Clips of Language Exchange on 5.10

fraud (n.) = A piece of trickery; a trick.
[synonyms] scam

fraudulent (adj.) A fraudulent call

a con man(men) means a person who does some frauds. = a scammer = a scam artist.
con. came from the word 'confidence'.

a confidence game = It's a tricky game. It almost happened when someone trust other people, so that other people could cheat that one based on trust.

a fraud event

free call (i.e. 800, help lines)

pay call (dating call)

- Some vocabularies with similar spelling but different meanings:
A. stationary (n.) (adj.) = still
stationery (n.) = Writing paper and envelopes

B. adopt (+Object) (vt.) :
(1) choose
(2) Children are adopted by parents, and one normally refers to an adopted child but to adoptive parents, families, and homes. When describing places, one can use either adopted or adoptive: She enjoys living in her adopted country. Detroit is their adoptive city.

adept (+at) (adj.) : proficient in something requiring skill
adapt (+to) (v) : adjust (sb. or sth. ) to difficult conditions.

C. Have the same tense and easy to make mistake.
lay
lie

Lay ("to put, place, or prepare") and lie ("to recline or be situated") have been confused for centuries; evidence exists that lay has been used to mean "lie" since the 1300s. Why? First, there are two lays. One is the base form of the verb lay, and the other is the past tense of lie. Second, lay was once used with a reflexive pronoun to mean "lie" and survives in the familiar line from the child's prayer Now I lay me down to sleep; lay me down is easily shortened to lay down. Third, lay down, as in She lay down on the sofa sounds the same as laid down, as in I laid down the law to the kids.·Lay and lie are most easily distinguished by usage. Lay is a transitive verb and takes a direct object. Lay and its principal parts (laid, laying) are correctly used in the following examples: He laid (not lay) the newspaper on the table. The table was laid for four. Lie is an intransitive verb and cannot take an object. Lie and its principal parts (lay, lain, lying) are correctly used in the following examples: She often lies (not lays) down after lunch. When I lay (not laid) down, I fell asleep. The rubbish had lain (not laid) there a week. I was lying (not laying) in bed when he called.·There are a few exceptions to these rules. The phrasal verb lay for and the nautical use of lay, as in lay at anchor, though intransitive, are standard.

D. affect (V/N) : influence
effect (V/N) : result
(these two words both have many different meanings as well.)

E. advice (N.)
advise (V.) advise sb. to.... = suggest

F. familiar pronounce with different meanings.
conscious (adj./N) : awareness
- consciousness The state or condition of being conscious.

conscience (N) :The awareness of a moral or ethical aspect to one's conduct together with the urge to prefer right over wrong
- Conscientiousness the quality of being in accord with the dictates of conscience

cautious (N/adj.) : careful
- cautiousness :the trait of being cautious


U.S. & British spellings:
colo(u)r
favo(u)rite
vendo(u)r
theater/theatre
center/centre

clothes
cloth(s): fabric

immersion : concentrate on / sinking until covered completely with water

theocracy : A government ruled by or subject to religious authority.
theo- means God or religion.
-cracy means government system.

popular
population

numerous : larage in number.

Clips of Language Exchange on 5.3

Knock-off: An unauthorized copy or imitation, as of designer clothing: "the place to go for quality knockoffs" Women's Wear Daily.

hit it off (with sb.) : become friend quickly.

greyhound: A kind of dog. He's good at running.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Greyhound

greyhound bus lines: A bus for communtation in U.S. The price is usually cheaper.

The difference between coach and couch.
coach : bus. sometimes is proposed for trip.
couch: sofa.

The difference between truck and trunk.
truck is a kind of mobile. It used to deliver goods.
trunk is a place you could put your luggage in it.

