http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/rss mayumayu's latest journal entries Lang-8 Inc. Tue May 21 15:20:25 UTC 2013 Tue May 21 15:20:25 UTC 2013 Lang-8 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Lang-8 That’s funny.
Also he taught us that head coaches in the Netherlands are called trainers.


Posted at Sun Sep 23 09:10:12 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1691825 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1691825 mayumayu Sun Sep 23 09:10:12 UTC 2012
“I didn’t do anything wrong!” I thought.
(You would probably say, “I didn’t do nothing wrong.” This grammar isn’t right, though. I hear it a lot.)

“How could I put a print head in a printer which already has?”

I called a maker of the printer.

The lady in the call center told me that I should take the printer to a store where I bought to send it to the maker for fixing.

It will probably cost 9,450 yen!

We will have to pay about 4,000 yen because the rest of the cost will be paid by warranty.

However, it’s still expensive.

Actually I wasn’t still be furious until this moment, the lady said,

“By the way, we will no longer save this product’s parts from on July 13th, 2013. So we no longer fix this printer after that.”

“What? Your company collects recycles of ink cartridges with saying, “Our company cares about the environment of the earth,” but you don’t recommend that customers use one product as long as possible. It isn’t ecological at all. It’s hypocrite,” I thought.

I didn’t say nothing (I didn’t say anything), because I thought it was useless for me to tell her.

OK, you may want to say that it’s for business activity. If we don’t buy a new product, it doesn’t revitalize business activities.

I don’t agree with this. We have to think another way of living.

Well, I just wanted to complain about this.


Posted at Sat Sep 08 14:09:42 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1666998 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1666998 mayumayu Sat Sep 08 14:09:42 UTC 2012 (Note: We call ourselves Aunt A and Aunt B, especially when we talk to our cat.)
Sneaky!
It’s getting closer a witching time of night.
We call it 丑三つ時.
I have to sleep.

Posted at Tue Sep 04 17:02:44 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1660671 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1660671 mayumayu Tue Sep 04 17:02:44 UTC 2012 I couldn’t get to sleep well last night and I was thinking about many things about English and so on.
I’d like to solve the questions which came up at that time one by one.

How much percentage could one hide keys of their houses under flower pots or door mats in front of their houses?

How much percentage could one find keys of other people’s houses under flower pots or door mats in front of their houses?

First of all, I don’t know which is right, “How much percentage” or “How many percentage” in that sentence.
Second, I don’t know which sounds more natural, “How many people” or “How much/many percentage.”
Third, I don’t know which sentence sounds more natural, the first one or the second one.


Posted at Mon Sep 03 12:35:35 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658319 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658319 mayumayu Mon Sep 03 12:35:35 UTC 2012
A drunken man: Hi, where are you going?

Me: I’m on my way to work.
He was surprised that I responded to him in English.

A drunken man: Oh, where do you work?

Me: Over there!
I said it while pointing the direction where I worked.

A drunken man: Where?

Me: Oh, I’m leaving. Bye!
I wanted to end this conversation as soon as possible.

After that, I thought about the usage of “I’m leaving.”
For instance, you and I are talking for a while in a room, but I have to go somewhere and I say to you, “I’m leaving.”
I think it’s a right way to say. I move from the room where we are talking to somewhere.
I was talking with the drunken man while heading where I work (walking).
Do you also say, “I’m leaving” in that situation?


Posted at Mon Sep 03 11:15:23 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658170 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658170 mayumayu Mon Sep 03 11:15:23 UTC 2012 (Should I write, “I’m thinking about make a reservation for two nights from December 13th?)
I have some questions.
Check-in in your hotel is from 3 p.m., but is it possible for me to leave my luggage at the front desk or a room before that time?
Is it also possible for me to leave my luggage at the front desk for few hours after I check out?
I’d appreciate it if you could answer my questions.


If there are more natural ways, I’d appreciate it if you would tell me about them.


Posted at Mon Sep 03 10:49:02 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658131 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658131 mayumayu Mon Sep 03 10:49:02 UTC 2012
There is some reason why he didn’t come back.
I don’t know the reason.

There are some reasons why he didn’t come back.
He had an important job to cope with immediately and he noticed that his passport expired last month.

Am I right?


Posted at Mon Sep 03 09:56:46 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658069 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1658069 mayumayu Mon Sep 03 09:56:46 UTC 2012
“食わない(Nah!),” I responded.

And then, he said to me, “食べませんでしょ(You should say it in a more polite way like you don’t eat) 女の子がそういう言葉遣いしちゃだめだよ(Women shouldn’t speak like that.)”

