Chapter 1 Learning (Better) English

Do you think it is a good thing to have English Lessons from Native speakers who cannot speak Japanese?

Not for you .... Bungakubu is dierent, Ryugaku is also dierent: If you are immersed into the foreign language for the whole day, you have a longer learning span (Surprisingly good English speakers after : )

1.1

General Advice

Separate your study of English from your Study of Engineering as long as you dont feel comfortable in English. If possible, rst study the problem in Japanese, when you have understood the problem, study texts concerning the problem in English. Read your favorite authors in English Watch News on NHK and Movies on TV in Read news on the Internet rst in Japanese, than in English: Asashi shinbun, Kyodo news, Daily Yomiuri, Mainichi shinbun all have English homepages, where the Japanese articles are translated . . . 1

 Read subjects in English which interest you in which you have some prior knowledge; If you dont want to buy books, search for the subjects on the Internet and download articles which interest your Dont read texts only because somebody recommend them When you make vocabulary lists, set them on the computer, not by hand: Then it is easier to update them, copy the words correctly with cut and paste, etc. When you make vocabulary lists, also put there example sentences, so that you dont learn only the word, but also how it is used in a full sentence.

1.2
1.2.1

Typical Problems for learning English

In School

Teachers in School (and University ?) dont know proper English themselves Books and teaching method are disastrously; Multiple choice tests are useless in learning a language No opportunity of use English (other English speaking countries too far away ...) Dont know your own language, so how to learn a foreign language

1.2.2

Problem: Japanglish/Jenglish

The Meaning of Jenglish words (Japanese English) is dierent from the original English words. Such words, which come from another language, but have a dierent meaning than in the the original language, are called false friends in linguistics. Beware of such false friends, English expressions in Japanese which have a dierent meaning in Japanese than in English Japanese English meaning performance sexual harassment mood try reception English root stage harassment tension challenge front-desk front Jap. meaning of the root

Jenglish Words or their abbreviation dont exist in English: Salariman, Oce Lady, Amefoot, Sekuhara 2

Figure 1.1: In English, in contrast to Japanese, a veranda is accessible from the balcony ground by a staircase from outside the building, whereas a balcony is build higher than the ground level and is only accessible from inside the building. veranda

Jenglish pronunciation is not or dicult to understand for English speakers and vice versa: English Jenglish glas gurasu/garasu energy enerugi (German origin!) ( energy) (en erugi) (German: en ergisch) t orque toruku Grammatical use of Jenglish is dierent from English: Wrong Correct Lets English Lets speak English Lets playing Lets play (something, football) .... Now on showing Now showing (In the cinema) On show (in the TVStudio) Catch phrases made by Japanese or printed on clothing make no sense: We are always challengers (Tohoku Daigaku) Vocal diarhoe Reason for the existence of Jenglish: Copy-writers (people who write the texts for commercials) which invent Jenglish usually dont pick their job because they are good in English ... but because they are useless for anything else.

1.2.3

Beware of Katakana

Use Latin characters wherever possible ! Word formation with Kanji and Romaji usually makes sense: Word formation using Katakana does not make sense: Also beyond word formation, Katakana create a lot of confusion. The Japanese word for bread, , originates from the Portuguese language. If one uses the corresponding Roman lettering, pan, in English it is pronounced more like 3

+ 2
pan

+ +

= = =

pantsu

, and means frying pan (. The pen to write, on the other hand, also exists in Japanese. If you pronounce pan, in English, it has to be written pun, which is the English word for , a play on words.

