The Sense of an Ending

I recommend you to read this mysterious  book during your Easter holidays. In this sense I wish you a good read and

HAPPY EASTER.

The sense of an ending2, posted with vodpod

GAMECARDS WITH QUESTIONS AND POSSIBLE ANSWERS

The sense of an ending1

The sense of an ending2

The sense of an ending3

Short summary to which you can just listen to with questions.THESENSEOFANENDING

This novella (short novel) by Julian Barnes, which won the Booker Prize 2011, is a mystery of memory and missed opportunity.

Tony Webster,a cautious, divorced man in his 60s who “had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded,” receives

an unexpected bequest from Sarah, a woman  he’d met only once, 40 years earlier. The mother of his college girlfriend, Veronica,

has bequeathed him £500 — a legacy that unsettles Tony, pushing him to get in touch with Veronica (their relationship had

ended badly) and seek answers to certain unresolved questions such as

1)   Why did Adrian commit suicide?

2)   Why is Veronica so angry with Tony?

3)    Why did Sarah bequeath Adrian’s diary to Tony ?

4)    Who are Adrian Jr.’s parents ?

5)    What is this book about?

6)    What does BLODD MONEY mean in this book?

7)   Why did Veronica burn the diary?

8)   Why did Veronica not give Adrian’s diary to Tony as wished by Sarah and why did Sarah have

it in the first place?

9)   Who is Mary?

I also include you an interesting summary by Jess. Her conclusions do, however, not

correspond with mine. Maybe you find out in what sense they do not .

Summary and questions to download:Julian Barnes

http://theseversons.net/reading-list/sense/

This book has been analyzed a lot and there are an indefinite number of opinions or questions such as the above mentioned

ones. because Julian Barnes never explains anything completely. I hope you will play the game I prepared for you with question

and answer cards that you can cut out and distribute on the table and try to match and that you will, after having read the

book, come to your own  and different conclusions.

Do you feel like partecipating in a poll?

I give you also the link to the summary of Frank Kermode’s The Sense of an Ending:

http://www.unizar.es/departamentos/filologia_inglesa/garciala/otros/kermode.html

THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES

Edmund de Waal about The Hare with amber eyes, posted with vodpod

Edmund de Waal is the writer of the fascinating book „THE HARE WITH AMBER EYES“

in which tries not only to explain of how the netsukes (very small objects made by Japanese craftsmen) came into the Ephrussi family

but he also writes about the identity of his family, about loss or about  survival of stories.

This is the link to a Hot Potatoes drag & drop exercise which you can correct online.http://www.langedi49.ch/EPHRUSSI.htm

In this video he starts speaking about the netsukes and their story. The object he is holding in his hand is quite heavy, made of ivory,

it’s a well fed or fat hare with self-satisfied amber eyes. It’s from the 1^9th century Japan or Kyoto. This little carving used to be hanging

from a belt.

The writer thinks of going back to when he was 17 years old and when he was being apprenticed as a potter and to the first time he

went off to Japan, to pottery villages and  finally turning up at his great uncle Iggie’s, an elderly Jewish gentleman in Tokyo. There

were books everywhere and there was also a vitrine which lit up and which was full up of  264 ridiculous little netsukes. In the

course of many years Iggie tells Edmund the story  of these tiny things and how they brought him to Tokyo. By the years Edmund

gets more and more involved with Japan.

STEVE JOBS’ WISDOM

The other day I’ve read Steve Jobs’ Commencement address which he delivered at the Standford University in 2005.

For those who should not know it, he was CEO and co-founder (together with Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne) of Apple Computer and CEO of Pixar

Animation Studios but he had never graduated from college.

Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford Commencement Address, posted with vodpod

What he said impressed me and I, therefore, would like to quote some sentences and I also add the link to my grammar exercise (reported speech)

which you can correct online. Just click on your trackpad and a variety of sentences will appear and you have to look for the one in reported speech 

that goes together with the one in direct speech.

http://langedi49.ch/REPORTEDSPEECH.htm

I’ve also prepared cards where the question words have to be filled in by the learner. The cards can also be cut out and students  may discuss the questions

in small groups by also deciding about the question words to use and the answers to give. STEVEJOBSQUESTIONS2

Ich versuche hier unten auch einige Zitate auf Deutsch und Italienisch zu übersetzen.

Cerco anche di tradurre alcune citazioni in italiano.

