Vocab Notebook 2

So, my method for learning the great number of words for the second PC actually changed a little bit. For the first PC I created a word doc and wrote all the vocabulary in a spreadsheet. I discovered that I memorize unfamiliar words better when I write them down in my book, so I did this. There were about 400 vocabulary in total so, in order to manage writing all those out, I already started to do so during Christmas break. I worked with four different websites that helped me out a great deal: Vocabulary.com, Oxforddictionaries.com, Thesaurus.com and Howjsay.com. I wrote down every single unfamiliar word in my vocab book along with its explanation, synonyms, antonyms and some example sentences too. I also used the vocab list on Vocabulary.com, as it enables me to test myself whether I learned something or not. I focused on the 'hard' words first, as they are the more tricky ones. As the pronunciation of those words where extremely important for this part of the PC, I actually studied the phonetic alphabet and wrote every single word I wasn't sure of how to pronounce in phonetic script. I also worked with the "spelling bee" on Vocabulary.com, to make sure that I memorized the pronunciation. Unfortunately I could not save my progress with the spelling bee on Vocabulary.com so I had to start over and over again, which was a little bit annoying. All in all, I will definitely continue to write vocabulary down as my experience has appeared to be the best way of memorizing unfamiliar words.

Reflection on the Pecha Kucha experience

When I first heard the term "Pecha Kucha" I haven't had a idea what this could be. The first challenge was the pronunciation of this word. After a considerable long time of searching the web, I finally found I funny video on YouTube, which we got shown in class the next day. It’s a 'cover' of the well-known song "Mahna Mahna" from the Muppet Show. I continued informing myself about the presentation style and I was actually really surprised to read that this is a well-known presentation style even beyond China. There are a number of events and "Pecha Kucha nights" organized. This presentation uses 20 pictures per 20 seconds. This meant that we would have only six minutes and 40 seconds for our whole presentation. My first thought wasn't negative at all! I found the task to create a "Pecha Kucha" presentation challenging but I was motivated to do it. 

For our presentation we chose the topic euronews because we found it quite fascinating that the channel is available in 13 languages. Unfortunately, when we started researching we found out that the provided information is rather subjective. A prerequisite for this presentation is high-quality, comprehensive and above all not only on-sided. The topic can be very dry and boring unless you have an interest in that area and we had so we started digging deeper. While writing our transcript we wanted to keep it as interesting as possible. We wrote thousands of mails (or maybe just nine hundred) to finally get an answer from an account director from euronews. We asked him some questions that were not to find anywhere on the internet. I have to say that we were really lucky that someone actually answered our questions. We combined the information what we felt was important to mention from the euronews official website, with the interview of the account director. At first I was a little bit skeptical if people would be interested in this topic but I think we managed to arise the interest mentioning the survey we have done in class. The central aim of our presentation was though, to make our classmates realize what a great opportunity this is to enrich our language skills. It provides countless ways to improve our fluency and to acquire some new vocabulary. I am sure that the spoken presentation was way more authentic than the written one and that we managed to deliver it in an interesting way. =)

Summary

Before:

SUMMARY OF Europe already has one foot in “Japanese” deflation grave

The risk of an European deflation and a potential debt crisis are being analyzed by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the article “Europe already has one foot in “Japanese” deflation grave”, published in “The Telegraph” on October 23, 2013.

According to Evans-Pritchard, Europe is going to slide into a deflation trap, as Japan is now, if policy errors continue to happen. A deflation would become lethal, once total debt exceeds 300pc of GDP. Besides, inflation has dropped to an alarming rate of 0.9pc, which caused price falls and a growth in debt in many European countries. Especially Italy has faced the problem of “runaway-dept”.

Mr Darvas states that the only possible solution is to let the inflation grow. The EBC should implement all possible measures to ensure that inflation does not fall below 2pc, which however is not done. Moreover this is not accepted by Germany, even though it may soon become a victim of deflation itself.

The author’s proposed solution is the unification of France, Italy, Spain and the Club Med allies. Demanding appropriate action from Germany, they could force them to accept inflation. On the contrary, Europe hopes for global growth to save the economy, which is unlikely to happen.

200 WORDS, NOT INCLUDING TITLE

After:

SUMMARY OF Europe already has one foot in “Japanese” deflation grave

The risk of a European deflation and potential debt crisis are being analyzed by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the article “Europe already has one foot in “Japanese” deflation grave”, published in “The Telegraph” on October 23, 2013.

According to Evans-Pritchard, Europe is going to slide into a deflation trap, as Japan is now, if policy errors continue to happen. Deflation would become lethal, once total debt exceeds 300pc of GDP. Besides, inflation has dropped to an alarming rate of 0.9pc, which caused price falls and a growth in debt in many European countries. Especially Italy has faced the problem of “runaway-debt”.

It is thought that the only possible solution is to let inflation grow. The EBC should implement all possible measures to ensure that inflation does not fall below 2pc, which however is not being done. Moreover this is not accepted by Germany, even though it may soon become a victim of deflation itself. 

The author’s proposed solution is for Club Med to demand appropriate action from Germany: force them to accept inflation. On the contrary, Europe hopes for global growth to save the economy, which is unlikely to happen.