Let's talk about "It"

(1) "This is my favorite restaurant. I love it!"
"It" = the restaurant. This is easy.

And everyone Japanese person knows expressions like (2) "It's raining," or "It is a hot day." But what does "it" mean in those sentences?

(1) and (2) are different forms of "it." In (1) "it" refers to a specific thing. In (2) "it" = situation. Here are some examples:

A. The earthquake and tsunami destroyed many homes. People were easy to get sympathy.
No: It was easy for people to get sympathy.
The situation: Immediately after March 11, 2011.

B. Runners are easy to get injured if the ground isn't level.
No: It's easy for runners to get injured if the ground isn't level.
The situation: running on unlevel ground.

C. The library was quiet so I could study there.
No: The library was quiet, so it was easy for me to study there.
The situation: the quiet library.

You're not going to master this, but you should be sensitive to (1) what a person makes happen versus (2) what a situation makes happen.

Let's use English well!

Narrative Techniques

According to my students, Japanese language classes in junior and senior high school don't cover literary and drama techniques. These aren't common TOEFL topics, but they are sometimes on task 4 or 6. Each time we do one in class, people struggle.

So here's a list of narrative techniques from Wikipedia. As far as I can recall, I learned the principles under plots and perspective in junior high school, and the principles under style, theme, and character in high school.

Good luck!

新入社員?

I got an interesting question from a student in the writing class, and I want to share it, because many Japanese people struggle with this issue:

Mistake: "Lots of employees left and freshmen didn't want to enter the company." 

Question: I understand that you can only say "freshman" for high school or college students, but how would you describe the 新入社員 in English? 

アルク gives many ways to say this, but the fact is that we don't use these expressions often.

This is a cultural difference, not a language issue. In Japanese culture, the idea of a place in the hierarchy (階層) is important and useful. Google has 21,000,000 hits for Japanese hierarchy society.

In American society, the idea is less useful, and we usually don't bother to express it. You could fix the sentence like this:

Lots of employees left, and the number of applicants fell dramatically.

Or:

Lots of employees left, and it was difficult to replace them because no one wanted to work there.

I am not a sociologist, but it seems to me that several basic concepts of Japanese society, especially 内･外 (such as 外国人) and 階層 (such as 先輩･後輩、エリート、 and 新入社員) are concepts that you should try to avoid using if you want to write or speak English well. 

False Cognates & False Friends (vocabulary building)

Today's post is a cautionary note about words that look similar, but have different meanings.

The first mistake we had several times in class last week was complex misunderstanding of a task 5 conversation between two students.

1. The woman planned to see her boyfriend's concert.
2. Some students translated plan to 予約.
3. They then translated 予約 to appointment.
4. They then tried to use the verb appoint instead of the noun appointment, like "The woman appointed her boyfriend to a concert."

So instead of 彼女は彼氏のコンサートに行く予定がある they said 彼女は彼氏をコンサートに指名しました。

How does this happen?

False friends is the term we use for words that started out as related words, but the meanings have diverged over time. Both appoint and appointment come from the Old French word apointier, which means "to arrange." However, the meanings in modern English have diverged:

• To appoint is 指名する.
• An appointment is a plan to meet someone, usually a professional, like a doctor, dentist, accountant, or CPA.

What these students should have said is: "She plans to see her boyfriend's concert."

The second mistake we had last week was with the noun present (a gift) and the verb to present (to put before someone). Someone said, "I presented my wife a pink bikini."

Both the noun and the verb come from the Medieval Latin praesentare, which means to show something to someone for approval. The meanings diverged in Old French, and are still separate in Modern English:

• The noun a present simply means "a gift." 
• The verb to present means "to show." 

The correct usage for the verb is a talk show host saying "I now present to you Lady Gaga!" Followed by Lady Gaga singing a song live on TV.

What the speaker meant was "I gave my wife a pink bikini."

E4TG and IELTS

This has been quite a year with the ETS scandal in England. We thought about it, but ultimately decided not to offer an IELTS class this year.

I've never taken IELTS, but from what I've heard, it's easier to get IELTS 6.0-6.5 than TOEFL 100, but it's easier to get TOEFL 105 than IELTS 7.0-7.5.

Regardless, the same strategies can be used on both speaking sections. Here's what a former student wrote to me a few days ago:

Since my TOEFL score didn’t improve so much, I finally switched to IELTS in May. And I got 7.5 (Listening: 7.5, Reading: 7.0, Writing: 7.0, Speaking: 8.0). Additionally, I got 8.5 for speaking on the next IELTS. Although speaking for TOEFL is a little different from the one for IELTS, I used a lot of the strategies which I learned at E4TG for IELTS. That’s why my speaking score was higher than other sections, which is really rare for Japanese students. 

Please use English well!

The Stages of Competence

A student wrote the following email to me concerning his March 2 TOEFL speaking score:

I've just received TOEFL score. I got 23 in speaking section, which is the highest ever. I can't understand this good result because I totally lost the first reason of SP3 due to listening problem. In addition, I'm not good at speaking in detail of SP6.

I think what is happening is that this guy is progressing through the Stages of Competence.

Stage 1: Unconscious incompetence.
When you start to do something, you are bad at it, but you don't even realize how bad you are. This is when someone says, "My first TOEFL score last month was 45, so I'll study every weekend this month, and get 110 next month." That's not realistic.

Stage 2: Conscious incompetence.
Then you get feedback on your strengths and weaknesses, and you become conscious of your incompetence. You become aware of what you need to do to get a better result.

Stage 3: Conscious competence.
The student above who wrote the above email to me has worked hard on his English, is strategically sound, has clear pronunciation, and has become pretty fluent (few hesitations). He has to focus when speaking English, but it sounds pretty good. He is aware of what he missed on task 3 and 6, and that's why he probably underestimated his performance.

It's a pattern I see every year. Whenever students say the TOEFL test (especially the listening section) was EASY, I don't believe them. It's never easy, they just weren't aware of their incompetence. But conversely, when people say the TOEFL test was DIFFICULT, scores often go up, and I believe that this is a sign that people are developing competence.

Please use English well!

Limits on taking the TOEFL (again)

ETS is limited how often you can take the TOEFL test to once every 12 days:

You can retake the test as many times as you wish, but you cannot take it more than once in a 12-day period. If you already have a test appointment, you cannot register for another test date that is within 12 days of your existing appointment.

 As I've said before, you should take TOEFL as often as possible once you hit 95 because the difficulty varies from test to test. So this is a disappointment.

Please use English well!

Three week limit postponed

As I wrote last month, ETS decided to limit how often people can take TOEFL to every 21 days. It now appears that changing their computer systems caused a lot of system errors, so they are postponing this change.

That means that you can still take every TOEFL test if you like (for the time being).

Twenty-one days

ETS is changing how frequently you can take the TOEFL test next year. The notice is here.

I don't think it's a bad policy. Many people spend too much time and money taking multiple TOEFL tests, but it's rare to find quick, radical changes in scores.