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.

The Mosquito Coast/Exercises

I’ve read the above mentioned book by Paul Theroux.  and then written the following  summary about it. You can listen to the text which I’ve divided into five parts.

In class we read excerpts of the book and watched the film.

The story which is narrated from the point of view of Charlie, Allie’s oldest son, and which has given me goose pimples, was published in 1981. It starts with father or Allie Fox

complaining about the  rottenness of America. Everything about that country seems to be awful. The Americans are said to just eat junk, sell junk or buy junk and it seems to

be full up of criminal millionaires and the moral sneaks  which seem to include the politicians and the schools. Last but not least there are all the savages who have come to America

to find paradise. While Allie is complaining in this way his is driving with his son Charlie in front of Tiny Polski’s mansion house. Mr Polski is his employer and is in the asparagus

business.

ALLIE/The Mosquito Coast 1

East of Eden/By John Steinbeck

ABOUT „EAST OF EDEN“ BY JOHN STEINBECK

The Salinas Valley stretches from Obispo to San Francisco.

(Scroll down ths page and you can take part in a poll concerning this book.)

John Steinbeck, himself born in Salinas, sat down to write this great epic story in 1951. It is about good and evil, jealousy or the feeling of

being rejected, redemption, about the battling conflict between the desire to submit to God and tradition and the human need of self-

realization  and above all about  TIMSHEL. This may be the most

important word in the world.

jealousy/gelosia/die Eifersucht

to be rejected/essere rifiutato/ abgewiesen werden

redemption/ la redenzione/die Erlösung

a battling conflict/ un conflitto violento/ein gewaltsamer Konflikt

the choice/ la scelta/die Wahl

In this story the lives of two families, living  in the Salinas Valey, California,  are intertwined and it spans three generations. The book has 602

pages (there are certainly abridged editions) and some of you may remember the film with James Dean as Cal, the only surviving son of the

Trask’s.

To summarize this book would be a very big undertaking and I have therefore decided to write down some quotations and from the book

which seem to me very impressive touching and exhilarating and some explanations in reference. To begin with there is a family tree of

the Task’s.

SMALL WORLD/Martin Suter

Die obige Graphik zeigt die Figurenkonstellation am Anfang dieses Buches, welches ich hier kurz skizzieren  möchte.

Zum Wortschatz  auch auf  Englisch und Deutsch siehe unten.

Vocaboli in italiano/tedesco/inglese/vedi alla fine di questo articolo.

To the vocabulary in German/English/Italian/scroll down the page.

SMALL WORLD, so lautet der Titel, ist  äuserst spannend und sehr gut recherchiert. Es wurde auch bereits verfilmt mit Gérard Depardieu in der Hauptrolle. E’ già stato fatto il film con G.D.nella parte del protagonista/The film is with G.D. as the leading actor.)

Hier der Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-SLKKuYDsk

Welches Buch von Martin Sutter könnt ihr empfehlen?

 

Pirates of Silicon Valley

1st collector for Pirates of the Silicon Valley
Follow my videos on vodpod

This is the link to the whole film:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIC5wxT_zOU

For more exercises see at the bottom of this site.

You can also download the film with torrent (http://torrentz.eu/319e4a1d7c40a943633f9101a1af0e843b77f3d8) on your computer and then download the subtitles as well. 

To watch the film with subtitles is, of course, much easier. (Subtitles are free.)

The Pirates of Silicon Valley-summary

This highly interesting video informs us about the breathtaking steps

made by Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Steve Anthony Ballmer and others in order to make a dent in the Universe or to create a new consciousness as Steve Jobs says.

Computers are the big passion for this group of young people and, as we know, Bill Gates is now the richest man in the world.

As the video is quite long, I’ve tried to summarize it and you can maybe only watch it in parts, according to your interests.

At approx. 3.20 minutes

Steve Jobs is standing on a stage in Boston with Bill Gates (big brother) in his rear, where he says that the competition between him and Bill is over and that the world will become a better place. This speech seems weird. (This scene refers to the end of the story.)

