Pronunciation diary blog 1

As pronunciation is one of the major topics of this years SUK3 English course, students were asked to do tasks and exercises in order to improve their pronunciation by the end of this semester. I personally have gone through some of the websites that are listed on the Pronunciation Practice Page and found some very useful ones. The first one, which I liked a lot, is called "antimoon.com". Not only is this site helpful for the improvement of pronunciation, but also for making the decision of choosing either American or British English a lot easier. Especially the recordings, which can be listened to at the subpage "Choosing between American and British pronunciation", can help you to compare both accents. After having listened to them, I decided for British accent.

Apart from "antimoon.com", I also visited a website called "hojsay.com". I think that although it seems a bit boring, the site itself is actually quite useful when you want to look  up certain words and their pronunciation.
While surfing through various other websites, I learnt that the ones offering videos are probably the best ones to make progress as you can hear the words and wordings and also the motion of lips while producing them. It makes their imitation and repetition easier. For me,this is the best way to study  pronunciation rather than just having words written down and their pronunciation in phonetics spelling. What I'm trying to say is that exercise is very important to improve and correct your pronunciation.

I personally think that I should have a closer look at the articulation of "f" and "v". Even though I think that I know how to pronounce them correctly, I often do not pay enough attention on these two phonems when i speak rapidly. This is one aspect which I want to focus on during this semester. The second one is the famous "th", which is, especially for German native speakers, particularly difficult to pronounce. I have already started to practice these phonems by using a website called "learnersdictionary.com" and I think it is quite useful.

To sum up, my aim for this semester is not only to succeed with the right pronunciation of those three phonems mentioned above, but also to improve my pronunciation in general by trying to drop the German accent as much as possible while speaking English.

Feedback on anonymous summary

I am going to give some feedback on the following summary called “Summary- Euro Crisis”:

The financial condition of Europe is getting worse and worse, claims Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in an article he wrote about the Euro Crisis in The Telegraph. Europe is already standing with one foot in the grave concerning economy due to policy errors and massive debt rise within European states. In Italy and Spain for example, the debt already became too large and led to extremely dangerous runaway debt – and therefore became impossible to pay back.
This an illustrational example of how dangerous deflation can become once you lose control over a country’s financial balance. One solution mentioned in the article would be to prevent deflation by causing inflation. However, countries with better economic conditions like Germany are not affected by the crisis yet and therefore not willing to renounce the benefit they are deriving from the deflation. Clearly, they do not realize the magnitude of the problem and that they eventually will be affected by the crisis too. Consequently, debt is rising steadily and if we do not combat the crisis, one day all European countries will have to face serious consequences and it will be difficult to break the vicious cycle.  [200 words]

In general, I think that the author mentioned all important arguments of the source text but there are a few points which I would change.  The first sentence seemed to me like a direct speech but the quotation marks are missing. If the author wanted to express indirect speech, he or she should have used simple past tense. I also didn’t like the expression “debt became too large”. Apart from that I noticed some missing commas. Even if the author of this summary did insert all the important information of the original article, I think that he or she didn’t succeed in linking the sentences. While reading it, I had the impression that various information was forced to fit together. This is actually what we were told not to do while writing a summary.  What I like about the summary is the fact that it consists of exactly 200 words which, I think, is difficult to produce. 

EU Project: The European Economic Area

The European Economic Area

The European Economic Area (EEA) is an agreement which was set up in January 1994 to create a fair internal market. The agreement unites 27 EU Member Countries with the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) states, namely Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. Under this contract, these EFTA countries have been enabled to participate in the EU’s internal market, which has led to a growing industrial sector within Europe. All members of the EEA and the EU are granted the same four freedoms: free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. Consumer protection, company law and social policy are also covered as well as cooperation on several issues such as research and technological development, education, tourism, etc. The EEA agreement guarantees equal rights and obligations within the single market for citizens and economic operators. However, its regulations do not affect the primary sector, such as agriculture and fishing because the focus of the European Economic Area mainly lies on the industrial sector. In conclusion, the EEA has become one of today’s leading economic powers in the world, especially due to its excellent cooperation within the member countries. 

