Salute Friend

Father’s Day is just around the corner. Here are some gift ideas sure to put a smile on dad’s face.

1. Forget the Tie

Vintage cufflinks, studs, watches and tiepins can be found for a fraction of the price of what you would pay for buying new. They can add finesse to dad’s wardrobe.

2. Vroom Vroom Vroom

Die-cast metal vintage-style cars make great desk toys. A Porsche, a Jaguar or an Aston Martin is sure to make dad’s day memorable. Prices starting at $40.

3. Reader’s Corner

If dad is a collector, whatever his passion - antique toys, paperweights or furniture of any period - there is a book to teach him all he needs to know. Look for compact pocket guides or more complete reference books to kick back by the fire. Prices start at $9.95.

4. Desk Accessories

Give dad’s desk a makeover with the gift of an exquisite writing set. Direct from Italy is the Francesco Rubinato collection of old world writing instruments. This distinctive collection of fine writing instruments and accessories includes desk sets, quill-tipped pens, glass pens, wax seals - all attractively boxed for gift giving.

5. Music Lovers

A gift of a vintage radio or gramophone will delight a fan from the pre-CD era. LP and 78 records can be found at garage sales starting at 25 cents. They can make for charming entertainment at the cottage.

Martin Swinton owns Take-A-Boo Emporium, an antique shop located in Toronto, Canada. He does furniture restoration, caning and rushing repairs, custom reproductions, upholstery, teaches courses on antiques and does appraisals for estates and community events. He can be reached at 416-785-4555 or by visiting http://www.takeaboo.com

Using DSL for your broadband access? Naked DSL (DSL without primary phone service) still not available in your area? Don’t discount VoIP phone service just because you cannot discontinue your existing primary phone service. VoIP can be a huge help
to those with home-based business, satellite employees needing a business line and of course families with teenagers! (just to name a few possible candidates!)

Tired of the high phone bills? For some the high costs are because of one or more of the categories mentioned above. This is ‘exactly’ why you should not discount VoIP for your second or third line. Imagine the looks on your teenagers face when you tell them they can get their own phone complete with their own phone number, voice mail and unlimited local and long distance calling! WOW - problem solved. For satellite employees, mentioning to your boss you can cut your existing phone expense will also put a smile on their face. For the home based-business ANY cost savings certainly helps. Now you can make those long distance calls without worrying about the expense.

If you’re putting off VoIP because you cannot use the service ‘exclusively’ you still just might be able to save money every month. Your home office or employee business line or the line for your child can all be easily converted to VoIP.

There are ’some’ providers offering naked DSL so you should first check with your local telephone company. Ask if they provide this service. If not, you can visit our web site as we’ve recently added a couple providers that offer naked DSL. You can find them in our VoIP section.

If your goal is to eliminate your local telephone company all together and you don’t want to wait for naked DSL to become widely available, then perhaps it’s time to consider switching your residential broadband access to cable. If you’re a cable TV subscriber the monthly fee is usually lower than if you were not. In either case, run your own numbers. Take your existing phone bill and add the cost of cable broadband. What’s the total? Now add up the cost of cable broadband and VoIP. Compare the two numbers. Paying a little more for your cable broadband access just might be offset with the cost savings achievable through VoIP. Run the numbers and decide for yourself. For more information on VoIP technology, visit our site, search the net, do whatever it takes to get the information you need to make a more informed decision.

VoIP is a good choice and a good way to save money.

Provided by the FullService Broadband Provider - http://www.fullservice-broadband-provider.com We provide unbiased and informative information on broadband and communication products and services. Our free service is possible through Try Right Technology, Inc. http://www.trighttech.com

Friends,

Your here for a reason, and I have written this review for a reason. I know one thing is for sure, you are trying to find a way to make money. Or you may want to make more money than you already make. Heck I think we all do considering our economy at the moment evevn Bill Gates wants to make more money or he would retire. Well, I have found some sure sources of accomplishing this whether you are a novice or expert at making money online. Heres another great thing, you can also be poor like I was and only make a minimum wage. Yes you may have heard his name before, but once again “The Rich Jerk”. You can be a novice, poor, or even already experienced. His book covers everything you need to know in order to become a professional webmaster. He also has a wonderful customer support staff who can help you with anything you may not understand if your new to this. It’s fail proof. There is also a few other ways to make money online that I havn’t mentioned. Well thats because there no-brainers and you will see if you decide to check them out. Anywhere from a couple hundred to a thousand a day. Almost like a job except no boss you choose how much money you want to make by choosing how much you want to work. You owe it to yourself to review this life-changing information.

