THE JOURNAL OF A SENSEI

How to Learn English Playing video games – All the subtitles to help you understand American English

www.CoolAmericanEnglish.com – Learning English should be fun. You can start to Learn English Here! Real American natives speaking with subtitles will help you get a grasp on learning English fast!

Online Automated Translators can hurt more than help

Online automated translators may be fairly accurate for translating languages of similar origin, but the line stops there. Certainly most of you are familiar with online translators such as Babel fish.  However, from what I have read, it seems that quite a few people think that these automated translators do the perfect job.  In some cases this is almost true…

Languages of similar origin usually follow the same sentence structure (Romance languages for example), and with Babel Fish you will be able to get a fairly good cross language translation.  And by this I mean you will still have to go back over the translated piece and re-write it into the proper grammatical form.

It is when you try and use automated translators to translate languages of different origins where you can get into trouble.  Being a native English speaker and working in Japan for a translation company, I often (just for a laugh) copy and paste a Japanese sentence onto such automated translators and then have them translated into English.  It truly is a scary thought to think that people actually believe this will yield a true cross language translation to any degree.

First of all, most English speaking countries use an ISO character set, which is only capable of reading and viewing languages that use the alphabet. When you are able to find a Chinese, Japanese, or Korean web site you may be surprised to know that those smiley faces and other jargon are actually not part of their written language. To view these languages properly you will have to change your computers character code.

The other huge problem with online dictionaries and languages of different origin is the fact that while, for example, English use the SVO (Subject-Verb-Object) system the Japanese language uses the Subject-Object-Verb word order. The Japanese language also only uses two types of tenses. The present tense in Japanese is both the simple present tense as well as the future tense, while the past tense in Japanese acts as the simple past tense. This gives online translators a huge disadvantage as opposed to their human counterparts.

If you would like to see an online translator’s idea of Japanese to English translation I have set up an example on my web page at http://www.samurai-translators.com/translation.htm You should be able to see the actual Japanese characters as they should be viewed because I set up the sentence as a gif photo. Below the photo you will see how Babel Fish had translated the sentence and then how a human had translated it. S.B.

“help With Essay Writing” Software ? – Easily Write Like a Pro!

Is “Help With Essay Writing” Software just another word processing solution? Can it help us improve our writing skills? Writing proper English is now more important than ever since many of us increasingly communicate with others thanks to computers and the Internet. The following article describes the latest technological developments in language writing and editing processors.

Getting some basics

The following solution is basically designed to analyze text blocks for any grammar problems, so that they transform correct, fluent, and professional. It is a challenging task and indeed developing an advanced “Help With Essay Writing” Software is considered quit complex. The way they ‘fix’ your writing is interesting yet complicated; basically these solutions compare your sentences to their own ‘proper versions’ of similar sentences. In most cases these solutions enables us to do the following: grammar check, misspelling and typos correction, and suggesting proper punctuation.

Important benefits

Do we really need it? Well, let’s examine what is in it for us:

* Enriching our English vocabulary.
* Assisting ESL learners assimilating English grammar rules.
* Helping us to avoid embarrassing grammar mistakes.
* Avoiding common writing mistakes we tend to repeat in our daily writing assignments.
* Improving and enriching our speech, enabling us to speak correct and better English.

There are probably many other benefits that are not covered here, as this important webmarketing technique constantly changes, bringing us new ideas and additional solutions that help us on improving our English writing.

Quick summary

One of the great opportunities provided by this sophisticated “Help With Essay Writing” Software is improving our writing style, making it correct, fluent, and impressive. No artificial intelligence can compete with a human proofreader, but it certainly helps correcting many of our common writing mistakes. We can only expect this important webmarketing technique to further develop itself, simply because writing is one of the most important tools that help us fulfill our daily assignments.

Seven Simple Anxiety Help Tips

Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress and anxiety attacks can occur at any time. You know when you are having an attack because your heart starts pounding, your palms sweat, and every muscle in your body tightens, leaving you breathless and feeling helpless. The problem is, you usually don’t know you are having one until you feel your symptoms full-blown in action. Preventing these symptoms can be done and without the aid of expensive medications. If you have the will, you can help reduce the pain and emotional distress of anxiety with just seven simple tips.