FISH EXTINCTION

The words in bold letters are desribed at the end of this text.

You have certainly heard about the drammatic situtaion as far as the emptying of oceans is concerned. It’s alsmost unbelievable but once thriving populations of deep sea fish have been driven to the brink of extinction, because of the expanding fisheries.

Various species of sea fish are at such low levels that they qualifiy for the World Conservation Union’s  list. More and more associations, among them GREENPEACE or polititians ask urgently for  internationally protected reserves to place vast areas of the deep seas out of bounds to fisheries. The trawlers ( fishing nets that is dragged along the seabottom)especially should be checked and pirates arrested. Unfortunately, many, many fish end in their nets without being wanted and die without being eaten. They are called the by-catch fish. These  slow growing fish which reach a length of more than a metre long and live more than 6o years and some become sexually mature only after 30 years. So you can imagine how important it is not to eliminate this kind of fish. It seems that this by-catch fish have also become much smaller in the past 15 years.

a)On the brink of extinction means to be at risk of being extinct.

b) to be out of bounds to fisheries means that fishing is prohibited in that place.

c)Unfortunately wants to say that you wish something was not true.

Click on this link FISHEXTINCTIONand you can do an exercise dragging the word from the right and drop on the left side.

Some  of  the endangered fish species which we shouldn’t eat are:

cod/ – North Sea/il ;merluzzo/der Kabeljau;

sharks/ in the North Atlantic/ i squali/die Haie;

Chinook salmon– Pacific Nothwest / il salmone/der Lachs;

steelhead trout/ la trota-California/ die Stahlkopf Forelle;

swordfish/il pesce spada/der Schwertfisch;

bluefin Tuna- Atlantic/il tonno da pinna blu/der Blauschwanztunfisch;

Metkong Giant Catfish/il pesce gatto/der Wels;

Russian Sturgeon/il storione/der Stör;

skate/razza/der Rochen; (on the above foto)

and last but not least don’t forget the little seahorse, which is also on this red list.

Fish parts:

By the way, fish have fins to steer while travellling in the water, gills to breathe with, guts which you take out after having killed the fish, fishbones

you can’t eat, because they would choke you and eggs, of course.

If you click on the following link you can see many more fish species in danger of extinction

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/gallery/2008/feb/19/endangered.sharks#/?picture=349300137&index=13

Fish extinction, posted with vodpod

-How can pirates or overfishing be stopped?

-How often do you eat fish?

-Is fish a popular food in your country?

-What kind of fish do people eat in your country?

-Do you intend to reduce fish consumption?

Please stop eating shark-fin soup, because the flavour seems to come from the broth and not the fins! Each year up to 73 million sharks are killed for these fins

which are sliced into noodle-like strips and added mainly for texture!

FISH-WORKHEEET

Please check out also on my homepage blog/E (www.langedi49.che) about Chile’s Salmonfarm eco-horror!

H.C.ANDERSEN/Denmark

Deutsch siehe unten

Hans Christian Andersen was born in Odense in 1805. By the way, Christian  and Hans are traditional Danish names. Most of us know him probably for his  fairy tales and his real life also had some aspects of such children’s stories. He was born as the son of a poor cobbler and he died as a rich and famous man, celebrated around the world, the intimate of kings and queens. His books have been translated into 15o languages! In the period when he was born only 60% of Europeans children survived and most of them grew up illiterate.

Sometimes, because he was  tall, ugly with a big nose and big feet, he was portrayed as a simple, innocent, child-like spinner of tales, a character from his own stories, but letters and diaries by Andersen’s contemporaries, however, draw the picture of a very different man: a sharply intelligent, ambitious writer with a hardscrabble past and tortured soul. The message of his stories has

various layers and is in my opinion, also for adults interesting.