To your success, Terry L.

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Many businesses have long used the services of a conference call company to spread their message to the investment community, where investment professionals could hear many firms in several days. To accomodate those who couldn’t travel, the conference call allowed hundreds of analysts to hear a presentation and ask questions in real time.

But access was usually restricted and often involved long-distance toll charges. Occasionally a friendly broker would loan you his access codes, some of which found their way to the Internet. As a result, conferences could be swamped.
The Internet now provides a much more practical venue for the conference call. With its low cost and ability to accomodate many listeners it is now practical to open a conference call to almost anyone (at least to listen). And an increasing number of firms now do.

For example, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal related how companies do this as an efficient way to control the irresponsible babble on the Internet. People posting idle chatter now attract accurate responces from others who have heard the actual story on a conference call. As a result, the irresponsible postings are controlled.

Companies like the ability to make one public statement, and then be free from goverment limitations on how investment information must be released. And individual investors like it too, as access to this information gets them access to information that once only slowly reached the average investor.
Using the Internet has many advantages besides the instantaneous international release that results. It is possible to save the audio files so that the conference call can be accessed later at a more convenient time. Plus it’s possible to edit out meaningless portions of each conference. Naturally, there are some limitations.

If everyone could ask a question, real brawls could result as the conferences became uncontrolled. So most Internet systems limit who can ask a question. An outstanding advantage for the average investor is to witness directly a firm’s management in action. While the information might be the same, an investor gains confidence in management that presents a virtuoso performane over one that is defensive, hesitant, and obfuscative. The details aside, the speed of responce and other items that don’t get incorporated in an analyst’s report can add a lot to one’s understanding.

Previously, a small investor’s only such access might have been at a company’s annual meeting. Several firms have opened to provide investment-related conference-call services in one form or another over the Internet. Some require membership and user fees, but the trend seems to be toward company funding of the low cost service, and free or very low cost access by the public.

Expect that more and more firms will use the services of a conference call company to dissiminate their information to a wider section of the population including investors and employees. You should encourage firms that you are interested in to do so. This form of communication is yet another form of ultimate corporate democracy.

Cornelius Callan is a veteran of the conference call industry. He managed sales and production at a leading conference call company for many years and just recently decided that the internet would be a good place to share his vast pool of knowledge of the business. If you have a question, he usually has the answer. You can visit his website at:http://www.conference-call-network.info

With the introduction of the new Employment and Race directives from the European Union in 2001 it is now important that companies examine their attitudes and policies on gender, race, disability, sexuality, age and religion. Given this context, we believe that an understanding of the legislation and its effect on company policies is important for all employees.

However, here at Impact Factory we tend to do things differently. So when we think about equality and diversity issues we don’t offer a standard ‘off the peg’ equal opportunities training. If that is what you need we are probably the wrong company for you.

Diversity workshops

Certainly in our diversity workshops we cover legislation and each company’s own internal policies, but our focus is on examining people’s perspectives on difference, diversity, change and the attitudes and feelings that are sometimes difficult for people around equal opportunities programmes.

Our experience is that with this type of work people can attend a fairly mechanistic one-day event covering the legislation and company policy and leave with the feeling that the work was “bolt-on” and irrelevant to them. The organisation feels it has done what is required but little really changes back in the workplace.

If people feel unable to engage with the realities of working within a diverse, multi-cultural organisation the training isn’t doing its job properly.

Bigotry happens, whether it’s around race, gender, disability, sexual orientation, age, religion or nationality.

Whether people want to admit or not, we are all prejudiced. We all make assumptions about others that reinforce our stereotypes; indeed we look for evidence to support our biases. We’re all guilty of the occasional toss-away line that cuts deep; and we all have intolerant behaviours that are so ingrained we don’t even notice we’re doing them.

Not only that, each of us is the focus of someone else’s prejudices and bigotry, is someone else’s stereotype, is the trigger for someone else’s intolerance.

Can you eliminate prejudice? No you can’t.

Can you get people aware of how their prejudices affect others and help them do something about it? Absolutely.

Acknowledging the real dilemmas

For us it is important to acknowledge that people will face real dilemmas around equal opportunities issues. They need to feel equipped to cope with the human side of problems that arise and to feel able to engage with and challenge their own prejudices and stereotypes around difference. They also need to understand just how that prejudice translates into active discrimination.

What happens to people when they are excluded, harassed, bullied, passed over, ignored, isolated - not because of what they do but because of who they are?