During an Attack

- Deep Breaths – Taking deep breaths while feeling an immense amount of anxiety and stress can calm your body physically as well as allow your mind to settle. When you have an attack, you are narrowly focused on what is happening at that exact moment. Breathing slowly and deeply will provide you time to clear your mind of excess worries and take a moment to assess the situation from a logical standpoint.

- Walking or Pacing – If you feel you are experiencing the symptoms of an attack, including constricted or tense muscles, trouble concentrating, fast heart rate, or dizzy spells, take a moment to step away from what it is you are doing and take a quick 5-minute walk outside, taking in the fresh air and change of scenery. If you are unable to go outside, try pacing back and forth or around the area you are in. If you are in an office, take a trip to the water cooler or kitchen and grab a quick snack, even a stroll to the copy machine and back will burn up some of your extra energy.

- Ask for Help – When you feel you are under too much pressure to take care of a task or can sense the symptoms of an attack coming on, ask a coworker or friend to help with what it is you are doing. Having that assistance will take pressure off of your shoulders, allowing you to do the work you need to do with less stress.

Preventing an Attack

- Time to Yourself – Be sure to take at least 15 minutes a day devoted solely to yourself. You can use this time to write, read the paper, sit and think, or go for a quiet walk. Do not think of work, school, or any other issues that tend to cause stress. Use this time to clear your mind and think about things that you like about your life or even just take in the outdoors, a neighborhood park, or local architecture.

- Avoid Caffeine – Caffeine is a stimulant that speeds up your heart rate, makes your body jittery, and causes your thinking patterns to speed through processes and ideas. These are all symptoms of anxiety, so eliminate or minimize foods and drinks that tend to accelerate those feelings and reactions. Instead, have a cup of green tea, which offers a smaller amount of caffeine at a slower release rate.

- Eat Good Foods – Making sure your diet is balanced and healthy will help your body clean out extra toxins that clog your physical and emotional reactions. Greasy foods tend to make you feel sluggish or remote from present activities, causing you to feel panic or stress later when you need to get them done. Drink plenty of water to keep your body working in peak condition and snack on raw vegetables instead of chips or sweets.

- Say No Sometimes – It is important to stay connected to your work and take on responsibilities when necessary, but if your plate is already full or you are beginning to feel just a bit overwhelmed, it is time to say no to added tasks. Even stopping by the store to pick up some milk can seem an unbearable task when you are a victim of anxiety. Saying no to certain objectives will keep your brain from feeling overloaded and your body from becoming over stressed. Keep your tasks at a minimum throughout your day and you will feel less stressed in the long run.

Anxiety attacks don’t have to rule your life. By making just a few simple changes in your daily habits, you can be free of the side effects of stress and pressure. Stay healthy and practice relaxation methods and you will find your anxiety attacks to be few and fa

Can Public Speaking Hypnosis Help You?

It seems that at some point almost everyone experiences some anxiety about public speaking. Hypnosis can be a useful tool to help many people overcome this fear of speaking in front of an audience, and become relaxed, confident speakers.

Although there are several ways to treat a fear of public speaking, hypnosis is often one of the most successful. Hypnosis deals with the “programming” in your subconscious mind, and can affect changes on a deeper level than we are counsciously aware of. Why is this important?

Your subconscious is trying to protect you by maintaining everything in your life the way it currently is — both the good and the bad! Your subconscious doesn’t really concern itself with concepts like happiness or unhappiness. It deals with basic survival, and the way it sees it, you have survived up to now the way you are, so you shouldn’t change anything and put yourself at risk.

You can see a therapist that uses hypnosis to overcome your anxiety, or you can use a public speaking hypnosis recording. Self hypnosis, like using a pre-recorded mp3 session, can in some cases be just as useful as seeing a therapist, and you can do it in the privacy of your own home. Public speaking hypnosis mp3s are available to use over and over until you feel that you have completely overcome your fear. They are also usually a cheaper option than seeing a hypnotherapist.