I spoke that way because we spoke in a casual way when we talked about something other than our job.

Yes, he was right.

I shouldn’t speak that way regardless of whether I’m a woman or not.

However, I love speaking that way with my sister and friends even if it looks childish.

Now I often say, “食わねえ～(It’s worse than 食わない),” when I speak with my sister and friends.

Also I often say, ”食わねえーし (It’s also an impolite way)”

At least I don’t speak that way when someone is near us.

Do you care about this kind of thing when you talk with Japanese friends in Japanese?

Sometimes I don’t feel good when I see people in American reality TV shows swear badly too many times.

I don’t think I can make friends with them.


Posted at Sat Sep 01 08:26:53 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1654614 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1654614 mayumayu Sat Sep 01 08:26:53 UTC 2012 I was the one who had thrown away the carton of milk.
I wrote this entry because I’m not sure of how to say, “ミルクが切れる” in English.
Can I also say, “We are short of milk”?


Posted at Fri Aug 31 13:16:39 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1653421 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1653421 mayumayu Fri Aug 31 13:16:39 UTC 2012 If there is a difference between them, I’d like you to explain it to me.


Posted at Fri Aug 31 13:00:35 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1653395 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1653395 mayumayu Fri Aug 31 13:00:35 UTC 2012 先日私が運転していた前の車の後部に貼ってあったステッカーにこう書いてありました。


Posted at Thu Aug 30 11:06:54 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1651561 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1651561 mayumayu Thu Aug 30 11:06:54 UTC 2012 This is what I thought a little while ago when my cat was licking my palm.


Posted at Wed Aug 29 13:54:52 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1650281 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1650281 mayumayu Wed Aug 29 13:54:52 UTC 2012
“Oh….No,” I said while thinking how to turn this call down as soon as possible.
(In fact, I’m the one who is in charge of it, but it’s bothersome for me to talk about it.)

“Oh, I heard that your brother was in charge of an Internet environment in your house. Is he at home?” she said back.

“Oh….He isn’t,” I said.

“Well, I’ll call your house some other day,” she said and hung up.

After that, I asked my sister, “Are you the one who said an Internet provider that we have a brother to get away from its call?”

“No,” she said.

“It doesn’t make sense. I thought you had pretended to have a brother. Who had told the lady so?” I said.

I should have said the lady clearly that we didn’t need a service she was going to offer.
I usually say so to sellers on the phone.


Posted at Wed Aug 29 12:36:43 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1650133 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1650133 mayumayu Wed Aug 29 12:36:43 UTC 2012 私が過去にマイフレンド申請した人は

1. The people who had corrected my entries and their explanations were very clear and easy for me to understand.
１．私の日記を添削してくれて、なおかつ説明が明快で分かり易かった人。

2. The people who write very interesting entries or have a lot of things to learn.
２．とても面白い日記を書くか、とても勉強になる人。

I don’t care about what languages they are learning and what their mother tongues are if I can read their entries (if their entries are written in the languages I can read.
日記が読める限り、どの言語を学んでいるか、母国語が何かは関係ありません。

I have sent friends’ requests to some Japanese people who are learning the same languages as mine and some people who are learning Japanese, but their native languages aren’t what I am learning.
私と同じ言語を学んでいる人や、私が学んでいる言語が母国語ではなくても日本語を学んでいる人に申請をしたことがあります。

For now, the most important thing for me (when I choose whom I send a friends’ list) is that whether I’m interested in the person or not.
今のところ（マイフレンドを申請する時に）一番重要なのは、私がその人に興味があるか、ないかです。

How about you?
みなさんは、どうですか。

I think native English speakers get a lot of friends’ requests from the people who are learning English, so it seems to me that they don’t need to send any friends’ request themselves.
英語ネイティブは英語を学んでいる人からたくさん申請があると思うので、自分から申請する必要なさそうですが。

Feel free to comment!
自由にコメントしてください。

I’m welcoming any comment from any language if I can read them (Japanese, English and Korean).
私が読める言語（日本語、英語、韓国語）であれば、コメント大歓迎です。

I’d also like to hear opinions from Japanese people.
日本人の意見も聞きたいです。

Thanks in advance.
宜しくお願いします。


Posted at Sun Aug 26 12:13:39 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1645122 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1645122 mayumayu Sun Aug 26 12:13:39 UTC 2012 私と姉は「昭和の人だから」「昭和生まれだから」という表現をよく使います。

