Morse code

·· ··· - ·- -·-- · -·· ···· --- -- · -·-- · ··· - · ·-· -·· ·- -·-- -··· · -·-· ·- ··- ··· · --- ··-· ·- ··· --- ·-· · - ···· ·-· --- ·- - ·-·-·- ·· ·-- ·- ··· --·- ··- ·· - · -··· --- ·-· · -·· ··· --- ·· -·· · -·-· ·· -·· · -·· - --- ·-·· · ·- ·-· -· -- --- ·-· ··· · -·-· --- -·· · ·-·-·- · ·- ··· -·-- ··--·· ·- ·-·· --- - ·-·-·- ··- ··· · ··-· ··- ·-·· ··--·· -· --- - ·-· · ·- ·-·· ·-·· -·-- --··-- -··· ··- - ·- - ·-·· · ·- ··· - ·· -·· ·· -·· -· --- - ·-- ·- ··· - · - ···· · ·- ··-· - · ·-· -· --- --- -· ·-- ·- - -·-· ···· ·· -· --· -··· ·· --· -··· ·-· --- - ···· · ·-· ·-·-·-

Translation: I stayed home yesterday because of a sore throat. I was quite bored so I decided to learn morse code. Easy? A lot . Useful? Not really, but at least I did not waste the afternoon watching Big Brother.

Cup vs. Cap

One of the things I regret more about my English learning process is my former teachers not forcing me to pronounce words correctly. My mother tongues just having one fixed sound for each of the 5 vowels doesn't help either and I find it really hard to distinguish between some vowel sounds in English. Let's take for example the words cup and cap. Even if I try as much as I can, it seems to me that my ears are not prepared to distinguish them, and consequently, neither is my mouth. Same thing with reach vs. rich or full vs. fool. Yeah, I know that when listening I can guess which word it is due to context, but believe me, each time I need to say "I would like to go to the beach" I secretly pray for my pronounciation of beach to be: and not:


Finally, I've learned a new expression today in the Skyscrapercity forum: Pun intended. Which can be used, for example, in: "It would be cool if it snowed tomorrow" (pun intended :D ).

A quick Basque lesson

Two parts in today’s post: First a quick Basque lesson, and second, a link to another free web to learn and practise languages online.

As much as I like learning languages, I also like teaching them. Moreover, it is a way to make a little extra money. I used to teach Basque language when I was a student. Lots of kids here have problems with this language because their parents can't speak it or even if they do, they just prefer to address their children only in Spanish. I am sooo glad to have both languages as mother tongues! Plus, I think Basque is a hard language to learn (well, at least harder than Spanish or other latin-based languages).

For example, it's verb system is quite tricky. Let's take the sentence "Zuek niri harriak bota dizkidazue", which means "You(plural) have thrown stones at me".

• Zuek: You (subject, plural, it can be omitted, you will see why later)
  
• niri: at me (indirect object, it can be also omitted)
  
• harriak: stones (direct object):
  - harri: stone
  - ak: indicates that it is countable, plural and direct object
  
• bota: to throw (Main verb in infinitive form. Usually verbs in Basque have a main verb and an auxiliary verb)
  
• dizkidazue: auxiliary verb. It contains a lot of information which can be broken down as follows:
  - di: the verb is in present tense and needs a direct and an indirect object
  - zki: the direct object is plural (stoneS)
  - da: (at me). The indirect object is first person singular (me)
  - zue: the subject of the sentence is second person plural (you)
  

As you can see, the auxiliary verb contains inside it all the information about the subject and the indirect object of the sentence (and much more), so "Zuek" and "niri" can be omitted. Cool, right? I would love to learn another language with has a verb system as least as trickier as this one. However this is not a piece of cake to teenage students who a)have no interest in languages, b)get bad marks at school and c)attend lessons just because their parents want to. So imagine their faces when they have to learn Basque verbs.

Well, and finally, here’s another free site to learn languages. Hope you enjoy it. I’ve already signed up for German and Mandarin courses :D

Scary weather

I was looking this week's weather into Google. It's really scary...