- „You cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.“. (Referred to life)

Übersetzung auf Deutsch:

„Du kannst die Punkte nicht vorwärtsschauend  (im Blick auf die Zukunft)  verknüpfen, sondern nur rückwärts. „

Traduzione in italiano:

„Non puoi vedere i punti di collegamento guardando al futuro, ma soltanto guardando al passato.“

Poverty as Business for the future

 oder ARMUT ALS BUSINESS DER ZUKUNFT

I’ve recently come across the following

http://www.nzz.ch/finanzen/webtv/impulse/september_2010_1.7381710.html?video=1.7577389

very interesting interview by the NZZ journalist Marco Metzler in which Prof. Stuart L Hart from the Corell University answers questions about how it should

be possible  in the future to help poor countries/people at the bottom of the pyramid protocol  and at the same time earn money.

I’ve also prepared you a gap exercise with the above text. Click here http://www.langedi49.ch/POVERTY1.htm and you can reread the article and fill the missing words

into the empty spaces and correct it online. Good luck!

Here below I’m going to summarize the interview.

Prof Hart says that large companies can actually focus business attentions on 1/3 of  the humanity that has been ignored in the past. According to  (gemäss/secondo)him it can

be seen as a business opportunity to engage in local people, slums shanty towns or rural villages in the developing world.  Enterprises that improve peoples’ lives generate

livelihood ( der Lebensunterhalt/sostentamento)for them and produce growth (das Wachstum/crescità) and opportunities for the companies themselves.

How has this to be done?

For the professor it is clear that large corporations play a role in serving the poor. It can’t just be done through the development of products by people in Europe or America and then

go to those poor countries and market them. This procedure does not work for a variety of reasons:

a) The typical product developer or marketer does not understand much about the local context.

b) To succeed it is required that people from the company develop partnerships on the grounds with NGOS and local players.

c) People from these companies have to live on the ground for a certain period of time to get immersed and become able to develop partnership with local people and co-

generate and co-create the business concept with those in the communities because they have a big influence over what  product  get developed and how that product is

embedded in a larger business model  that really has value in the community and from their point of view.

MUTUAL VALUE HAS TO BE CREATED!

d)  Multinational companies have  to face these new challenges and develop new skills.(Fähigkeiten/capacità)

e)  Companies have to create entirely new markets that did not exist in the past. This takes new efforts. It is not enough to do  market research, figure out the market

work, set  prices and  start selling the product, Companies have to be engaged.

f) They have to develop a native capability of how to get embedded in the local community.

At the moment there are no big success stories with this approach! (das Vorgehen/procedere) There are, however,many initiatives. To be able to reach the poor people and have the

price right is necessary but it is not sufficient.

IRAN

My friend Roesemarie was so kind to write a  summary of her  very execptional trip to Iran.

At the bottom of the page there are also some vocabulary explanations and ranslations into German and Italian.

It would be great if you partecipated in the following poll.

 

This picture from the Nasir al Molk mosque in Shiraz gave me goose pimples so I just had to put it first!

I’ve explained certain vocabulary and translated into German and Italian:

I was determined to visit Iran despite the many objections from my friends and family and the mostly negative news which reach us

daily on its political situation.  I was driven by my curiosity.  Who were these ancient and legendary people who once populated this area? 

Who were the poets who chanted its beauty, the love for nature, the search for love and the sense of being?  Where were those magic

places named Shiraz, Isfahan, Hamadan, Yazd, Persepolis?

FOREIGN LANGUAGES/YOUR CAREERS/MY BLOG!

A penfriend of mine who eaches at the Ural State Pedagogical University, Institute of Foreign Languages in Yekaterinenburg, Russia

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~geissler/Ural State Pedagogical University.htm

has asked me to write her a paper for their conference they are holding about the importance of the knowledge of foreign languages in our careers and about the means by which

professional language skills can be obtained through self-study and in what way I integrate the material I publish on my blog into my lessons.

It would also be intersting for me to hear your, the readers, opinion on this topic!

Here below is the part of the report  where I write about the importance  of  language knowledge  for us here in Switzerland because on my blog you can find enough

ideas of how to achieve the goal by self-learning.

2.Why is the knowledge of a foreign language important for your/our career?:

In Switzerland we have 4 national languages or  more precisely German, French, Italian and Romantsch.

