Pronounciation Diary - Day 1

!!! I actually decided to really get into English pronounciation and dedicate a whole seperate blog to this topic: http://ohenglishwhereartthou.blogspot.co.at/ I will try to organise it better when I have written more posts.!!!

Often it is not so much what you say, but how you say it.

For example, I have got this one friend, who always manages to drag me along to his weird events just because he manages to sound so convincing. He manages to provoke action with his way of speaking.

On a larger scale this also true with accents in a foreign language. When I was studying Physics in Vienna we had one lecture which was partly in English. Of course our professors all were geniouses BUT their thick German accent just made them sound so uneducated. It really crushed their credibility. We actually came up with a name for that - the aesthetic paradox!

Yet even though our professor sounded funny, after listening to him for a while it was clear that he was an expert on his field. And since our field of expertise is languages we really really ought to get down our pronouciation! For the sake of our credibilty!

So I came up with a structured plan to help me improve my pronounciation.

Block 1 - erasing every last bit of German in my English...

Because....unlucky for us, a German accent doesn't sound charming like the French one.

v/w sound
the/ three

Block 2 - different accents

identify
imitate
Australian
British
American
after Erasmus in Dublin - Irish

Criticism on deflation article

Summary of Ambrose Evans-P. Article

In his article in Telegraph from the 23^rd of October 2013, Ambrose Evans Pritchard analyzes the deflation within Europe.

In the beginning he illustrates the European deflation by using a comparison to the Japanese one. Deflation means no economic growth which can be positive if a country is not in debt, but due to European Debt Crisis, a deflation would cause a bigger problem than assumed for Europe. Not only national debts would be impossible to pay off but also private debts would be affected badly by this.

Ambrose Evans Pritchard suggests an increase of inflation within Europe, but Germany resist against such a policy as their economy is in a good condition, for now anyway. In the long run this unsolved problem will also affect Germany’s economy. To carry out this kind of an inflation policy Club Med partners should ally against Germany and force the country to accept inflation.

Another solution could be the attempt to cut spending, which is a highly unpopular process for the population.

In brief, Europe is hoping for a miracle to occur that will solve the European deflation and will save them from falling into a deeper crisis. 

Criticism

I very much like the topic sentence, it gives you a nice and easy start into the text. 

In the second sentence I would replace "using a comparison" by simply "comparing".

I think the second sentence is a bit unclear - deflation leads to no economic growth but I don't think it is the term to describe it. There seems to be a link missing there.

The problems that can be caused by deflation are explained in a very good and understandable way. I think the author did a really good job here in making a complicated topic tangible. This also goes for the proposed solutions - so all in all I think the author did really well in breaking down a complicated issue.

Revised Version of EU paragraph

Original Version

Revised Version

The Schengen Agreement

In 1985  five of the then ten member states of the European Economic Community, namely Belgium, France , the Netherlands, West Germany and Luxembourg conceived the Schengen Agreement to permit the free movement of persons within  a determined area referred to as the Schengen Area. Nowadays, the Schengen Agreement has 26 members with also non-European Union countries like Norway and Iceland having signed this treaty. Others, such as the United Kingdom and Ireland, are part of the European Union, but do not belong to the Schengen Area.
The UK prefers to remain independent as they perceive the natural frontiers of an island as already sufficient enough to prevent illegal immigration. Even though Ireland does not share this opinion, they prefer to uphold the Common Travel Agreement as joining the Schengen Area would result in the inconvenience of a closed border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. In short, the Schengen Area achieved its aim of enhancing mobility of people and goods and was eventually incorporated into European law with only Ireland, the UK, Romania, Bulgaria and Cyprus remaining opt-outs.



PS: Sorry for the creative depiction of the first paragraph, but as unrealistic it sounds - the electronic version somehow got lost....

EU - individual paragraph

Original Brainstorming

answers from this week's short questions: What is the difference between the European Commission, the European Parliament, The Council of Europe, The Council of European Union and The European Council.
-European Commission: "government" - propose legislation
-European Parliament: pass new legislation together with The Council of European Union
-The European Council: sets out general goals
-Council of Europe: Europe's leading human rights organisation

make a CLEAR distinction

Original Paragraph

Although the European Union is subject to very complicated dynamics and structures, the purpose of its most important institutions can be outlined in a few sentences. First of all there is the European Commission which can be compared to a government. Its main task is to propose new legislation to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Those two institutions make up the legislative branch of the EU. Together they are empowered to pass new legislations and implement the budget.  The Council of the European Union is not to be mixed up with the European Council. The latter is in charge of setting out general goals and has no legislative power. The posts in this institution are filled by the heads of EU member governments.   Last but not least there is another institution with a similar name: the Council of Europe. This Council is Europe’s leading human rights organization with 47 member states, of which 28 are members of the EU. After this short overview the discussed institutions can now be examined in more detail.

Feedback and reflection from class last week

Find a better concluding sentence!
pass legislation not legislations
mixed up is not a good word

Feedback and reflection from class this week

Unfortunately I was ill.

New version of my paragraph

Although the European Union is subject to very complicated dynamics and structures, the purpose of its most important institutions can be outlined in a few sentences. First of all there is the European Commission which can be compared to a government since its main task is to propose new legislation to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. Those two institutions constitute the legislative branch of the EU. As such they are empowered to pass new legislations and implement the budget. The Council of the European Union is not to be confused with the European Council as the latter is in charge of setting out general goals and has no legislative power. The seats in this institution are taken by the national head of EU member states.  To make it even more confusing there is another institution with a similar name: the Council of Europe. This Council is Europe’s leading human rights organization with 47 member states, of which 28 are members of the EU. By and large the main purposes of the major EU institutions are quite easy to grasp, although the partly closely related terminology may require some study effort.

