Happy Halloween!

Hey everyone, I just want to wish you all a

Happy Halloween~!

Today, I am going to have a quick culture lesson about popular western horror movie characters.

Classic Movie Monsters

Frankenstein

Actually, the monster had NO NAME! The name of the doctor who made the monster was Dr. Frankenstein~! But in popular culture the doctor and the monster got mixed up so everyone calls the monster Frankenstein...

The Mummy

This is from the classic monster movies in black and white where an Egyptian mummy returns to life and starts killing the people who disturbed it's rest. Because of the famous mummy's curse.

Dracula

The most famous vampire story which has been made into many many movies since the black and white film Nosferatu.

The Wolfman

The original werewolf movie monster. A werewolf is a human being who becomes a wolf when there is a full moon.

The Swamp Thing

This is a kind of fish like monster man who lives in a swamp.

The Blob

This is a big jelly like blob that eats everyone and just keeps growing bigger and bigger...

Modern Movie Monsters

These days we don't really have many monsters most of them are killers that are in some way superhuman but let's start with the monsters~!

Alien(s)

The 1970s science-fiction/horror movie starring Sigourney Weaver. The most famous scene in this series is when the baby alien explodes out of someones chest...

Predator

This is an alien who comes to Earth to hunt human beings. The first movie starred Arnold Schwartznegger and the second Daniel Glover. It is not really a horror movie but more of an action/sci-fi movie.

And now onto the famous killers~!

Freddy Krueger

This is the star of the Nightmare on Elm Street movies who was played by Robert Englund. It is a story about a man killed by the adults on Elm St. who then returns in their kid's dreams and starts killing them one by one. He has a special metal glove with long knives as claws. As a kid, he was my favorite horror movie character!

Jason Voorhees

This is Jason the star of the series Friday the 13th where a killer wearing a hockey mask kills people camping in the woods and people at summer camp.

Michael Myers

This is the killer in a white rubber mask that goes around killing people with a big kitchen knife on Halloween. He is the star of the Halloween series of horror movies.

Alright I hope you enjoyed this Halloween lesson, have fun Trick-or-treating~!

Phil

Opposites...

It's time for another installment in my vocabulary series about opposites~!

big <-----> little or small

I wanted to start with something easy big is 大きい and little/small is 小さい.

male <------> female

This is the scientific term used when talking about men and women.

The male lion has a large mane while the female does not.

In Japanese, male is 雄; 牡 ( おす) and female is 雌 (めす).

man <-------> woman WO -man (singular)
men <----------> women wi-min (plural)

You will often find men/women written on the doors of toilets in English speaking countries.

Excuse me where is the men's room?

gentleman <-----------> lady (singular)
gentlemen <------------> ladies (plural)

In Japanese, gentlemen/gentleman is 紳士 (しんし) and lady/ladies is 嬢さん (じょうさん).

Now be careful, for some reason you NEVER hear women ask "Where's the women's room?" instead they use the more polite "Where's the ladies room?". Whereas men will NEVER say "Where's the gentlemen's room?".

Have a nice week,

Phil

Stop hogging the remote~!

Hey everyone, today I will be talking about the verb to hog. Now the noun hog means pig or in casual English it can mean motorcycle(usually like a Harley Davidson).

The verb to hog means that you are NOT sharing, you are being selfish and keeping something for yourself. It is often used among family members, young people and close friends.

It's early in the morning and your house has only one bathroom, your sister has been inside for 30 minutes so you bang on the door and say:

"Stop hogging the bathroom~! I gotta get ready for work!"

You are watching TV and your brother has had the remote (in Japanese, rimocon) for over one hour so you yell:

Philip: Mom, Marc's hogging the remote!

Mom: Give your brother the remote Marc, you have to share.

Marc: Oh OK, here you go...

Well I hope you enjoyed this mini-lesson, have a nice week,

Phil

Watch out for her she's a total cougar!

Today we are going to talk about a pretty new slang word: a cougar. This is a pretty popular new word and there is even a new sitcom (situational comedy - a 30 minute comedy show) on TV called Cougar Town.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HLhOrQuy9U


A cougar is an older woman who dates younger men often to use them for sex. I heard that the word started in Canada(maybe Calgary?) but I am not sure if that is true. Some young guys like to go to "cougar bars" to meet older women for sex and not have to think of the complications you get from relationships...

...it is an interesting phenomenon because when older men date younger women people are not so surprised and consider it normal but when older women date younger women it is still considered a bit shocking. This is what we call a double standard, meaning one thing is ok but the opposite isn't.