Like The Ugly Duckling,one of his very famous books,  born in a humble duck-yard yet destined to become a swan seems to be authobiographical.

Speculation suggest that Andersen was the illegitimate son of Christian Frederik, the Crown Prince of Denmark and later King Christian VIII of Denmark.

Here a summary of the plot.

At the beginning of the tale a duck mother hatches her eggs and one of her little hatched out birds is perceived by the other ducks as a different and homely little creature and suffers very much because it is verbally abused by the neighbours and ostrasized by them. It sadly decides to leave the farm and lives with wild ducks and geese until hunters slaughter the flocks. It then finds home with an old lady but her cat and hen tease it mercilessly and again it sets off on its own. It sees a flock of migrating wild swans and is delighted and excited but can not join them. Winter arrives. A farmer finds and carries the freezing little bird home, but the foundling is frightened by the farmer’s noisy children and flees the house. It spends a miserable winter alone in the outdoors but, when spring arrives, it is welcomed into a flock of beautiful swans for it has matured into one of them. It turned out that one of the swans eggs had rolled into the ducks nest and therefore produced all this confusion.

If you click on the following link you can listen to the summary:The Ugly Duckling

Vocubalary list to „The Ugly Duckling“

English/itliano/Deutsch

to hatch the eggs	covare le uova/brüten
duck/pl. ducks	anatra/e- die Ente/n
goose/pl. geese	oca/oche- die Gans/Gänse
to perceive	percepire- wahrnehmen
to ostrasize	emarginare- ausschliessen
neighbours	vicini di casa- die Nachbarn
to slaughter	macellare- schlachten
flock	lo stormo- die Schwarm
swan/s	cigno/i- der Schwan/¨ne
to set off on ist own	partire da solo- alleine fortgehen
to flee	fuggire- flüchten
it turned out that	si è verificato/è successo che- es hat sich herausgestellt

By the way, Odense’s old town enchanted me completely and in one of the yellow houses H.C. Andersen grew up. The town is on the island Fyn and can easily be reach in one day by train from Copenhagen.The museum dedicatd to H.C. Andersen  fits perfectly well into the surrounding.The writer left his hometown at the age of 14, after having worked for some days in a factory. He travelled all alone to Copenhagen to become famous and rich. He was determined to join the Royel theatre

but the director blunty sent the scruffy urchin away. He was desperate because nobody wanted to help him and he run out of money. Eventually it was Mr Weyse, an accomplished composer who took pitty of the boy and promptly raised a sum of money on the boy so that he could study and rent a room.

Some taletitles:

- The Princess Test

- The Tinder-Box

- The Princess and the Pea

- The Little Mermaid

- The Butterfly

- The Emperor’s New Clothes

To our trip in Denmark I made the following video.

Copenhagen and surrounding, posted with vodpod

Vielleicht hat jemand Lust sich dieses Video von der Geschicht “Das hässliche Entlein auf Deutsch” anzusehen.

Hier eine kleine Wortschatzhilfe

1.Der Bauernhof/ la fottoria 2.ausschlüpfen/ sgusciare, 3.der Tollpatsch / il scemo, 4. verspotten/deridere, 5. davonlaufen/scappare, 6. einsperren/chiudere dentro, 7. der Käfig/la gabbia

8. der Schilf/la canna, 9. stolz sein/ essere orgoglio, 10. füttern/dare da mangiare.

 

 

Great Expectations

GREAT EXPECTATIONS BY CHARLES DICKENS- 1860-61

Due to the fact that we’ve read Mr. Pip (see summary) by Lloyd Jones, we also tackled Great Expectations, whose main character is Pip, an orphan, who lives

with his sister and Joe Gargery, the blacksmith. Whereas Joe is a very gentle man, who loves Pip as well as his work, his sister , wife of Joe, often is on a

rampage and smacks her brother. After her death Joe marries Biddy, who gives Pip some good advice.

At the beginning of the story Pip is at the dark churchyard where his parents are buried.