People feel demeaned and disempowered. Their motivation falters and their stress levels increase. Most unfortunate of all, their self-esteem and confidence about who they are diminishes.

What happens to companies when any of that happens to their people?

Productivity goes down while stress-related illnesses go up. Formal complaints and tribunals become commonplace, which is an awful waste of people’s emotional energies and time. And they can cost companies a lot of money to boot.

You’ll never stamp out discrimination entirely, but you can make a very effective dent in its power.

The most successful diversity trainings help people to develop reflective thinking, empathy, understanding, raised awareness, sensitivity, an understanding of consequences and a desire to be fair. Skills that will assist them in extending equality of opportunity. Skills that will also help them when they themselves are the victims of discrimination.

Impact Factory’s starting point during the design stage of an equal opportunities programme is always to ask, what has prompted your organization to think about this type of work now? Is it simply the concern about meeting legislative requirements, or do you believe there are real attitudes and practices within the company that need to change?

Additionally we look at a company’s own values on difference and diversity. Again, if they are there simply to meet requirements, then any number of programmes won’t shift things. However, if it’s a company that values its values then the possibility for change is enormous.

This is the real difference between commitment and lip service.

Culture Clashes

When people operate from their prejudices, they create culture clashes. Cross-cultural issues exist everywhere; they exist in every aspect of our lives.

Here’s our take on it: a culture clash of some sort occurs as soon as two people get together, since no two people, even family members, have the same internal world or the same view of the external world. In the broadest sense, you ‘cross’ cultures with every person you come into contact with, whether they are the ’same’ as you nor not.

In a workplace that celebrates differences, people accommodate, sublimate or ignore these different ‘cultures’ because of common ground, shared goals and like interests. When people concentrate on similarities, the differences are less noticeable, or at any rate, less important. Once we get a certain amount of common ground, we can ‘get along’.

Difficulties usually arise when the differences appear to be all there is, or you experience or imagine the differences as stumbling blocks. Indeed, differences appear like rocks at low tide! Obvious ones are language, ethnic or racial background, religious beliefs, gender, age, education.

In the workplace all these may be the cause of culture clashes, and then you add differences in working practises and communication styles between departments, with clients, with other companies and between senior management and other people in the workforce.

When cultures clash, no matter what the cause, things inevitably evolve into a ‘them’ and ‘us’ environment; and then people go around collecting ‘evidence’ to prove that they are right and the other guys are wrong.

There are many avenues to take that will help cultures ‘get along’ better: identifying and concentrating on improved communication, fostering mutual respect, engendering co-operation and shared visions. Then, all kinds of diverse cultures can work side by side to everyone’s benefit.

Feelings and Behaviours

So you can have laws, directives, company policies and company values and you will still have major problems around diversity unless people’s feelings and behaviours are the focus of any equal ops work you do.

We can tell you right now, it can be a mighty uncomfortable process - asking people to dig down deep and talk about their own prejudices on the one hand, and their experiences of being discriminated against on the other.

This is some of what we do:

We start with some of the simpler, or shall we say, subtler forms of exclusion that most everyone will have experienced at some time in their lives: being outside an ‘in’ group, for instance. Indeed a lot of us have had the humiliating experience of standing with a food tray in a cafeteria trying to figure out where to sit and picking up the vibes from some group that say, “Don’t even think about sitting here.”

Then we ask what it feels like being part of an ‘in’ group and what power (often unconscious, but no less potent) that gives people.

Next is a look at the more overt forms of discrimination such as sexual harassment, racist jokes, job rejections, promotion limitations and so on. We find out whether people have colluded and gone along with giving someone else (or even worse, themselves) a hard time. Or whether they stuck their necks out and had them chopped off?

All of that is our departure point. Only then can we help people develop realistic skills to deal more effectively with diverse workplace relationships. We make it personal and relevant.

What we do know is that if you can get this right, the richness of difference definitely makes work a better place to be.

Digital picture frames are the electronic brother of the conventional picture-album. These electric pieces of technology are brilliant gifts and are also perfect when it comes to treating your friends and family relations, so pull your socks up and dive head-first into the electric photo frame excitement.

Why would I need a digital picture frame: If you are anything like me you will snap hundreds of photos of your family and close friends. The old manner in which people displayed these pictures was by purchasing photograph album after photograph album. Nevertheless, with the advancement of digital camera technology, taking pictures became a great deal more cost-effective which means even more images are being captured today than before. An electronic picture frame allows you to store 100s or possibly thousands of photos inside one device that appears more or less the same in appearance as a conventional photo frame.