[185 words]

Comment on how Academic Paper is going so far

I have already done some research on the internet and found several websites that might be interesting for my academic paper. The only thing that worries me a bit is the fact that I have chosen so many subtopics for my paper so that I'm afraid I might not be able to cover them all. I hope that I still will be able to manage to do it as I don't want to give up my paper topic (Sikhs in Britain). I find it really interesting and I absolutely want to write about it. Apart from the websites, I also found two books that might be interesting for my paper. The only problem is that it would take too long to order them so I'm trying to somehow get online versions of them. I have also started to write the introduction but I think it's very difficult to stick to academic English. This is actually the most challenging thing about writing the academic paper. Despite all these small hurdles, I hope that I still be able to finally hand in a well-written academic paper.

Africans in Europe: The Most Risky Jobs

(Group 8: Anita Bhatti, Ella Fedorchuk, Victoria Nikitina)

More and more Africans these days leave their homes for Europe. There are various reasons why they are forced to set off and seek their fortune overseas: from the dire poverty to a vain desire to grow rich. Very often migrants travel to Italy, Spain and other European countries in order to earn money to start a new life and to support their families back home in Africa. The worshipped Europe is one of the most popular destinations for Africans to migrate to as they associate the continent with numerous possibilities to earn money and live a prosperous life. African parents often persuade their children to go abroad as they are absolutely dependent on their sons and daughters and emigration for them seems to be the only chance to turn over a new leaf.

Beguedo, for example, which is a town located in the countryside of Burkina Faso, has changed a lot due to the earnings of Africans working in Europe and sending money to their relatives back home. The revenues have led to the building of several houses and to an improvement of equipment in hospitals. Beguedo has a population of 20 thousand people but an enormous number of five thousand inhabitants lives and works abroad. Apart from supporting their families in Africa, they have done even more: an Association of Beguedo Migrants in Italy spares no effort to provide a proper medical care for their countrymen. It is obvious that all these facts make parents proud of their successful children.

There is no doubt that more and more Africans leave their homeland in search for a better life in Europe. Unfortunately, most of them are not aware of the fact that Europe has also many hidden traps in store for them and that only migrating to it does not necessarily mean that they will start leading a great life. They are not aware of all the risky jobs in Europe.

Drug selling

Lots of African migrants in Europe state that they are forced to do ‘illegal’ jobs. In fact, no one really imposes the selling of drugs upon them. In most cases, it is their own choice. Many Africans also admit that they have been trying to find a ‘good’ job for several months without success. Such drug sellers often do not even think of other opportunities to earn money as, to a certain degree, this is a rather easy way. On the one hand, they earn a lot in a short period of time, on the other, they lead a life in fear and could be arrested for their illegal job. However, most of the African migrants prefer keep on working than going back home and confessing failure.

Prostitution

Not only African men, but also African women come to Europe in search for a better life and wealth. While trying to find a good job offer, they instead often end up in prostitution. From that very moment, it is not about money but about losing their dignity. In many cases, women are brought to Europe by their family members but they do not realize that those relatives only want to destroy their lives. Once being involved in prostitution, they are promised to get papers and a normal job as soon as they have paid a certain amount of money. What the prostitutes are not aware of at the beginning is that they have to keep on paying sums of money without a way out of this vicious circle.  Those who try to escape from prostitution are threatened that their families will be harmed. They seem to be trapped forever.

To sum up, it can be said that no matter what kind of risky jobs African migrants have in Europe, nothing is worth losing your dignity and entire life just because you are afraid of failure!

EU individual paragraph

Original paragraph

At first glance, the text “What the EU is for” seemed to be well structured to me by only looking at it. The author into paragraphs by using different headings for each of them to give a clue what each section of the text was going to be about. Not only this good structure, but also the good connection of sentences to their previous ones enabled to follow the text easily. I personally also liked the usage of various good expressions, like, for instance, “a recently forged special relationship”. “In want of a better word” was another phrase that I hadn’t come across so far but I am now definitely going to use it myself in future. The only two things in the text that I found less impressive were the usage of the conjunctions “but” and “so” at the beginning of a sentence and the verbal repetitions that the author used twice in successive sentences. Apart from these two negative points, I think that “What the EU is for” is a well-written text and I enjoyed reading it.

Feedback summary 1 (Topic sentence, register)

All in all, my group mates thought that my paragraph is well-written and that its register was also appropriate. They only noticed two things that I should change: According to them, my first sentence is not really an introduction sentence and rewriting it would be a good idea. Apart from that, I should not use "like, for instance" but simply leave out the "like".