Suddenly a man appears and forces Pip to bring him a file  to open his chains and vittles (food). The boy succeeds in stealing the much

appreciated pork pie ,which his sister prepared for Christmas, and  gives it to the hungry man. Magwitch, the ex-prisoner, manages to escape

from the police and  to flee to Australia, where he is able to make a fortune.

Pip and his family celebrate Christmas when uncle Pumblechook says that the rich Mrs Havishan is looking for a boy to play with her adopted daughter Estella.

When Pip goes to the house he is terribly humiliated by Estella because of being just a common labour boy. Despite this he starts loving Estella. Mrs. Havisham

manipulates her into breaking men’s hearts because her heart was broken, when she was a young bride.

Soon after Mr Jagger, a lawyer from London arrives and tells Pip and his family that there is a benefactor who wants to pay so that Pip may become a gentleman.Pip goes to London and his life changes completely. He turnes into a real snob and is ashamed of Joe who has always helped him . Despite this, when Pip falls very badly ill Joe goes to London to take care of him.

Pip hasn’t given up hope that Estella will love him the way he loves her and it is a big shock, when she decides to marry Drummle, an idle, proud and suspicious man.

There is another shock for Pip when he realizes that his benefactor is not Mrs Havisham, as he thought, but the ex-prisoner, Magwitch, who has now come back to England and is persecuted by the second prisoner who  escaped with him and who is, as it turns out the famous ex-bridegroom of Mrs. Havisham.  Pip loses all the money and goes abroad with his friend Herbert and works very hard.

We also learn that Mr. Jaggers is not only cold-hearted but also has a soft core, otherwise he probably wouldn’t , for example, have helped Estella’s mother!

Charles Dickens changed his first unhappy ending in a happy one.

My question: In what sense did the book “Great Expectations” help the children on the island Bougainville in 1991?

 

The following link  leads you to short, but very interesting descriptions of the most important characters.There are also images relating to the story and even gives you the possibility to watch some imovies http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0214760/biddy.html produced by students.

Vulkane und Umgebung

Alle sprechen wir in diesen Monaten vom Eyjafjallajökull Gletscher unter dem sich ein Vulkan befindet, weil durch ihn einerseits wunderschöne Fotos gemacht werden können, oder aber auch, weil dieser Vulkanausbruch uns viele Schwierigkeiten bereitet. Vielleicht habt ihr in letzter Zeit sogar selbst erfahren, dass euer Flug annulliert worden ist und ihr stundenlang, ja sogar tagelang am Flughafen habt ausharren müssen. Da ich nun selbst keine Fotos vom Eyjafjallajökull besitze, möchte ich diesen Beitrag über einige andere Vulkane oder Feuerspeier machen.

Meine erste Frage dazu lautet:

Wie heisst denn der berühmteste Vulkan in Japan?…………………..Die Antwort steht auf der Darstellung gleich hier unten.

Als ich in Tokyo war, sagte mir ein amerikanischer Tourist, dass er schon 50 Mal dort gewesen war und den Fuji-Berg, so heisst der Berg nämlich, noch nie gesehen hatte, weil es nie so klar gewesen war. Es war also ein Glück für mich, diesen vom Fernsehturm der Hauptstadt zu sehen.

Der Fujiyama ist mit 3’776 m der höchste und meist gefeierte Berg in Japan. Er ist ein ruhender Vulkan und hat eine wunderschöne Kegelform. Gesamthaft gibt es in Japan aber drei heilige Berge.

Auf dem Gipfel ist ein Krater, 500 m im Umfang und 220 tief. Dieser Krater ist das Heiligtum des Berges und wird als solches verehrt. Man kann den Vulkan auch besteigen.Der Berg liegt in der Nähe der pazifischen Küste, westlich von Tokyo und er ist von 5 Seen umgeben.

