France

France is a country in the west of Europe. Its capital is Paris. France's population is about 65 million, and its area is about 675,000.

France: keywords

• mustard (moutarde de Dijon)
• Paris
• Bordeaux (wine)
• L'Arc de Triomphe
• La Tour Eiffel
• Champs Elysees
• Bretagne (cider/cidre, crepes)
• Champagne (champagne)
• cognac
• jam 
• liqueurs and vermouths
• Peugeot: Peugeot is a famous car company, originally from Sochaux in France.
• Citroen
• very fast trains: France's TGV is the world's fastest train. It often travels at about 320 km/h.
• fashion
• Chanel
• Louis Vuitton
• Buoux: 
• South of France: 
• French bread: baguette, couronne, batard, pain de campagne, boule, brioche,  (34 words)

batard

pain de campagne

couronne

Iron Man 3, and…

Today we watched the trailer for Iron Man 3. This movie is the sequel to Iron Man 2, which was the sequel to Iron Man. The star of the movie is Robert Downey, Jr., and his secretary/girlfriend is played by Gwyneth Paltrow. I don't really know what Iron Man 3 is about, but it seems that this time he has an even stronger enemy than before.

This time of year is probably the best time of year for movies, as most of last year's films that won Oscars start playing in Japan. Two of the movies playing at Denkikan now are Anna Karenina and The Master. At Cineplex we can see Killing Me Softly, Library Wars, Lincoln, Rising Dragon (a Jackie Chan movie), and of course Iron Man 3.

Have you been following the Champions League? The German teams are very strong this year, and it looks as if the final will be between Borussia Dortmund and Bayern München. I hope we can see the final on Japanese terrestrial TV!

(168 words)

France

France is a major country situated in the west of Europe. Its area is about 675,000 square kilometers, about twice the size of Japan. Its population is about 65 million, about half that of Japan.

Key facts

• Chartreuse liqueur: a liqueur made since 1605. There are two kinds: yellow (jaune) and green (vert). The green one is too bitter, but the yellow one tastes great. It used to be drunk by monks for their health.
• Cointreau: The Cointreau distillery was made in 1849. The orange liqueur began in 1875, invented by Edouard Cointreau. It is bottled in a square-sided bottle. It contains both sweet and bitter orange peel.
• Grand Marnier: Grand Marnier has been made since 1880, from a secret recipe. The main ingredients are cognac and a kind of orange from the Caribbean
• 51 and Ricard
• Chambord: Chambord is a French liqueur made of black raspberries, made in the Loire valley, starting in the 17th century.
• Benedictine
• Suze
• Lillet: a wine-based aperitif containing wormwood
• Crème de framboise, mure, cassis

125 words

France

• Dijon mustard (moutarde de Dijon)
• Bordeaux (wine)
• Sagan
• Camus
• Sartre
• Guy de Maupassant
• Zinedine Zidane
• Thierry Henry
• L'Arc de Triomphe
• Palace of Versailles
• La Bastille
• The Louvre
• Notre Dame de Paris
• foie gras
• steak frites
• Peugeot
• Citroën
• Paris St Germain
• Chartreuse liqueur: a liqueur made since 1605. There are two kinds: yellow (jaune) and green (vert). The green one is too bitter, but the yellow one tastes great. It used to be drunk by monks for their health.
• Cointreau
• Grand Marnier
• 51 and Ricard
• Chambord: Chambord is a French liqueur made of black raspberries, made in the Loire valley, starting in the 17th century.
• Benedictine
• Suze
• Lillet: a wine-based aperitif containing wormwood
• Crème de framboise, mure, cassis
• Café crème
• fashion

92 words

Killing Me Softly, and…

Today we watched the trailer for Killing Me Softly, starring Brad Pitt. The Japanese title is Jackie Cogan. It's about an assassin who doesn't believe in anything but money and his own skill. I'm interested in this movie mainly for the actors. I think Brad Pitt is a good actor—his best role was in Moneyball—but the movie also stars Ray Liotta—famous mainly for Goodfellas—and Richard Jenkins. My impression is that this movie hasn't had as much publicity as movies like Lincoln and Iron Man 3, so probably it won't play for long at the theaters, so I want to try to get to see it soon.

