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

The Council of the European Union - group paragraph

http://kristinasmurf.blogspot.co.at/2013/11/the-council-of-european-union-group.html
-> link to our group project about the Council of Europe :)

Comment on "Summary Deflation Crisis"

Original summary:

Europe is in the deflation crisis, which influences the rise of debt. Moreover, the history of 

mankind has experienced this problem before. Sometimes deflation may be lethal for economy, 

when debts exceed the margin of 300pc. Generally, in Western Europe inflation is not perfect, 

2pc which even deteriorates the case. Denmark is close to finding itself in deflation, so is 

Sweden.

With a downward shift in inflation, countries like Italy and Spain may be in a ‘’runaway debt’’. 

In Italy, for example, unemployment is already very high, and private debt there and in other EU 

members like France, Portugal keeps on rising by more than 100%.

Indeed, most of the countries could still be rescued by boosting inflation rate. Europe would not 

have to end up with Japanese-style deflation and with a burden of damaged private sector. 

Hence, the inflation may not fall below 2pc. With flat inflation, close to 0, even stable country 

like Germany is at risk. 

 Club Med allies could also unite and demand appropriate action from Germany. By making 

bilateral decisions countries could achieve more. Hopefully, deflation will leave Europe in short. 

Global growth is a valid reason to keep waiting, but it is not how responsible economy should 

behave.

Comment:

To begin with, I think a summary should start with the author, date and name of the newspaper the article was published in. I would not mention precise facts at the introducing sentence but give a short overview of the topic. In general, I would leave out facts as the situation of the single countries which only confuse - people interested will probably read the whole article anyways. Anyways, I like the third paragraph and the way the author put the information in his/her own words. 

Surprising Europe: Culture Shock

SURPRISING EUROPE: CULTURE SHOCK

intercultural differences expressed through music

Riedl Natalie, Kaspar Heimo, Haunschmid Sonja

Africans who come to Europe have to face a variety of problems - racial prejudice, xenophobia and identity crisis are only a few examples. How do they deal with that? Many of them try to give vent to their grief with music as it is a common way to express their feelings, raise awareness and overcome racism. 

Wonda Wendy, a French musician raised by Gabonese parents, is a perfect example for intercultural music experience. Even though she was born in Paris, she considers her „culture to be totally African“. To find out about her own roots, Wonda Wendy lived in Gabon for a while — now she describes this part of her life as the time she learned most about herself. She points out some differences between the European and the African culture: While in Africa there is always someone around, for example to take care of your baby, you have to pay for favors like that in Europe. She advises Europeans to learn something from the African culture. Wonda Wendy, caught between two completely different cultures, processes and expresses her feelings through her music, a mix of Hip Hop, Soul and some elements of Reggae. Her lyrics speak of identity, comparison and pride: “it expresses the best of me: My African roots and my Parisian neighbourhood; I keep the mix, I exchange, the words of angels, my past; Europe is progress, individualism; Africa is respect and ‚sorealism‘“

Not only Wonda Wendy noticed such clear differences between the European and African culture, but also Mousse from Senegal, who now lives with his family in Amsterdam, experienced the same. In Europe, everything is faster, everything is planned, everything needs to be organized. People usually do not take time for someone in order to have just a nice conversation with others. Performing in the streets of Amsterdam is for Mousse a perfect way to preserve his African roots and to reduce xenophobia, which seems to be a timeless phenomenon.

Talking about racism - Ade Bantu, a musician from Nigeria who lives in Germany, has gathered a group of black musicians , known as The Collective Brothers Keepers, in order to combat racism. The reason for the foundation of this group was the tragic case of Alberto Adriano. He was a black African  who became victim of a racism motivated murder. As a tribute to his cruel death they dedicated a whole song to him to tell the story of an unfair fight. Adriano‘s case again shows us the power of music and its relevance for all of us. 

“Europe is progress, individualism; 

Africa is respect and 

‚sorealism‘“

Wonda Wendy

EU individual paragraph

HOW CAN A COUNTRY JOIN THE EU?

1st DRAFT 

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. A new member State must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[170 words]

FEEDBACK (thank you, Natasha!)

Natasha mentioned some things I should change in order to improve style, register and cohesion of my paragraph. It's funny how you can overlook your own mistakes all the time until somebody else points them out. 

Corrections:

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet (change to "is required"?)  the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a country has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. ("These requirements are.." cohesion!) A new member state (not capitalized!)  must show political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and the and (don't know what happened here ... ) protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy which (change to "that") is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. Any European country that meets this criteria (change to sth. like "is willing to / is able to meet...)  is allowed to join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen, European. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

I was also advised to put the sentence about the "geographic definition" up to the other requirements to get more structure in the whole paragraph. 

FINAL VERSION

To join the EU, any country seeking membership has to meet the Copenhagen Criteria. These accession criteria were set up by the Copenhagen European Council in 1993 and describe the requirements a new member state has to fulfill in order to become part of the EU. These requirements are political stability, a guarantee of democracy, the rule of law and protection of human rights and minorities. Next to that, the state has to prove the existence of a functioning market economy that is able to deal with competitive pressure. The candidate country has to accept the obligations and intentions of the EU and therefore take on a subordinate role. One obvious restriction is the fact that only European countries can join the EU, but only the European Council and the Commission define whether a country is, geographically seen , European. All in all, any country willing and able to satisfy these criteria is allowed to join the EU. Right now, Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey are candidate countries whose applications are scrutinized in the light of the Copenhagen Criteria. 

