The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I’ve just finished reading “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams and the book is totally amazing and hilarious! I won’t annoy you with a summary of the story, but I’ve collected my favourite quotes of the book and here are some of them:

“Would it save you a lot of time if I just gave up and went mad now?”

“If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.”

“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.”

“Don’t panic.”

My favourite scene in the book is definitely the one when a computer called Deep Thought is asked the ultimate answer to “the life, the universe and everything”. The computer tells the people that it would take him 7.5 million years to find the solution. When these years finally passed the Day of the Answer is celebrated. Deep Thought is asked once again for the answer and the computer says “Forty-two!”. What an unsatisfactory reply... I was a little bit, let’s say upset. However, what Adams has written then is really thought-provoking – and does justice to Deep Thought’s name: The computer says that the problem with human beings is that they require answers for question they don’t know/define exactly.

Douglas Adams was asked many times why he chose the number 42 and this is his answer:

“The answer to this is very simple. It was a joke. It had to be a number, an ordinary, smallish number, and I chose that one. Binary representations, base thirteen, Tibetan monks are all complete nonsense. I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought '42 will do'. I typed it out. End of story.“

The author died on May 11^th, 2001 and ever since then the Towel Day takes place on May 25^th. On this day, Adams’ fans carry a towel with them. The reason for this is that Douglas Adams writes in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy that a towel is “the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have”. This day is celebrated especially in Innsbruck, the city where Adams got his inspiration from to write his bestseller.

Pecha Kucha reflection

Lisa and I have decided to give a presentation on the trilingual education system in Luxembourg. Frank and Hendrik suggested contacting Selma, a student from Luxembourg who is studying at the Department of Theoretical and Applied Translation Studies. We wrote her a mail and she was immediately ready to help us with our presentation. Selma turned out to be a very helpful person who gave us useful advice on our presentation.

The most strenuous part was definitely preparing and recording the transcript. Unfortunately, Lisa and I hadn’t seen us during the weekend before the deadline and so we had to spend a looong evening at the ITAT splitting up our text into a dialogue. Therefore, it wasn’t surprising that we talked in a monotonous tone – but we weren’t bored, just very tired.

I have to admit that I wasn’t keen on giving our presentation in the form of Pecha Kucha. I was horrified by the fact that a slide will be shown for 20 seconds and then the next slide will appear. This required a lot preparation and I felt impelled to learn my text by heart. However, in the end everything went fine and PK turned out to be not as bad as I imagined it. I don’t want to say that I enjoyed giving the presentation, but the meticulous planning of every detail was worth it and we received a very positive feedback:

“Interesting and well-structured”

"The time management was great, it was loud enough and good to understand

I liked the language examples :)"

Pronunciation diary 2

This blog post is going to be dedicated to the individual feedback I received for the diagnostic exercise. I would like to improve the pronunciation of the final -s. There are three different ways of pronouncing it:

1.     The /ɪz/ sound
If the last consonant sound of the word is pronounced hissing or bussing (c, s, x, ch, …), the final S is pronounced as /iz/ such as in races or busses. This sound is pronounced like an extra syllable. (e.g. the word buses has two syllables)

2.     The /s/ sound

The final S is pronounced as /s/ if the last consonant of the word is voiceless (p, t, k, …).. Examples are the words cups, cooks or books. This S is similar to the sound a snake makes… sssssss

            3.     The /z/ sound (the one I've most difficulties with)

If the last letter of the words ends in a voiced consonant (b, d, g, l, m, r, v, …) then the S is pronounced like a Z. This Z sound is similar to the sound a bee makes.. zzzz. Examples are shoes, kings, bags.

The man in THIS video seems to really know what he’s talking about! Although I still have problems with the zzzz, I now clearly understand the differences between the three final S sounds.

Studying Porter words for PC2

It’s that time again: studying vocabulary for our progress check! As I consider studying with sheets in my hands as much, much easier, I had already decided for PC1 to copy all Porter words in a document and print them out. This time, Lisa and I decided to split up the work. We thought it would be the best way to create a Google-spreadsheet. After three days working intensively on our vocabulary list, we finally could start studying.

 

As we are going to be tested orally on the porter words, Lisa and I have met two times in order to examine each other’s. Most vocabulary words are learned from context; therefore, we have paid special attention to our ability to use all words in sentences. With a cup of tea, popcorn and a good friend sitting in front of you, mastering the Porter vocabulary seems to be a doable challenge!

If I have any problems in memorising a word, I try to make up as associations and connections with a memory trick: I try to use the word in a hilarious sentence. When I was learning the word “venison” I simply couldn’t remember its meaning. So I formed the sentence “Venison for dinner again? Oh deer!” – and I haven’t forgotten the sentence until now ;-).