Why the European Union should intervene to stop Hungary from a dictatorship

http://heroldflux.blogspot.co.at/2013/12/why-european-union-schould-intervene-to.html

Me and my Academic Paper

Ho ho ho.

To be honest, I'm not making much progress at writing my academic paper about the Design of the Euro Banknotes. It is one of the points on my Christmas-Break-To-Do-List, because right at the moment I have to focus on various other projects that have to be finished until Christmas. But during the holidays, motivation will knock on my door and overwhelm me with consistent presence. Hopefully. :)

I think the best way to explain what I'm going to write about is posting my introduction, so here it is:

The Design of the Euro Banknotes

The euro is the official currency of 17 countries within the eurozone and therefore it was of great importance to create a design meeting all country’s expectations and representing both multiculturalism and unity. The purpose of this paper is to cover three key points to display the process of how the euro banknotes got were designed. First of all, the design of the currency sign will be introduced as well as the competition launched in 1996 at which a range of possible designs of the banknotes were presented and valued. A summary of the main features the banknotes must contain according to the ECB will be given as well as the reasons for the choice of the actual layout, which was designed by Robert Kalina. The second part of this paper will give an overview of the illustrations, symbols and other elements the actual design of the banknotes comprises. Since the design of all euro banknotes gets modified and refreshed within the next few years, the third part of this paper will cover the reasons and main alterations of this changeover. Finally, it will be scrutinized if all countries and different cultures of the eurozone are represented and displayed as equal by the design of the euro banknotes.

Pronunciation Diary #1

To be honest, I never really cared about my pronunciation. I never asked myself whether I would like to speak with American or British Accent - for a long time I couldn't even name the main differences. 

But things obviously have to change now, since pronunciation is an important issue for the next weeks and even the PC2. I read about the pros and cons of the two options and now decided to focus on British English. Even though I think American English would be easier to learn, especially because most of the English movies and TV shows are from America, I just prefer the sound of British English - I do not even know why. I guess the most important thing is to stay motivated to practice my pronunciation skills - and simply to imagine myself speaking fluently with a British Accent motivates me a lot more than the opportunity to watch a lot of American movies to learn the right pronunciation. Watching movies, by the way, is something I do not have time for at the moment, so this argument is irrelevant anyways. ;)

So, the first thing to do is: 

The next step is to find some good examples. 

At the following video, the main differences between American and British Accent are explained:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nAnT3PASak

British Accent: Some Pronunciation Rules

- r: 

If the letter "r" is in the initial position of a word or in the middle of it, there isn't a huge difference from the pronunciation in American English. (rain, drain, spring, berry) 

However, the letter "r" is dropped if it occurs after a vowel in a monosyllabic word or at the end of a word. 

(birth,turn, learn, work, farm, other, clever, director)

For example, if somebody with a British accent speaks the sentence "Are there more birds?", no "r" is heard, but if the sentence is changed to "Are there any birds?", an "r" is heard at the end of "there" because "any" starts with a 

-t:

In British English, the letter "t" is always pronounced the same way. (In American English, the letter is dropped if it's at the end of a word.) 

- keeping the vowel sound very small

If the vowel is short, it should be pronounced small  (pit, put, pet, pot)

To come to an end, here is a short list of the main words (or letters) that are pronounced differently. To find out the right pronunciation in your preferred accent, check out the end of the video above. 

- Z

- new

- adult

- brochure

- garage

- address

- laboratory

- route

- advertisement

- controversy

- patent

- apricot

- vase

- hurricane

- enquiry (Am: inquiry)

- leisure

- either

- neither