New version

At first glance, I found the text “What the EU is for” well-structured without having even read it. The author divided it into paragraphs by using different headings for each of them to give a clue what each section of the text was going to be about. Not only this good structure, but also the good connection of sentences to their previous ones enabled to follow the text easily. I personally also liked the usage of various good expressions, for instance, “a recently forged special relationship”. “In want of a better word” was another phrase that I hadn’t come across so far but I am now definitely going to use it myself in future. The only two things in the text that I found less impressive were the usage of the conjunctions “but” and “so” at the beginning of a sentence and the verbal repetitions that the author used twice in successive sentences. Apart from these two negative points, I think that “What the EU is for” is a well-written text and I enjoyed reading it.

Feedback summary 2 (cohesion, coherence)

When my group mates read my paragraph for the second time in search of cohesion and coherence mistakes, they did not find any. They liked the content of my text and also found that the sentences were well-linked.

Final version

At first glance, I found the text “What the EU is for” well-structured without having even read it. The author divided it into paragraphs by using different headings for each of them to give a clue what each section of the text was going to be about. Not only this excellent structure, but also the good connection of sentences to their previous ones enabled to follow the text easily. I personally also liked the usage of various good expressions, for instance, “a recently forged special relationship”. “In want of a better word” was another phrase that I hadn’t come across so far but I am now definitely going to use it myself in future. The only two things in the text that I found less impressive were the usage of the conjunctions “but” and “so” at the beginning of a sentence and the verbal repetitions that the author used twice in successive sentences. Apart from these two negative points, I think that “What the EU is for” is a well-written text and I enjoyed reading it.

Final version 2: 

At first glance, I found the text “What the EU is for” well-structured. The author divided it into paragraphs and used different headings for each of them which indicates the readers what each section of the text was going to be about. Not only this excellent structure, but also the perfect cohesion between sentences enabled the readers to follow the text easily. I personally also liked the usage of various good expressions, for instance, “a recently forged special relationship”. “In want of a better word” was another phrase that I had not come across before but I am now definitely going to use it in future. The only two things in the text that I found less impressive were the usage of the conjunctions “but” and “so” at the beginning of a sentence and a number of verbs that the author used more than once in successive sentences. Apart from these two negative points, I think that “What the EU is for” is a well-written text and I enjoyed reading it.

MY TOP 5 EU- RELATED TOPICS

This is my first blog this semester and it’s going to be about the top 5 EU-related topics that I can imagine writing an assignment about in our SUK3 class. We were told to not choose the ones that cover too many different fields because it would be difficult to write about them with a word limit of “only” 1500 words. So, after having done a little bit of research, here are my top 5 EU-related topics:

My first and most favourite topic would be about Indian migrants in and moving to the EU. As my parents originally come from India and I therefore have an Indian background, it would be really interesting to learn how the Indian migrants come to the EU, why they choose to live there and the problems they (have to) face.  

Languages, maybe in relationship with different cultures, within the European Union would also be an attractive topic for me to deal with. I would do research on their benefits, for example, in how far it is useful to study languages nowadays within the EU and maybe I would also come across information that this is not such a good idea.

As my third choice, I have listed the data protection in the EU as it is a very controversial topic and concerns us more than anything else in today’s world. Perhaps, it is somehow possible to also touch on the subject of Facebook.  For me, this topic sounds extremely promising.

The EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection Policy and the enlargement of the European Union from 1973 to 2010 are my fourth and fifth favourite topics.

No matter which topic I choose, I really hope that I will select one where I have sufficient sources to look things up and one that interests me even after having spent a lot of time working on it. Apart from that, I also look forward to a good grade for the finished assignment! ;)

Culture Day

Hey guys,

After many weeks of preparation and hard work, we, the SUK2 students finally gave our culture presentations. We were all not only supposed to present our own ones, but to listen to at least ten of other students too. All in all, it took our teachers, Fiona and Frank, almost two complete days to listen to all of us which might not always have been that much pleasant due to the high number of students.

The three American topics I have listened to ("America as a nation of narcissism", "Does Race Still Matter in the US?", "Ellen DeGeneres-a modern woman and her influence on America" ) were all extremely good topics and all very well prepared. I listened to them before my own presentation and I really found them very impressive.