I'm feeling wet already.

Reading memories

OK, I know that the main purpose of this blog was to improve my English and look for someone to point out my mistakes. So, I promised myself that I would write quite often here but I am not fulfilling it. My best excuse is this last month I've been writing a 30 page article about software agents for this journal (in English, of course). I hope that my crappy English and sometimes dubious algebraic proofs make the cut.

Well, after this brief introduction to redeem (?) myself, let me talk about my relationship with books. I love reading all kind of books in any language I can understand. My mum taught me to read when I was 4 and since then I have devoured trillions of books. I've learned so much through them...Seriously, I can't understand people who are fond of never having read a book. But I guess that's their problem...
My first reading memories are related with Teo, a red-haired boy whose mission was to help kids learn about their environment. I had more than 20 books of this collection and everyday my dad would read me one story (I was 2 by then). I think that in the end I knew most of them by heart. Then I grew up a little bit and started to read by myself. The "Barco de Vapor" was without doubt my favourite collection. I think those books were classified in 4 levels (white, blue, orange and red) with regard to their difficulty. When I reached the red level (I suppose I was about 11), my mum decided that it was time for me to read books for teenagers, such as The Baby-sitters Club. Yeah! Books that talked about hanging out with friends and boyfriends? That was a totally new experience for me! Some years later, when I was at university, books about Java, SQL or "HTML for dummies" became my best friends, basically because I was so busy studying the whole day that I didn't read anything else.

And now...well, I read about 1h30 every weekday (basically because I spend that time on a train while going to work). So imagine... that's at least one book every week. Probably my following acquisitions will be the ones in the picture. Have you read any of them?

A little anecdote...

As you could read in my previous post, I spent some days in Germany last month. Here's a little anecdote that happened to us.
One of the things I try when I visit a foreign country is to address locals in their own language. Germany was not an exception, and I was eager to practice my basic skills in Deutsch (I took German lessons at university, just for 4 months, and since then I’m self-taught). Unfortunately, I guess I still have to polish either my grammar skills or pronunciation (or both) quite a lot. We were having breakfast at the hotel and we wanted to have some warm milk. So, I called the waitress and told her: “Wir möchten heisses Milch trinken, bitte.” Apparently my pronunciation was awful because she brought as warm coffee. As my partner was laughing (at me), I called her again and tried to explain that we didn’t want warm coffee, but warm milk. OK, she seemed to have understood, but she brought us cold milk. I felt a little bit embarrassed about calling the waitress again because the room was crowded and she seemed overworked. Fortunately, the woman who was sitting by us had heard our previous conversations and volunteered to call her again and clarify the misunderstanding. Oh, we finally had warm milk!!! However I’m still doubting whether my sentence was right or not…

My trip to Germany, part I

Last month my boyfriend and I spent a week in Germany. We visited both Berlin and Munich. As it was our first time there, there were trillions of places we wanted to see. I will try to summarize our trip in the following posts. Please, give all the credit of the pictures to my boyfriend. I want to say that our experience was really good, even if it rained almost every day, and I also had the chance to practise a little bit of German!

Day 1: East Berlin
We reached Berlin at about 4p.m. so that day we still had some hours to stroll. We decided to visit the eastern side of Berlin following this fabulous guide. Our first stop was Alexanderplatz, a large open square surrounded by several notable structures such as the Fernsehturm (TV Tower). It is also a public transport hub and in the following days, it would become the starting point of our journeys. Just by Alexanderplatz, Marienkirche(Kirche==Church, Marienkirche==St Mary's church), which is believed to date from the 13th century. And if you look around, you will see one of my favourite buildings in Berlin, the Rotes Rathaus (Rot==red, Rathaus==Town Hall), which is the Town Hall of Berlin, built in the 19th century. In front of it, the Neptunbrunnen (Brunnen==fountain). You can see both of them in the picture. Following towards the River Spree, the Marx-Engels-Forum, a public park named after Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, with a statue of both of them in the middle.
After that we went towards the Nikolaiviertel, where we visited several buildings: the Nikolaikirche(Nichola's church), the Knoblauchhaus(aka. the Garlic House, Knoblauch==garlic, Haus==house), home in the 19th century of architect Eduard Knoblauch. (By the way, the light pink colour of the house reminds of the one of the garlic... I'm not sure but I think that must be intentionally done...). Just by them, the Ephraim Palais; the Altes Stadthaus, former town hall of Berlin (alt==old) and the Palais Schwerin/Münze.
After that we strolled towards Klosterstrasse to visit the Parochialkirche (17th century); the Palais Podewils and the Franziskaner Klosterkirche (see pic) from 13th century and which is in ruins.
It was getting dark so we visited 3 last spots: the Stadtgericht(the Court), the restaurant Zur Letzten Instant, which is said to be the oldest tavern in Berlin; and finally the Berliner Stadtmauer, a lesser known wall in Berlin from the 13th century.