Hope you enjoyed this mini-lesson on recent slang~!

Phil

P.S. slang is what we call a very casual form of speech for example gyakunan is slang for gyanku nanpa or reverse picking up in Japanese ^_-

It's a needle in a haystack...

Hey everyone, today I will talk about a very common idiom we use when we are looking for something but we feel it is very hard to find. In that kind of situation we say:

It's like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Meaning it is almost impossible to find~! We say it when we are discouraged and think we won't find what we are looking for...

A haystack is a big pile of hay, you often see them on farms in the fall. See them in Monet's painting ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wheatstacks_(End_of_Summer),_1890-91_(190_Kb);_Oil_on_canvas,_60_x_100_cm_(23_5-8_x_39_3-8_in),_The_Art_Institute_of_Chicago.jpg)

A needle is what you use to sew clothing. It is very small and would be REALLY hard to find in a haystack~!

A: Where did you put that bill again?
B: I don't remember... just keep looking.
A: We've been looking for hours~! It's like looking for a needle in a haystack!
B: Don't worry we'll find it.

Have a nice sunny Wednesday,

Phil

I'm just giving you a heads up...

Hey everyone, today I am doing another short lesson. Recently I've been a bit busy traveling and also showing people around Kyoto so I haven't had as much free time as I usually do. Anyways, today we will be looking at a useful idiom/expression:

Heads up

Now the first meaning of this is literally "Heads up" meaning lift your head up or look up~!

This is used when you want someone to look up for example if you throw something at someone and they are not looking...

A: Heads up!
B: What? Whoa! (catches a basketball) What are you doing?
A: Nice catch! Wanna play some b-ball?

The second meaning is to give someone advance warning about something. This means that something is going to happen, usually surprising or bad, and you don't want to help them get ready for the news.

A: Hey man, just giving you a heads up, they announced a new round of lay-offs.
B: Ouch! Thanks for the heads up, I'll watch my back.

or

A: If you hear anything about my transfer be sure to give me a heads up.
B: Sure, no problem.

So if you hear about any bad news be sure to give your friends a heads up!


Phil

Adjective word order

Hey everyone, I have been meaning to write about this for awhile now but it is a bit of a long grammar lesson so I have not felt motivated enough to do it. But today is the day I will talk about the correct adjective word order. In Japanese, you can put adjectives in any order but in English there is a standard order you must follow. Grammatically, it doesn't matter but in terms of usage if you don't follow this order then it sounds VERY WEIRD~!

1. Opinion: lovely, beautiful, smart, perfect
2. Size: big, small, little, tall, long, short
3. Other: angry, cold, dry, firm, disgusting
4. Age: new, old, young, 40-year-old
5. Color: blue, black, yellow, green
6. Origin: American, Japanese, Dutch
7. Material: silk, cotton, wood, metal, plastic
8. Type/Purpose: running shoes, hiking boots

So for example:

She's wearing a beautiful red Vietnamese dress.

I like to drink delicious Jamaican coffee.

It is an ugly big old grey American concrete research library.

It is kind of strange to use adjectives from each group, usually we just use a maximum of 3 or 4 adjectives:

It was a terrific fast-paced 1980s action movie.

I just bought a new green summer dress.

My friend moved into a wonderful big old apartment.

But most people rarely use more than 2 adjectives at once:

My office is in the tall yellow building.

Wow, those are sexy black pants~! Are they new?

REMEMBER adjective order in English is important so:

My office is in the yellow tall building. X

Wow, those are black sexy pants~! Are they new? X

THIS SOUNDS WRONG!!! It sounds funny and strange, unnatural.

Be Careful everyone and enjoy speaking English,

Phil

I'm between a rock and a hard place...

Hey everyone, sorry about only posting 6 times last month but the Japanese silver week holidays took me to Tokyo where I had a nice time. So today I will be doing a short lesson about a common idiom I taught last week. 


between a rock and a hard place


I have seen this in many English textbooks in Japan and it is a pretty common English idiom. It means that you are in a difficult situation or an impossible situation...


A: What's up?


B: I promised my friend I would go out with him for his birthday but now my girlfriend wants me to go to her friend's birthday on the same day~!


A: Ouch, it sounds like you're between a rock and a hard place.


B: I know, it sucks.


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


These days I'm between a rock and a hard place at work, my boss is really mean but I need the money so I can't quit...


So when you are in a situation when you don't know what to do, all your 
choices seem bad you can say:


"I'm between a rock and a hard place."