Continuing with the topic of bread: In France, there are usually two kinds of long bread sticks, the light, slim baguette (250g), and the much heavier, thicker ute (400g) of the same length. If one uses the amount of doe one needs for for a small baguette, 250 g, to make a short, fat break, one has a batarde ( ). This is written as in Katakana. Be it because the Japanese Bakers dont understand the name, be it that the customers are confused, these kinds of bread very often contain much more butter than the usual doe mixtures. Dont speak Katakana: tu, ti not tsu, chi: Happy birthday tsuyu, Happy birthday tsuyu. Baby sitter Baby shitter Dont write down foreign words in Katakana, because that will only confuse the orthography, and sometimes the meaning. Especially the dierence between ls and rs cannot be represented in Katakana: A correction is something dierent than a collection, and lust is dierent from rust. Also for other words, there are cases where the pronunciation may be similar to Japanese ears, but the orthography and the meaning are 4

dierent: For example, bud means blossom, whereas butt means the lower backside of the anatomy, both can hardly be confused, but their Katakana-spelling can. Katakana have also to possibility to discern between th and s, the port () and support () are hard to discriminate. English is already a cumbersome language because a lot of dierent words are written in the same way (lead may be the perfect from of the verb to lead or the heavy metal), or in nearly the same way: Both Austria and Australia are derived from the same Latin word for outside, the rst being outside the German Empire, the latter outside every known region (terra australis incognita).

Using Katakana, English makes no sense: creates confusion: collect correct or gets an obscene meaning

Lazy Laser Razor

Silicon

Silicone (Polyorganosiloxane)

1.2.4

Analysis of Jenglish Music texts

Kawamura Ryuichi 1.1 You are my only : Makes no sense Possible: a) You are my only hope b) You are my only love c) Your are my all (19th century?) 1.2 Love is my only: ditto 1.3 I give you my whole thing even if you dont want intended meaning: I give you all I have, even if you dont want !!!!!!! My thing his thing: obscene !!!! 1.4 Please close me more and intended meaning: come closer to me 1.5 Dont leave me alone intended meaning: Dont leave me

You are my only You are my treasure I give you my whole thing Even if you dont want Love is my only Love is my treasure Please close me more and Dont leave me alone

MAX Give me, give me shake intended meaning: Shake me possible construction: Give me a milk-shake

Amuro We will love long, long time intended meaning: We will love each other forever grammatically correct, but obscene: We will make love for a long, long time 6

1.2.5

Actual Problems of the English language:

1. Because English has roots both from the Germanic and French language, there are usually two dierent words, one from Roman, one from Germanic origin Latin origin comprehend tendon agriculture spacious fraternity ascertain limit prospective circular demonstration employment insane German(ic) origin understand sinew farming roomy brotherhood make sure bound foreseeable round proof work mad

2. Latin and Greek words were absorbed into English in dierent centuries, therefore the pronunciation, spelling may vary: to advise advice to criticize critique to collide collision 3. The plural of foreign words (from Latin and Greek) are often used in their original (Latin or Greek) plural forms: Singular Plural phenomenon phenomena (Greek) scheme schemata BUT: electron electrons spectrum spectra (Latin) momentum momenta modulus moduli 4. Often occurring Latin expressions or abbreviations in scientic texts: et cetera and so on (literally: and further ones) cum grano salis means with a grain of salt. To accept a statement with a grain of salt means to accept it with a certain amount of reserve. That means the statement may contain a certain amount of exaggeration or may not strictly be true. A posteriori From the latter based on observation, the reverse of a priori. Used in mathematics, philosophy and logic to denote something that is known after a proof has been carried out. 7

A priori From the former presupposed, the reverse of a posteriori. Used in mathematics, philosophy and logic to denote something that is known or postulated before a proof has been carried out. i.e. id est: This is, this means e.g. exemplo gratiae: For the sake of an example 5. Other problems of speaking English actively: The use of the denite pronoun the, indenite pronoun a, and no pronoun at all is similar to the use of Wa, ga and o in Japanese A list of more Latin expressions often occurring in English can be fount at http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.e.

1.2.6

Deriving Words

When you read an English text, try to associate the words with words you do know: spatial space retrieve Labrador Retriever

1.3

Correct Spelling

Correct/collect spelling is necessary retrieve words in dictionaries and data-bases. If the spelling is incorrect, no printed dictionary and few Internet-dictionaries give alternative spellings, and the search leads nowhere. There are several possibilities to check the spelling using easily available software.

