Money!!!

Ok here's another quick lesson. In English, we have many casual words to talk about money. You can hear them in movies and on the street. Here are some of the most common ones:

10 bucks: This is used in Canada and the US, 1 buck=1dollar. A long time ago, people didn't use paper money or coins in North America so much. Most people were hunters and 1 buck skin(a male deer's skin) was the standard used when giving prices at general stores.

Mostly in the US, but also in Canada, we have these expressions:

a quarter=25 cents

a dime=10 cents

a nickel=5 cents

a penny=1 cent

There are also a few words for big money, the ones I have heard the most are a grand which means one thousand dollars(1000$). This was later shortened into 10Gs, meaning 10 grand or 10000$.

In Canada, you have:

a loonie=a 1 dollar coin(from the picture of the loon on it)

a toonie=a 2 dollar coin

I don't know much about the UK but this I know:

1 pound=1 quid

I heard a quid used to be a certain amount of tobacco but am not sure if that is where this expression came from.

1 pence=1 P

Which is pretty simple pence starts with P!

Ok that is it for now, more next week...

Phil

Silly Rabbit, Play is for kids!!!

Recently, I was reminded that in Japanese あそぶ is used ALOT but in English play is children's English.

Play is usually used by small children when talking about meeting friends and having fun. When you become a teenager you do not want to sound like a kid, sound childish, so you gradually stop using play. Instead, you start to use hang out.

Example:

I hung out with my friends yesterday.

Hey Phil, wanna hang out tomorrow?

Hang out simply means you meet your friends to have fun and do nothing special, you have no fixed plans.

Play is used by kids(under 12 years old) and should not be used by adults. If an adult says, "I played with my friend yesterday" it sounds sexual. So for adults, play can often mean sex. So be careful!!!

Adults use play for sports and games. For example:

I played basketball last weekend.

Do you wanna play Grand Theft Auto?

How often do you play poker?

Do you ever play Monopoly?

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Phil

Do you know...???

OK, I think this problem comes from Japanese English speakers translating

~知っていますか？

into

Do you know~?

Now this literal translation does not work. The English sentence:
Do you know...? means Have you met...? Is ... your friend? So it means:

Do you know ... PERSONALLY?

Also "Do you know...?", is ONLY used to talk about people, NOT things.

So, what should you say??? Well, you should use the very useful expression:

Have you heard of ...?

This can be used to talk about BOTH people and things:

Have you heard of Takanohana?

Have you heard of bungee jumping?

Have you heard of ごくせん?

So this expression is simply asking if you know about something or someone. Did you hear, read or see ANYTHING about it. Do you have KNOWLEDGE of it? Are you aware of it?

I hope this helps!

You can ask your friends:

Have you heard of Phil's English Tips Blog?

hahaha

Men's Hairstyles...

Today, we are going to talk about men's hairstyles.





So, as you can see from the drawing:


balding: The man is losing his hair, but it is not all gone yet.

bald: The man has lost all his hair.


A shaved head means that the man CAN have hair but has decided to shave it off. Many swimmers and other athletes do this...

BE CAREFUL, skinhead meaning having a shaved head is Japanese-English. In normal English, a skinhead is a white supremacist or nazi. So a skinhead is a VERY negative word~!

Countable? Uncountable?

Hey everyone, today I will talk a bit about countable and uncountable nouns. Usually, countable nouns are things you can physically count easily. For example; cars, apples, bananas, pens, books,etc.

Uncountable nouns are usually abstract concepts(love, art, photography) or things you can't easily count. For example; liquids(beer, coffee, wine), sand, grass, etc.

When you are speaking in GENERAL, you MUST add S to COUNTABLE nouns.

I like pineapples.

I like girls.

Uncountable nouns DO NOT need S.

I like reading.

I like beer.

Be careful!!! If you add an S to an uncountable noun you will change the meaning~!

Some teachers might say you are saying something grammatically incorrect, this is not true. The grammar is fine but the meaning has changed...