That's all for today. I guess it's time to go back to job. Software agents need me.

Online learning resources: OpenCourseWare

Yesterday I read in the newspaper that the university where I used to study at (and where now I work at as a researcher) is going to join the OpenCourseWare Consortium. This Consortium is made up of institutions that share educational content through the net. So if as in my case you love to learn about new things, I'd like to recommend you, my dear readers that i'll have some day, to visit their website. Although I haven't been much through them, I think I specially like the courses provided here by the MIT because it seems to have plenty of foreign language resources (and as you know, I'm mad about languages). So, enjoy it. Next day, my trip to Germany, part I.

What does my birthday mean?

I found this widget somewhere... it's funny, because most of the things there are true in my case...

Your Birthdate: March 9

You are a born idealist, with more pet causes than you can count. You prefer be around others, both when working and while relaxing. Generous and giving, you believe you can change the world one person at a time. You're open minded and tolerant. People feel like they can tell you anything. Your strength: Your go-with-the-flow flexibility Your weakness: Your flair for the over dramatic Your power color: Pine green Your power symbol: Circle Your power month: September

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

Someone told me long time ago that people who are born on a day 9 tend to be idealist...well, I don't believe much in those 'general statements' but this widget says the same...and it's true in my case (anyway,I still don't believe...). Apart from that, I love being around people or meeting new people (yeah, also you, those readers that I will have some day...). I also think I'm tolerant and I don't know why but everyone tells me his little secrets (even though I don't like that very much). Sorry, you missed one thing: my favourite colour is blue, not green :D

Skyscrapercity

I love buildings. Specially I love tall, modern buildings. Maybe that is because in my town the tallest building is about...6 floors. Some weeks ago I discovered this website (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/) where you can find beautiful pics of buildings all over the world.

Here are some pics that I like pretty much:

Thanks to Singapur3 and Marcanadian for these beautiful pics. It's pretty obvious, but, can you guess where have these pics been taken? :)

Things-to-do

My things-to-do list (in whatever order):

1. Polish up my English and French by myself (maybe while I am on the train to work)
2. Dare to talk to those French women who sit by me everyday on the train
3. Take German lessons again (at least twice a week)
4. Take Chinese lessons (Ok, let's stop talking about languages)
5. Take photography lessons (I bought this digital camera but still don't know how to take good pics).
6. Travel to Asia
7. Go to the cardiologist
8. Read other people's blogs and make comments
9. Meet someone that inspires me (Well, I know a few people I would like to meet, if only I could meet one of them...)
10. Re-learn to drive (Almost 4 years since I last drove)
11. Go to Ushuaia
12. Look for a 'cheap' house to rent with my boyfriend (well...by cheap I mean less than 800€/month)
13. ...and so and so on

So far I've been to...

In one of the previous posts I said I'd write a list of the countries I'd like to visit before I die. Unfortunately, there are a lot of places and got to go have dinner in few minutes so, instead of that, I'll list the countries I've been (or I've stepped in) so far:


Andorra: Been there when I was very young, with my family. Don't remember much about it, just a big shop where we bought an almost bigger biscuit box :D


Belgium: Been to Brussels, Brugge and many small towns, liked it a lot, specially Brugge.