As with most other types of treatment, hypnosis works best when you are able to repeat it over and over. Owning a self hypnosis session allows you to use it every day, until you have successfully “brainwashed” yourself to the point where you have overcome your mental obstacles and re-programmed your mind.

Undergoing hypnosis, whether with a therapist or using a recording, usually begins by getting really relaxed and calm, and entering a pre-hypnotic state. Once hypnotized, you are usually still both awake and alert, but your mind is more receptive to suggestions. The hypnotherapist will guide you by giving you suggestions that will help your subconscious mind to change its habitual responses and replace them with new, more beneficial ones.

You subconscious does not understand negatives, so a suggestion should not be “I am not afraid of speaking in public,” but rather something like “I feel calm and relaxed when I speak in public,” or “I enjoy speaking in public.”

Using hypnosis to treat phobias has been proven effective in many research studies, and this includes treating fear of flying, fear of spiders, social phobias as well as fear of public speaking.

The concept of ypnosis has been around for a long time, but there are many misconceptions about this technique. For one, a lot of people think you are unconscious and not aware of what goes on around you when you are hypnotized. This is not correct; under hypnosis, you might feel like you are in an altered state of mind, but you are still aware of what is going on and nothing can be done to you that you do not allow.

You can not be hypnotized against your will, and you are still in control when you are under hypnosis. If you feel insecure about what the public speaking hypnosis tape will “do to you”, listen through it without focusing on following the suggestions, or read the script before you start your self hypnosis session, just for your own peace of mind.

Learning English for Free Can Help You Become Fluent

It won cost you a penny to take an online English course and will provide you with many benefits. You can stay at home while you learn and you won have to give up your job to attend classes or have to rearrange your work schedule. Best of all you won have to leave your family behind when you move to an English-speaking country to study. However, there is still a commitment involved. The fact that you can do the studying at any time of the day or night as long as you have a computer and Internet connection means you have to set your own schedule. If you are really serious about learning English for free, you will have to make a commitment of time and set aside a block of time in which you devote yourself to taking the online lessons.

 

You won even have to buy any textbooks to take such a course. If you wish you can have a notebook by the computer so that you can take notes of important terms or vocabulary you really want to remember. Although you don have to, when you listen to the recorded passages being read by native English speakers, you can have a tape recorder or other recording device on which you record yourself reading the passages. Then you can replay the recording to see how well your pronunciation measures up against the speaker in the recording.

 

There are many online sites you can use to take these online courses. However there are some things you should look for in this site to make sure it offers everything you need to become fluent in English. Some of these things are:

 

* A free audio course

 

* Comprehension questions on the passages to ensure you understand the meaning \

 

* Comprehensive lessons on the structures of English grammar

 

* Listening exercises using the structures

 

* Practice exercises so that you can demonstrate that you understand the material presented in the lessons

 

* Free dictionary in which you can get help in translating English words into your native tongue

 

* Games that will help increase your vocabulary

 

* Access to English literature through which you can read stories and essays

 

* Access to a chat line through which you can communicate with instructors and other students.

 

The four main components that every course in learning English needs to have are listening, speaking, reading and writing. These are part of all English courses for school children in English speaking countries. They learn the pronunciation by listening to others and through speaking with them. In school they read various types of passages, books and information and they complete practice exercises on these and on the instruction they receive in grammar. So you see an online course offers you everything you would receive in an actual class.

 

Learning English should be something you want to do, but it should also be enjoyable. When you find a topic frustrating, leave it for a while and so something else, such as playing a word search game or read a news item. Then come back to the harder topic later. You don always have to stick to something for a long period of time because if you do it will become boring.

Correcting Grammar Software? – 5 Ways it Does Help You!

Did you know that correcting grammar with online software was possible –and very easy to set up? Almost everybody has to communicate in writing these days, and having grammar correcting software can make this a lot easier. Here are some of the ways it can help you:

1. Spellcheck Plus

You probably already use a plain old spellcheck on your text or word processing program. But grammar check software goes beyond this, reading your text as you type and actually looking at the context. This enables it to be far more efficient for corrections than a simple spell checker.