Beyond that approx.25% of the inhabitants are foreigners in our country .This shows very quickly how important languages are in order to communicate with one another and,

of course, to understand the cultures of the others better.

To acquire language knowledge belongs to our everyday life. People who work for banks or at international companies, in general, or for  travel agencies wouldn’t have any chances

to get a job without this knowledge. The languages represent our „natural resources“ which we do not possess.

In our globalized world languages have become more and more important. Only through communication and comprehension of the other can  we improve the world or at least avoid many misunderstandings. Imagine also that you go on a trip to a foreign country and what use this is if you can’t even speak to the people there!

I teach English and German at an international company and for some of the employees the knowledge of these languages is a must.

Besides this, I teach the above mentioned languages to people who work for the security services and for them too, the languages are essential in their jobs because of the many contacts they

have with tourists or partners.

On this video I’m explaining why I set up a blog and why I think it is useful for adult learner/students, also for those who study on their own because I give answers to questions or explain or

translate vocabulary.

Here the video you aksed me to prepare; I’m, of course, not a movie star, but I hope it will give some hints of why I do this work here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONxpI-TCgyI

ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES, posted with vodpod

Downlaodable report about “ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES ” ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES

Included you can read a compostion in this sense by one of my students.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT of THE DOG IN ThE NIGHT-TIME

The above mentioned book is not only for adults but also for children.

And if you click on this link MARKHADDON you can read my summary and at the same time do a drag & drop exercise which can be corrected online.

I’ve removed four sentences or parts of sentences  from the article and you have to find out which is  the first, second, third or

fourth one that fits into the gap.

You can also listen to the summary. Click here:Mark Haddon/audio

Here is the summary of:

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME / BY MARK HADDON

During the last Christmas holidays I read the above mentioned and unputdownable story told from the point of view the 15 year

old Christopher Broone, who suffers from Asperger’s syndrom which is, as I found out. an autism spectrum disorder characterized by

significant difficulties in social interaction, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviour and interests.

Christopher lives with his father and his pet rat Toby in  Swindon. His mother seems to be dead. When he is told of her death he is

surprisesd  because of her young age and remembers a supper with spaghetti with tomato sauce.

He knows all the prime numbers, all the capital cities in the world but can’t  neither bear yellow, which reminds him of custard,

yellow flowers, bananas, yellow fever and sweet corn nor the colour brown of dirt, poo, wood or gravy. Different sorts of food that

touches each other on his plate is a horror for him. If he sees a meadow with cows on it he sees the various greens,the exact number

of the cows and the differences among them. He hates himself being touched and often he doesn’t want to eat.He sees things which

we wouldn’t recognize but he doesn’t get things which would be normal for us to see.  He can’t  prioritise and emotions confuse him and when

he is confused he turns to solving math problems.

He has never been further than the end of his road on his own when he discovers that his neighbour’s  dog was murdered and when he

decides to become a detective and find out who committed that crime with the help of the favourite, famous and completely logical 

Sherlock Holmes. At the beginning he is even suspected by the Police to be responsible for the killing.Christopher  speaks with his

neighbours in order to discover details about the dog’s death.

His father wants to prohibit him poking his nose into other people’s business and the former pretends even to throw away Christoper’s

book  about the „case“. When the boy is looking for his vanished book, he also discovers many letters written by his mother and gets in this

way confronted with the breaking up of his parents’ marriage. He is  very confused  and it is most touching to read this. When his father tells

him what happened to the dog Christopher escapes from home and decides to go to  the big city of London

despite many very big problems  he has to overcome on this trip and that experience is going to help him in his future life, despite the fact

that there is no happy end.

Vocabulary explanation : Deutsch und Italienisch

-unputdownable/che non si riesce a mettere via/etwas das man nicht weglegen kann

-restricted/vermindert/diminuito

-committed/begann/commesso

-poo/Scheisse/cacca

-neither nor/weder noch/ne uno ne l’altro

-despite/trotz/malgrado

A link to a trailer of “The Hound of the  Baskervilles” with Sherlock Homes by Arthur  Conan Doyle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTUJLNZQQXI

Should anybody want to read the above mentioned story here is the link to it in 15 chapters.

http://thebestnotes.com/booknotes/Hound_Baskervilles/Hound_Baskervilles01.html

You will also find multiple choice question about the book.

