What's the merit of listening English songs.

These days my hobby is listening music in English and translating them in Japanese.

The late my favorite singers are Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Madonna.

Do you know them?

And my favorite music are “Love story”, “You belong with me” of Taylor, “One time” of Justin, “Hot N Cold” of Katy Perry and “Material girl” of Madonna.

At first, I was hard to catch an ear for foreign languages and understand them but now I can do that when I got used to.

The way of improving listening skill with using English music has a merit.

It is that you can understand combinations and dropouts of sounds. Also you get various expressions while you get into music.

When you imitate the song’s features, you can understand them.

So listening music is good way of studying English.

Proverb 2

Hello, today, I also found some proverbs which are familiar to Japanese. Maybe you know them in Japanese. However they little different from them which were translated Japanese.

Proverb 1

He who is in hell knows not what heaven is.

Do you understand this? This proverb in Japanese has expression of a frog.

This shows the man who know only world where he lives.

Proverb 2

Bread is better than the songs of birds.

This is one of the most famous proverbs in Japan.

By the way, there is a drama which uses this proverb for its titleJww I like it so mush. Could you understand this?

Proverb 3

A man's walking is succession falls.

This is also known to many people.

The mean of this is similar to “He who makes no mistakes makes nothing”

These expressions are interesting. Try to guess♪

Einstein's collection

Do you know Albert Einstein?

He was famous philosopher in the world and he leaf some interesting words of wisdom.

I like to get proverbs and words of wisdom so I would like to introduce them.

This blogging is collection of Einstein.（）= I tried to rewrite to be easy to understand.

☆In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity.(Chance is in the difficulty)

☆Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value.

☆Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.

☆There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

(One is that you live as thinking nothing is miracle. The other is that you live as thinking everything is a miracle.)

☆Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

☆The more I learn the more I realize I don't know. The more I realize I don't know the more I want to learn.

☆Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.

☆Truth is what stands the test of experience.

All of them are so wonderful. I felt they were great.

Guess next person is!

Proverb 1

Way for experession.

Today, I would like to teach you about some English proverb.

Situation 1,

When you try to anything, your friends, parents, and people around you say this phrase to encourage you.

“Go to the sea, if you would fish well.”

Can you understand this phrase in Japanese? We say this in Japanese, “Atatte kudakero”

I didn’t have a clue to express this proverb in English like that.

It is interesting!

Situation 2,

Do you know the meaning “A woman is a weathercock.”? This phrase means woman’s feeling and weather is changeable. So in Japanese, this is expressed “Onnna-gokoro to akosora”. Have you heard this proverb? Is this true for you? I think this phrase is right and accurateJ

At last, I end this article with a phrase which I found and liked.

“He who makes no mistakes makes nothing”.

See you☆

Phrase of love

● Way for speaking and writing

Yesterday, I found some interesting and funny expressions in English. This posting is about of love!!

When you meet the person you love, you will be pulsated. This is a phrase for the time like that.

A: I heard you met your ex-boyfriend at the department store the other day.
B: Yes. When I saw him, I felt my heart twinge.

Twinge means like be excited or heart’s ache. In Japan, we use a expression “Doki-Doki.” Twinge is same meaning to it and twinge includes the meaning of pain in heart or head.

Other example,

A: Are you seeing anyone?
B: Yes. I'm head-over-heels in love with John.

Head – over – heels means hand standing, so this phrase stands for be so deeply in love each other as to hand stand.

Also there is a phrase like this.

A: Isn't it strange that Yoko and Bob are looking at each other like that?
B: Don't you know? They are an item.

We can consider item as a word show love in this sentence. The word “item” is used to as meaning of being so much in love.

It is interesting. I want to know more!

Vocaburary

●　way for memorizing English words

Now I’m studying English to pass STEP quasi- 1st grade [STEP＝Society for Testing English Proficiency] and to improve my scores of TOEIC.

In those tests, a lot of difficult words appear and I need to learn more words. However I’m weak in memorizing English words.

So today, I researched how to appreciate memorize English words.

