Letter Writing Guide

Monthly Archives: March 2012

Trace the Hand of God in Your Life As You Write and Speak – Let Me Share a Personal Journey

Can one really see and trace the Hand of God in one’s life as you write and contemplate and speak and teach? Let me take you back over these past ten months or so.

I have been invited to give a teaching series as I write this article I am about to start the eighth year of this class. It all began with the thought that there would be ten talks on Luke and that would be it all over, but those attending wanted it to continue.

Today I am going to be speaking from the Psalms and often I am asked as to how I arrived at a particular topic. When people ask you to speak and teach and they do not give you the subject often the hardest part can be choosing that area on which you are going to focus.

How did I arrive at this specific Psalm?

God planted a word in me away back in January at a Conference I attended with two hundred and thirty colleagues. We have been meeting three times a year for quite some time now. I was invited to be part of this group away back in the early 1970′s when only twenty or thirty of us were attending and it has slowly grown.

I noted this word, or thought, which I sensed coming into my mind these eight months ago. I noted it down. When a thought comes into your mind write it down, immediately. Thoughts can have a tendency to fly away.

Then in July and August I was studying the Psalms and in my reading of the Psalms received amazing insights regarding human behaviour and how God channels our life and chisels us for His glory.

A whole theme developed and can be read in other articles on this Web Site which were submitted and published around two months ago.

But, how did I get to the Crieff Conference, because although I receive the invitations regularly I am not always free to attend. In fact, I had not been for a number of years.

When I returned from three weeks teaching in Kenya, speaking at Pastors and Leaders Seminars in Nairobi, Kisumu and Bungoma, I opened the envelope containing the invite to Crieff in January. The topics were most attractive and when I showed the invitation to my wife her response was that I should make up my mind and book now.

Prayer and commonsense properly balanced sees you move from one writing theme to the next and one speaking engagement to the next.

For me, I see the Hand of God in all of this, because I have asked Him, to guide and lead my every step, and those of you who read my articles will know that I have walked with God for over fifty years and it has been an exciting and thrilling adventure.

How to Read and Speak Japanese (Part A) – 3 Key Concepts for Beginners

Japanese is spoken by 125 million people worldwide, making it the 9th most-spoken language in the world in terms of native speaker population. It is also associated with one of the most powerful national economies in the world.

The decision to study Japanese should not be taken lightly as it can be very challenging. However, given its complexity relative to most other languages, learning and mastering Japanese can be a very rewarding experience.

I have personally been a student of the Japanese language since 1989, having passed the first level (most difficult) of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test in 1995. Since then, I have taught, listened, written, read, spoken and worked with the Japanese language in various business and social settings for a combined total of thousands of hours. Along the way, I have learned a number of lessons concerning how study Japanese more efficiently that I would enjoy sharing with you.

Here are 3 key concepts for learning how to read and speak Japanese:

#1: Work the various language centers of your brain daily: Cognitive neuroscientists tell us that the use of language requires the cooperation of multiple parts of our brains. For me, this theoretical finding plays out in my life whenever I polish my Japanese skills. I have found that to improve my speaking ability, for example, reading books is only indirectly helpful. To really improve my speaking ability, I need to – you guessed it – speak regularly. It is helpful to look at your learning process in terms of four distinct but interrelated dimensions: speaking, listening, reading and writing. I suggest creating a chart and logging the number of hours you are practicing each of these areas each week. That way, you will easily be able to recognize if you have been neglecting one or more of them. Hint: if you have no study partners, practicing speaking by reading dialogue aloud.

#2: Connect theory to the living language: For the first four years of my exposure to the Japanese language, I studied only theory of Japanese but got no real practice with native speakers. However, a year or two later I was stepping off of the airplane for the first time in Japan and suddenly the whole world transformed itself into one giant textbook (I know, what a nerd, right?). Suddenly, the theoretical understanding I already had gained a new dimension of significance, and at that moment I ceased to see Japanese as merely a concept but rather as a real, living language. It was an epiphany which really helped speed up my learning. Tip: do something every day to reinforce the connection in your brain between what you are learning and how people actually use Japanese every day, such as watching free videos on YouTube, renting movies, making a friend who is a native speaker, and reading manga.

#3: Get into kana as soon as possible: Most beginner-level textbooks use a lot of romajii, or Romanized spellings of Japanese words. I suggest learning the 50 basic hiragana symbols (and soon after, 50 katakana symbols) and thereby jump right into studying kana-only materials. This will help you get over any feels of intimidation you have about the writing system and before you know it you will be learning and mastering kanji.

