w. 48

ENGLISH

In the last two lessons we've brought in sounds that are commonly problematic for Swedish speakers. The first step is realizing that these sounds are different. The second step is actively practicing them -- even looking at yourself in the mirror or filming yourself so that you can see and hear yourself.

th

all four of these sounds are different

1 - three, thing, think

2 - that, there, then

3 - free, fling, fink

4 - tree, ting, tinkle


y and j

Y: Yale, yet, yellow

J: jail, jet, Jello


SAVING THE BLACK RHINOS

One of the student papers written this fall was about the poaching of rhinoceroses, which is a practice in which the horn is hacked out of the rhino's body, and the animal then dies. Because of poaching these animals are under extreme threat.

 But the horn of a rhino can be cut off (albeit not easily) and it will grow back -- just like our fingernails. Here's a story about a South African veterinarian Mike Toft, who has been working with a group to de-horn the rhinos in a particular reserve in order to save the animals' lives. The horns are tehn stored in a undisclosed location, to keep them safe from poachers and illegal markets.

The story explains how the process of removing the horns works, and how this is considered the best option in the current climate. The hope is that once attitudes and regulations gradually change (particulalry in societies such as Vietnam and China, which are pushing the illegal trade), there will no longer be a need for these measures. Listen here.

w. 47

Source Evaluation Assignment

I am in the process of putting up information on Vklass for the Source Evaluation assginment. This includes

• the assignment
• a handout with information regarding things to reflect upon in your analyses
• the slides from class from w. 46
• a sample assignment from a former student (which is by no means perfect but which has many good qualities)

YOU and YOUR

Many students used the word "you" in their history papers. This is understandable (it feels like using man in Swedish), but it's something to be avoided. It's not good writing, and when writing about history, it can be very, very strange. ("When you torture someone . . . " Excuse me?)

The trouble is, it can be hard to figure out how to rephrase to avoid "you." Usually the trick is to re-cast the sentence -- to turn things around in the sentence. Here are some examples that I hope that help.

 

It gives you information that you can not find so much about

--> It offers information that cannot easily be found elsewhere

It is a site with a lot of information. It takes you from the 19^th century through World War One and World War Two, which gives you a broad picture of the roles of women at this time.

--> It is a site with information ranging from the 19^th century through World War One and World War Two, offering a broad picture of the roles of women during these times.

If you then click on the tab “A,” you will find all of the assignments by Mr. Z.

--> Clicking on tab “A” leads to a site with all the assignments by Mr. Z.

When you read the text you can’t see any author, but after looking around on the website you can read that they have two authors.

--> No author is indicated for the text, but elsewhere on the website there is information noting that the text has two authors.

Either / Neither

For those who would like a little more information to help figure out the differences between the words either and neither, here's a webpage that may help.

 And here are some sreen shots from that page: