Update on the progress of the writing project

The paper about the cultural gap across the Atlantic is going well so far, despite plenty of distractions there are the time before Christmas, be they private or rather university related, but I think this is probably true for anyone of us. I am glad I found a topic I am particularly interested in. It just makes writing so much easier. Honestly, I sometimes find it hard to collect relevant information. Over the last week, however, I discovered the benefits of e-books for me. As most of them are written in English they are of even greater value to me. You can type in specific key expressions when searching for an e-book and you will end up with one or two relevant sources. As they are available online they are easily accessible. This not only saves you time, but also gives you the chance to quickly gloss over the e-books contents in order to decide whether you will need them or not. Another difficulty is narrowing down content and including only vital information as the target word count of 1500 words may appear high, but actually isn’t if you want to make your paper as informative as possible.

blog post critique for summary part

SUMMARY OF EUROPE ALREADY HAS ONE FOOT IN “JAPANESE“ DEFLATION GRAVE Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, in The Telegraph of October 23, 2013 discusses the problem of Europe’s deflation crisis. Evans-Prichard states that deflation makes debt worse and that it is extremely dangerous if debt surpasses 300% of GDP, which is currently the problem in Western Europe. Although inflation could solve this dilemma, it is an impossible approach to stop deflation because inflation is already too low and plummeted to 0.9% in the euro zone. Consequently, debt ratios are irrupting and the risk of runaway debt, which primarily affects Italy and Spain, is increasing. Italy, for example, has two options to solve the problem of runaway debt; either to pay 6.3% towards debt or accept a massive unemployment rate. Moreover, private debt is also affected by deflation and therefore even Germany is at risk. According to Evans-Pritchard, there are only two possible solutions to the problem. Either France, Italy, Spain and the Club Med advise the EBC to implement a relation policy; or Europe waits for the salvation of a global growth, which is highly unlikely to set in. As the title indicates, Europe is in a highly problematic situation which could lead to a policy crisis comparable to the one in Japan. 199 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING TITLE

The Pekakucha project

For our presentation we have come up with the following idea. We will include a person from an English speaking country and an Italian into the dialogue. These two will meet randomly and start a debate about language. More precisely, they will point out which words, expressions and phrases their languages have adopted from each other. The idea behind this concept is to give the people following our presentation an insight into the interesting topic of ‘neologism’. This term drives from ancient Greek and literally denotes ‘new word’. Neologism is a global phenomenon, as it can be found in almost every language. Undoubtedly, English, be it British or American is one of the greatest sources of neologisms for other languages and therefore will provide us with sufficient examples for our project. How neologisms actually come into being can be explained easily. A word is taken from another language and by transforming it slightly, usually by giving it characteristics such as suffixes and prefixes from the target language a new word is introduced to the language. Acquiring new vocabulary by this method is a positive development, as in my opinion it adds shades of meanings and significations to a language and therefore enables more precise descriptions of an object. These descriptions do often get way better than any other words of the original language ever could, as there are strong connotations to them when they keep their foreign sound and refer to a foreign object. I Speaking for our Pekakucha, the focus will be on the reciprocity of the English and the Italian language. So if you are interested which words apart from umbrella, scenario and villa are originally Italian and how creative Italians can get when it comes to pronunciation and creation of English words in their language then you must not miss our presentation.

What I learned from the homework

As I concerned myself with the correction of the homework ‘Dear Mr. Bower’, I could make out the main problems and weaknesses of my writing skills. Firstly, I seem to struggle with the use of tenses. In order to improve within this section I consulted the website ‘englishpage.com’ and focused on the tense exercises from there. As for me it was very useful, I can definitely recommend this page to anyone else struggling to get the use of tenses right. Another difficulty for me is the right choice of vocabulary, as I sometimes tend to use expressions which do not exactly represent what I am aiming to say or simply would not be used the way I do in everyday English. Therefore, from now on I study words with all their different meanings and as part of entire phrases to make sure I can use them appropriately. In this respect, the ‘corpus of contemporary American’ will certainly take me a long way. Not only could I see how certain words are used within single phrases, but also get an impression of where they are most likely to appear. With this strategy I hope to get rid of most of the uncertainties when it comes to the right and considered use of words.

EU writing project

With the EU writing project for SUK3 on the horizon, it is about time to get started thinking about possible topics. After thorough consideration, I have come up with the following five suggestions. The first one could concern how the EU tackles crisis like Greece. The second idea focuses on effects and changes for me as a single person and EU citizen since the joining of the EU. The EU compared to the US, especially in terms of identification, sense of togetherness and language barriers could make another interesting topic. A further paper idea could give attention to a comparison between the EU and other European countries who have not joined the Union yet, such as Norway, Switzerland or Albania. Lastly, the history of the European Union could also be content for a paper. The attention with this idea could be on questions like why the Union has come into being and where there are its origins. I am really looking forward to a successful and compelling project.