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 ]

My Summer Memory

2 years ago, I went Malaysia with my friend Dimitri. Dimitri is a French man who lives in Tokyo. One day he invited me to join his journey to Southeast Asia. He lives in Tokyo and I live in Kumamoto, so we decided to meet at the airport Kuala Lumpur. I was very excited because I hadn’t seen him for a while. After we got together at the airport, we headed to Tioman Island. It took about 2 hours from the land by ship. It was a very small beautiful island. Many westerners were there to enjoy their vacations. We sunbathed and swam all day at the beach. The local people were very friendly so we made friends with them. We heard many stories about the island from them. We spent 2 nights there and went back to Kuala Lumpur. In Kuala Lumpur, we went to a temple, aquarium, shopping mall and club. We thoroughly enjoyed the metropolitan entertainments. This trip is one of my most memorable ones in my life. I really want to go back there again, but for Southeast Asian countries, I would also like to visit Thailand and Singapore. There are many places I want to go right now. I wish I were rich. ［208 words］

"Everything is Illuminated"

Today I watched a movie called “Everything is Illuminated”. I watched it for the Phonetic class. I’m going to have a presentation next week. I’m going to present about a different kind of English accent.

I picked this movie because there was a character who speaks English with a distinct accent. His name is Alexander. He’s a Ukrainian man and his English sounds a little funny. I focused on his pronunciation intensely so I don’t remember the story very much but it was a funny movie.

I’m going to get prepared for the presentation now. I’m going to use Power Point. I think I will do ok because the movie was really good. [113 words]

I want to go to Europe

I really want to visit Europe someday. Maybe I go there next year. I have a friend in Paris. He's a French guy but speaks Japanese fluently. I think I'm very luckey to be his friend because he says I'm always welcomed to stay at his place and he's gonna me around the city. I don't wanna visit only Paris but also visit other countries in Europe such as Italy, German, and Spain. The only problem is that I don't have money to get the airplane tickets. Why are planes so expensive? They should lower down the price immediately.

Creaning Day

I cleaned my room today. It my little dusty and messy before and now it's clean and I feel good. There is a custom to clean throuout the house or work or school before the new year starts in Japan. I cleaned throughout my room. The weather was perfect for cleaning.

First, I had my huton and blankets hang outside so that there was much more rooms in the room. I put away the things on the floor and used the vacuum cleaner. It didn't take so long because my room is pretty small. I like my room clean but it will be a mess soon again. ［107 words］

"The Squid and the Whale"

Today I was at school but I didn't have nothing to do . I was bored and didn't know what to do so I went to the library and watched a DVD. There are many DVDs you can watch at the library so I sometimes go there when I'm free.I watched the DVD of "The Squid and the Whale". This movie is about a divorce. In the beginning of the movie, parents of this family get divorce and the movie shows how the family deals with the divorce. The couple has 2 sons and they have to go back and forth their parents' houses because they decided to go joint custody. It might sounds like a depressing movie but it was somewhat casual. It takes up a serious issue but the movie itself wasn't so serious. So I thought it was good.I learned the word philistine from this movie.
[145 words]