Movie

Guys, what's the most inspiring movie you've ever seen? What's the movie that propelled you to do something you dared not?

Starless It's a pity that I can't see any stars in Taipei City now. I missed these starry nights a few months ago when I was in Madison, Wisconsin... [For Chinese Learners] 很可惜我現在在台北看不到任何一顆星星 很懷念幾個月前我還在美國威斯康辛州(Wisconsin, USA)的麥迪遜(Madison)時，那幾個滿天星斗的夜晚 P.S. The Chinese text is written with traditional characters. Also, it has some slight differences in meaning from the English text. The main idea is the same, though :)

New life will start soon I just received my graduate school admission letter. Finally, the long preparation came to an end! I may relocate to Columbia, Missouri before Christmas. Before that I have to keep working on my English so that I can catch up the lessons soon. It may be quite challenging to compete with American students in their country because of my language deficiency in English. I have only two and a half months before the school starts... I should study intensively just as what I did for the ESL program. These days I have been studying some polyglots' methodologies for acquiring multiple foreign languages. Since I'm a slow reader, I'm not sure if I can finish all these language learning books before I leave for the states. A common thing among all these polyglots is that they all underscore the importance of immersion in a unfamiliar language. Nevertheless, It's a bit difficult for me to use English totally in Taiwan because of the English-averse environment. I guess all I can do now is to stick to my basic English learning materials and talk to some foreign friends online. There's still much to do before I leave: review how to drive (haven't driven a car for 6 years), go to some movies and live concerts, hang out with friends, read as many books as possible, apply for a student visa (really hate to do this), look for housing in Columbia, teach my friend basic English (not sure how to do this either. I'm not good at explaining), and study English EVERY DAY. P.S. Kindle Touch seems a nice gadget for learning languages because of the wealth of language learning resources on Amazon (books, audiobooks). Gotta get one after I settle down in Columbia!

Japanese I would like to learn Japanese as my second foreign language. But since I'm still working on my English, I'm not sure if I'll be mixed up. I have been pretty slow in improving my English these days! I need more sentences to broaden the little language structure of English in my head!! (But how not to forget what I study every day is a problem)

REAL STEEL MUSIC http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQrVAeF6fSU&feature=related The main theme (maybe) from Real Steel is awesome! I haven't listened to such powerful rock music from a movie. I'm gonna buy this soundtrack! (rock)

I dunno how to help my friend In my opinion, the best way to learn a foreign language is blend in the culture and focus on the four skills (reading/listening/speaking/writing) simultaneously. However, my closest friend, George, has been struggling with English grammar. He's a typical case that someone who learns a language backwards; that is, he spends most of his time memorizing prepositions and grammar rules. I know these are important, but learning this way is rather tedious and inefficient. He never practices his listening and speaking, two essential skills which are not evaluated at the college entrance exam in Taiwan. I don't know how to help him. He's going to take the exam next January... I tried to persuade him to take online English classes with a native speaker, but he doubted if it will work because a native speaker will never ask a student to cram for grammar... He thought that online lessons are not going meet his demand. Also, he is almost deaf and mute to English. He may not know how to ask a question properly in English or may not understand the English-speaking teacher very well. BTW, George needs to work. He wants to change his field to medicine so he needs to be enrolled in a medicine school, restarting his career. On the weekday, he has only one or two hours to study. On the weekend, he can dedicate all his time to the textbooks but his time is still quite limited, compared to that of a full-time high school student. What would you recommend George to do?

Please tell me the difference among these words! Hello, I wonder if anyone can help me distinguish the meaning of the following words: 1. continuing/continued/continuous/continual 2. except/except for Thank you in advance!one more comparison: complicated vs complex

Toefl speaking I found TOEFL's speaking section very difficult to me. Some people told me since I passed GMAT, TOEFL should be a piece of cake but I don't think so. In Taiwan, I can hardly find people to practice speaking English with me. I guess the best solution is to find a chance for language exchange so I can talk to native speakers... Our English education in Taiwan does not include listening and speaking. This totally sucks. Many Taiwanese students learn English just to pass exams, to come up with answers of these multiple-choice types of questions. Most teachers never stress the importance of actual language use. I don't like TOEFL speaking section for its time limits. For each question I have to organize my thoughts in only 15-30 seconds and speak my answer for 45-60 seconds. Usually I like to tell a story but both the preparation time and response time are too short. Anyway, TOEFL is still a barrier I have to break. Hope I will get some luck finding a native English speaker here on italki.

Who is Chuck Norris? Who is Chuck Norris? Why do many people like to joke about him? When I see a Youtube video I can usually see comments like these "Chuck Norris pees hearing this song" "Chuck Norris doesn't smell fear. Fear smells Chuck Norris." "Chuck Norris hit the dislike button." "Chuck Norris listens to this song everytime he wakes up" Why do Americans (or British) like to make these jokes about him? Thanks!