英文學習網站大蒐集

網路上查到一些有用的網址蒐集：
[資料來源:http://blog.yam.com/studyenglish]

英文媒體—CNN student news


英文媒體—BBC radio


英文媒體—VOA


英文媒體—Earth & Sky


英文媒體—Msnbc



英文媒體—Pulse of the Planet


英文媒體—iht


英文媒體—ICRT


英文媒體—民視英語新聞


英文媒體—VOA special


英文媒體—空中英語教室



線上測驗—數位聽力實驗室


線上測驗—單字考驗


線上測驗—全民英檢（初級）


線上測驗—打字訓練


線上測驗—TOEIC OK


線上測驗—英語混淆發音



線上測驗—TOEIC 口說寫作


線上測驗—TOEFL speaking


資料庫—wikipedia維基百科


資料庫—Merriam Webster字典


資料庫—LiveABC圖解字典


資料庫—LiveABC每日一句新聞



資料庫—慣用語（美國之聲）


資料庫—Urban俚語辭典


資料庫—名人傳記辭典


資料庫—快速記憶字庫


資料庫—IMDB電影資料庫


資料庫—基礎發音練習



資料庫—American Rhetoric


資料庫—發音解說網


資料庫—投資英文搜密


資料庫—片語搜索站


考試專區—尋夢網TOEFL論壇


考試專區—寄託TOEFL論壇



考試專區—太傻TOEFL論壇


英語教學—哈佛英文


英語教學—文化大學國際語言中心


資料庫—英文寫作學習網

Frustrate

How frustrate it is! I really do not know what is the meaning living in the world.
What am I doing everyday? Just waste lots of time. Could someone else listen to my grievance? I think the answer absolutely is NO.
Tonight is hopeless night.

口說...障礙!

最近有進入一個線上口說課程，每星期約有一個主軸主題，大都和上班族相關，(例如:Career, Internet,...) 其實很生活化，線上課程裏面，大約一個班級有8人(MAX)，有一個老師(都是英美語系國家)會主導，問問題還有請大家輪流回答(介面還算不賴，可以給老師放slides)。有的老師很認真，會聽完你的內容在幫你糾正問題。

我覺得，我每天看英文時間很少，(每天打select from...insert into不算)，講英文機會更少。
一星期上去三次算多，這種條件下，開口就會覺得是種障礙。

如果簡單自我介紹我還應付的過去，然後接下來開始討論發表個人意見的時候，就會開始詞窮。
腦中永遠停留著幾個單字，湊不出句子，不然就是文法錯誤百出....

目前先趁別人先回答的時候，趕快擬一些草稿，這樣比較知道要說什麼。但是，如果老師第一個點我....我就...又開始結巴了~

這真是一個很大的瓶頸，對我來說，我的說的程度停留在小學。>"<
目前想到，也許我心中的模板，太少，無法thinking in English，而且，沒有受到太大語言刺激，沒辦法可以很快的反應出來。(書信上，都還可以有修改檢查的空間，可是口說要第一時間反應出來真的好難)
也許，我該做的是不是，要開始除了看文章以外，每個星期或每週強迫自己記憶一些文章(生活化的)，好像回到了高中時代的默寫啊! 不知道這樣有沒有用? 只希望可以藉此增進一些語感。

此外，真的感到慚愧，每次進聊天室，大陸人總是居多，真得很認真且英文程度也不輸人。
要好好檢討啊!

Weakness of my English ability

接連幾次考試大概知道自己的閱讀能力真的很差，分析一下該如何增進閱讀能力以及自己平日怎麼樣練習英文。
我發現大多時間我都是花在聽力，聽力也是我的生活重心之ㄧ，然而在閱讀上面我的練習時間真的很少，換句話說，我太仰賴聽力了！也就是平常每天希望自己能聽ADVANCED 30分，通常都是MP3打開以後，然後用耳朵在聽，有時候乾脆邊聽邊上網，聽到的東西很有限，對於文章裡面的句子結構其實了解的更有限，就因此，我還停留在單字上面。
另外本來想要訂閱幾個英文新聞的網站，藉此可以瀏覽一下內容，不過可能對我來說有的新聞不是很吸引，不然就是用字太深，往往看了標題，就沒深究了，相對的，因為我都有聽ICRT的習慣，整點新聞在播放的時候，變成一定會用耳朵去認真聽，聽到多少算多少。
整體來說，我依賴耳朵勝過於眼睛。

所以，我想聽ADVANCED以前可以做到先預習當日的文章，以及在新聞上面還是能看多少算多少，這樣廣讀希望可以增加我的閱讀速度和語感。
不過，最重要的是，還是要具備基本的文法和造句結構。