(You can find more key concepts in Part B of this article).

The complexity of Japanese means that there is always a new level of understanding and mastery to be reached. This fact makes the learning of Japanese a very worthwhile pursuit that can provide you with a lifetime of enjoyment.

Learn and Speak French – You Can Start Learning Today

There are many people who would love to speak French and there are countless methods you can use to learn to speak this beautiful language. It is one of the romance languages which explain why the interest to learn and speak French is so popular, but it is also one of the principle languages of business and international politics. It is spoken in many countries around the world and especially countries throughout Europe.

For those who wish to learn and speak French can do so more efficiently if they have already taken up Italian or Spanish since there is a huge similarity when it comes to languages that are descended from Latin; particularly in grammar and the words used.

There are numerous ways available to you when you want to learn a foreign language. Due to these numerous avenues, one does not have to limit one’s self in simply taking French lessons in institutions; although if this is their first choice, one must do their research and ensure that they go to a reputable French school.

Since there are several institutions and universities that offer French programs, one needs to know which place would best suit them while taking into consideration things such as the time and dates to make sure that it works well with the person’s schedule. One must also be aware of their objectives in learning French and to verify the school’s credentials. You should check out the classes and the curriculum to see if the program will be useful to you. It is also recommended to acquire references as well as considering other factors such as methods wherein the person can learn the language at a faster pace while being cost-friendly, convenient, fun and educational.

If you are learning French for when you travel your best course is to learn conversational French – especially with regards to their basic and everyday needs. Basic French grammar will come in handy since there are formal tense and less formal tense in speaking French. Basic French courses covers adjectives, articles, gender, plurals, pronunciation guidelines, verb tenses, verbs and sentence structure.

One of the best and quickest ways to learn and speak French would be to immerse one’s self in a completely foreign language and culture. You can join a language exchange program when you participate in this organization you are required to learn the language so you can communicate with the other members. This is also a good way to learn conversational French since the person will discover and apply French slangs and sayings which is often not taught in conventional French courses.

If an individual is planning to live in France or in any country that considers French as an official language; or you could live in a country that has a very large French speaking population, you should keep in mind that you not only want to learn to speak the language you really should learn to read and write the language. This is also useful if one does business transactions with French companies.

A more fun approach to learn and speak French would be to engage in an online French audio and video lesson. This is ideal for those who cannot commit to a specific schedule such as attending French classes. Another good thing about this is that one does not even have to spend a dime in doing this because the internet has countless resources that are made accessible when one goes online.

Some tips in finding useful sites would be to choose those that have translational services especially in grammar, vocabulary and important phrases. One should also prioritize sites that conduct tests and exercises to note one’s progress and their fluency in the language. For more advance learning, one can opt to choose sites that offer intermediate vocabulary lessons which include interactive videos and audio clips.

There are so many choices but you should try and learn just one type of learning system. A person can learn French in several ways. They simply need to choose the best method that suits them the most. Bottom line is, as long as the individual learns, enjoys and shows progress, then that is all that really matters.

Writing and Punctuation Checker – Write Better English Today!

Writing and Punctuation Checker is a new technology that enables you to improve your writing. Writing correct English is a skill that shows you are committed to communicate clearly with others. You don’t have to be an expert in order to transform your writing correct and professional. Read more in the following article.

Introduction

Writing and Punctuation Checker instantly analyzes text as it is being written for any basic grammatical or spelling errors, and then it automatically corrects these errors. Analyzing text for correct grammar is a great challenge for software developers; it requires a massive database as well as smart analyzing algorithms. If we research these NLP (natural language processing) programs we will notice that most of them provide the following: suggesting corrections for common grammar and punctuation problems, spell checking, and text enrichment.

Main benefits

NLP technology undoubtedly transforms English writing easier and more efficient:

* Assisting ESL learners assimilating English grammar rules.

* Improving and enriching our speech, enabling us to speak correct and better English.

* Analyzing our sentence structure for correct punctuation, thus transforming our writing more comprehensible.

If we examine it closer we would probably find additional benefits that aren’t mentioned here, as this tool constantly changes, bringing us new improvements and ideas that help us on improving our Writing performance.

Conclusion

Writing and Punctuation Checker helps us on identifying possible writing errors before we deliver our writing assignments. Everyone agrees that it cannot completely eliminate our writing problems; however, it can significantly help us on improving our writing skills. Although it brings many challenges to software developers, we can expect this solution to further develop itself, for a single reason: writing is one of the most important tools that help us expressing ourselves.