[180 words]

Note: I was absent in week 3, so I received feedback only once. 

EU Paper Topics

1. How the euro got its design
Since I am a graphic designer I am fairly interested in the procedure of how the design of the euro was chosen. I heard about it at school but I would like to go deeper into this topic. Next to that, I think this topic is focused enough to not get lost in general facts.

2. Translating for the EU parliament
I guess it's obvious why this topic is on my list. Right now I do not know much about the daily routine of a translator of the EU parliament so writing a paper about it would be a great chance to find out about it ;)

3. European Award for Pop Surrealism and Urban Art
I love art - especially Surrealism. I would concentrate on the criteria of how a winner is chosen, where the whole event takes place and so on. But have I mentioned the main reason for choosing it yet? - I love art. ;)

4. Future Enlargement of the European Union
What are the plans for the near future? What about the recognized candidates as Iceland, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey? What is left to be done until these countries can become part of the EU?

5. EU response to the Arab Spring
Visits, civil protection, and support for partnership, poorer areas and reform - by choosing this topic I'd like to give a shot overview of how the EU responded to the events of the Arab Spring. For a better focus I would concentrate on one specific country of the Middle East.


I could imagine writing a paper about all of these topics but one of them is already my favorite. But we'll see :)

sonjart#1: My New Portable Garden

Louise Morning has never been, despite her name, a morning person. How awful the necessity to crawl out of bed when the sun is still sound asleep! No cheerful alarm tone could change Louise's grumpy mood every morning the freedom of lying in is taken away from her. She tried everything. But on a rainy day in September, probably the 17th but I'm not quite sure, it was somehow different. Three strange and unusual happenings occured. #1: Louise felt a strong, piercing pain in her head. (I should  probably mention that Louise had never been ill her whole life - admirable, isn't it?) #2: The wooden board at the top of her bead was scratched all over. #3: Her pillow was nowhere to be found. Scary. Not sure if she might be still asleep, Louise slapped her own face. The hurt proved she was fully awake. Slowly and thoughtful, she entered the bathroom. At first, she looked inside the mirrow, two seconds later she screamed, four seconds later she blacked out. But to look on the bright side: Louise found her pillow. It was skewered by some branches coming out of her head. And, next to that, she found a good reason to stay at home that day.

Don't worry, Louise recovered her senses a few minutes later. Immediately afterwards she cried, laughed and acted like a deer, all at the same time. When she heard someone knocking on her door, she decided impulsively to stay quiet. Deep inside she knew she couldn't stay in her apartment forever, but she successfully ignored that at that moment. The knocking didn't stop. She knew it could only be Alice, her best friend since probably ever, with whom she had a kind of childish argument the night before.

"Louise, don't be stupid! Open that door, we have to get over that. We're grown up now, don't you remember?" Louise remembered. After many pointless fights they both agreed to grow up and stop acting like children. This didn't quite work out, so they both decided to restart their friendship everyday by forgetting whatever had happened the day before. Louise gave in.

"Alice sweetheart, it's just not about that. Something weird happened. I've changed.. Something is growing inside of me, you know? You can even see it from outside. Something huge, something complex and branchy.... ". Louise couldn't pull herself together anymore. She bursted into laughter.

"Louise, stop kidding me and open that door! I'm serious!", Alice answered angrily.

Louise did like she was told. She longed to see the expression of surprise on Alice's face. It was outstanding. Louise, clever as always, was prepared and took out her camera to make a picture of it - with this picture she won a prize a few years later, but that's not important now.

"What... How... You..... Whaaaaaaaat? Louise.. WHY ARE THERE BRANCHES COMING OUT OF YOUR HEAD?!?" was Alice's reaction. Both couldn't explain it and both couldn't calm down. It was only a few hours later, after trying desperately to find any reason, that Alice made a sound of exhaustion and surrender, followed by the suggestion to just let it be the way it was and go outside to drink some coffee. Louise first gave her a look of reluctance but then she realized the idea wasn't that bad. "Ok. Let's make this strange day even weirder."

It was like a movie scene. Walking through the streets, Louise caused chaos. Children bursted into tears, cars stopped on the streets and innocent citizen ran into street lamps. But suddenly Alice screamed enthuastically: "Louise! You produce fruits!" And she was right - her "horns" were decorated with little grapes. "Amazing", Louise thought, "I start to enjoy all of that."

And she really did enjoy it from that moment on. One week later, everything was back to normal. Louise and the people around her got used to her special feature and were delighted by the free grapes. In addition to that, birds settled down at the branches and felt very comfortable. Kind of a happy end.

"Alice, I realized something..", Louise mentioned one evening, "isn't it quite often the case that what might be a burden for you helps the people next to you? I mean, of course I love my portable garden but it can be highly exhausting sometimes. But now I see it in a different light - I can make other people happy with free grapes and I can even give birds a home!  How amazing is that! We often complain about things happening in our lifes we just don't understand or see a reason for because we're too blind to see the effect on others."

Alice nodded speechless, amazed by the insight of her friend. "Oh Alice. This would be a perfect ending for a story, wouldn't it?", Louise continued. Again, Alice nodded but felt exactly as strange as when she found out that the electron orbits the nucleus in the same way as the planets orbit our sun.