Which heights and widths are available for digital picture displays: Right now you can buy photo frames ranging from 5 inches all the way up to 13″ in size. Digital photo displays can be bought in a mixture of appearances in order to blend in with any apartment or need. Digital picture frames are moveable and can easily be transferred wherever you may want them. Capturing snapshots of the children and your family has never been simpler.

What qualities should you look out for on a digital photo frame: Basic features that you will certainly need with your digital photo frame would be a massive quantity of memory storage and the addition of external memory capable of interfacing with high capacity storage cards. Basic picture frames are capable of working with SD, SDHC, MMC, MS, XD, CF storage cards plus a USB interface for use with the built in storage and pre-installed memory card. You should also definitely be on the look out for a durable battery and quick charging system. A lot of the latest picture frames contain the facility to play videos and have speakers built in. The quality of the screens are improving and with each and every generation of frames you should buy the highest resolution to be had so your photos always look their best.

Which digital picture display should I go for: Which item and what size digital photo display you purchase depends wholly on what you require to utilise it for. If you are searching for a compact item to put in your rucksack then you might want to look into buying one of the more compact photo frames due to the fact that they typically are more compact and much easier to transport. However, if you happen to be looking for a centrepiece frame for your mantle then you are definitely going to require the largest one that will fit on your mantle. Irrespective of what the decor you have in your home, you will still be able to purchase a photo frame that blends in nicely. Find a substantial number of technology products such as; digital photo frames, TVs, and Apple laptops from leading brands online.

What amount of money can I anticipate to shell out for a digital frame: Price typically varies according to frame size therefore you may come across prices spanning from fifty pounds anywhere up to two-hundred pounds. As is the case with any items if you buy cheap, you may buy twice so skimping on the cost of the frame now might well result in dissatisfaction down the line.

Free has a magical property of attracting even the most well to do in our society. People love to get free stuff. Using free giveaways is the best known strategy for businesses to build prospects and sales.

A free eBook, a free report or a white paper is the perfect promotion strategy for online businesses to attract prospective buyers. Let us see how all you can put this strategy to work for you.

A free eBook or report is an explosive viral marketing tool. Each eBook you give away will be further distributed by people who received it to friends and associates. Over a period of time you will have thousands of eBooks circulating the internet carrying your website links.

When you write and give away a free ebook you or your organization will become known as an expert. This will gain people’s trust and they are more likely to buy your product or service.

You can publish your web site in eBook format. Put the eBook on a disk or CDROM then include it with your direct mail packages. This can increase the number of people that buy your product or service.

Offer your eBook as a free bonus for buying one of your main products or services. People will buy the product or service more often when you offer free bonuses.

Allow people to download your eBook for free for leaving their name and email. You can also ask for referrals of 2 to 5 friends or associates that would be interested in your eBook. This will quickly build your e-mail list.

Create joint venture with products that are complementary to your product and ask them to share part of the cost of creating your free eBook further minimizing your cost. Cross promotions and joint ventures could market you more effectively. Now more people would be giving away the eBook creating a bigger viral reach.

Create a directory or listing at the end of the eBook. List complementary businesses to your products in the directory that will agree to advertise or give away the eBook on their web site to their customers. You can also charge a small amount for the listing thereby creating instant back end revenue.

Allow any one interested to give away your free eBook. This will increase the number of people that will see your ad in the eBook. You could also include a mini catalog of all your product or services that you offer in the eBook.

Make money selling advertising space in your eBook. You could also trade advertising space in your eBook for other forms of advertising.

Keep updating the eBook and adding more information that could add value to your target audience. In the long run this could become a paid ebook which could be sold as a back end product. You can create a smaller version with sample chapters to give away for free.

This one strategy alone could be expanded and applied endlessly in hundreds of creative ways to leverage your business. Go ahead and create your viral eBook/report or white paper right away and put your business on the fast track.

R.G. Srinivasan is a certified trainer and a small business consultant. Check out his Home Business Resources Blog at http://www.home-businessresources.blogspot.com

Note: This article makes special reference to the effect of learning syles in the learning of Spanish but the principles are valid for all language learning.

LEER ES PODER!
Learning Spanish!

How can you best learn Spanish? It depends on your particular approach to learning. Take a look at the following approaches to learning Spanish. But if you already know where you are, you can skip the following reflections and go back to see what is available for your level ( beginning, intermediate, or advanced ) in Spanish, to sort and search for your specific needs, as well as to read reviews and summaries of the books that strike your interest.