In the Premier League, Arsenal played Manchester United yesterday. Manchester United have already been confirmed as champions so the result didn't matter so much to them, but Arsenal needed a win to have the best chance of qualifying for next year's Champions League. The match ended in a draw, 1–1.   My prediction is that Tottenham and Chelsea will qualify, but not Arsenal.

English common errors (2)

What's wrong with this?

I like listening to music .My favorite kinds of music are progressive rock ,J-Pop ,and modern koto music .

The Master, and…

Today, we watched the trailer of The Master, a movie directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. It stars Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix. It has just started playing at Denkikan, perhaps the only independent cinema left in Kumamoto. Paul Thomas Anderson previously directed Magnolia, which I think was a great movie, and he is often considered to be one of the greatest directors of modern American cinema. The Master appears to be about the relationship between the two men played by Hoffman and Phoenix. Hoffman plays the leader of a religious cult, and Phoenix is a soldier coming back from a war and looking for a purpose.

At the weekend, there were a couple of exciting matches in the English Premier League. Tottenham Hotspur beat Manchester City 3–1, and Chelsea drew with Liverpool 2–2.

The Place Beyond the Pines, and…

We watched the trailer for the movie The Place Beyond the Pines this morning. The movie stars Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper. Ryan Gosling was in Blue Valentine and The Notebook (which, unfortunately, I didn't see) and was perhaps the biggest star of 2010-11, while Bradley Cooper attracted a lot of attention with his work in 2012.
To tell you the truth, I don't like Bradley Cooper very much, but I haven't yet seen his 2012 hit, Silver Linings Playbook (which I think won a few Oscars), because I don't think it has yet started playing in Japan. I also don't really understand the attraction of Ryan Gosling, but maybe that's because I have only seen him in The Driver. I have heard that he believes he has played in too many movies, so he's going to take a break from acting for a while.
Talking of movies, I'm looking forward to Matt Damon's latest film, Promised Land. Apparently, it's an environmental drama about the people of a small town fighting against an oiling company.
(173 words)

English common errors (1)

What's wrong with this?:

I especially like Western music. For example, U2 and Oasis.

Please write your corrected version in the comments!

BR 1-02: The Little Red Hen

"Who will help me plant the wheat?" "Not I," said the cat. "Not I," said the duck. "Not I," said the rat."…"Who will help me eat the bread?" said the little red hen. The cat, the duck and the rat jumped up.…"I'll eat the bread."

The Little Red Hen is an old folktale, probably from Russia. It points out that many people are unwilling to work, but they want to share in the benefits of others' hard work.

This book is in the Usborne First Reading series (level 3) so the sentences are very short and it is very easy to read. Repetition of the key phrases makes it very rhythmic and even easier to read.


Davidson, Susanna. (2006). The little red hen. London, UK: Usborne.

BR 1-01: Pinocchio

All of a sudden, the puppets stopped acting and stared into the crowd. "Another puppet!" they cried. "Come up and join us." Pinocchio was dragged on stage and surrounded by puppets. They chattered about this and that and completely forgot their show… Then a scary man stormed onto the stage and everyone fell silent…He grabbed the puppets and marched them off.

What will happen to Pinocchio? Will be be saved from burning?

Pinocchio, Usborne Young Reading

Probably everyone knows the story of Pinocchio, probably from the Disney movie. The story was written by Carlo Collodi (1826–1890), an Italian writer. This version is in the Usborne Young Reading series. It's a Level 2 book, so it is fairly long (more than 60 pages) but easy to read. Pinocchio has many, many adventures, which you may not remember if you only saw the movie as a child. Here are some of the chapter titles:

• Fire!
• The fox and the cat
• Meeting a fairy
• The field of miracles
• Toyland
• Inside the shark 

I highly recommend that you borrow this book!