2. Improve Your English

English is the international language of business. If you aren’t comfortable writing in English, this kind of software is for you, as it can instantly make you more fluent in English.

3. Help For Students

If you have reports or term papers to write for school, grammar check software can go through it for errors, making your paper more accurate.

4. Improve Your Vocabulary

This kind of grammar check software suggests new words for you to use, which instantly improves your vocabulary.

5. Makes Your Message Clear

If you have important emails or other correspondences to send out, you don’t want to be misunderstood because of mistakes in grammar. This software makes correcting grammar easy.

This software can make your life easier and enable you to write better, faster and more persuasively. You may be surprised to learn how important a function correcting grammar can be –until you try it yourself.

These are some of the reasons why grammar checking software may be able to fill a real need for you or your business.

Learning English As A Second Language May Help To Advance Your Career

There is no doubt about it; English is the internationally recognized language of business. Nearly all of the world’s international business is done in English and the main goal of virtually every business out there is to become international and sell their product or service all over the globe. So to truly be as successful as you possibly can in the business world – learning English as a second language is an absolute must.

There are literally millions and millions of resources available for those that want to get an extra edge on the competition when it comes to performance in business – tons of magazines and books and the incredible amount of information available on the internet could all easily keep the aspiring business student busy learning for years and years to come.

With all of the information available to help people excel in the world of business, there should be no problem at all for someone who really has the desire to do well in their particular venture right?… Well the only problem that could arise has to do with the fact that the majority of this information is exclusively available in English. So as a hopeful international business person – most of the communicating you’ll have do regarding your company’s international business will need to be done in English, and virtually all of the amazing resources available to you to make yourself a better business person will also come in the form of English, these are two of the prime reasons that, as a future business person, learning English may be the best possible move for the future of your career.

Most of the work that you’ll be doing as a business person (especially an international business person) will be done on a computer – processing orders, creating sales registers, providing price and freight quotes to customers, ordering product and managing inventory will all likely be jobs that are done entirely on a computer. To be successful at your job, you’ll need to be competent in almost all of these tasks at some stage of your career, which means that you’ll have to be competent when it comes to using a computer and all of the most common computer programs and applications are in – you guessed it – English.

As you can see, learning English will most certainly help your career in many ways, and conversely, not learning English could very well inhibit the growth of your career as a business person. Once you’ve mastered English as your second language you’ll be a much more well rounded employee, capable of handling many tasks that some of your co workers, even your boss, may not be able to handle. This could make you a very valuable asset to your company, it could ensure your job security and may very possible even put you in line for a nice promotion in the future.

Deciding to learn English as your second language could easily prove to be the very best decision you’ll ever make in regards to your career. It could open up opportunities for you that you never dreamed possible and with the popularity of learning English as a second language on the rise, there are more and more ways to do so open to you every day. Whether you choose day or evening classes, online learning or lessons from a private tutor there is surely a method of learning out there that will fit into your schedule as well as your budget so you can begin right away working your way toward a big improvement in your level of knowledge and maybe a better position in your career.

Learning English Will Help You Gain Skills and Enhance Your Knowledge

One of the best possible things you can do to improve yourself and make you more appealing to your current and future employers is to learn a second language. Learning any second language can and will have many benefits, but learning English as a second language could have benefits that are far beyond any other possible choices, possibly far beyond what you can even imagine learning a second language would do for you.

Completing the difficult task of learning English as a second language will not only make you more capable of connecting and communicating with millions and millions of people worldwide, but it will also open up many more opportunities for you to continue to further you education. If the saying, “knowledge is power” is true, than your true key to power could be learning the English language.

When you finally have a good grasp of the English language, you’ll have access to almost unlimited resources for learning anything imaginable, on just about any topic that you can think of. Books, magazines, newspapers and trade publications can all offer incredible amounts of information but most of these valuable resources may only be published in the English language.