Example 1:

There are many people in the room=There are many humans in the room.

There are many peoples in the room=There are different ethnic groups in the room.

So, people means more than one person BUT peoples means more than one ethnic group. This is why the second sentence sounds strange, we would normally say "There are many peoples in Asia" not in a room! hahaha

Ethnic group=Ainu, Indian, French, Tutsi, Inuit, etc.

Example 2:

I like chickens=I like the animal.

I like chicken=I like the meat.

Animals are countable BUT meat is uncountable. So BE CAREFUL!

If you say, I like dog, it means you like to eat dog meat!!!

You ate bread for breakfast?!?!?!????

Hey everyone here is another short and quick lesson. Many of my students have told me they ate bread for breakfast and I was always surprised because plain bread is a little bland(薄味,うすあじ). After asking them to describe their breakfast I always found out they had used the wrong word! In English, bread is not toasted. You take bread, put it into the toaster, PING! Toast come out of the toaster ^^


So here are a few bread vocabulary words!


bread: パン

ex: What kind of bread do you like? I like baguettes!



bake: To cook something using dry heat, usually in an oven.

ex: My sister likes to bake cookies. ^^



bakery: A store selling baked goods, in japanese: パン屋


ex: What is that delicious smell coming from the bakery?


bun: A small bread roll, often sweetened or spiced and sometimes containing dried fruit.


ex: Do you like sticky buns?



roll: A small rounded amount of bread.


ex: These bread rolls are really good!



loaf: A big amount of bread, usually shaped like a rectangle. You cut slices off it.


ex: a loaf of bread, two loaves of bread.


croissant: a crescent shaped roll of bread


ex:



baguette: This is the famous french bread which is long and thin.


ex: I love fresh baguettes.


toast: To heat and brown bread, by putting it in a toaster or an oven.

ex: I eat toast(s) for breakfast!

Wow, I am hungry now. Time to eat!

A tongue twister I made to practice "th"

Here is a tongue twister I made so that you can practice the "th" sound.

Thirty thin math teachers thought they taught their thirsty students rather well.

That's it, if you have any questions just ask!

Phil

Clever, Intelligent, smart...

Hey everyone, I am back from Okinawa where I saw some interesting sites, enjoyed great food and, some sun, sand and swimming. ^^

So I am back in Kyoto and trying to get back to my normal routine. Today, I will be talking about the differences between clever, intelligent and smart.

Now, clever is often used by Japanese English speakers but is not so common in Montreal. There are a few meanings:

1. quick thinking and original.
2. Good with your hands and body, agile, dextrous.

In New England(a part of the US) we have:

3A. easily managed; docile: "Oxen must be pretty clever to be bossed around that way"
3B. easy and nice to speak to but not especially smart.


In the Southern US:

4. Good-natured; friendly.

Some of the meanings are a little negative:

5. smart in a superficial way

AND In British informal English:

6. sly or cunning [Middle English cliver]


In all the books I've read and tv shows I've seen the usage of clever has most often been number 1. It's usually used to describe someone who is good at solving problems or puzzles. It can be positive in meaning but sometimes it's used to describe someone who tricked you so, to me, it has a bit of a negative meaning.

Now smart and intelligent are a bit closer in meaning. Both are positive and to me the difference is more in usage than in meaning.

Smart is more CASUAL and we use it more often than intelligent. It means that you can learn things quickly and easily. You are a fast thinker and ressourceful.

Intelligent is more FORMAL and so you will see it often in newspapers or hear it in university textbooks, etc.

A- It means that you can think, usually to a high degree
(ex: Monkeys are more intelligent than dogs).

B- It can also mean, showing good judgement
(ex: He made an intelligent decision when he invested in Microsoft in the 1970s).

C- When we use intelligent to talk about computers, robots or machines, the meaning is that they can make decisions on their own, it looks like they can think. Smart shares this meaning.
(ex: AI= artificial intelligence, The smart missile hit the plane after a long chase.)

I hope that helped!

Phil