Wir waren auf dem Ashi/Hakonesee, auf dem wir eine Schifffahrt gemacht haben. Hakone selbst gehört zu den beliebtesten Ferienorte in Japan. Im  Owakudani Tal  (Tal des grossen Knochens)gibt es viele schwefelhaltige Quellen, die ihr auf dem Foto sehen könnt. Eigentlich reist man ja in diese Gegend wegen des Berges, aber es lohnt sich auch dahin zu gehen, wenn man etwas für Gerüche übrig hat, es riecht nämlich ganz stark nach faulen Eiern, was von Schwefel kommt. Mit dem Zug ist es ungefähr eine Stunde bis nach Hakone selbst und Nagoya, einer der grössten Industriestädte mit über 2 Millionen Menschen, ist auch nicht so weit entfernt. Kyoto, die ehemalige Kaiserstadt liegt auch nicht weit entfernt.

Natürlich gibt es auch in Italien Vulkane, wie zum Beispiel der Vulcano, der Ätna oder der Stromboli. Letzterer, der wie Vulcano zu den 7 Äolischen Inseln gehört, ist seit ungefähr 20’000 Jahren immer aktiv.Diese Inseln sind übrigens nördlich von Sizilien.

Komplettiert diese kleinen Sätze.

Der Stromboli ist ……………

Bei Sonnenuntergang auf d…….. Stromboli.

Das Dorf Stromboli ist im V…………… und der Vulkan im H…………

Wenn man ….. ist, kann man abends mit einer Gruppe auf den Stromboli steigen.

Es ist aber recht anstrengend. Für diejenigen, die das “Spiel” von unten geniessen wollen, können mit einem…………. aufs Meer hinausfahren und von dort aus dem

Treiben zusehen. Auf Stromobli gibt es zwei …………….., Stromboli und Ginostra, die durch die “Sciara del Fuoco”  oder Feuerstrasse getrennt sind. Hier sieht man manchmal

………….. oder Felsenstücke herunterpurzeln.

STROMBOLI ist vielleicht auch durch den gleichnamigen Film von Roberto Rossellini mit Ingrid Bergmann in der Hauptrolle ………………. geworden.

Mögliche Antworten: aktiv/dem/Vordergrund/Hintergrund/fit/Boot/Orte/Lava/weltberühmt.

Wenn ihr auf den folgenden Link klickt,VULKANE könnt ihr auch eine Übung zum obigen Artikel machen und diese sofort selbst korrigieren.

Im Video hier unten könnt ihr hören, wie der Berg (Stromboli) atmet, spricht oder seine Geräusche macht. Ich fand das ganz ergreifend! (Es ist aber keine technisches Meisterwerk, aber authentisch)

Könnt ihr etwas dazu sagen?

more about “Vulkane“, posted with vodpod

Julia Child/cooking/kitchen+

Due to the fact that Julia really spent a lot of time in her kitchen there are

first of all some questions concerning that room.

Describe the kitchen

1)Where is the window? Is it open or closed?

2)Are there any curtains in the kitchen?

3)How many cupboards can you see?

4)Where is the oven?

5)Is there a microwave? If yes, what’s its colour?

6)Where is coffee maker?

7)Is there a sink in the kitchen?

8)Can you see any drawers?

ANSWERS:

1)yes, closed, 2)yes, there are,3)8,4)yes, it’s between the cupords and it’s black,5)yes, 6)it’s white,7)yes, there is, 8)yes

Click here an you can unjumble a sentence about Julia.Chicken

JULIE & JULIA

I’ve recently seen the movie “Julie & Julia”, which stars Meryl Streep as Julia Child, this famous American lady who fell in love

with the French cuisine and have therefore written a short summary of her life and an multiple choice exercise which you can correct (level approx.B1)

right online. Click here:About Julia Child

Click here and you can watch a video where Julia is explaning a recipe:omelette recipe

Worksheet:Julia Child

Link to my articles about Andreas Caminada, Swiss three star cook Andreas Caminada