Canada: I love this country. Only been to the west anyway: Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton...Vancouver is one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to, I love the Legislature building in Edmonton, and Calgary...well, I feel half Calgarian since I went there...Love u guys!!

France: my neighbours...I live so close that almost every saturday I go there for a walk. It may seem strange to a lot of people, but yes, it's only a 15 minute walk from my house :). I've also been to Paris with my boyfriend, which was an amazing experience. Love u honey!!

Germany: I've only been to the Frankfurt airport,hehe, it was like chaos. My worst experience in an airport so far. In few months I'll be going to Munich and Berlin. Hope it's better...

Ireland: Rain, rain and rain. I think it rained for 28 days in a row. But very nice people there..and an interesting language, Irish. I want to go back because I didn't visit Dublin.

USA: another airport only. That was Chicago. Everything was easy to find there and people were quite helpful. Of course, I'd like to visit the country. Maybe next year...flights to NY are not so expensive now...

Spain: well, that's where I live. Don't like it much though... everything is sooo expensive. And almost no-one speaks English, so I can't practice it. That sucks :(

That's all for today. Be good, and travel safe

I like this song

Wir wollen doch einfach nur zusammen sein
Udo Lindenberg

Stell dir vor, du kommst nach Ost-Berlin
und da triffst du ein ganz heisses Mädchen
so ein ganz heisses Mädchen aus Pankow
und du findest sie sehr bedeutend
und sie dich auch

Dann ist es auch schon so weit
ihr spürt, dass ihr gerne zusammen seid
...und ihr trämt von einem Rock-Festival
auf dem Alexanderplatz
mit den Rolling Stones und 'ner Band aus Moskau

Doch plötzlich ist es schon zehn nach elf
und sie sagt: Ey, du musst ja spätestens um zwölf
weider drüben sein
sonst gibt's die grössten Nervereien
denn du hast ja nur 'n Tagesschein

Mädchen aus Ost-Berlin
das war wirklich schwer
ich musste gehn, obwohl ich so gerne
noch geblieben wär
aber Mädchen, ich komme wieder
und vielleicht geht's auch iregendwann mal
ohne Nervereien
da muss doch auf die Dauer was zu machen sein!

Ich hoffe, dass die Jungs
das nun bald in Ordnung bringen
den wir wollen doch einfach nur zusammen sein
vielleicht auch mal etwas länger
vielleicht auch mal etwas enger
wir wollen doch einfach nur zusammen sein

I'm tired

I'm sooo tired today. I don't feel like writing. Anyway, I'm the only reader of this blog. So no-one is gonna miss me. Next day I'll write a list with the places I want to visit in the next years. Because dreams may come true.

The apple of my eye

Today I'm gonna talk about someone who I think deserves a spot on this blog. I've already said that I'm a vivid fan of the Amazing Race, both the US and Asian versions. In TarAsia2 there is a guy called Adrian Yap who has proved me that people with disabilities (he's deaf) can overcome them. Apart from the race, he has taken part in a prestigious world yatch race and he does many other things that I would never be able to do. Ok, I must admit that I'm a bit in love with him (eheemm, not literally, but I love watching him), I find him so charismatic! I would even learn sign language for you Adrian (It can't be worse than Chinese...)
Tomorrow is the season finale and he'll be there along with his teammate Collin. Most people say they're are boring, but I don't mind. I like them. So if they win I'll do a little happy dance :)
Go Adrian! Go Collin!

My wisdom tooth

Going to the dentist is one of my biggest fears. Last week I had to visit mine because I had a cavity. I had a terrible time there but I though, well, I won't see you again till next year! But, when I woke up today one of my wisdom tooth was aching. A lot. I have had them for 4 or 5 years, they grew up well, there was enough place for them and m dentist has never said anything about taking them out. I need a remedy right now!!!