They mean that I’m the person who was born in Showa era.
昭和に生まれた人という意味です。

We use them, when we learn something new that younger people who were born in Heisei era are familiar with or feel a generation gap to them.
平成生まれの若者にとっては当たり前のことを知った時や、平成生まれに世代間ギャップを感じた時に使います。

They are self-deprecating jokes.
自虐的なギャグです。

On December 25th, in 1926 had started Showa era and on January 8th, in 1989, its name changed into Heisei due to the death of the each Emperor.
天皇の崩御により、昭和は１９２６年の１２月２５日に始まり、１９８９年の１月８日に平成へと替わりました。

So if you were born during that time, you can say you are the person who was born in Showa era.
もしあなたがその間の生まれだったら、昭和生まれだと言えます。

We use those phrases for example:
例えばこういうときに使います。

I say, “I don’t use a navigation of my cell phone. I don’t want to make my cell phone charge higher. I google a map and print it.”
私「携帯のナビ使わない。料金が高くなるのが嫌だから。グーグルで地図調べて、印刷する」

My sister says, “Yeah, it’s because you were born in Showa era.”
姉「昭和の人だからね～」

I’m not saying that all the people who were born in Showa era don’t use a navigation of a cell phone.
昭和生まれの人がすべて携帯のナビを使わないと言っているわけではありませんよ。


Posted at Fri Aug 24 15:09:09 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1642625 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1642625 mayumayu Fri Aug 24 15:09:09 UTC 2012 暑いです。更に最悪なことに汗で体がベトベトしています。

We have two air-conditioners in our house, but I don’t like using them and they left broken because nobody in my family use any more.
家には２台エアコンがあるのですが、エアコンを使うのは嫌いだし、そもそも家族の誰も使わないので、壊れたまま直していません。

I like an electric fan better.
扇風機の方が好きです。

At night, the cool winds blow and it’s much easier to spend than daytime.
夜は涼しい風が吹いて、昼間よりずっと過ごし易くなります。

It’s the best hours in summer.
夏で一番いい時間帯です。


Posted at Fri Aug 24 11:29:26 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1642284 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1642284 mayumayu Fri Aug 24 11:29:26 UTC 2012 「Nightmare」と「Bad dream」の違いが分かりません。

I think that both expressions are translated into 悪夢 in Japanese.
どちらも日本語に訳すると悪夢だと思うのだけれど。


Posted at Sun Aug 19 10:28:08 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1633941 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1633941 mayumayu Sun Aug 19 10:28:08 UTC 2012 昨晩変な夢を見た。

I was standing in the front of the black board in a class room with some strangers.
ある教室の黒板の前で見知らぬ人達と立っていた。

There were some English sentences written by me on it and they corrected my English saying that my mistakes were typical examples Japanese people made and it was very easy ones.
その黒板には私が書いた英文があり、私の英語の間違いは日本人の典型的なもので、非常に簡単なものだと添削された。

I was very shocked by that.
私はそのことにとても傷ついた。

When I woke up, the first thing on my mind was, “I had such a dream because I haven’t written any entries on Lang-8 for a while and deep down I’ve been sorry for that.
目が覚めて最初に思ったのは、「しばらくLang-8に日記を書いていないことを心のどこかで気にしているから、こんな夢見たんだろうな」というものだった。


Posted at Sun Aug 19 10:12:23 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1633925 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1633925 mayumayu Sun Aug 19 10:12:23 UTC 2012 “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”という言い方は意味を成しますか?

That’s what I could hear someone say in an American drama.
アメリカのドラマを見ていてそう聞こえたのですが。

I’m not familiar with saying, “Could I trouble you~?”
“Could I trouble you~?”という言い方に馴染みがありません。

I’m not sure of whether the idiom is used often or not.
よく使われる慣用句なのかどうかもよく分かりません。

Note: My Japanese sentences are loose translations.
注意：日本語の文章は意訳です。


Posted at Fri Jul 27 11:10:14 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1599592 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1599592 mayumayu Fri Jul 27 11:10:14 UTC 2012 「Klux」の発音は、「class」の発音と同じように聞こえますか?

I heard someone say, “Have you ever been to a class meeting?” in an American drama, but it didn’t make any sense if I thought about the story itself.
アメリカのドラマで「クラス会に行ったことがありますか？」と聞こえたのだけれど、話の筋からすると意味不明なのです。

I’m guessing that they were talking about Ku Klux Klan.
クー・クラックス・クランのことを話しているのだと思うのだけれど。

I’m wondering about whether “Klux” sounds like “class” to you, too.
果たして皆さんにも「Klux」が「class」に聞こえるのか疑問です。

Does it make sense that saying, “Have you ever been to a Klux meeting?”
「クラックスミーティングに行ったことがありますか？」と言うのは意味を成しますか?