EU Paper Topics

Here is the creme de la creme of my plentiful ideas ;)

1. National identity and EU citizenship 
What measures and programms has the EU initiated in order to make people identify themselves more with the European Union. I think this is of great importance because the EU would function even better if we would all have a strong feeling of belonging together.

2. EU scepticism
Juxtaposition of  German and Greek sceptist arguments.
This will illustrate two utterly different view points and by analyzing anti-EU-arguments they can maybe be taken appart.

3. Wildlife in the EU
What kind of effect has the EU had on wildlife and wildlife trade.
This is interesting because it will show how setting universal standards may produce positive outcomes in some and negative outcomes in other regions. I would take Croatia and the brown bear as an example because there the brown bear might ironically become more endangered after receiving the status of "being under protection".

4. Economy: Interdepence of Greek and German market
Due to its export policy Germany is dependent on countries like Greece as an output market. This fact is often neglected in the commercial media.

5. Subsidies
What does the EU support financially? This might be of interest if you are maybe planning to invest in alternative energy or are/will be eligable for some kind of subsidy.

BW/ Genetic Engineering and BW

The up’s and down’s of scientific advance

Whenever new findings are presented to the world, people come up with positive and negative usages of this new finding.

This is also the case for genetic engineering. One the one hand it can be used to “cure”some serious diseases  (see Steffi's blog form information ) on the other hand it also opens up new possibilities for the field of biological warfare. Below some of those possibilities are listed. It is however not confirmed that such biological weapons really exist. It really is a mere description of possibilities.

For one, it may possible to create a biological weapon which targets a specific person’s genome. This agent may spread through populations showing minimal or no symptoms, yet it would be fatal to the intended target.Just imagine how this could be used to intimidate people. I guess the furniture emerging from such a period of intimidation would make Biedermeier furniture look dull.

Also viruses which until now only used animals as their hosts could be genetically modified and developed to infect humans. The Ebola Virus would be a candidate for such a genetic modification.

As my heading also includes the up’s: genetic manipulation of viruses could also be used to create vaccines that provide immunity against multiple diseases with a single treatment. Although it needs to be added that "provoking" immunity be being infected with a "weak" modification of a disease is not universely perceived as being positive.

In this sence I can only recommend you to live fast and die young ;)
No I am just kidding: I wanna stress this again, these scientific findings aim to raise awareness and are not in progress!

BW/ Japan's dark chapters

Japan's dark chapters

Of course when war is waging, terrible things happen. But what happened in Japan between 1930 and the end WWII can, if at all, only be described as inhumane cruelty.

Ever heard of Unit 731, or of people being dissected alive?  In this blog post I want to talk about something which should carry the same slogan as the Holocaust : NEVER AGAIN!

The dark chapters of Japan start with a man called Shiro Ishii.

He grew up as a son of a privileged family and soon developed an arrogance which led him to the belief that people below him were worth less. His major goal in life was to become the father of biological warfare. After obtaining a high rank in the Japanese military he started his research at the Tokyo Medical School and later became head of Japan’s bioweapon programme during WWII. When Japanese forces occupied parts of China he saw his chance for creating an institution, in which he could conduct his experiments. This institution, which later become known as Unit 731, was built in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and carried the official name Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. He chose the area and name to keep the public attention away from his laboratory.

In his laboratory Shiro Ishii and a large team of medical researchers experimented with biological warfare agents. They experimented on humans. Prisoners, which were kept in the middle and most secret part of the building, were injected with viruses. Then the medical researchers opened them up alive to see how their body reacted. The researchers referred to their prisoners as maturas which could be loosely translated into log. This shows that those prisoners were no longer perceived as humans.

The aim of Shiro Ishii’s programme was to attack Japan's counterparts, especially the US, with weapons they had never seen before.

Along with experiments on biological warfare agents Shiro Ishii was also searching for an effective delivery system – and he found it in fleas. A large quantity of rats was kept at Unit 731 as a flee factory. Then nearby villages were infected and again Japanese researchers went to those villages and performed vivisections on the victims. They even distributed chocolate with plague-infected fleas to little children! Also wells were poisoned to study the effects of typhus and cholera outbreaks.

Epidemics persisted for years and continued to kill more than 30,000 people until 1947, long after the Japanese had surrendered.

But what happened to Shiro Ishii and his team after the surrender? Were they found guilty for their warfare crimes?

No. They cleverly managed to get the US to grant them immunity of prosecution in exchange of information about their research on humans. The US believed, especially with the prospect of the Cold War, that they could profit from this information. Shiro Ishii died, well above his sixties, due to natural causes. His successor, Masaji Kitano, even published some research articles where he simply exchanged the term humans with monkeys. Actually most of Ishii’s team went on to hold high academic and political positions after the WWII and were far from receiving punishment.

today Unit 731 is a museum

Until this day the Japanese government  refused to apologize for the events in Unit 731. The problem is  that unlike Nazi human experimentation ,which is extremely well documented, the activities of Unit 731 are known only from the testimonies which apparently can not be used to verify the happenings. However, in October 2003, the Prime Minister stated that, while the current Japanese government does not possess any records related to Unit 731, they recognize the gravity of the matter and will publicize any records that are located in the future.

If you want to get further information I recommend you watch this documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgtIyNRv3g8

here is the transcript: http://www.targeted-individuals-europe.com/?q=node/7