what topic do you think is nice for language exchanging?

what topic do you think is nice for language exchanging?

please also talk about the story which you think is funny behind the topic if you like~<img title="Smile" src="http://www.italki.com/Scripts/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif" alt="Smile" border="0" />

Can you have a leisure life? The reason why I don’t make this title begin with ”do you want to…” is that we can’t live as how we expected to be. Besides the Australian, I think most of the European people are having a leisure life. Most of their shops are closed at about 4-5 p.m. EVERYDAY! The small town called “ORVIETO” in Italy I read from a tourism book, not only close their shops at about 5p.m., but also have a lunch break from 1-4p.m.. That is kind of crazy to a Chinese like me once complained about the public transportation – bus stop running after half past seven at night in Zhuhai (I am from the city called ”Guangzhou” which you can take a bus even at 3o’clock in the morning! ). Well, are you start to think about suggesting the buses driver there to sue their boss? Lol The first reason of that is the natural resources in Australia are abundant, so as the historic sites in Italy. The large population in China weaken the advantage our country has in these parts. Just like the most hard-working people in Italy – the thieves (except the designers), having a life that is lack of quality always be the “keep ringing alarm” pushing you to work. The major reason, I think actually is the way people think (their own value of life). Maybe, at the very first beginning, all they want to get is a cup of coffee. But when you are drinking one in Mc café, you start to stare at those ones in Starbucks at the corner of the street. And the day you are able to have one there, the thought of buying “the most important poo” from a cat who may actually wants to eat some fish but keep being feed of cacao beans in Indonesia come to your mind. For sixty-three years (since the PRC was established), the government was leading us to contribute to the nation and making China stronger, so that we can keep away from the war and be respected by the world like the way we were in Tang dynasty (my own opinion). The competition of being success is started again, parents even love to compare children’s grades with neighbours and colleagues like the peacocks compare their tails. :P I am not judging of those things (but the parents one, yes! Haha). In fact, I think I am going to be one of them – to achieve the success in career. But I hope I will still have the “mind” like now, letting myself to see and be moved by the beautiful things in the world. Thanks for reading, have a nice day!

My writing in BEC mock exam The requirement of the writing is : 1.you are in charge of technical resources in your company. You have just received a letter from the Customer Services Manager at JLM Communications, who are installing a new telephone switchboard at your offices. 2.look at part of the letter blow, on which you have already made some handwritten notes. 3.then, using all your handwritten notes, write a letter to JLM's Customer Services Manager. 4.write 120 -140 words 5.you do not need to provide postal address.(the letter is posted blow as a picture) Mr. Lau of JLM's Customer Servies: Hello, I have received your letter and now am trying to clearify the details which needed discussing. Our department has to deliver the technical resources to the Sales Department as well as some clients from Monday 9th. June to the weekend. So sall we delay the date of installing to 16th. June and how many days you need to finish the work? I suggest that we shouldn't change the extension numbers or it will make the system far more complicated for all the staffs. Please do send me a message with the name of the representative I can contact with. we are sorry that we should pay after the work is done in case of easy calculation of extra money if we have to ask for any adjustment. Thank you. Manager Wong. Please give a mark along with the correction. brand 5 (highest) requirement: all the content are included and allowed to add some more details. regular and natural language with least errors. complex sentence structure and rich vocabulary as well as sentences are put in good order. the format must be correct. Thanks for reading and correcting!

Naked Marriage (裸婚)

 

裸婚（naked marriage）n.

What is naked? It means “uncover”. “naked marriage”, a new phrase from the internet since 2008 in China, means to get a marriage certificate without buying house  car  holding a wedding and even buy rings.

This may be a quite normal phenomenon in the west, but in China, people normally agree with that a marriage is containing a loved couple  house  wedding   rings(either use their own money or lend from parents or friends), of course some Chinese married couple live with their parents, most of time live with bridegroom’s parents).

Why those couples want to have naked marriage? The reason is not hard to find that they mostly have not enough economic power to buy those things and they don’t want to rely on their parents.