1.3.1

Windows-Based Programs

Many Windows-Based Programs (Word, several Mail-Editors) come with internal spellcheckers (programs which check the spelling), so that misspelled words are underlined. Example: The disadvantage of this approach is that it is only indicated whether the word is spelled correctly, no alternatives are directly available.

It can be seen that in English, the plural of the Greek word phenomenon is not phenomenons, but phenomena, according to Greek grammar. For scheme, the plural according to English grammar schemes is acceptable, as well as the plural according to Greek grammar, schemata. For paradigm, only the plural according to English grammar is acceptable. If you search for paradigmata on the Internet, you will end up with pages in German, because paradigmata is the Greek and German plural of paradigm.

1.3.2

Ispell

Ispell is a program which comes with the Latex-package and is available on many UnixPlatforms. It can be used either interactively or to scan whole les for spelling errors. Because Ispell is part of the latex-package, it does not react to Latex-Commands. Ispell is started by typing ispell at the Unix-Prompt, after that one can try out dierent spellings and obtains useful hints, the correct writing is acknowledged with ok: [Hans-Georg-Matuttis:~/Lectures/GijutsuEigo] hg> [Hans-Georg-Matuttis:~/Lectures/GijutsuEigo] hg> ispell @(#) International Ispell Version 3.2.06 08/01/01 word: misttake how about: mistake, mist take, mist-take word: mistake ok Ispell can be terminated by typing Control-C. Ispell is only able to gives hints of correct spellings if the inputted word contains a single spelling mistake, if there are two or more mistakes, it is clueless: [Hans-Georg-Matuttis:~/Lectures/GijutsuEigo] hg> [Hans-Georg-Matuttis:~/Lectures/GijutsuEigo] hg> ispell @(#) International Ispell Version 3.2.06 08/01/01 word: misttakke not found word: ^C

1.4

Searching technical terms

General Dictionaries are useless for technical use: They usually dont contain the technical meaning. The word critical in scientic language often refers to phenomena near a critical point (boiling): In everyday use it many mean dangerous or Useful books to nd technical vocabulary are

 Dictionaries for Technical use Japanese Textbooks with English words or English appendices Japanese Translations of English Textbooks, which can be used to nd technical terms by comparing with the original

1.4.1

Internet Dictionaries for Technical use

There are several Japanese-English and English-Japanese Online-Dictionaries, including translation services.

1.4.2

Internet Translation Services

The usage of Internet translation services generally useless results! Example: The title of Natsume Sosekis Book Japanese: English: I am a cat.

It does not become better with technical Translation: For the start, one liter of water in the normal state weights 1 kg. One liter is kg the size of a cube of cm cm cm cm cm cm. 10

1.4.3

Technical Internet Dictionaries

The Internet dictionaries are more useful than the Internet translation services. For scientic-technical English, nevertheless, their number is quite limited. Reliable, as well as comprehensive, even with modern and specialized vocabulary, is Jereys Japanese English Dictionary Server at http://www.df.lth.se/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/dict with mirrors at http://dict.regex.info/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/dict, http://rut.org/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/dict and http://www.solon.org/cgi-bin/j-e/euc/dict.

11

The menu buttons allow to select not only words in general, but also computer terms and science and engineering terms. There is also a Japanese menu for the browser, but as this menu does not allow the selection of computer terms and science and engineering terms, it is saver and more ecient to use the English menu.

Another menu button allows to select word starting with pattern, word ending with pattern, word matching pattern, pattern anywhere as well as full regular expression. For example, if we search for nite element method, the best will be to select full regular expression, and then type nite element method. If we would have selected nite and word starting with pattern, we would have had 22 hits, and in this list we would rst have to look for our expression.

