Is it okay to say “I skate on underground.” and “I skate on ice rink.”?

Corrigiez-moi, s'il vous plait! Aujourd'hui, je suis allée à la banque d'appliquer une compte bancaire internet pour ma mère. C'était simple, l'équipe m'a donné une envelope avec un pin en dedans! Quand j'ai revenu à la maison et j'ai essayé de l'aider ma mère d'activer sa compte. Ça ne marchait pas. Il faut que ma mère et je retournions à la banque de comprendre ce qui n'a pas fonctionné.

Tutoring Tutoring is very common here, which is a part of the culture here in Hong Kong, especially in Asian countries. I heard about in Western countries, only the students who are falling behind in class or wealthy in their families, so they need to take extra classes after school. In general, in Hong Kong, about 80 % of students take tutorial classes after school. For most primary school children, most of them study there because their parents are forcing them to go there, worrying about their studies. They are afraid of their kids losing at the starting line. It is quite miserable to see that tiger parents organise too many extra-curricular activities, around 7 per week, and they don’t realise that their children are overwhelmed. Not only they need to cope with the school work at school, but also the homework assigned by tutorial centres. In Hong Kong parents’ mindsets, if teachers do not assign any work to their children, this means that students are not learning anything. Regarding the secondary school students, at this stage, parents can’t force them to take extra lessons anymore. Still, there are couple of reasons why they take these lessons; first, follow the crowd; second, prepare for the public exam; third, strive for knowledge. Students see their friends taking classes after school, that put them at a disadvantage. They might be afraid that school teachers haven’t taught knowledge, skills and strategies which they are supposed to know. As a result, because of the fear, they choose to go there, accompanying with their friends. Entering into university in Hong Kong is most of the teenagers’ dream. They tend to believe that knowledge can change your fate; if you entered university, you would be guaranteed to have a good future in your life. However, we only have approximately 7 universities here in Hong Kong and the competition is getting fiercer and fiercer each year. Students do not trust their own abilities and believe that they need extra help from those centres. For those for want to excel themselves, they want to know more, believing it would better for them to have a tutor to guide them, giving them feedback about their progress. This group is the minority, but it still exists. (Can you please the comment section below as well?Thanks!)

(Please help me to correct it!) I planned to have a driving written test at the end of this month. However, the government just announced that it would be cancelled due to severity of coronavirus disease. It is quite troublesome to plan something out. However, the government haven’t cancelled driving lessons yet, so If I had finished the written exam, I could have taken driving lessons in Hong Kong. The system is here requires we have to pass the written exam first, then we can proceed to learn how to drive. How about in your home country? What’s the driving system like? Currently, I’m stuck at the written driving test, and I’m not sure when I will take it and I need to wait for the announcement from the government. This year, I had planned to travel to France and the UK in April; however, because of the outbreak of the virus, I had to postpone the travel. And, I have no ideas when I will go traveling again. There are lots of uncertainties at the moment. Not just for me, for many people as well. The unemployment rate has risen to 6.2 percent. A few weeks ago, I found a job, which was supposed to start from 31 July. However, due to the seriousness of the coronavirus, my supervisor contacted me via Whatsapp that the commencement date had been postponed, which I had anticipated it would happen. Currently, stricter measures have been implemented, for example, a ban on dining in restaurants and bars, the size of public gathering will be limited to two people and it is mandatory to wear a mask outdoors, in order to reduce the transmission of the Coronavirus. What are these measures in your country? Are they similar? A great amount of employees stop working at the moment due to CoVid. When we had holidays once in a while, this would be great. However, if the vacation lasts too long, like this, without being paid, we are worrying about the future and thinking when the virus will be eradicated. The extra-curricular activities at school and tutorial centre have been suspended. From children’s perspective, they might feel care-free and free from worry as they don’t need to go to there to learn anymore. In the long term, it will have detrimental effect on children as well, as they have lost the interaction and communication with other children so as to develop their language and social skills

Random (I wrote it before) Personally, I love Bubble tea a lot. I was walking to the Yuen Long library after finishing my lunch: sushi. I was wondering if there was a bubble tea shop near the library, that would be great. Well, I discovered that there is one, which is just few meters away from the library. I was surprised. There were no reasons I shouldn’t have brought one to wake my myself up. There are a lot of varieties and flavours in the shop, for example, café latte and Taro milk tea. That’s awesome. I was thinking to buy to one in 喜茶, which is a new bubble tea shop located in YOHO mall, just opened recently. I always want to buy one there; however, there is always a lot of people waiting in the queue. If I waited there, it would have taken me more than 1 hour to buy one. Well, I would prefer to use the time to do something else, like learning French, reading books etc. There are lots of franchises of 喜茶 in China. I asked my brother if he wanted a bubble tea, but he told me that it was quite expensive to buy one. The reason that the price is expensive: the boss of 喜茶 need to share the profit earned in the bubble tea shop, so they have to put up the price in order to earn sufficient money. Apart from these, the rent in Hong Kong is phenomenally expensive. Anyway, my brother said “no”. Honestly, it is quite pricy to buy one, which is equal to have a meal in Hong Kong. Around 35 dollars. Maybe I should try to homemade one.  Recently, I have been doing the Lingoda Marathon. Overall, I think the idea of taking lessons for 3 months, which is absolutely a great idea. In addition, I believe after taking 3-month lessons, my language skills, techniques, vocabulary would get improved. I have been taking the lessons for more than a month; undoubtedly, my English and French ability have some improvements. I have one class for an hour each day for the language which I have chosen to learn. In the first month, I was more dedicated, compared to my performance in my second month. At the beginning, I had prepared the notes in advance, before my teacher taught me. After the first month, I’m a bit lazy now...... But, I do think that I can get the most out of courses if I prepare them in advance.