I recently received gifts from my niece ('ニース' = めい ) & nephew ('ネフュー' = おい) in Thailand. Can you believe the stamps on their packages? Nice! I love getting mail from foreign countries. Thanks, guys.
Spelling
- the spelling rule "i before e, except after c" is usually true (NIEce, beLIEve, reCEIve,), but some weird (= strange) words are different e.g. WEIrd, tHEIr, foREIgn.
I found this cool stamp sheet on sale at the post office. This story is pretty famous. In Japanese, it`s called "はらぺこあおむし.” In English it`s "The Very Hungry Caterpillar." I have both English & Japanese versions at home.
In this story, a caterpillar eats a lot of food, becomes fat, makes a coccoon, & finally becomes a beautiful butterfly. But you shouldn`t follow the caterpillar`s example. If you do, you`ll become fat but you won`t become a butterfly. You`ll increase your chances of getting health problems, for example heart disease, osteoarthritis, & type-2 diabetes. Finally, you`ll die early.
Vocabulary:
- example = 例え, 実例
- for example = 例えば
This week I got Christmas presents for my three kids from my brother in Australia. Check out all those fancy stamps! My kids (& their father) were impressed. My daughter is four years old & loves princesses, so she especially liked the stamps which featured Queen Elizabeth.
I haven`t finished my Christmas shopping yet. I got presents for my kids, but I haven`t got anything for my wife yet. Hmmm. What should I get her...? I should get her something nice, right? It`s difficult...
Grammar:
- "get + 何か + from + 誰か" = 誰かから何かをもらう
- "get + 何か + for + 誰か" = 誰かに何かを買う
- "get + 誰か + 何か" = 誰かに何かかを買う
My wife received a letter with a bunch of old stamps on it. Nice! I`ll add them to my collection. I`ve been interested in stamps since I was a kid. My second brother is crazy about stamps. He has a bunch of albums & containers full of stamps in his house & he`s a member of a stamp club in my hometown of Brisbane - he & a bunch of other stamp-geeks ( オタク ) meet every month at a local church. I`ve joined them a couple of times - it was good, geeky ( オタッキー ) fun!
Vocabulary:
- a bunch of ___ = some/a large number of ___ in a group
One of our students sent us a postcard from Australia. Thanks!
Look at the stamp. Can you see the price? It costs A$1.80 to send a postcard from Australia to Japan. It only costs 70yen (about 80 cents) to send a postcard from Japan to Australia!
Maybe that`s why my Australian family & friends don`t often write me letters... Yes... Yes, that must be why.
Grammar:
- Send/give/write + 誰か + 何か = send/give/write + 何か to 誰か. Both styles are okay!
Former Teragoya teacher Andrew told us he would visit North Korea. I asked him to send us a postcard from there. He promised to try. Today one arrived, addressed to our school mascot, Tera-chan. Tera-chan was excited. He said he wants to live in North Korea because he read (読んだ) somewhere that Kim Jong-un is a puppet leader (人形のリーダー).
Spelling:
- Be careful: read (リーd = 読む) & read (レd = 読んだ) have the same spelling
What are your hobbies? One of my hobbies is collecting stamps, so when my brother was in Thailand recently, he used big, colorful stamps on these packages that he sent to my kids. So nice!
My brother collects stamps too.
So does my dad.
I guess I have a kind of geeky ( オタッキー ) family.
Natural English:
- People often have more than one hobby, so: "What are your hobbies?" is better than "What is your hobby?"
When students tell me they are going travelling, I ask them to write a postcard in English & send it to us at school. They often seem nervous about doing it, but I think it`s a good chance to use English in a new way, & a fun challenge. When the student comes back to Teragoya, I say "We got your postcard - great! Thanks!" & they look happy & satisfied. I hope it makes them feel more confident about using English.
We usually display the postcards in the lobby for a while. Recently I noticed kids asking staff "What`s this? A postcard? From who? A student? In English? Wow! Cool!" They really seem impressed that a Japanese person wrote a postcard in English. I hope it motivates them to study & use English themselves.
If you travel overseas, please send a postcard - in English - to your school. I`ll be happy! You`ll feel satisfied! Kids will be impressed!
Thailand has really nice stamps - big, colorful & interesting, so when I travel to Thailand, I look forward to visiting a post office. In this photo you can see some of the stamps I selected & used. Of course there are various values of stamp, from cheap to expensive, but I mostly chose low-value stamps, between 3 & 9 baht (10 & 30 yen), so that I could use a lot of them on my packages.
Looks good, don`t you think? I would like to get a package like this!*
*Actually I kind of did - I sent a couple of packages of presents from Thailand to my kids, so I can keep the stamps!
I managed to write & send a couple of postcards when I went to Ise & Toba. I sent this one to my school. Why did I do that? Well, one reason is that I am trying to encourage my students to write postcards to our school whenever they travel overseas (in English of course!).
Another reason is that I just enjoy writing & sending postcards.
Do you have Teragoya`s address? Please send us a postcard sometime!
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