A reply to David

Dear teacher,

Thank you so much for the Business English course. I am now reading English grammar by myself.

The textbook is "Tunghua Contemporary English Grammar". This book is intended for those Chinese learners of English who range in their background from the first year of senior high to the freshman level of college, said by the author.

It is difficult for me to read, because this book is written in English. But there are some sentence examples in each section. Please could you advice if it is suitable for me at this time frame?

Thanks and best regards,
David
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Dear David,

I think every grammar book has its own advantages. Yours is no exception to that. However, reading a grammar book from the first page to the end will probably be the most boring thing do. I myself can not even achieve that. So, I would just suggest you use it as a reference book. Flip through the pages for clues before you are to write or say something, and don't just study the whole book because it won't badly help you improve your language proficiency that way.

Don't study hard, study smart.

Best regards,

Albert

Monthly Charges

I recently found that my bank had been continuously charging me 25 dollars each month.

recently 最近
continuously 不間斷地
charge 收費

I just couldn't believe what I saw as I was viewing my account information on the bank's Website. I rarely do the checking on my account since I believe there shouldn't be no problem with that. Normally most banks in the U.S. won't charge their clients if they have saved adequate amount of money, usually as much as several thousands dollars or more. Now I assume that the reason why I was charged by them is that the bank didn't recognize me having enough money saved in there. The truth is I do have enough money, however. In order to save myself out of trouble, I wrote the bank an email telling them what had been going wrong and requesting to get the extra charges back to me. So far I haven't received any answer yet. I hope the bummer can be sorted out smoothly and as soon as possible.

view 觀看
rarely 很少
adequate 適量的
assume 認為
recognize 辨認
request 要求
extra 額外的
receive 收到
bummer 令人不高興的事
sort out 解決

What's fun is that maybe I should take the complaint letter to my class and show it as a live example of business writing.

complaint 抱怨
live 活生生的

Harry Potter and English Reading

Dear friends:

Here I would like to make a pleasant announcement about English reading. My long-time friend Bruce Lin is going to open a few English reading activities in Taipei. He will be working with you on several issues including finding the beauty of English reading, acquisition of language, use of Harry Potter series, and so forth.

Bruce is not only a learned person but also an experienced teacher in teaching English. His techniques in the field has attracted countless students to his class. My advice for you is that you should not miss out his class, I am telling you. To get more information, please go to the following site:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extensionreading/

Best wishes

Albert Chang

Why the hell should I be prouid of it?

It is supposed to be a great thing to see the grand opening of Taiwan High Speed Railway (HSR) which has been on its trail operartion for a few days. However, I just can't convince myself to be proud of it, seeing so many problems come up over the past few days. Maybe I shouldn't be so mean to them, seriously. I understand that the lousy situation will be eventually under control, but I also want to complain about its steep price that not everyone can afford. For one-way traveling from Banqiao to Kaohsiung, the fare is $1490 NTD. Do you know how much the average wage of a Taiwanese college graduate can earn in one day? The answer is $ 830 NTD. That means they can't even purcahse a one-way with their one-day pay, much less the round-trip. What the hell!

be supposed to 應該
grand opening 開張
trail operation 試營運
convince 說服
be proud of 驕傲
mean 刻薄
seriously 嚴肅地
lousy 糟糕的
eventually 最後
conplain 抱怨
steep 高的
afford 負擔的起
fare 車價
average wage 平均工資
college graduate 大學畢業生
one-way 單程
round-trip 來回
purchase 購買
much less 遑論
What the hell! 表達驚訝的意思

Last but not least. The high speed railway system is made by Japanese, not Taiwanese at all. To be more specifically saying, though the HSR trains are manufactured by Japs, some European companies also involved designing the controlling stuff in some respects. Hmm...it sounds like it's not like an name-brand PC but just a compatible one.

last but not least 最後但仍是重要的
specifically 仔細地
manufacture 製造
European 歐洲的
involve 牽涉
in some respects 某些方面
name-brand 名牌
compatible 相容的

One way to learn it

I recently subscribed to some podcast programs on the Internet about how to learn English in a more efficient way. One of them which impresses me most comes from Steve Kaufman. Speaking of this Canadian people, his capability of speaking nine languages has indeed surprised lots of people including myself. Not only can he fluently speak some European languages which I believe easier for him to pick up due to his English native speaking background, but he can also handle Chinese Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanse, and Korean with no problems. That really makes himself persuasive to be one of the best linguists in the world.

recently 最近地
subscribe 訂駛odcast 博客
efficient 有效的
impress 使人產生印象
background 背景
capability 能力
indeed 的確
surprised 感到驚訝的
including 包括
fluently 流利的
European 歐洲的
pick up 學會
due to 由於
native 本地的, 本質的
Mandarin 國語
Cantonese 廣東話
persuasive 有說服力的
linguist 語言家, 會說多種語言的人

The Linguist system, which he and his crew have been advertising for a while online, has been claimed by him to be one of the most efficient ways to help non-native speakers to learn English. By chekcing out his website, I can see how much effort he has put in there for the best use of it. However, I would suggust him cut down the price of using the site for attracting more memers to use the Lingusit system. If you don't want to pay for it at once, you may consider downloading his free-to-use Podcast files first and listen to his fine comments on how to be a lingusit like him.

crew 工作小組
advertise 廣告
claim 宣稱
non- 非...
chekcing out 觀看
effort 努力
enhance 加強
suggust 建議
cut down 刪減
recruit 招生
royal 忠誠的
consider 考慮
download 下載
comment 評論
similar 相同的