DIFFERENT STYLES

Non-Virgins: Those who studied another language should use the skills they acquired with that language. They know what a conjugation is. They know that verbs are different from nouns. Their previous study gives them some mental hooks to help with their Spanish. They should not throw away their advantage by working on Spanish in a completely conversational manner. They should try to get an overview of some commonplaces in the language. They should get an “old fashioned” grammar and lean heavily on the tables to organize their thought. This type of learner should “invent” Spanish on the basis of what they know of the other language. They will remember a little of the structure of the other language. For example, what is the relation between adverbs and adjectives in Spanish? What is the most common way to express what happened yesterday (past tense)? If the other language is a Western language, they should observe the possible similarities. If the other language is non-Western, the very differences can be their starting point to learn the counterparts in Spanish. In short, they should study “the wrong way”. This is not for everyone. The learner should know his or herself.

Brains: These folks will operate much like the Non-Virgins. They will progress better by concentrating on the little points that intrigue them such as the difference in usage between the prepositions “por” and “para” and the verbs “ser” and “estar”. To master one or two of these elements so characteristic of Spanish will help the learn build on their conquests to go on to master other things. This analytical approach will be of great utility to the persons with the cerebral learning style.

Motor Mouths: The persons who are not afraid to try out their Spanish will progress very rapidly. These folks probably have a little genetic edge over the rest of us. However, we all should try to put together the pieces as we learn them. If there is no opportunity to talk with someone else, then we can tape our attempts. There are two parts to this early talking practice: confidence and pronunciation. The most important thing is to gain confidence or to be thick-skinned enough to speak your piece, knowing that the exercise will pay dividends. However, we should not put off working on our pronunciation until it is too late and we have given up on acquiring a valid accent. There are too many people who after living years in a Spanish speaking country are perfect in their grammar but who have a typical or even stereotypical English accent. There is no need for that. Spanish is perfectly regular in its phonetics. Motor mouths should also work on their accent!

People People: Anyone who likes being with people and who has a need to communicate will progress quickly in learning a language. Many outgoing, friendly people learn language in the “motor mouth” mode. However, other people without the gifts of the motor mouths can gain valuable exposure to the language by just following their social instincts. These folks, however, should not overlook the need to speak correctly. Although they are not interested in traditional grammar in the same way the “brains” are, they must work at speaking correctly. We all know people who learned English years ago, but still say things like, “I am interested to go with you”. You don’t want to spend your life in Spanish with a similar easily corrected error. Learn it right as soon as you can. The people people have to stay curious about the language.

Learn-while-doing People: I was told once that the only way to learn French was to sleep with a French woman. The idea behind this is that we learn the expressions and words for the activities we are interested in. People who learn like this try to get their Spanish-speaking friends to accompany them as they cook or fix their car. They find that they learn better when their whole body is involved in learning the new words and phrases. For example, the person who learns the word “serrucho” while sawing a board will remember it better than the person (see the “word collector”) who just learns the vocabulary from a list.

Word Collectors: This person may be great at crossword puzzles (Crucigramas) in Spanish but rarely gets to speak it. If you find yourself learning words and not getting any further, break out of it! We once had a houseguest, a young man from Spain who came to learn English. There were times when our family would be talking Spanish, and he would echo all the Spanish words with their English equivalents. He had a great vocabulary but never got around to talking English. This kind of learner should alway make sure that they make up sentences to practice using the new words they learn. They can combine their ability with vocabulary with the “divide and conquer” tactic. They should not only invent sentences to use the new words; they should run through diferent grammatical constructions as the setting for their vocabulary.

Divide and Conquer People: Every learner of a foreign language has to learn to incorporate the learning style of dividing and conquering into their own style. If they are “brains” they should concentrate on one grammatical turn of phrase, such as conditions contrary to fact, (If my grandfather hadn’t died, he’d be alive today!) until they can handle it.
The people people should repeat in the same conversation the new expression that they just heard. The same goes for all the others. The only way to learn a language is by following the “swiss cheese” method, nibble away at the things you don’t know, and master them until they are all gone.

Lost Latinos: This person should try to remember the nursery rhymes that they might have learned in Spanish. They should run over the names of their cousins and uncles. All of this will loosen up their rusty language skills. They should listen to how others speak “spanglish” and try to figure out the proper way to say things. They should make a game of trying to spot the influence of English in the Spanish they hear at home or in the barrio. This detective work will make them more aware of correcting whatever bad habits they have picked up. However, don’t think that these persons have all the advantages. The person learning from scratch will probably spell Spanish words better than those who know a little Spanish. I’m not sure why.

