Otto's blog

Urinal Kinds of Trouble

May

23

When I was at Nagoya Chubu Airport, I went to the restrooms & noticed this spelling mistake. It should read "Urinal".

Natural English
urinal = 小便器, urine* = 小便, urinate* = 小便する.
* in casual English, words such as 'pee' (名詞 & 動詞) are often used

Zoo Trip

May

23

On Sunday, school staff & students visited Higashiyama zoo in Nagoya. It was a nice day - a little cloudy so not hot. The 6 girls in my group were well-behaved & enjoyed looking at the animals & hearing my interesting animal facts e.g. that hippos are the most dangerous African animal (did you know that?). The most popular animals seemed to be the koalas - it was a little crowded there.

Vocabulary:
Be careful: cloudy = 曇り crowded = 込んでいる

#動物 #旅行

Magical Miyako Island

May

8

Last week I visited Miyako Island with my family. We spent a lot of time in the water; my kids enjoyed playing in their swim rings (浮き輪) & I enjoyed snorkeling. I saw a lot of colorful small fish, but not many big fish. We also collected a lot of shells. I`m thinking of making (作るうと思う) something with them for our school`s craft event in September.

The weather was good - a lot of sunshine & not much rain. As for food, I ate a lot of Okinawa-style noodles, & of course drank a lot of Orion beer. I had a lot of fun.

Natural English:
- In spoken English, it`s usual to use 'many' (with 可算名詞) & 'much' (with 不可算名詞 ) in negative ('not') sentences & questions. BUT! in positive sentences - 可算名詞 OR 不可算名詞 - it`s usual to use 'a lot of', or 'lots of' (casual style) in spoken English.

#動物 #旅行 #虫