My opinion to those types of marriage is that the beautiful love couples have is soooo sweet but they may need a lot of bravery to face the never – ended problems. May not everyone can carry it, so if you want to or be going to have naked marriage, just think carefully and seriously before you do so.

About how to use this word: naked marriage is a noun, you can use it after a verb or at the beginning of a sentence (the latter one usually you want to explain the noun).

For example: I will have naked marriage with Bob.

           我将要和Bob 裸婚。

           Naked marriage, a new phrase from the internet since 2008.

           裸婚是一个2008年在网上开始流行的词语。

Thanks for reading, you may leave comments about “naked marriage” or point out the improper points and thanks for that ahead! :)

 

Chinese Versions：

什么是“裸”？意思是“没有遮盖”。裸婚是一个2008年在网上开始流行的词语，意思是不买房子、汽车，不办婚礼甚至连戒指也不买只去办结婚证的婚姻。

这大概在西方国家已经很平常的现象，但在中国，人们还是认为婚姻应该有一对相爱的人、房子、婚礼、戒指（不管是用他们工作赚的钱还是向父母朋友借）。

为什么这些夫妻想进行裸婚？原因不难发现，那是因为他们没有足够的经济实力同时又不想依靠父母的力量去完成。

我对于这类婚姻的观点是：其中夫妻间的美丽的爱情是非常甜美的，但是他们需要足够的勇气去面对婚后没完没了的问题，所以还是慎重为之。

关于怎么使用：这是一个名词，可用于动词之后或者用于句首（但后者句义一般为了解释这个词语）。

谢谢你的阅读，如果你对“裸婚”这个词语有任何自己的看法或者我的解释有任何不恰当的地方，欢迎留言指出，谢谢啦~

To all the group mates!

 

Hello everyone, thank you for joining this group. “Give a lecture to the second language learner” group is a place for learning and sharing useful and funny words which can make your expression outstanding, including slangs, phrase, polysemy, network language and so on. To make this group work the way it supposed to be, we need everyone to join in!

Our aim is: to learn , to share, to have fun!<img title="Laughing" src="http://www.italki.com/Scripts/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-laughing.gif" alt="Laughing" border="0" />

 

My shower experience in Shanxi I am here to tell a special experience (at least to me)I had in Shanxi,if you help me to correct this article,thanks in advance. I have heard about many big differences between Southern and Northern people in China before.Such as, we prefer rice in south while they love noodles ,we speak Mandarin in different accents and even we look quite different in appearance.But now,I found out a new one - shower environment and custom.In the south every families and even every dorms in school(very few don't) have private shower rooms and we shower alone while in the north most of people have to go to the place called"shower centre" and usually good friends help each other to "brush backs"there.However ,it seems quite cruel to me that students (especially girls) have to take a long walk to go back dorm with wet hair and it can be frozen this way in Winter,if they want an icecream at that moment, can just get one from their hair:P . I had my first shower in the "shower centre " experience downstairs of our guesthouse in a school,a straw shows which way the wind blows, this helps me to know how it works in most of places.We paid 10RMB for two people in the front table and got 2 tickets before we enter the shower room to exchange a key (they would give you a wardrobe to keep your belongings, some centres would ask another 10RMB as cash pledge).we had to take off all clothes and just went inside with some bath soaps(I tried my best to act like a local student ,actually I almost scream out). The worst thing I did that day was wearing the slippers from the guesthouse,which gave me a big "surprise" - I felt down on the floor!(so here is the tip:if you don't have Havaianas ,you can make a straw sandals or inlay some rocks under your slipper :P I meant just get a good one and if you're lucky you can borrow from the Centre) And because I was totally in shock(Can't believe I really fell down!!though me and my friend tried to use the crawl stroke posture to prevent this) so took a few seconds to realize I have to stand up.But then I laughed out loud though I hurt my cheeks and knees. It was such an unforgetable funny and special experience and I think I would remember it for a long time!