As we were supposed to choose five out of the ten Ireland related presentations we had listened to, it didn't take me much time to decide for the ones which I liked best.

The first one is Diana Skof’s topic which is called “Psychiatry in Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s with the case of Hanna Greally”. It was the first presentation that I went to see. I already knew approximately what it was about because Diana is a very good friend of mine and she had already told me a little bit about it. Still, I first listened to her presentation and then I decided to choose it for our final exam, the “Kommissionelle Gesamtprüfung”. Not only did I like Diana’s PowerPoint which concluded appropriate pictures, but also the content of her presentation and the way she spoke in a calm and fluent way.

The second presentation that I also liked very much was Teresa Brenner’s “Ireland’s St. Magdalene Asylum and its survivors”. I was not only captured by her fluent language and her confident appearance, but also by the topic which I found extremely interesting. Teresa told us how badly girls were treated in that asylum and other factors, like the bad working conditions, which was both sad but captivating too.

The third topic I have chosen for the “Kommissionelle Gesamtprüfung” is Shirin Mahrouzadeh’s one called “Homophobic Bullying in Irish schools”. This was a current topic related to nowadays and that is one reason why I've chosen it. Most of the other presentations were history related and that’s the reason, apart from the good content and prezi presentation, why “Homophobic Bullying in Irish schools” is my third culture presentation for our final exam.

Sabrina Krassnig’s special and also humorous presentation with the title “Ireland-a birthplace of witchcraft” is also contained in my five favorite culture presentations. I loved the way Sabrina tried to explain the whole topic, that was already very interesting, with a great sense of humor.  

Irina Unger’s presentation about “The Irish Claddah Ring” completes my list of five Irish culture topics. What I liked about her presentation was first of all the fact that she spoke absolutely freely without any sheets with notes. The second thing was again the fascinating topic and its content.

All in all, the Culture Days were a very good idea and I think that we all learned a lot. The only thing that is missing now is the “Kommissionelle Gesamtprüfung”. I really hope that all students of the SUK2 class will pass it! 

Les Noces Barbares - The Wedding

Hey guys :)

I've decided to write a blog about a book which we’re reading in our French class at the moment. It is called “Les Noces Barbares” (“The Wedding” in English) and was written by Yann Queffelec, a French author.

The story takes place near the sea somewhere in France and is written in a narrative perspective. Queffelec describes everything in a very objective way even though the plot is very sad and should include lots of emotions.

The plot

It all begins when Nicole, a young French teenage girl, falls in love with Will, an American, who is many years older than her. He promises to marry her and even talks to her parents about it. One day, he asks Nicole to spend a night with him and as she is deeply in love with him, she comes to the place as agreed upon. When she meets Will, the young girl realizes that he is drunk. The following part in the book is described in extremely appalling detail. Will had invited two friends of him and they variantly rape Nicole. This is probably the most important part of the book because the subsequent story line is based upon it.

Nicole gets pregnant and has a baby, Ludovic (called Ludo). She hates him more than anything else because every time she sees him she is reminded of that nightmare of when she was raped. Ludo is treated very badly. In the first few years, he is kept in the garret and has almost no access to the world outside of it. Nicole’s parents unwillingnessly look a bit after him but they don’t like the child either as he is a dishonor for the family. The only person who is nice to Ludo is his aunt but unfortunately she dies in the course of the story.

After some years, Nicole decides to get married to Micho, a mechanic, who has already a son called Tatav. After the marriage, Ludo and Nicole move to Micho’s house even though Nicole is strongly against the decision to take Ludo with her. In all the recent years that have passed she has never ever given Ludo the feeling of love or affection. Her son suffers extremely from his heartless mother and is always in hope that one day she would accept him as her child.

Time passes and nothing changes between their relationship. On the contrary, Nicole suffers more and more from the recurring nightmares and finally decides to send Ludo to an asylum. The only persons who come to see him are Micho and Tatav. Nicole never shows her face there which makes Ludo even sadder as he already is…

This is not the end of the story but I won’t reveal it as someone maybe wants to read it on his or her own.

Now that you have read the beginning of the plot, I think that you all realized that this book is not for the faint-hearted. I would recommend it only to those of you who don’t weep easily because the story is extremely sad and I won’t promise a happy end either… 

Food blog

In our last English lesson we had to look for an interesting food blog on the internet. After having found one, it was our task to write a blog about it. So, here we go.

