Narrative Protests in Bangkok

Kanya tries to see what is going on but cannot glimpse what is happening in the first rows of the march. Even when she stands on her toes, she cannot see anything because colourful flags, banners and signs are sticking out of the crowd everywhere. Not much is moving and the Thai woman is growing impatient slowly. The march through the huge and lively city Bangkok has taken four hours already and still more and more people are joining in, even though the streets are stuffed with people already. She can feel the people all around her becoming uneasy and hear the whistling growing even louder but until now everyone has been calm and peaceful. Even if this protest turned out violent and if she got lost in the struggling masses again, if would be worth it. This government, which is hated by all Thai people, cannot stay in power. The protest have been going on for a long time now but the power-hungry Yingluck Shinawatra has not resigned yet.

 

Pronunciation Diary 2

My second blog post about pronunciation is more specific than my first one because I already knew what my mistakes were. When I read my pronunciation feedback I was not surprised to find out that my unvoiced “th” was not perfect yet because I had never given it special attention. So I checked the pronunciation page to find videos or texts about the “th”. I was lucky to find enough information online and also asked my peer Natascha for help because she is very good when it comes to pronunciation. From Rachel's English I knew what I should do but I was not sure if I did it right. So I asked Natascha if my threes sounded any better now. She was very nice and always told me when it sounded right and when I still had to change something. So when I knew how it basically works, I practiced on my own whenever nobody could hear me, like for example on my way home or in the shower. ;) I know that my “th” is not perfect yet and it still does not feel completely natural. I always have to think about it and when I do not pay attention I tend to just ignore it and pronounce the unvoiced “th” like “f”. However, I will try to be more aware of the unvoiced “th” whenever I speak and hope that I will sometime be able to do it like a native speaker.

Studying Vocabulary

In this blog I will explain how I study my vocabulary and what works for me and what does not. As we had to study the Porter words this semester, I will focus on how I studied those. To begin with, I do the exercises in the Porter book. Even though some of the exercises are very doable, there always are many words that I do not know or do not know well enough. These words I write on the Vocabulary sheet included in the book. When I am done with that I check all the words on my Vocabulary sheet online to get a quick overview what they all mean. Then I start studying the vocabulary list on “vocabulary.com”. I have really come to like this website during the course of this semester. I does not only include very useful definitions and example sentences but you can also listen to the pronunciation of the words, which is very useful for PC2. For pronunciation the listening and spelling question part is especially great. On this level you have to read through the definition of the word but without the word and you should guess what is meant by the definition. If you do not know what it is, you can listen to the word and then spell it. This level is very helpful for me because I can easily check if I would have pronounced the word the same way. While studying the vocabulary list I write down all the words that are especially hard for me.

When I am done studying the list because I have mastered it I read through my “difficult words” again and check if I know how to define, explain and use them now. Then I study the ones that I still do not know again. This basically is how I study my vocabulary. For the last PC, this precess worked very well. I hope it will work for this one as well.

Pronunciation Diary 1

To start my pronunciation practice, I tried to do Rachel's exercises. I picked a Youtube video I liked and took a sequence out of that. I start at 2:00 in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eobsfjFOqNk

With this half sentence I tried to do the Ben Franklin method and wrote down everything I could hear. I am not sure if my notes are clear for everyone but they make sense to me.

 

When I was done with that, I tried to repeat the piece of language myself and then recorded myself doing that. I think that the speaker, Jona Weinhofen, has a very nice English, even though is is hard to imitate.

I then tried to upload my recording to soundcloud and put the link here but unfortunately something did not work. I hope I will figure out how it works soon.