Mr Kammerer's English Corner
Hello, and welcome to Nakagawa Nishi Elementary School’s English page. Here you can find information about current English lessons, common English mistakes, fun English facts, and lots of other stuff dealing with English. Please have fun with the page and enjoy studying English.

CURRENT LESSONS


Animals

What animal do you like? Most students say dogs or cats, but some have said animals such as Japanese giant salamanders (オオサンショウウオ), unicorns, and even the Butt-Biting Bug (おしりかじり虫).

Shapes

 In class we’re going over basic shapes, such as circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. If you’re interested in learning more shapes, you can do so here.




Pentagon   Hexagon    Heptagon    Octagon    Enneagon     Decagon

    You might notice these Greek pre-fixes in other English words. An example is the Greek pre-fix “oct-,” which means 8. An octagon is called an octagon because it has 8 sides. Similarly, an octopus is called an octopus because it has 8 legs.

    If you’re interested, a 20-sided shape is called an icosagon, a 1,000-sided shape is called a chiliagon, and a 10,000-sided shape is called a myriagon.


ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION MISTAKES

 Since most Japanese syllables end in a vowel, students often mistakenly put vowels at the end of a word. For example, instead of saying “red” they say “reddo.” Please try to end with the consonant sound in words such as this. There are, however, those students who try to use this vowel-dropping rule with all English words, even those that actually end in “o” in English. For example, the word “potato” ends in “o” in English, but some students mistakenly say “potat” because they think the “o” was added by Japanese pronunciation. Please try to notice the difference between words that end in vowels and those that end in consonants. Can you tell which is which among the following words? The answers are at the bottom of this page.

ポートランド、トマト、バンド、ヒント、オーランド、フレンド、トロント、ミント


VOCABULARY MISTAKE

In Japanese, a nice apartment is called a “mansion” (マンション). However, the English word “mansion” means a very large, luxurious, expensive house. The English word “mansion” is close in meaning to the Japanese word 豪邸（ごうてい）. When speaking English, it’s correct to use the word “apartment” for both アパート and マンション.


FUN ENGLISH STUDY

It’s very important to be exposed to as much English as possible when learning. It doesn’t have to be hard work though. Try watching movies, listening to music, and maybe even reading books in English. If you have a favorite animated movie, try watching it in English with Japanese subtitles. Unfortunately, English-language movies on Japanese TV are dubbed (ダビング), making them look and sound ridiculous and useless for English study. Try renting movies with an English soundtrack option. For more advanced students, try reading your favorite Japanese novel in translation. You can also try listening to English music and singing along if you like.

Recommendations

     Children’s Book: The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater
                       This is a great book with fun illustrations and a good 
                       message for beginning English students. Parents will
                       probably know most of the words, so you can try reading it
                       to your kids.
     Movies: The Iron Giant – The animated story of a friendship between a young
                       boy and a giant robot.
             The Brave Little Toaster – This is an animated adventure movie
                       starring household appliances.
             Music:2/3 Skeleton by Tavo Carbone – This album has clearly-pronounced,
                       kid-friendly lyrics and a fun, calm and inventive
                       folk/experimental sound. If you can’t find this CD, let me
                       know and I can give you a copy.
             Anything by the Beatles – The lyrics are simple and kid-friendly, and
                       the music is catchy. They’re definitely good for learning
                       English.  

Answers: Portland, tomato, band, hint, Orlando, friend, Toronto, mint