I came across a mouth-watering recipe for Indian curry chicken. As I have Indian background, it was obvious for me to choose a blog that dealt with Indian food. It is my favourite cuisine and especially the non-vegetarian dishes are simply outstanding! This is the first reason why I chose “Monica's Spice Diary-Indian Food Blog”.

The second one is that I really liked the way how the author, Monica, starts her recipes. She adds a personal thought that makes you really understand what she is trying to say. This probably sounds a bit strange, I know, but maybe I can explain it. In the introduction of the Curry Chicken recipe, for instance, Monica describes her childhood in India and what she relates with this specific dish. It made me think of all the holidays my family and I spent in India, what dishes I enjoyed most eating there and how much I actually miss that time. 

But enough of all that sentimental stuff now! I founded that the recipe itself did not sound that much difficult and I decided to try it out with three friends of mine. My mum had often cooked this dish at home so I knew theoretically, how it was to be prepared. The only problem was that I had watched my mum cooking it but never tried it out on my own.

Before starting to cook Curry Chicken with my friends, I called my mum to ask her about two ingredients that I remember she had never added to this dish. After having talked to her, I decided to stick to my mum’s recipe.

All in all, we enjoyed preparing the dish a lot. The only (small) problem we had to struggle with was that one my friends did not like eating spicy food at all but the rest of us did. After quite a long time of consideration we finally decided that we had to use two pans and cook the Curry Chicken twice: once with and once without hotness. Fortunately, both dishes were delicious in the end.

Rape case, New Delhi

Hey guys,

I know that by now, most people have already frogotten this incident which happened several weeks ago in New Delhi, India. However, it brought some changes to the country and that's why I'm sharing this blog with you.

The 23 years old Indian girl and medical student  was raped in a bus in Delhi on December 16 in the evening. Her boyfriend was accompanying her when this cruel incident happened. She wasn't "only" gang-raped by all in all six men but badly wounded too. Her boyfriend also suffered from severe injuries but he survived. After the occurance, she had been brought to a special hospital in Singapur but she nevertheless died on December 29th. 

The girl's family received 1.5 million rupees from the government. What I asked myself is that how it must feel in such a situation when you get money in exchange for somebody you loved and who isn't there anymore. Somehow I can empathise with the victim's family about wanting death penalty for the committers. The six men are seriously threatened by that desicion at the moment.

Even if this incident made the whole country feel ashamed and extremely sad, there were also some positive things that happened in consequence to it: Massive protests and an introduction of a 24-hours-hotline for woman in need, but the most important consequence is probably that sexual abuse of woman in India has been brought to light.

Hopefully there wiill be more upcoming postive consequences of this terrible rape!

"Fancy" Culture evening ;-)

So, our last progress check isn't far away anymore. Everybody gets stressed more and more as the days pass by. We, the students, now have to study the CLIs of the other groups and in order to break that down a little bit for us, our professors invited us to a culture evening.

I think that it was a really good idea. They tried to explain the culture topics but not like in too strict lessons. It was actually quite great fun listening to them and laughing with them. 

When I went to the culture evening I didn't expect it to last so long. Still, I liked it and as Fiona told us that this had been the first culture evening she and the other professors had organised, I would strongly recommend to do so again in the following years too.

What impressed me the most was probably the Appalachian guest who told us a little bit about the region where he comes from. Not only did he talk about that, he gave other interesting information (like for example about the Bible Belt in the Us) too. 

Apart from that I think that everybody was quite impressed by the "fancy" presentation ;-)

Amritsar

The most impressive place I have ever been to is Amritsar, a city located in the north-western part of India. The first time I visited this city I was totally overwhelmed. Every single area of this city was completely overcrowded. The main reason why Amritsar grabs the visitors’ attention is the “Harmandir Sahib”, informally referred to as the “Golden Temple”. It is the most important shrine of the Sikhs. What impresses me most about it is the access for everybody regardless of which religion and the breath-taking part of the temple, which is completely covered with gold. The second sight of this city that attracts the visitors’ attention is the “Jallianwala Bagh”, a public garden where the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in 1919. A memorial was built at this site. I actually did not found it really exciting until reaching a wall where the bullet holes of the shooting are still visible today. Apart from venturing out Amritsar and seeing various sights, you get a special and unique feeling as if you were experiencing a colourful Bollywood film yourself.