The Amazing Race 12

Today I'm going to talk about my favourite TV show. Yeah, you're right, it is The Amazing Race. I came across this show about 6 months ago, while season 11 was airing in the USA. Never heard of it before, as they don't play it here where I live. I have watched 10 full seasons since then and now I'm watching simultaneously seasons 9 and 12 (season 12 because it is now been aired and season 9 because I'm so mad about the show that I can't wait the whole week for another episode of season 12). But today's matter is season 12. Let me talk about the teams that haven't been philiminated yet (and by the way, I haven't read any spoiler so, every assumption is made by me):

Team Ghost (aka TK and Rachel): OK, I just to like them quite a lot when the show started but man, I find them so boring now. I mean, every week when the episode finishes I wonder myself where these two have been. They don't get enough screen time I think. They are nice, yeah, and I love that, but The Clowns(season 4) were also lovely and I didn't get bored with them. My guess is...they'll make it to the final 3 buuutt, as always happens, the most unlikeable team(Team I-Shout-You-Shout) will win. For TK and Rachel...I guess 2nd place.

Team I-Shout-You-Shout (aka Nate and Jen): I don't like teams that yell at each other. And they do. A lot. But, since those teams usually end up doing a good job, as I have said before I expect them to be the winners (Please Lord, don't let this happen again). One good thing about them is that they are pretty good at tasks, and also quite good navigators. But still, please Phil, philiminate them. For Nate and Jen...I guess 1st place

Team Who's-Your-Daugther (aka Christina and Ronald): Before the show started I thought would be the first team out. Even if I don't like them either they are not so bad players. However, every time Ron says he's good at something (dancing, balancing...) they end up almost screwing the task up. And he's sooo irritating. Not final 3 for this team. Place 4, I guess.

Team You-Do-It-Grandpa (aka Nick and Donald): Well, first of all, don't know who is who, so let me call them Grandpa and Pilot. Even if I didn't like them at the beginning, they are now my faves. Well, at least Grandpa is. Because he does all the hard tasks while Pilot keeps complaining about everything. This man is awesome, he even got a tattoo. Well, many people have tattoos, yeah, but I know that my daddy wouldn't do that... Please, win, win and win. However, I don't think they will, so, let's say 3rd place for these.

Team Oh-My-Gosh (aka Kynt and Vyxsin): Ujummm, I like them too, but they were almost philiminated last week, and this week they'll have to cope with the Speed Bump, which seems not very funny (for them). I've got a feeling that they'll say bye-bye this Sunday. :(. So. place #5 for them.

Well, for those who don't want to read everything, this is a resume of what I've said above:
I think that the winning order will be: 1.Nate & Jen, 2.Rachel & TK, 3.Nick & Don, 4. Chris & Ron, 5.Kynt & Vyxsin. HOWEVER, I would like to have: 1.Nick & Don, 2.Kynt & Vyxsin, 3. Rachel & TK, 4. Chris & Ron, 5. Nate & Jen.

That's all for today, be good, and travel safe

The very first post

Hi everyone! or should i say, hi no-one? I really don't care, because I've created this blog just because I need to write some English. You know, I love languages. If I could, I would learn 3 or 4 languages at the same time. Currently I can speak Spanish and Basque perfectly, I can make myself understood in English and French (or at least I think so) and I also know some German and I'm starting with Chinese. I hope to be fluent in these two last languages by, let's say, year 2011, and then I think that I'd like to try Irish. But today's matter has to do with English. I began to learn English at school when I was a child. I also took some private lessons for several years but since I began to work, I don't have much time. I can understand almost everything because I read a lot in English and I watch tons of videos (Specially The Amazing Race, I'm such a big fan!!, but I'll talk about this another day). However, I don't produce. I mean, none of my friends is fluent in English, neither is my family. I would like to write in forums (in Tarflies, for instance) but it is really hard for me to express what I want to say, so I end writing a simple text with hundreds of mistakes and I feel quite embarrased because they may think I'm kinda stupid. So today, while I was having a shower I decided to create this blog. Because I wanna write, write and write. And I wanna be fluent in English. Of course, every feedback will be welcomed. That's all for today. Be good, and travel safe.