What works for EVERYONE… There are two activities that will help everyone, no matter what their learning style, move forward rapidly: They are: 1. Passive Listening, and 2. Pattern Response Drills.

1. Passive Listening. Everyone should keep the Spanish radio on as much as possible. Keep the radio or TV on while you doing other things. It has to be the sea of sound that you swim in while you are beginning your study of Spanish. You don’t have to concentrate on it; you are not listening to try to understand. After a while you won’t hear it but it will be affecting you. Little by little you will begin to anticipate the rhythm of the language, even before you understand everything. You will also begin to recognize certain words. You will begin to hear “beyond” the differences in pronunciation of different people and recognize the underlying word. Once you clearly hear a word or phrase, you can look it up and progressively expand your vocabulary.

2. Pattern Response Drills. You have to run through all the permutations of the new expressions that you learn. For example, suppose you just learned to say. “Pedro tiene cuatro aos” rather than translating from the English incorrectly, “Pedro es cuatro”. Now to make this new element of the language stick with you, you should go on substituting different ages and the names of different people. You have to be able to say comfortably, “Mara tiene cuatro aos.” “Juan tiene ocho aos.” “Yo tengo treinta aos.” “Cuntos aos tienes t?” “Nosotros tenemos cuarenta aos.” This type of drill is necessary for all the different learning styles.

Do you want to return to look at beginning ; intermediate , or advanced books? Or you can check out other Books ON Spanish at: http://www.bookslibros.com/spanishbooks.php to help you out.

Or do you want to see our books IN Spanish? You will find books on health, the family, self help, literature, etc. and the possibility to search for any other topic. Check out http://www.bookslibros.com/LibrosEnEspanol.php

Kids Can Learn Spanish! Take a look at: http://www.bookslibros.com/SpanishForNinos.htm

Frank Gerace Ph.D has lived and worked in Latin America on Educational and Communication Projects. He currently teaches English in New York City at La Guardia College/CUNY. He invites learners of Spanish of all levels and styles to visit him at: www.bookslibros.com/spanishbooks.php

Although concealed away from other rooms in the flat, the bedroom is a critical place to spend time relaxing & sleeping. That is why it’s particularly important to invest in quality furniture and accessories to make your bedroom a more relaxing living area.

The most essential item of furniture you can find a bedroom is without doubt the bed. Beds nowadays come in an abundance of different sizes & profiles. To start of, beds can be bought either as a single, double, king-size or even super king-size.

Whilst the size is an essential feature, the precise form of bed you get will also make a big difference in how your bed is specifically utilised. If you are prohibited on available room, then purchase a cabin bed or storage bed as these have convenient storage drawers included.

If you enjoy having your guests over regularly then ensure you buy a guest bed that meets your precise requirements. A guest bed has an added pull-out mattress underneath. You can also select a folding bed for friends, as this bed more often than not is small and lightweight, which offers easy manoeuvring.

If you are limited on available bedroom space for your friends and family, then it is advised to buy a sofa bed. Sofa beds look like sofas and can be easily matched to your homes decor, but also convert into a cosy sleeping option for friends and family.

In order to get the most happiness and stability out of your bed, you will certainly need to select a mattress. There is a wide assortment of mattresses to decide from currently, with one of the most well-liked styles around being a Memory Foam mattress. The gain of a Memory Foam mattress is that it can mould into the position of your body for superior comfort and support. Find a vast selection home products including; bedroom furniture, coffee tables and duvet covers from leading brands online.

When finding your new mattress, always make certain that it is the exact same size as your current bed frame. For example, a single bed will only take a single mattress, whereas a double bed needs a double mattress, it’s that simple.

To finish your bed off, select a duvet cover that matches your existing décor. Not merely do duvet covers come in an extensive choice of patterns & shades, but they can very easily be created using environmentally friendly materials. Best of all, duvets are both lightweight and simply to wash.

Another necessary item of bedroom furniture you should own is a chest of drawers. A chest of drawers stores a lot of your clothes, & can be matched with other bedroom furniture you have.

Yokoso!

Welcome to my Japanese Lessons.

Have you ever watched an old Japanese samurai movie on the late show? Chances are you thought that everyone was always angry at everyone else and spent a lot of time yelling in monotonous staccato tones. I felt the same way. It was all unintelligible blabber, not a real language. Well, guess what? It is actually possible to make some sense out of the nonsensical language that you hear on Japanese movies, etc. With a little understanding of how the language works, you will be on your way to sounding just like those yelling, sword-swinging samurai of yore.

