PlanetWinK » Pukman @ WinK: the community that time didn't forget

Pukman @ WinK: the community that time didn't forget (6 unread)

Great typing games

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 9:06pm EST by Rick

Try QWERTY Warriors!
Penhold Racquettes

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 7:49pm EST by Rick

I first played table tennis regularly when I was an exchange student in Shanghai. Since I was in China I decided to imitate the Chinese students around me, who all used the penhold grip. When I went back to England I didn't play table tennis regularly, and soon forgot most of what I had learned, but when I started playing table tennis again recently, I naturally stayed with the penhold grip. In Japan, penhold players always play with a special racquette that makes it very easy to wrap your finger around the handle. I got so used to this kind of penhold racquette that I forgot what Chinese penhold players used.

A few days ago, however, I was given a Chinese penhold racquette by a colleague who bought the racquette in China but didn't like it so much. It's actually very similar to a shakehand racquette, but slightly easier to grip. The bonus is that it's symmetric and therefore easy to flip around, so we can put different kinds of rubber on each side.
Vocabulary in Use

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 7:19pm EST by Rick

Talking of self-study, if you want to improve your vocabulary you may want to check out the Vocabulary in Use books. Like the Grammar in Use series these are from CUP. The book pictured is the Elementary book. They also have Pre-Intermediate, Intermediate, and Advanced levels.
Grammar self-study

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 6:59pm EST by Rick

If you want to brush up your grammar, you may want to buy books in the Grammar in Use series. They're a bit expensive but they have many exercises and are very thorough. The book pictured is at intermediate level; there is also a book in the same series for beginners.
FIFA Club World Cup

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 6:09pm EST by Rick

The FIFA Club World Cup will be held as usual in Japan this year. I believe it's starting very soon. The participants in the competition are the champions of the Champions League in Europe, the Copa Libertadores in South America, the AFC Champions League in Asia, and other continental competitions. I am looking forward especially to seeing Gamba Osaka (who recently won the AFC Champions League) and Manchester United, who won the UEFA Champions League in May.

The Club World Cup is the successor to the Toyota Cup, which was nearly always held in Japan. Now that it's a bigger competition, it will be held in a different country each year, so maybe this will be our last chance for some time to see it in Japan. I hope that the TV channnels will show many matches! The competition starts on December 11th, and the final is scheduled for December 21st. Gambaranba, Gamba!
Class of December 5th

Posted: December 5th, 2008, 5:58pm EST by Rick
Today, let's talk about some ways to join sentences together to make longer sentences. The 3 key words you need to know to understand the explanations are:
1. conjunction
2. compound sentence
3. complex sentence
Below are some excerpts from the website we will use today:
The 'magnificent seven' conjunctions (the most commonly used) are:

and, although, as, because, but, if, or

When you make a compound sentence, you are joining two or more simple sentences together with a conjunction. If you took the conjunction away, the sentences would be complete and they would still make sense.
e.g. 'I hate curry, but I like Thai food.'= 'I hate curry' + but + 'I like Thai food'

Complex sentences don't just divide into neat, complete, simple sentences if you take out the conjunctions. In complex sentences the conjunction is used to join together clauses. A clause is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb. Some of these clauses might be complete short sentences, but in a complex sentence at least one of them will depend on the conjunction for its meaning.
In other words, if you take the conjunction away, the sentence won't divide into complete units that make sense by themselves.

e.g. 'The dinner was burned because she had forgotten it.'
= 'The dinner was burned' + 'because' + 'she had forgotten it.'
We will visit the lesson Putting Sentences Together at the BBC Skillswise site.

If you have some free time, please try Alpha Attack!