You can find our post about "The Year of..." on David's blog!
http://daweiss.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/group-paragraph.html
Tuesday, January 21, 2014
Sunday, January 19, 2014
Sweden and its possible, yet unlikely, entrance in the eurozone
Here is the link to our essay about Sweden and the eurozone:
http://daweiss.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/essay-versions-textkompetenz.html
http://daweiss.blogspot.co.at/2014/01/essay-versions-textkompetenz.html
Pronunciation Diary 2
In order to
pass the oral pronunciation exam I had to improve a few things. First I had to
work on the V-sound. To improve the difference between V and W I watched Amy
Walker’s video How to do an American
Accent. At the end of Part 2 she focuses on V and W. I really recommend her
tutorials. She explains really well and it is easy to understand. I watched all
of her videos, and repeated after her. The one called 21 accents is very funny. Amy is introducing herself in 21 different
accents from all over the world. I posted the link below.
For me as a
non-native speaker, it is sometimes really hard to hear the difference between
the way I said a word and the way you would say it correctly. I often had to listen
to a word several times in order to hear what I said wrong. That’s another
thing I would like to improve during the next semester.
How to study vocabulary!
When it
comes to vocabulary, I can tell you that it is not my favorite part of studying
English. Back in High School it was not a big problem for me, because you only
had to know the translation for a word – but here at university it is something
different if you have to KNOW a word. Knowing a word means to know everything
about it, definition, synonyms, antonyms, collocations etc. Because of that it
can happen that you only have two words on one page in your vocabulary
notebook. But nevertheless, I found a way to make vocabulary learning fun –
vocabulary.com. It is a great way to go through the words, without even have the
feeling that you are studying. I wish I had known this website a few
years ago. If I don’t know a word I write it down in my handwritten vocabulary
notebook (very old-fashioned) and revise it later.
Wednesday, January 8, 2014
Pronunciation Diary 1
This
semester we focus on pronunciation. First we had to decide if we want to speak
with an American accent or with a British accent. Since I worked in the States
as an aupair, the decision was not really hard for me - American English sounds
more natural to me, probably because my ears are used to it. After almost two
years living in California, my host family told me that my pronunciation
improved a lot. Other American people noticed an accent but did not think it
was German - probably because the “German German” accent they are used to is different
than my “Austrian German” accent.
I have to admit that my pronunciation got
worse since I am back in Austria, obviously, because I stopped speaking English
every day. One way to improve my pronunciation is to read books out loud, or
sometimes I watch movies and repeat phrases. I can only do that when my
roommates are not here, because otherwise they think something is wrong with me
;)
A few weeks ago I started to use Antimoon.
It is a great source to improve your pronunciation. The tips they provide are
really helpful, and they tell you about the importance of pronunciation. I want
to finish up with a quote I found on an Antimoon
subpage:
“English
pronunciation is unpredictable. If you don’t put effort into English
pronunciation, you will make mistakes, and mistakes can turn into bad habits.
The longer you ignore pronunciation, the more bad habits you will form. So
don’t put it off.“
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