Pearl S. Buck/Drachensaat/The Good Earth

FUER CHINA INTERESSIERTE/FOR PEOPLE INTERESTED IN CHINA

Da ich das Buch “Drachensaat “auf Deutsch gelesen habe, möchte ich hier einen kurzen Artikel  zu der oben genannten Schriftstellerin und zu “Drachensaat” auf Deutsch

veröffentlichen, obwohl diese damals auf Englisch schrieb.

In English there is an interesting website about her biography  where  her book “The Good Earth”  is summarized . Scroll down!

Zur Zusammenfassung hier unten über Pearl S. Buck und das Buch “Drachensaat” gibt es hier eine “drag & drop-Übung http://www.langedi49.ch/DRACHENSAAT.htm

Setzt bitte die fettgedruckten Wörter in die Zusammenfassung.

obwohl/ möchte /westlichen/ „Drachensaat“/liebt /Krieg, /geboren

Wer sich gerne mit dem China des 19. Jahrhunderts befassen 1)……………. ,dem würde ich gerne Pearl S. Bucks Bücher im Allgemeinen empfehlen. Die Schriftstellerin wurde in  Virginia/Amerika 2)…………….. zog dann aber mit ihren Eltern, die Missionare waren nach China, wo sie 40 Jahre lang lebte.

Während des Boxeraufstandes 1900  (Bewegung gegen die europäischen, amerikanischen und japanischen Imperialisten) musste die Familie fliehen, trotzdem sie viele chinesische Freunde hatte.

Ich habe gelesen, dass sie Chinesisch eigentlich besser beherrschte als Englisch,3)……………….. sie für „Gute Erde“ als erste Amerikanerin  1938 den Nobelpreis für Literatur bekam.

Kriege, Revolutionswirren, der Zusammenstoss der östlichen und der 4)………………..Kulturen, die soziale Stellung der Frau und die Gegensätze zwischen arm  und reich waren ihre Hauptthemen.

Ich habe das Buch 5)………………. gelesen, das die schreckliche Zeit zwischen 1937-1945 (Bürgerkrieg und Zusammenstoss mit den den Japanern) beschreibt und die Art und Weise, wie sie von den Bauern, oder einfachen Menschen , deren Humor und der erschreckenden Schläuen und Klugheit erzählt, hat mich tief bewegt.

Ling Tan, der seine Erde, seine Familie  und seine Arbeit auf dem Feld über alles 6)……………… , lässt sich die Hoffnung an das Gute  und der Wille weiterzuleben, trotz der Schrecken des Krieges in den er/sie ohne Schuld geraten ist/sind nicht nehmen. Niemand ist jedoch mehr, wie vor dem 7)…………….

Zum Drachen: Er bedeutet nichts Böses für die Chinesen. Sie sagen, dass er Freund all derer ist, die ihn respektieren. Er ist Sinnbild der Fruchtbarkeit und des Friedens.

Pearl S. Buck hat sich, zurück in Amerika , auch sehr für behinderte Kinder und für Kinder amerikanischer Soldaten und asiatischen Frauen eingesetzt.

Sie beschäftigte sich auch mit Bildhauerei, Filmregie und Landwirtschaft du hat über 6o Bücher geschrieben.

Ihr könnt euch den Text auch anhören:Drachensaat

If you click on the following link, you can read a biography about Pearl. Buck and a summary of “The Good Earth” in chapters which I find very useful

http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/literature/The-Good-Earth-Summary-and-Analysis-Chapters-3-6.id-184,pageNum-8.html

Video  excerpt about Pearl S Buck from a Chinese prospective:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHg53RtVyZI&feature=related

Hier könnt ihr einen Satz richtig zusammensetzen und online korrigieren: http://www.langedi49.ch/FLOOD.htm

 

Zum Jahr/About the year/Sull’anno/

Beim Gedanken an das  kommende Jahr, kommen mir z.B. die Monate, Wochentage und Schaltjahre in den Sinn.. Deshalb habe ich dazu

einiges geschrieben.

By the thought of the approaching new year, the months, the days of the week or the leap years  have come to my mind. For this reason

I’ve written a post on the subject..

Riflettendo sull’anno a venire ho pensato ai giorni settimanali, sui mesi oppure sull’anno bisestile e ho fatto alcune osservazioni in merito.

Dies ist der Link zu einem Spiel mit einem Terminkalender:Kalender

1.: Woran erkennt man ein Schaltjahr?

