Leaning Journal week 2

1. One new thing that I learned in week 2 in any of my classes at HELP

I studied an article, the word showing whether it is definite or indefinite, in the grammar class this week. When listeners can perceive what the word is, they use a definite article “the”. For example, if someone says “I like the dog”, both a speaker and listener are supposed to know what kind of dog it is, what it looks like, what its name is, or who owns it. In addition, the article is used for what there is only one in the world, such as the earth, the Pacific, and so on. On the other hand, an indefinite article “a” or “an” is used when speakers show unspecific things, not to mention showing the singular. If someone says “I like a dog”, it means that he likes every dog, in other words, he does not show which dog he likes. Thus, an article can change meaning of sentences depending on its usage. My first language, Japanese, does not have the article, so it is difficult for me to understand it. However, I will be able to comprehend English more deeply if I am master of the article.

2. One new thing that I learned in week 2 outside of my HELP classes

The large-scale parade was held last Wednesday, Halloween, in Waikiki. There were many people with different costumes, such as a monster, witch, fairy, and even animation character. Children dressing up marched saying “Trick or Treat!” near my house. I knew that custom, but I do not know why people do so. When I say the question to my friend, she told me the origin of Halloween. Halloween is primarily New Year’s Eve for Celtic faith, and people believed that ghosts of the dead visited a family and that a witch or fairy appeared at the night of October 31. A priest gave a fire used for a ceremony to each family. If people heat their houses by the fire, evil spirits cannot come in the houses. When the Celts were forced to convert to Catholics, Halloween was adopted as Eve of All Saints’ Day, the holiday when people respect for all saints. Now the only custom that evil spirits pay a visit to houses is left, and people enjoy this day as one of the entertainments. I thought that it was interesting and important to know the origin of what is close to me.

3. Are there any reading strategies in my L1?

My Japanese has reading strategies, just as English does. However, I do not remember the strategies because I use them unconsciously. Because I started to study English as L2 when I was in junior high, I cannot help reading sentences with recollection of strategies. I try to understand a message from an author or a character and to find a main point from whole sentence. Perhaps the strategies of Japanese are not different from those of English. In other words, it will be not too much to say that I have acquired the way of reading English when I can use the strategies without consciousness.

4. What I want to know at this point

I do not understand one of the types of logical connectors “Condition” well. The handout says “Provides conditional information―the condition under which the event takes place or will take place (which may only be hypothetical)” and gives “otherwise”, “either”, “even if”, “whether”, “in case of”, and “regardless of” as examples. However, I cannot get the meaning of Condition from these examples. Though the other types like Contrast and Sequence is easy to understand, Condition is difficult because it seems more abstract. To comprehend logical connectors correctly, I want to know the definition of Condition in detail.