Self Introduction

Hi, everyone, I'm Yiran form China, a visiting scholar from Guangdong Academy of Social Science. This week on Thursday, I will come back to China, It's a pity that I couldn't finish this class with all of you.

When I come back to China, I still need to learn English. The biggest challenge that I have with my lecture learning is understanding, cause I couldn't combine the words I already know with the sentence, maybe I should learn how to use those professional words efficiently. Before class ,I usually read the assigned material and review what I already know about the lecture topic. Sometimes, I will read English books and watch English Videos such as TED talk to put myself into an atmosphere of English. During the class, I'll take notes and use visual cues to aid comprehension. After class, I'd like to review and read the assigned material. Through that, I can find out areas to improve.

This blog is more like a farewell letter than self introduction, Six months, half a year. When I look back, bad things happened as well, however, what doesn't kill us will make us stronger eventually. I have a lot to say but don't know where to start, this may be my last blog in Hawaii and I still don't know whether I can use it in China. If not, I will keep on writing English Blog through other ways cause English learning is a lifelong work. it's lucky for me to have the chance to study with all the ELI080 classmates. Best wishes~

New Words

Have you ever watch the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" ? One of my new words came from this movie, the word is "Slum".It means a house or building unfit for human habitation, or lower social lever. Actually, this was not the first time I met this word, last week I heard a song named" A flower booming in the slums" , the name of this song is so beautiful as well as the melody. When I saw this film and met the word the second time, I made up m mind to choose slum as my new words. When I use Corpus to learn more about this word, It's usually used with dwellers,  SLUM DWELLERS means the poor. DWELLERS alone means a person who inhibits a particular place.

Another word I learned this week is "Neptune" ,it has two different meanings. One is the eight and farthest know planet from the sun in the solar system. The other seven planets are Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. Another meaning is the god of the water and the sea. It's said that Neptune is a blue planet just like the sea, so people named it as the name of  the king of the sea. Without doubt, it usually goes with Uranus because they are neighbors. The second meaning connected with "king" when people describe the god of the sea as"king Neptune". This word came from another song produced by Bandari in 1999, the album called "Mist". As for me, this word is easy to memorize but hard to pronounce.

I have another word "pride",the teacher in Junior high school told us that it means be proud of something. However, when I watch a documentary called" The Big Cats", I found that they call a group of lions "pride" which is new to me, I do hope that I can show this meaning to my classmates in Junior high school.

On the surface, I have leaned two new words last week, besides this, I enjoyed a film, several beautiful songs and the eight planets in solar system. Words have the power to connect things together as long as we use our imagination and logical thinking.