Collodi, Carlo. (2004). Pinocchio. London, UK: Usborne.

[174/512 words]

Welcome to Writing III!

Hello, everyone!

Welcome to Writing III. I'm Rick Lavin, and I'm looking forward to teaching you this year. I come from the UK. I like watching movies and playing table tennis.

Writing III is focused on writing fluency. What do I mean by that? Well, in speaking classes, I'm sure you are used to speaking without much preparation. When you do that, you often make mistakes. But you don't worry about the mistakes, because the main goal is to get other people to understand your meaning. Writing III is like that: our first aim is to be able to write quickly, so that we can communicate what we are thinking and what we have been doing to our readers.

In order to become more fluent in speaking, it is necessary to practice a lot. In the same way, it is necessary to practice writing a lot in order to become fluent at writing. Therefore, in this class, I'd like you to write 10,000 words during the semester.

As you know, you'll do your writing on your blogs. You'll be writing various kinds of posts, including:

• Book reviews: at least 1 a week, 13 for the semester [Tags: books, reviews]
• Essays: details later 
• General blog posts (as many as possible; at least one a week)
• Photo Homework (students going on Kaigai Kenshuu; other students optional): [Tag: photoHW]
• Juppun ha Juubun [Tag: Juppun ha Juubun] (Please copy the tag exactly!). If you are late, use Not Juppun ha Juubun.]
• Typing posts: Mr Tomei will be administering the typing homework. After you have done a typing homework, please paste the content into a new post and put it on your blog. [Tag: typing]

Your friends in this class and in the other classes also have blogs. You can find their blogs at the WinK Home site.

The general sequence of classes is as follows:

[A Class]

• 9:00~9:05: Logging in and getting ready to blog
• 9:05~9:15: Juppun ha Juubun (timed writing)
• 9:20~: Attendance + Main activities of the week

[C Class]

• 10:40~10:45: Logging in and getting ready to blog
• 10:45~10:55: Juppun ha Juubun (timed writing)
• 11:00~: Main activities of the week

[338]

Blog stats

Word Count

Total words:

Post Counts

September/October: 25
November: 11
December: 7
January: 11

Book Reviews

Total so far:

Podcast

Podcast Episodes:
Scripts:

Typing 太平

Juppun ha Juubun Stats

April 16th: 84
April 23rd: 127

October 1st: 89
October 15th: 109

January 7th: 185
January 21st: 93

First 2: 211
Middle 2: 198
Last 2: 278

My speed went down a bit over the first semester, but rose during the second semester.

[34 words]

Salmon fishing in the desert

A movie called Salmon Fishing in the Yemen started showing on Saturday. I haven't seen it yet, but it sounds very interesting. It stars Ewan MacGregor, along with Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas. Probably you all know Ewan MacGregor from movies such as Trainspotting and Star Wars. You may also have heard of Emily Blunt, who recently starred in Looper and has also appeared in movies like My Summer of Love. Lasse Hallstrom, the director, also directed Chocolat, The Cider House Rules, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape?

[88 words]

Warning against unacknowledged copying

If you copy sentences from a book, for example, and don't mark the copied parts as quotes, this behavior counts as cheating, and your grade will be a fail.

Blog stats

Post Counts

September/October: 25
November: 11
December: 7
January:

Word Count

Total so far:

Book Reviews

Total so far: 23
Other reviews: 2
Total: 25

Podcast

Total episodes: 2

Scripts: 3

Typing

Total posts: 0

Juppun ha Juubun stats

April 16th: 158
April 23rd: 127
October 1st: 89
October 15th: 109
January 7th: 185
January 21st: 93

First 2: 285
Middle 2: 198
Last 2: 278