So first, Maxime (aka Fumble)’s Blog :

1. Article : Who I Am

• Mistake : A letter is missing here -> “avaiable soon…” => “available soon…”

And… Well that’s it (there was a lot of things to read, and some people already found the main mistakes)

Next ! Melanie’s Blog :

1. • Article : Welcome
   • Mistake : Well, just an apostrophe that shouldn’t be there -> “I’ll add news article about what I learn’t !” => “I’ll add news article about what I learnt !”
2. • Article: Search String about Artistic director
   • Mistake 1 : “I choose one of theme” => “I choose one of them“
   • Mistake 2 : “[...]the role of a Director Artistic.” => “[...]the role of an Artistic Director.” It’s a frequent mistake in her article :S.
   • Mistake 3 : I think that the correct form of “To do that, I was on Youtube” is “To do that, I went on Youtube”
   • She often use the verb “to see” while I think that it should be “to watch” :S. Example : “See it : [link to youtube video]“. Am I wrong?
   • The sentence “the innovation never has the end” is strange, but I’m almost sure that it should be “innovation never has an end”.
   • Mistake 4 : “You can saw the interview of the Artistic Director of Anaheim Ballet.” => “You can watch the interview of the Artistic Director of Anaheim Ballet.”

That’s all for her !

We continue with Nassim’s Blog :

1. • Article : Artistic director
   • Mistake : “This is a funny video which deals about the Recruitment of the artistic director.” Is that shouldn’t be “This is a funny video which deals with the Recruitment of the artistic director.” ?

Next, we have Nastasia’s Blog :

1. • Article : My first step on a blog
   • Mistake : “i’m am as hopeless in english as in internet stuff!” => “I’m as hopeless in english as in internet stuff!”
2. • Article : Introducing myself
   • Mistake : “you can heard my presentation here: [...]” => “you can hear my presentation here: [...]“

And finally, Nicolas M.’s Blog is perfect, no mistakes (or they are well hidden) !
I hope that I’m not going to have more ennemies :S…

See you later !

Today I went for a haircut. My barber talks a lot. Sometimes he even stops cutting just to talk, which I find mildly annoying. On the other hand I am always entertained for 30 minutes while he cuts my hair. He does a good job and charges me 18 dollars, which is not the cheapest, but not the most expensive, haircut in Vancouver. He told me that he came to Canada as a 16 year old, 20 years ago. He went to hair dressing school and then worked for a chain of hair salons for 5 years, in different locations in the city. He got to know the personalities of different kinds of clients. He found he did not like working in the heavily Chinese district of Richmond because, in his words, the customers would arrive late and expect to be served right away. If they were not served immediately, they assumed that the customer who was being served in their place had paid extra. He did not like the pressure of that situation. He eventually opened his own shop in North Vancouver. He said that he made sure to learn about all the subjects that his clients were interested in, from fly fishing to the stock market. He knew that if customers liked him, they would come back. After 20 years in Canada, dealing daily with English speaking Canadian clients, his English is just terrible. His pronunciation, use of words, structure, you name it, are all quite poor. When he talked about a leading politician and his wife, “he” and “she” were regularly used wrong. I had trouble understanding whom he was talking about. People who are not used to Chinese accents must have trouble understanding him. His English is poor even by the standards of his native Hong Kong.

So what is the conclusion ? He doesn’t represent everyone but just being immersed in the language and talking the language will not necessarily improve your language skills. You need to want to improve, you need to have a deliberate program of improvement. And you need to listen.
On the other hand, my barber has been successful at building up a customer’s base and he did not seem the feel he limited in anyway by his poor English. He was a communicator although a better talker than a listener. I have not suggested to him that he joined the linguist.

First of all, this is Ben Burtt, a Professional Sound Designer, about how he did the lightsaber sounds :

Next, the fourth part of seven videos about the sound design from the film King Kong, in which we can see how they did some sounds like the foot steps, water sounds etc. :

And finally, Tony Palermo, from Sparx Audio Adventures, who makes the audio adventures’ sound effects explains (thanks Lloyd !) how, in a (bit) funny way :

I hope this will be good for tomorrow…

Bye !

Here is my oral presentation I did for my very special english teacher ! Enjoy it !

Matthieu MASSON’s grrrreat oral english presentation !!

Well, it’s not that good… I think I’ll not be the only one to say I hate to hear my voice ^^’ !

See you tuesday !

Matth.