What I would like to do is provide you with a basic understanding of the Japanese language. It is not meant to replace formal study at an institute of higher learning. Not everything can be covered, but I will do my best to provide language tips that will help you develop your Japanese language skills.

I will be working mainly with “conversational” Japanese in nature; something that you can use right away in certain situations. Learning to read and write can take years.

Of course in order to truly become fluent in any foreign language it is always desirable, if at all possible, to immerse oneself in the language and culture (like what I did - threw away a life in biotechnology for a brave new world). Coming to Japan will do wonders for your language ability if you ever have the chance. I understand that this is not feasible for most people, so I will strive to do my best to provide you with current lessons and examples for study.

Pronunciation in Japanese

Maybe you have recently had a phrase translated for you with the corresponding pronunciation written in roman characters. Or how about a tattoo in kanji (Japanese characters)? That is rather popular these days. But how do you pronounce it so it sounds close to natural? Fear not for help is on the way! In this lesson you will learn a bit about the history of the language and how the language sounds. So sit back, take out your notebook and enjoy the first lesson Japanese Lesson series.

Let’s get down to business.

In Japanese there is no clear stress on syllables in words as there is in English. A non-Japanese speaker would pronounce the city of Yokohama as “Yoko-HAA-ma” and the family name Yoshida as “Yo-SHEE-da”. In English, stress tends to be placed on the second last syllable of longer words. Not so in Japanese. All syllables are spoken with equal strength and length. A Japanese speaker would say “Yo-ko-ha-ma” and “Yo-shi-da” without stressing any parts.

Try saying the following words without putting any extra strength or stress on any of the syllables:

1. Yokohama 2. Kawasaki 3. Nagasaki 4. Hiroshima 5. Amerika

6. Osutoraria 7. koohii 8. Nippon 9. beesubooru 10. koppu

Some texts say that there are long and short syllables in the Japanese language. I disagree. In most cases the longer sound of a syllable is due simply to an extra vowel placed after the previous syllable. For example Tokyo is actually pronounced like To-u-kyo-u and Kyoto is Kyo-u-to (note here that the final to in Kyoto sounds shorter than the middle to but it is just because it lacks the additional u which makes the sound appear to be longer. Pronounced carefully, the “long” syllable takes twice as long to pronounce as the “short” syllable.

Practice these sounds:

1. biiru 2. biru 3. konpyuuta 4. konpyuutaa 5. koka koora

6. Toukyou 7. Kyouto 8. suteeki 9. ginkou 10. waapuro

There are five vowels in the Japanese language: A, I, U, E, O. These vowels have one sound apiece. Unlike the English “a” which can have the sounds found in cat, crawl, cape, the Japanese A sounds like the vowel found in the word cup. And as a matter of fact, all of the syllables in Japanese are very short and clipped (Suzuki sounds more like S’z'ki). Remember that whenever you see a vowel in a Japanese word it will always have the following sound:

Vowel: a i u e o
Sound: up heat soup left slope

Most consonants sound as they do in English with a few exceptions worth noting: K, G, S, Z, D, T, P, B do not have the puff of air that is associated with same consonants in English. The N is also a very unusual sound as it can actually take on four different sounds, depending on where it is found in the word.

If it precedes a vowel (as in no) it has the normal N sound found in English. Before t, ts, d, n, ch, j it also posses the normal n sound.

If it is found before p, b, m it takes on an m sound.

If it is found before k and g it sounds like ng as in finger.

If it is found at the end of a word, or before all other sounds, it has a nasal sound, similar to the French n as in pain (bread).

There is one other sound that we need to discuss. It is the most difficult sound for foreigners to pronounce correctly. It is the R sound. This sound is not found in the English language. It is a somewhere between the English L, D, R and is a rather short, chopped sound. In this case the tongue quickly flicks the roof of the mouth just in front of the soft upper pallette. This sound takes a lot of practice to get right and in order to pronounce it correctly you need to hear it to be able to reproduce it.

The following chart shows all the possible combinations of consonants and vowels in the Japanese Language. Note that in almost every case (except for n by itself) all consonants are followed by a vowel. This makes the language very easy to pronounce.

a ka sa ta na ha ma ya ra wa wo n

i ki shi chi ni hi mi - ri - - -

u ku su tsu nu fu mu yu ru - -

e ke se te ne he me - re - - -

o ko so to no ho mo yo ro - - -

There are some other sounds which are not quite as common, but are actually a slight variation of the main sounds.

They are the Secondary Sounds:

ga za da ba pa

gi ji - bi pi

gu zu - bu pu

ge ze de be pe

go zo do bo po

There are situations where two consonants are together with a vowel.