The amount of information that you could amass from the above mentioned sources on any given topic could take you years of study to get through, but that amount of information probably pales in comparison to the information available on the same topic located on the internet. There are millions of personal, professional and educational websites on the World Wide Web and many have tremendous amounts of valuable information to share, but as was the case with books and magazines, many of the internets resources are also only available in English.

If you’ve got the motivation and persistence that it will take you to gain mastery of the English language, the doors of learning are so wide open to you that there is really nothing that you won’t be able to accomplish if willing to apply that same amount of hard work and dedication to other areas.

Learning English will also open wider the doors to understanding the world of computers. There are very few jobs out there today that don’t at least require some computer skills and there are many jobs that are totally dependant on your level of proficiency with a computer. The majority of computer programs today are available only in English, so if you have had any intention of pursuing one of the many careers that involves the use of computers or if working in the computer field has any interest for you, than learning English as a second language could very well be a must for you.

There are very few things that you can do that will enhance your education, build knowledge and open new doors for you as much as learning English as a second language. So very many people worldwide are speaking English already, and a good majority of the rest are either already learning it or considering learning it. Whatever your current situation is, there is likely an option for learning English out there that will fit into your schedule and your budget. There are even several options available for you to learn English as a second language online, from the comfort of your very own home that are very reasonably priced.

With all of the opportunities that learning English will open up for you in the area of your career alone – possible promotions at your current job and potentially more exciting and higher paying jobs with future employers, can you really afford not to find a way to learn English as your second language?

Proper English Grammar Help Businesses to Succeed

Ignoring proper English grammar in your business could be devastating to your bottom line. While you may not think of yourself as a writer, your role as a business owner requires you to write on a regular basis. You likely send out correspondence to potential clients, email back and forth with your employees, and write memos to the organization as a whole. If you do not use proper grammar when writing these documents, you could look foolish and uneducated in the eyes of your employees, your superiors, and your potential clients.

What are the consequences of this? One or two serious grammar mistakes could cost you that contract you have been working so hard to land! Besides making you look foolish, improper grammar can lead to confusion between you and the person you are writing to, because many common grammar mistakes actually change the meaning of what was written. For example, if you write a double negative, such as “You don’t never need to come to work on Saturdays,” you will not only sound silly, but you are actually saying that the individual does need to come to work on Saturdays. This lack of clarity in your writing can cause tremendous confusion.

To further understand the need for proper grammar in business, put yourself in the place of your client for a moment. If you are considering whether or not to spend a large amount of money on someone’s product or service, do you want to feel confident in that individual’s ability to do the job? Of course you do! Often the written word is the first contact someone will have with you and your business. If you do not come across as professional, you will lose some credibility in that individual’s eyes.

Sometimes a simple grammar mistake that is easily overlooked by you can stand out to your customer. Your customer may not notice anything else about your letter, because that grammar mistake is so glaring. Also, you never know when the person you are negotiating with is a grammar expert. Sure, your potential client is probably not a school teacher, but many people have grammar pet peeves, and ignoring proper grammar could rub your client the wrong way from the very beginning of your professional relationship.

Additionally, if you create ad copy that has grammar or punctuation errors, you will lose many more potential customers. A misplaced apostrophe or comma can show quite a bit to your target audience about your attention to detail.

If you are worried about your weak grammar skills, you will be happy to know that there are ways to get around this problem. Not everyone can have excellent grammar skills, but almost everyone can use tools to create well-written documents. First, make sure that you take advantage of electronic grammar and spelling checkers.

While these do not catch all mistakes, and they may point out mistakes that aren’t actually wrong, they can help you to see areas that you need to improve. After running your grammar check, have someone else read the document and make suggestions. This doesn’t take long, but having an outside source read what you have written will help you to catch any clarity or grammar issues that the computer didn’t catch. Then, set the document aside for at least a day. After this short break, come back to it and read it again. Read it out loud to further check for clarity. At this point, you should have a well-written document that is ready to be sent to your most important client.

These steps do take time, but overlooking grammar could be deadly for your business, so take the time to create well written copy every time!