My favorite store

I haven’t shopped lately but there is a favorite store I used to go often. Its name is Satisfaction and it’s located in Kengun. It’s a clothes store and has many good products. The most of the products there are imported especially from Europe. I really like their taste. It fits my style. Kengun is kind of far from my house which is about 30 minutes by car but I still used to go there to buy some clothes. However, I’ve been very poor these days so I haven’t only bought clothes but anything. [94 words]

Party

Last Saturday my highschool friends got together for a party. I hadn't seen them for a long time so it was very fun. One of our class mate held this get-together and he invited all the class mates but only 10 people out of 38 could make it. I still enjoyed it very much. One of our classmate has been engaged. She looked very happy. The other girl has moved to Osaka and been working there. There were 5 girls and 5 guys. All the girls are working and all the guys are still students. We went to Izakata on shimo-tori and stayed there for 3 hours. We talked a lot. We talked about our highschool lives, nowadays lives, and many other things. We were all drunk and felt happy. I'm looking forward to meeting them next time.

My favorite socks

When I work outside at night, I'm cold at first. As I move more I got less cold and warmer and warmer. However, my toes are always cold. No matter how much I move, my toes stay cold. I always didn't like that. One day I talked about it to my mother and a few days later she bought me a pair of socks. They are in different shape from what I usually where. They have 5 bags for every single toe. She said they keep it warm. I was suspicious at first. Besides when I wore them, it felt something was stuck between the toes so I didn't really like it. But I was wrong. During I was working today, my toes never got cold the whole time. I was so impressed. These socks are amazing. I have seen some people wear those socks including my mother and I sneered of them because they looked ridiculous and weird. They didn't look stylish to me. But now I realize weather it is stylish doesn't matter. I prefer to keep my toes warm. I thank someone who invented the socks and my mother who bought me them.
［196 words］

A letter from Perth

Today, when I got back home from school, I saw there was a big white envelope on the table in the kitchen. And it signed my name on it. I felt excited because I seldom receive any letters from anybody. I picked up the letter and checked whom it was from. I was really surprised when I saw the name on the back of the envelope. It was from my English teacher in junior high school. I haven't seen or heard from her for almost 7 years and suddenly got this letter.
The letter said that she now lives in Perth with her Australian husband for three years. I was glad to know that she still remembers me having had many many students after I graduated the junior high school. It's been already 7 years since after I graduated junior high school and it makes me feel old. Anyway, I'm going to have to write her back with some pictures. It was such a heartwarming surprise for me. The highlight of the day. [186 words]

Bookreviews "Escape"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.
First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.
[223 words]

I will talk about the summer vacation of mine. I almost had part time job. I work in cram school. I had hard work, and I was very tired. That is because I must work all days.
That is, I taught math to elementary student in morning , then, I taught it to junior high school student in after noon, finally, I taught it to high school student.
However, I had leisure time. I went to Tokyo using " Seishun 18 ticket " It cost me only about 1,2 sauthand yen to go there. The reason that I went there is that I want to meet my friends. I went to Izakaya Shinjyuku with my friend. I met him for the first time in the long time. We decided to go to Yokohama next day. When we saw it, we are very moved because it was very splendid and beautiful. Especially, I think the Yamashita Park is great. We can see many urban buildings, Yokohama bay, and Bay bridge. I want to go there again. [175 words]

About unknown words

When I read a text in a foreign language, I frequently come across words I do not understand. Sometimes I look up the word in a dictionary and sometimes I guess. It depends very much upon the degree of accuracy which you require and the time at my disposal. So I think so, I remember the talking which Prof. Kamimoto said to us in reading class.

If I tend to use the dictionary frequently, I should remember that all dictionaries have limitations and no definition is completely accurate. But I will get an accurate understanding of a word after seeing it in a variety of contexts, so it is good to read many books. Dictionaries which translate from English into Japanese and from Japanese into English are not as accurate as dictionaries which define words in their own language. So I should also consult an English-English dictionary, I think!!

And, in most exams I am not permitted to use a dictionary. Even if I am allowed to use one, it takes a lot of time, and time in exams is usually limited, so I am forced to guess the meaning of unfamiliar words.

There is no need to panic, however, because we can develop efficient methods to overcome such problems. Prof. Kamimoto showed two suggestions.
①- use contextual clues. The sentence and the story itself usually suggest possible meanings for individual wards.
②- The formation of the word itself may tell us a lot. If we look at the parts of the words, we may learn something about the whole words. For example: “ un “ means not, so any words beginning with “ un “ is likely to be a negative word.

We may also find it helpful to compare the unknown word with similar words in our language. [ 302 words ]