They produce the following Tertiary Sounds:

kya gya sha ja cha nya hya pya bya mya rya

kyu gyu shu ju chu nyu hyu pyu byu myu ryu

kyo gyo sho jo cho nyo hyo pyo byo myo ryo

Now that you are armed with the correct sounds for the language, why don’t you pull out your Japanese Name or Phrase and give the pronunciation a try? with a bit of practice you should be able to get the sounds just right.

One last thing to mention that I found really helps with getting the pronunciation right. Almost all of the sounds can be said without the use of the lips. Think of yourself as a ventriloquist, speaking from a puppet. Don’t move your lips, and keep them relaxed. It should help. And practice.

Here are a few simple sentences that you can use for pronunciation practice and begin to memorize for your future use:

Practice Sentences:

1. Watashi no namae wa Ken desu. (My name is Ken.)

2. Kono biiru wa ikura desu ka? (How much is this beer?)

3. Toire wa doko desuka? (Where is the toilet?)

4. Mata ne! (See you later!)

5. Ohisashiburi desu ne. (Long time no see.)

6. Ohayou gozaimasu. (Good morning.)

7. Konnichi wa. (Hello.)

8. Konban wa. (Good evening.)

9. Oyasumi nasai. (Good night.)

10. Koko wa doko desu ka? (Where am I now?)

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The Culture Pocket: A Brief History of the Japanese Written Language

Most scholars believe that prior to the introduction of Kanji from China, there was no formal written language. No one is certain when the script first came to the islands but some believe that it could have been around the first century AD. In the early third century, artifacts have been recovered that depict some form of writing.

Kanji was first used as a system of writing sometime in the late 5th century or early 6th century. It is difficult to set an exact date because of the writings being based on the Chinese calendar which is difficult to interpret. More than likely, Chinese or Koreans who came to the islands to live began using the characters.

In the beginning kanji was more than likely used to represent sounds (phonetics) for loan words from other cultures. Also, the introduction of Buddhism into China and eventually Japan prompted translations of the scripts using the script. Buddhism probably had the greatest influence on the development of the language due to the huge influx of people from the mainland to build temples, translate documents, make statues, tiles, copy sutras, etc.

Around the seventh century it seems that the Japanese people began mastering the language themselves and started to do some work of their own. The language began to make some changes as it took on more than just a phonetic reproduction of foreign words (KUN reading). Eventually it began to be used to represent ideas and concepts.

Chinese and Japanese are completely different. In terms of structure, Chinese is actually closer to English than it is to Japanese. And yet, the Japanese, in their amazing ability to adapt things to their own ideas, were able to take the Chinese and add marks so that it would conform to the Japanese word order. Then the kanji began to take on a second reading, known as the ON reading, as mentioned above. It may be that the Korean language had influenced the development of the Japanese language as both have similar word orders and also use honorific auxiliaries.

In the Nara period (710-784) there was an explosion of Japanese literature. It seems that much of the oral tradition of passing on history was translated into script for the future generations. The language began to become more and more complex.

Hiragana began to be developed around the Nara period as well. It has its roots in the simplification of a cursive-style of writing kanji. This cursive style was mainly used privately among individuals to make notes, letters and other personal documents. For about 1400 years the hiragana had a very large set of letters. In 1900 it was standardized in brushwritten and woodblock-printed forms, mainly for artistic purposes. Because of this, hiragana tends to have a roundish, flowing style and shape.

Officials and scholars continued to use classical Chinese for their work for many hundred years. As the language developed, it became necessary to add notes next to the text to aid in the reading of the texts. This began in the Heian period (794-1192). Because space was limited, scholars began using a shorthand version of the kanji used for pronunciation. This was the beginning of Katakana. In the beginning it was not entirely different from hiragana but over time developed a more square appearance, more scholarly. Eventually the katakana script evolved such that it began to be used solely for writing foreign loan words, or concepts that did not exist in the native Japanese language.

Reference: Japanese Correspondence Course for JET Participants, 1993

- Cameron Switzer, Fukui, Japan

Cameron Switzer has lived and worked in Japan for over 15 years. He is fluent in the language, the culture and business.

To visit his personal site, please go to http://www.japanippon.com/ where you can learn a lot about life in Japan and have a great time while doing it!

If you would like to continue studying the Free! Japanese Lessons, please visit:
http://www.japanippon.com/japanese/classroom.htm/ today.

For assistance regarding business related to Japan, please visit Cameron’s business site, Intrmarket Solutions, at:
http://www.intrmarketsolutions.com/ today.