英会話プライベートレッスン

Hello everyone, Anand here as always with an update. Hope you guys enjoyed watching the Olympic games. As you all know, I am from Canada, and in Canada we take the Winter Olympics very seriously. And thankfully it shows in the standings – 3rd in gold medals won and 4th in medals won overall. Not bad for a country with a third of the population of Japan, right?

But what was especially satisfying was watching our hockey teams prove that they are the best in the world. See, ice hockey is more than just our national sport – it is tied in to the very identity of Canada. I can’t lie – I am terrible at both skating and hockey, and generally don’t make a point to watch the games, but I never feel more Canadian than when I see our team score a goal in the Olympics. I guess it reminds me that no matter how boring and insignificant the world thinks we may be, we can still beat the rest of the world in our precious game.

As a result, you can probably guess how I spent my weekend. I had a few of my friends over, grabbed a beer (or six) and watched the hockey games. I don’t know too many Canadians around here, but I know a couple of people from Minnesota which is close enough. ?It was funny, because when we watched USA versus Canada they were cheering against me, but when we watched USA versus Sweden (for the GOLD!) they were with me. I guess if you are going to be beaten by a team (we won 1-0 against the US), you want them to win the whole thing (which we did, winning 3-0 versus Sweden).

What is just as satisfying is watching people watching hockey. Canadians are known for their polite behaviour, but if you want to see Canadians go crazy, watch them watch hockey. It brings out something strange in us.

Now that we have won gold, I get the extra benefit of gloating to all of my American co-workers. We Canadians don’t get to do it often.

Better luck next time, rest of the world.

Anand

Hi there everyone! Anand here as usual. Can you believe it? Another weekend full of snow! More of my precious plans are ruined by this snow…I was to run a half marathon on Saturday…but it was cancelled. I was supposed to meet a cute girl after…but she couldn’t get on the train. I was supposed to run on Sunday…too slippery. I really hope that this is the last we see of the snow in 2014. I think the Olympics are all that I need out of winter.

So basically, my weekend was exactly the same as last weekend, only shorter. I sat down in a cafe near my home, ordered some hayashi rice, and started practicing kanji. I must have sat in the cafe for four hours writing. Actually, I wrote so much that I ended up hurting my arm. I used to be an artist, but I had to stop drawing because I had done nerve damage to my arm from drawing and boxing. That is one of the reasons I am an English teacher now.

Of course, I can still box, and I can still draw, but I have to be careful about how much I do of either. Last thing I want is to ruin my good hand!

Anyway, if you are interested at all, here is some of the kanji that I wrote. In addition, you can see the hayashi rice that I spilled on the paper. Looks like my eating needs more practice too.

Until next time!

Hi there everyone! Anand here as always. Hope you guys all managed to survive the snow! To be honest, I had been planning to go cycling with my friends, but the snow ruined my plans…But we have an expression in English – “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”. Basically, when bad things happen you have to turn them into good things.

So instead, I caught up on some much needed studying. I have been studying French a lot these days, but I haven’t been studying my Japanese at all. I have a flashcard programs that is supposed to help me study kanji, but I was over 1000 cards behind! That is a very bad thing!

So here’s what I did.

I sat down in my favorite cafe with my favorite drink (beer) and started practicing words. To be honest, I love writing kanji, and I love studying Japanese. I just never have the time between work, running and French practice. But once I get started, I can lose track of time.

You can see the results in the picture below.

You might be wondering why I have such strange words on my study sheet. I practice reading using a lot of crime and war stories, so I end up learning a lot of violent words.

It’s not as strange as you think. We all learn words by reading and following things we are interested in. I happened to be interested in crime and WWII so I know lots of bizarre words related to empires and shooting people.

I imagine if you started writing words down we would get something completely different. Why not try it sometime?

Hello everyone and how do you do? ?Yesterday I went to Shinjuku to meet up with a bunch of people from Shizuoka, Yamanashi and Chiba to go on a scavenger hunt. ?Have you ever heard of one? ?In a scavenger hunt we all make teams and have to go, well, hunting for things all over Tokyo. ?For instance, one of the challenges was to take a take a picture at a Disney store. ?Another challenge was to take a picture in front of the Gundam in Odaiba. ?Yet another challenge was to take a video of one of us playing janken with a child. ?One of the more embarrassing challenges was to do cartwheels across Shibuya Crossing. ?What’s worse is that I was the only one on my team who could do a cartwheel meaning that I had to do it. ?But actually, I am much better at cartwheels than I remember.

It turned out to be a great day. ?I got to meet some old friends and I also got to meet lots of new people. ?In fact, some of the people on my team live quite close to me, which is very lucky! ?Our team was very into the challenge and we ended up coming in third (we won candy.) ?All the teams gathered in Roppongi for dinner which also turned out to be lots of fun. ?I know I drank my fair share of Mexican beer.

This might have been a bad idea – all of this drinking and walking. ?I actually had to go running the next morning for a half marathon in Asahi, which is in Chiba prefecture. ?It was also cold and raining. ?However, that actually turned out to be a rather pleasant experience too, since the cool weather kept me from heating up too much.

All in all, it was a busy, but very enjoyable weekend.

Sure I have no lessons planned, but I am not too worried, though maybe I should be.