1:  How do you recognize a leap year?

Antwort:

Zum Schaltjahr gemäss Gregorianischem Kalender:

a) Ein Schaltjahr hat einen 29.Februar und die Jahreszahl ist genau mit 4 teilbar ist.

b) Wenn die Jahreszahl mit 4 und mit 100 teilbar ist, gibt es kein Schaltjahr.

c) Alle 4oo Jahre wird es richtig kompliziert, denn dann wir ein Jahr ein Schaltjahr,obwohl es mit 100 teilbar ist,

    denn es lässt sich mit 400 teilen.

Answer:

To the leap year according Gregorian calendar

a) A leap year has 29 days instead of 28 and the date, for example 2012, can evenly be divided by 4.

b) Wenn the date is divisible by 4 and by 100 it is not a leap year.

c) It’s getting real complicated every 400 years because then

the year becomes a leap year, because the date can be divided by 400 and despite the fact that it is also divided by 100.

2. Die Wochentage/The weekdays

Zu den Wochentagen/To the weekdays

die Sonne/sun	der Sonntag	Sunday	la domenica
der Mond/moon	der Montag	Monday	il lunedì
der Mars	der Dienstag	Tuesday	il martedì
der Merkur	der Mittwoch	Wednesday	il mercoledì
der Jupiter	der Donnerstag	Thursday	il giovedì
die Venus	der Freitag	Friday	il venerdì
der Saturn	der Samstag	Saturday	il sabato

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Erklärungen zu den Namen:

Die Sonne ist der Stern im Zentrum unseres Sonnensystems. Um unsere Sonne kreisen acht Planeten. Der Uranus

und der Neptun sind in den Wochentagen nicht vertreten. Der kleine Pluto ist am weitesten entfernt und gilt heute

nicht mehr als Planet. Alle Planeten bewegen sich. Die meisten Sonnensysteme haben sogar zwei Sonnen.

In Deutschland ist nun der Montag der erste Wochentag, aber in England z.B. ist es noch immer der Sonntag.

Explanations to the names:

The sun is the star in the centre of the solar system. There are eight plants moving around our sun. Uranus and

Neptun are not represented in our weekdays’ names. Pluto is very small and the farthest away is today not considered

a planet anymore.

Monday is now the first day of the week, whereas in England, for example, it is still the Sunday.

3. In der folgenden Power Point Präsentation habe ich Fragen zu den Monaten mit Fotos und Audios gestellt.

    (Leider funktionierten die Audios nicht nach der Publikation.)

3.In the following Power Point presentation I’ve asked some questions about the twelve months of the year with fotos and audio

    in German and English. (Unfortunately the audios did not work after having the presentation published on scribd.

 

View this document on Scribd

Wie viele Wochen und wie viele Tage hat ein Jahr?

How many weeks and how many days does a year consist of?

E GUET’S NEUS -EIN GUTES NEUES JAHR-BUON ANNO-HAPPY NEW YEAR-BONNE ANNEE

IDIOMS/phrasal verbs/PROVERBS

The knowledge of English idioms and phrasal verbs obviously enriches the language. (See also on www.langedi49.ch)

Es ist natürlich klar, dass Idiome/Redensarten in einer Fremdsprache sehr wichtig sind und deshalb hoffe, dass ihr welche studiert.

E’ chiaro che le espressioni idiomatiche sono molto importanti quando si studia una lingua straniera, perciò buon studio!

Here an idiom as an example:

The captain of the ship was tried in court because during the shipwreck he was only interested in saving his own

A) hair

B) skin

c) head

d) body

e) soul

For the right answer see below.

You can do a drag & drop exercise on idioms which you can correct directly online. Drag the answer on the right hand side to the corresponding part of the

sentence on the left hand side.Click here: IDIOMS

Answer: skin  (He was only looking after his own safety or interests.)

On this link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/language/theteacher/ you can find very intersting idioms connected with different sports,(ice skating

athletics, football,boxing) colours, food or the body. The videos can often be watched with or without subtitles. Sometimes, you need to have a finger in many pies.

Never put all your eggs in one basket! (Don’t risk everything all at once.)

As you learn these idioms look out for their use in English newspapers, magazines and novels and, of course, in any spoken English that you may hear. In this way you will find

out how to use them yourself in speech and writing. Try to become more aware of idioms in general and use them with caution. Good luck!