Note: My Japanese sentences are loose translations.
注意：日本語の文章は意訳です。


Posted at Mon Jul 23 13:09:08 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1593208 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1593208 mayumayu Mon Jul 23 13:09:08 UTC 2012 １日に3回も日記を載せたからって、怒らないで～！

I feel that the world is changing and I’m definitely getting old, when I hear something like:
私が世の中変わった、私も年を取ったなと実感する時

A radio station has been asked by some young people in e-mail, “How do we do to listen to the radio?”
ラジオ局に「ラジオってどうやって聞くのですか?」という問い合わせがメールであったと聞いた時。

I would google how to listen to the radio before asking if I were them.
私だったらラジオ局に問い合わせる前にググるけど。

This question reminds me of having asked back, “What is browser? Toshiba?”, when I was asked, “What is your browser?” in a while since I started to use Internet.
インターネットを使い始めた頃に「ブラウザは何？」と訊かれて、「ブラウザって何？東芝？」と答えていたことを思い出すなあ。

Note:Japanese translations are very casual form and loose.
注意：日本語訳は砕けた表現で、意訳です。


Posted at Sat Jul 21 14:47:44 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1590352 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1590352 mayumayu Sat Jul 21 14:47:44 UTC 2012 I’d appreciate it if you would correct my mistakes before I post them on it.

I’m glad to know that some native English speakers are struggling to learn a foreign language as well.
Learning a foreign language takes you some efforts.
I’d like to say that it isn’t as easy as they think, whenever some native English speakers who don’t speak a foreign language at all themselves say to me, “Why do you not speak English? How many years have you studied it? Where did you learn it? Most Japanese people don’t speak English well. Why?” or they say behind my back that I don’t speak English at all. (Ironically, I can hear this phrase clearly, even though I don’t understand mostly what they say due to their unfamiliar accents. I’m familiar with an American accent, so even it was difficult for me to hear a New Zealander in the countryside say “Where are you now?” on the phone.)
Whenever this happens, I just shrug it off, because I don’t think they really understand what I feel until they put themselves in my shoes.
On the other hand, I haven’t told by any Korean that my Korean is bad even though my Korean is worse than English.
They encourage me to learn Korean, I think because they know how hard to learn a foreign language.
I don’t say that every native English speaker is mean, and there are a lot of people who encourage me to learn English, but sometimes it pisses me off when some native English speakers take it for granted that I speak English just because English is spoken all over the world.


Posted at Sat Jul 21 11:58:53 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1590076 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1590076 mayumayu Sat Jul 21 11:58:53 UTC 2012 I don’t do this, because I try to think in English, when I write English.
I don’t have a skill to write in English about exactly the same thing what I think in Japanese.
If I write Japanese translations in my English entries, I’ll mess up both my English and Japanese.
I try to write English by using as much English vocabulary and grammar as I know so far without translating Japanese into English.
For example, if I didn’t know a word, “ophthalmologist” in English, I would write, “eye doctor” instead.
Sometimes my Japanese gets in the way especially when it comes to Japanese culture, Japanese custom and unique Japanese words that English doesn’t have, though.

On the other hand, when I write Korean entries, I sometimes write it with Japanese.
It’s because that Japanese and Korean have a similar structure in grammar and a lot of similar sound words each other.
Japanese and English are complete different languages.

How about you?
I see some learners of Japanese write Japanese entries with English translations. (It helps me my English study a lot, by the way.)
I’m wondering if they are confused about writing both Japanese and English.
How about the other languages? How about writing German, French, or Italian with English translations?
Please feel free to comment!


Posted at Sat Jul 21 07:50:06 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1589811 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1589811 mayumayu Sat Jul 21 07:50:06 UTC 2012 I’ve seen those people in school, work places, a driving school and hobby classes.
I wanted to be like them for a long time, but I realized that I’m a kind of a person who is good at learning a new thing by reading about it better than by listening to an explanation from people in person.
So when I have to learn something new verbally, I’m trying to find and read some books or writing about it before.


Posted at Wed Jul 18 11:01:43 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1585046 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1585046 mayumayu Wed Jul 18 11:01:43 UTC 2012 I’d appreciate it if you would correct my mistakes.

I hadn’t noticed that this month has (had?) Friday the 13th until when I read a headline of a site in the Internet.