1.4.4

Standard browsers

It is possible to enlarge ones vocabulary by looking up words and combination of words in scientic English systematically on Japanese sites: Some Japanese authors put the words in English plain text in brackets after the Japanese explanation, which is more useful as a learning tool as if one only looks up the dictionary translation. As example search engine, we will use Google, but Yahoo and most other search engines, crawlers, worms and Internet catalogues work in the same way. If, for example, we want to look up what basis functions means in for nite element methods, when one has to understand an English text on the subject, if one inputs only (basis functions), one is overwhelmed by the number of hits, in our case, nearly eighty million.

An improvement is already reached if the word combination (basis functions) is combined with the context, (nite element methods), which gives only about two million hits, which is of course still too much for practical lookup. 12

In fact, because this search gives not only the hits for basis functions and nite element method, but also hits where basis, function, nite, element and method occur in any other place of the document, it is better in our case to put basic function, in quotation marks, as well as the context, e.g. nite element method (). In this case, only those documents are indicates where basis occurs directly in front of function, and nite element method occurs exactly in that order. This has reduced the hits already to only 70.000, practically by a factor of 30.

As our original aim was to nd Internet sites where the term basis functions occurs together with the term nite element method, it will now be a good opportunity to switch on the Japanese text only in the menu. The number of hits is reduced to 77and these one can go through by eye.

In fact, on the fourth pages, we nd local basis functions, so basis functions is 13

obviously .

On the other hand, if our search would have been too exclusive, one should repeat the search instead for basis functions with the singular basis function. As one can see, Finite Element Method and basis function would have given the correct translation already on the rst page.

Another way to limit the amount of useless hits is to exclude words which are irrelevant 14

for the search; with many browsers this can be done via the --sign: the search for nite element method gives one and a half million hits,

the search for nite element method uid mechanics gives only about 130.000 hits.

If the topic of structural mechanics is explicitly excluded via nite element method uid mechanics -structural mechanics the number of hits reduced by a further 20.000.

1.4.5

A caveat on Using Browsers

Internet Browsers can nd everything on the Internet, and there is practically everything on the Internet - Including fakes, mistakes, errors, omissions, and misspellings. Just because a Browser yields a word with a certain spelling, that does not necessarily mean that the spelling is the correct one. For example, stretched is the correct spelling, whereas stretched is the incorrect spelling. The latter nevertheless yields over 300.000 hits, which means that there are at least 300.000 people in the world who dont know how to spell stretched. 15

At least, the Google-Browser is clever enough to propose stretched as an alternative spelling when one looks after streched. The correct spelling stretched yields more than 18 Million hits, which shows that it is probably correct.

1.5
1.5.1

How to improve ones English

What not to do:

DO NOT Use a Talkman .... DO NOT Use Internet Translation You can use them as a learning tool, to nd translations of words (mostly useless for technical information) but dont try to use it for technical translations What can one do to improve ones technical English: 1. Trust your own judgment: When one learning method does not lead to progress after you put eort and time into it, then try out a dierent learning method 2. First improve your general English - First improve your Japanese: If you dont know how to speak Japanese, you will never learn how to speak English - Read books - Read comics, but not translation of Japanese comics .... - Watch Bilingual TV (Stereo TV necessary) NHK News US Movies 3. Improving ones Technical English - Practice Internet searches Search Japanese Internet pages with Learn to nd the appropriate word combinations by looking for the context in the Internet - Find Japanese Textbooks with English Indices or vocabulary - Find Japanese translations of English textbooks and study the Japanese and English 16

version in parallel (of course, rst the Japanese version, so that you understand the content - Go abroad for a year, if you can aord it and if your English skill is sucient to survive .... - Do your Bachelor Thesis in my Lab ;-) or at least nd labs with foreigners, so that you have ample opportunity to speak Jenglish Why should one have good grades? Because then one can get the Graduation thesis one wants Why should one be able to understand all subjects at once? Because you have to understand, what you are doing. Every year, the question time for the graduation talk becomes longer.

1.6

Homework

17