Christmas Songs/Carols

Hey everyone, at the moment I am in Holland enjoying my winter holidays so today I will just be showing you some videos of famous English Christmas carols from youtube. Enjoy and:

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year~!

Jingle Bells, popular with kids



Silent Night, a mellow Christmas classic plus We Wish you a Merry Christmas and Joy to the World... a bit long




Bing Crosby singing White Christmas, another classic




Dean Martin singing Let it Snow, winter song~!




Elvis Presley singing the mellow, Silent Night

Do you go to cram school?

In Japan, many children go to juku, 塾 (じゅく), to prepare for entrance exams for High School, University, etc. These kinds of schools don't really exist in Canada or the U.S., if we feel our kids need to study more we hire a tutor to come to our homes and help them study. Usually, the teacher will contact the parents saying their kid needs help and will recommend a student of a higher grade to tutor them.

In English, we translate juku as cram school. This comes from the verb to cram which means to force something into a space which is too small for it. For example:

The pushers on the yamanote line crammed the people into the train.

Wow~! Did you see they crammed 15 clowns into that tiny car!

Be careful, in English pusher means (illegal) drug dealer but in Japanese it is someone who pushes people onto crowded trains during rush hour!!!

Now, from that meaning students started to use it to talk about last minute studying because they have a lot of information to cram into their brains in a short amount of time. For example:

Man, I'm not ready for tomorrow's final... I'm really gonna have to cram tonight!

I had to cram all weekend to pass my history midterm.

Often when students have to study hard they pull an all-nighter. This means that they study all night without sleeping!

My teacher is crazy~! I had to pull an all-nighter just to read this week's material!!!

Hmm, that's it for now, have a great weekend,

Phil

Do Japanese people have...?

So time for another mini-lesson, as it is the holiday season I am pretty busy doing Christmas shopping and packing for my upcoming trip to Europe so I don't have as much free time to write longer posts. Sorry about that, but I hope you still enjoy these shorter lessons ^_-



Today, I will be talking about some rooms and places you fill find in a house in the West. I wonder if Japanese homes also have these? Maybe you can post a comment and let me know~!



So the typical rooms in a house are:

• an attic アティック or 屋根裏 (やねうら)
• a pantry パントリー or 配膳室 (はいぜんしつ)
• a living room 居間 (いま)
• a dining room ダイニングルーム
• a kitchen キッチン or 台所 (だいどころ)
• a bedroom 寝室 (しんしつ)
• a bathroom (which usually also has a toilet)
• a garage ガレージ
• a basement 地下室 ( ちかしつ) or 地階 (ちかい)
• a hallway 廊下 (ろうか)

You might also hear about some other places in a western home. For example at my house we had:

a den, this was our TV room we also had a living room for special occasions

a linen closet in the hallway where we kept linens like; sheets, blankets, towels, etc.

a junk drawer in the kitchen, where we would keep all kinds of junk like; rubber bands, twist ties, staplers, scissors, string, glue, etc.

So do Japanese homes have linen closets, dens or junk drawers?

Phil

I have a real sweet tooth ^_-

Hey everyone, today we will have a quick lesson of a noun that I think is fun and interesting to know. I wrote it down on a scrap of paper a long time ago and came across it now so decided it was time to write about it~!

a sweet tooth (n)

Now we use this noun in the same way as "I have a book" or "I have a bad back" so it's used with the verb to have + a sweet tooth. This means that you REALLY love sweets. It means that you often eat sweet foods and that you psychologically feel an urge to eat sweets as often as you can. In Japanese, you might use:

甘いもの好き (あまいものずき)

Since it is the Christmas season, many people are eating sweet foods like pies, cakes and pastries so you might hear someone say:

"I have a real sweet tooth."

or when shopping you might ask:

"What gift do you recommend for someone with a sweet tooth?"

Have a good week,

Phil

What can you do in Montreal?

Hey everyone, how's everything with you? Today, we are gonna have a quick pronounciation lesson. In English, when you have a word which finishes in O followed by a word which starts in I it becomes a WI sound.

O + I = WI

So here are a few example sentences to help you sound more like a native English speaker.

What are you doing? (formal)

Whad R U do-wing? (normal)

Whacha do-win? (casual)

Here you can see that "What are you" becomes "Whacha" in very casual English. You will often hear kids asking this questions~!

What is going on this weekend? (formal)

What's go-wing on this weekend? (normal)

What's go-win-non this weekend? (casual)

You can notice that in casual English the final g in words is often dropped:

going -----> goin'

doing -----> doin'

Also notice that the N connects to the following vowel. Just like you get:

an apple ----> an-Napple

an orange -----> an-Norange

and so when you drop the final G you get:

going on -----> go-win-Non

Here's my final example:

What can you do in Montreal? (formal)

What can you do-win Montreal? (normal)

What can ya do-win Montreal? (casual)

Alright, that's it for now have a good weekend~!

Phil

Ummm, food...

Hey everyone, it's now the Holiday season and so many people will be going to Christmas parties, End-of-the-year parties (bou-nen-kai) and then New Year's Eve parties ^_^ so I decided to talk about a really popular kind of party in the West these days:

a potluck

This is a party where everyone brings a dish (a pot) to share. So when you eat some food you are taking a chance(luck) on if the food is good or not. ^_- hahaha

This kind of party is really popular these days because many people in Canada & the U.S. have different kinds of dietary restrictions. This means that there are things they CAN'T EAT, for example Hindus can't eat beef, Jews and Muslims can't eat pork, vegetarians can't eat meat, etc.

So by having a potluck everyone will bring a dish they can eat, it is much simpler than asking every guests "Do you have any dietary restrictions?" and then trying to make a menu that everyone can eat.

Also, students often have potlucks because they aren't so expensive to host. You just have to pay for one dish and maybe some snacks. So during the current recession it is an affordable way to have a party.

At a party people often serve finger food. This is a more casual way of saying hors d'ouevres. It simply means small snacks you eat with your fingers. So finger foods are things like chips & dip, vegetable sticks & dip, cocktail wieners, crackers with fois gras, cold cuts, etc.

Well guys, have fun at your parties this year~! Don't eat too much!

Phil