At first, on learning words, it is important for you to increase your familiar words which are not difficult and easy to read. That would be pointless if you can’t use the words which you learn.

Practice is the most important.

So you learned some words, then use actually in your life or read phrases or short sentences where the words are used. It is also good to check the right how to use in dictionaries.

Also you had better memorize opposite meaning and closing meaning while you learn a word. On this way, you can get more acquaintance.

There are a lot of good ways for this. So I will try to check them frequently.

English Central

These days, I interested in English central. Do you know it?
This is an English site in PC whose style is like game.
At beginning, you choose a video you like, and you watch it. After that, you began to speak and record the phrases which you listened in the video like that.
Then, you get scores match your achievement. That's all!

You can choose the level of videos you will try. There are three levels from easy to difficult and a lot of kinds of them. Some are contents of music, Others are movie. So you can try the best one you interested.

This activity is not only enjoyable but will be good for learning English. I often use this site and study English as I enjoy. I like so much this!

This is the site's adress. Try it!
http://www.englishcentral.com/

Ryo's way

●Way for listening and speaking

You know Ryo Ishikawa, don’t you? He is a famous golf player. He is paid attention in all over the world and has a lot of enthusiastic fans.

Now he plays an active part in various world golf tournaments. As he spends daily life in foreign countries, he needs to speak English. But he is so busy so he doesn’t have time enough to study it.

In the circumstance, he has a daily work. It is listening English CD. It is a very simple way but it is a certain way to improve English skill.

Shadowing is also effective but what he is doing is only listening. His way is not doing repetitions like them.

This way seems to be continued by everyone including beginners.

I wrote again and again about listening CD, but maybe this is the quickest way to get used to English.

I like songs of Avril Lavigne and Back street boys. If you have favorite songs, tell me them, please.

"Mimidokusyo"

●Way for listening

Do you know “mimidokusyo” which is a way to improve listening of English. Mimidokusyo is in Japanese. In these days, I’ve heard this word. In English it is “reading with ears”.

I interested in this way so I researched it.

 Let’s learn how to Mimidokusyo.

At first, you have to prepare any English texts and CDs whose contents are same. You listen the CD without seeing texts. Not seeing any texts. You have to understand the contents of the CD with only your ears.

At first, you must concentrate on whole stories of the CD. You come to be used to listening them, next, concentrate on listening details. And you have to repeat this practice again and again.

At beginning, easy and short texts and CDs are good for beginner. And the most important thing on doing this studying way is your repetition. By doing this again and again, your ears will get used to English.

Any CDs are ok. I’ll try it!

Shadowing

●Way for listening and speaking

You know “shadowing” don’t you? Shadowing is a way to listening and speaking in English. The way of Shadowing, in short, you listen what native speaker spoke, and you speak them just like that.

On this practice, you also need English CDs. Any CDs are ok. At first, you listen them without seeing texts and all you do is listening your CD with only your ears. You have to repeat this way 2 or 3 times.

Then, next, you begin to read aloud the English texts as listening the CD. And repeat this. When you come to read the text’s content without seeing, you try to speak them and listening CD at the same time. And you listen one sentence and you repeat the sentence without seeing. And you add to sentences that you listen and speak gradually.

This way is shadowing.

By this way, you can get used to not only listening and speaking English but also remembering expressions which are used by the sentences.  Let’s try itJ

MY HOPE

Hello, everyone! I’m Mana. Nice to meet you.

At first I’ll tell you about purpose of my blog. On this blog, I want to write good information, opinions, good ways concerned about improving English skills.

You know, there are some fields in studying English. They are reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Among them, especially I want to improve my speaking skills.

Of course I think all of the four skills of English are so important but I’ve heard that most people study English want to speak English and they want to tell more people all over the world their feelings and thinking with English. So I want to know how to way to be better my speaking skill. Not only this, I want to develop other three skins.

Also I interested in success peoples in international societies. Especially I want to know Japanese famous people. When I know about them playing their active parts in the world, the information will make my motivation for studying English higher.

 I hope that more my thoughts will be understood while I write more articles on this blog and this blog will be good for me and you.