I didn’t know that “mail” was a non-countable noun.
I’ve read this word many times in books and in magazines and via the Internet, but I didn’t notice that.

A learner of Japanese said that he didn’t need to learn katakana.
I’m surprised about that.
How could he write his name in Japanese without learning katakana?
Is he going to write his name in hiragana all his life?
It looks like it’s written by a kindergartener or an early elementary school student.
I think writing one’s name in hiragana is fine for a beginner of Japanese.

I found some people who are also writing entries on Lang-8 in other language learning sites.
I was glad about that.


Posted at Tue Jul 17 14:55:37 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1583845 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1583845 mayumayu Tue Jul 17 14:55:37 UTC 2012 That isn’t because I was busy.
I just didn’t feel like doing it.
I wrote some English writings on my notebook during that time and I’m going to write them here.
I’d appreciate it if you would correct them.

Those writings are random.

What gets you motivated to jump out of bed eagerly every morning?

The height of a kitchen sink at home (in our house) is low for me because the sink was designed and made it comfortable for my mother (which was shorter than me).
Washing the dishes in the kitchen sink for a long time causes me a backache.

A mail was delivered our house by mistake.
It was for a woman who had the same family name as ours.

My house right now is full of cucumbers.
Many of them are grown on our garden and in addition to that a neighbor gave us tons of them.
It seems like we are trying to eat them hard as many as possible before spoiling them.
I’m going to look for the way to freeze and save them delicious for this winter.

I was woken up by my cat’s animate footsteps the other day.
I had a bad feeling about this.
The first thing caught my eye was a fluffy thing in her mouth.
I screamed like hell.
I thought it was a bird.
Fortunately, it was my hair band with a fake fur.

People in Japan have a custom to exchange gifts in midsummer.
We sent cherries to our relatives like the past few years.
There are two melons that one of our relatives sent us in the fridge (refrigerator).
By the way, it seems to me that pronouncing “fridge” is much easier than “refrigerator”.

I rarely tweet and I don’t like having a Facebook account.
Because I don’t think I want to connect with people more often than now.
I’m a big fun of doing nothing.
Most of the time is fine with me without having a Facebook account.
But it’s getting increased to be required for me to have the account.
It’s obvious.
Until when I can refuse to have it?


Posted at Mon Jul 16 09:25:50 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1581800 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1581800 mayumayu Mon Jul 16 09:25:50 UTC 2012 About three days ago I got a correction on my Korean entry from a Korean native speaker, even though I had copied the exact sentence from a Korean textbook.
He explained to me why the sentence wasn’t right and insisted that the textbook was incorrect.
That was very confusing.
I thought we might have misunderstood something each other.
He wasn’t learning my native language, Japanese, and even English that I could write in better than Korean, so I had to exchange messages with him in my poor Korean.
After all, I had no choice but to ask the writer of the book (fortunately, he was Japanese), so I found out the writer’s mail address via the Internet and asked him about that.
It was a little scary for me to ask the writer directly, because I was a totally stranger to him.
It was a mistake!
I didn’t expect that.
It was the grammatical mistake that even some Korean people tented to make.
He said that he was going to correct the mistake when the next edition came out.
He was indeed a nice person that he sent the quick reply and gave me the explanations of the grammar.
I was glad about that.
The book is the only Korean textbook I have now and it’s my favorite.
Even though it was a mistake, I’ll keep on using the textbook.
I appreciate the Korean who corrected the mistake in the first place.
Wow! Lang-8 is wonderful, isn’t it?


Posted at Wed Jun 27 13:05:27 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1551513 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1551513 mayumayu Wed Jun 27 13:05:27 UTC 2012 Recently I take some sample tests for a driver’s license in California via the Internet.
I can get to know the different rules from Japan and new traffic expressions in English while enjoying them.
The tests are written by very simple English.
It must be much easier to get a driver’s license in English for the people who learn it than in Japanese for the people who learn it.


Posted at Sun Jun 24 14:47:00 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1546457 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1546457 mayumayu Sun Jun 24 14:47:00 UTC 2012 저한테는 그렇게 들려요.


Posted at Fri Jun 22 15:01:04 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1543529 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1543529 mayumayu Fri Jun 22 15:01:04 UTC 2012 The first one has just bidden for my discount tickets at an auction.
Which sentence do you think is more natural? Or if there are any more natural sentences, I’d appreciate it if you would tell me about them.


Posted at Fri Jun 22 14:16:21 UTC 2012
]]> http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1543437 http://lang-8.com/183044/journals/1543437 mayumayu Fri Jun 22 14:16:21 UTC 2012