to be better at English, so I welcome any minor comments about my English (or Japanese) sentences.


I like American literature. My favorite novelists are Paul Auster, John Irving, and J. D. Salinger.

I watch American TV dramas, and especially I like sitcoms. My best one is "Friends." These days I'm crazy about "How I Met Your Mother."

I'm interested in Jazz, though I do not know much about it.

I also like Chinese food. I often go to Chinese restaurants.

Recently I have been watching anime.

よろしく！

Posted at Wed Sep 02 03:19:34 UTC 2009
]]> http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/227156 http://www.lang-8.com/73877/journals/227156 Tommy Wed Sep 02 03:19:34 UTC 2009