Tuesday, September 27, 2016

翻訳ソフトウェア、ウエブサイトについて/about translation software and websites

Hello!



How are you? The piece of writing above is a reminder to you about the problems of translation software (翻訳ソフトウェア) of Japanese to English, or English to Japanese. This might look like English, but it is full of grammar mistakes and unnatural phrases, because it is from a translation website.

Here's what it looked like in the original English: 


This is why translation software is no good for paragraph-level writing. It might be okay for single words, or even a group of two to three words or an easy phrase, but for compositional writing it can't show the differences in sentence structures, and it can't translate your feeling in what you want to say. 

Here's how the original writing in pink translated into Japanese below through a translation website:


Does this Japanese seem strange to you in any way? It's because it's translating mostly word-for-word into Japanese. So when I copied the Japanese and translated it back into English on the translation website, this is what it looked like (I will repost the writing in green from the top):


Look at the difference between the original English in pink, the Japanese translation in blue, and the English translation from the Japanese translation in green. It's really different, isn't it? 

This is my way of saying - don't use translation software or translations websites in your writing!

I am okay with any mistakes you make in English. But I want it to be your English, not software English!

Take care - and see you next week!

Images: Personal screen shots. All rights reserved.

ホテルについて/about hotels

Hello!



How are you? Let's think about, and write some notes, on hotels

Warmup/activity
What kind of hotel would you like to stay in? Let's look at some pictures of different hotels.

This is the first one - the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore:


1. 

What do you think of this hotel? 

Now this one is very different - an English village house made into a country hotel

2.

What do you think of it? 

How about this one - a motel on the beach:



3. 

What do you think of this place? 

What about this one? It's a tropical resort in Thailand:


4. 

Would you like to stay here? 

Now - think about all these different hotels and places. Which one would you like to stay in? Write two (2) sentences about the hotel you like. Give some reasons using because

例えば:
I want to stay in hotel #2 because it is very quiet, and looks comfortable and peaceful. I think I can get some good rest in this hotel. 

Have fun!



Images: Top - personal photograph/1. "Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore" (courtesy of posterize)/2. "Typical English Village House" (courtesy of Stuart Miles)/3. "Motel on the Beach" (courtesy of Aleksandr Kutsayev)/4. Image "Tropical Resort in Thailand" (courtesy of nuchylee)/all images except top photo from FreeDigitalPhotos.net/all rights reserved on personal photograph.

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

おかえりなさい!夏休みについて/Welcome back! Writing about our summers

Hello and welcome back!



How are you? Welcome back to our class for the second semester. 

Let's write about our summers! It would be a nice way to help us remember what we did this summer. 

I had a great summer. I went to Vietnam with a group of teachers and presented at a conference (研究会) and workshop at a university there. The picture above is one of many I took when I was there. Here are a couple more pictures of my trip there:


 
This was me with my facilitator - a student who just graduated from the university who was very kind to show me around the city where we were. We were in Hue (フエ), the old capital (首都) of Vietnam, and this place is famous in Hue - the Citadel, which was the fort of the old imperial palace (王宮の砦). The picture at the top is one part of it. It's a big place! Here's another picture:



It's an incredible place - I still didn't get to see all of it because it's so big! 

While many of you had to work part-time jobs and were busy with them, and some of you weren't able to go anywhere, many of you had some good times this summer with friends and family. So what did you do this summer? 


Let's hear about your summers! Write 1-2 paragraphs abut what you did this summer!


Images: Personal photographs. All rights reserved.