can you help me to translate this into Chinese ?it will be in my marketing exam..thanks a lot!!!! CASE Study Southwest Airlines: Waging War in Philly BATTLE STATIONS! In March 2004, US Airways CED David Siegel addressed his employees via a Web-cast. ”They’re coming for one reason: They are coming to kill us. They beat us on the West Coast, they beat us in Baltimore, but if they beat us in Philadelphia they are going to kill us.” Siegel exhorted his employees, emphasizing that US Airways had to repel Southwest Airlines when it joined the competition at the Philadelphia International Airport in May—or die. On Sunday, May 9, 2004, at 5:05 A.M. (yes, A.M.), leisure passengers and some thrift-minded business people lined up to secure seats on Southwest’s 7A.M.flight from Philadelphia to Chicago—its inaugural flight from the new market. Other passengers scurried to get in line for a flight to Orlando—and why not? A family of six indicated it bought tickets for $49 each day, or $98 round trip. An equivalent round-trip ticket on US Air would have been $200. Southwest employees, dressed in golf shirts and khaki pants or shorts, had decorated the ticket counters with lavender, red and gold balloons and hustled to assist the throng of passengers. As the crows blew noisemakers and hurled confetti, Herb Kelleher, Southwest’s quirky CEO, shouted, “I hereby declare Philadelphia free from the tyranny of high fares!” At 6:59A.M. , Southwest Flight 741 departed for Chicago. THE WAR IS ON You might wonder what’s causing all this fuss. After all, isn’t US Air firmly entrenched in Philadelphia, the nation’s eight-largest market, offering over 375 flights per day and controlling two-thirds of its 120 gates? Further, little Southwest, which only serves a total of 58 cities and 59 airports in 30 states, is offering only 14 flights a day from Philly and has only four gates. Even more, Southwest has a history of entering smaller, less expensive, more out-of-the-way airports where it didn’t pose a direct threat to the major airlines, like US Air. Does Southwest really have a chance? Thirty-three years ago, when Kelleher and a partner concocted a business plan on a cocktail napkin, most people didn’t give Southwest much chance. It adopted a strategy completely in opposition to the industry’s conventional wisdom. Its planes flew from “point-to-point” rather than using the “hub-and –spoke” pattern the major airlines have used. This gave it more flexibility to move planes around based on demand. Southwest served no meals, only snacks. It did not charge passengers a fee to change same-fare tickets. It had no assigned seats. It had no electronic entertainment , relying on comic flight attendants to entertain passengers .The airlines did not offer a retirement plan; rather, it offered its employees a profit-sharing plan .(In 2003，that plan paid $126 million to the company ‘s 31,000 employees.)Because of all this, Southwest had much lower costs than its competitors and was able to crush the competition with low fares. Southwest has stuck with its strategy. In 2003, the company earned $442 millions –more than all the other U.S. airlines combined. Over the last three years, Southwest earned $1.2 billion, while its competitors were losing a combined $22 billion. In May 2003, for the first time, it boarded more domestic customers than any other airlines.From1972 through 2002, Money magazine indicated that Southwest was the nation’s best-performing stock—growing at a compound annual rate of 26 percent over the period! Moreover, while competing airlines lay off thousands of workers following the September 11 tragedy, Southwest didn’t lay off a single employee and remained profitable every quarter—keeping its string of 31 straight profitable years intact! In 2004, its cost per average seat mile (CASM—the cost of flying one seat one mile) was 8.09 cents, as compares with between 9.42 and 11.18 for the big carriers. LOW ON AMMUNITION There are three problems for the major airlines, such as US Air, Delta, United, American, and Continental. First, “little” Southwest is not little any more. Second, many others, such as JetBlue, AirTran, ATA, and Virgin Atlantic, have adopted Southwest-like strategies. In fact, JetBlue and American West had CASMs of 5.90 and 7.72 cents, respectively. In 1990, discount airlines flew on just 159 of the nation’s top 1,000 routes. In 2004,that number had risen to 754.As a result , the majors, who used to believe they could earn a 30 percent price premium ,were lucky to get a 10 percent premium, if that. Third, and most importantly, the major (or legacy) airlines had high cost structures that were difficult to change. They had more long-service employees who earned higher pay and received expensive pension and health benefits. Many had unions, which worked hard to protect employee pay and benefits. ATTACK AND COUNTERATTACK US Air has experienced Southwest’s attacks before. In the late 1980s, Southwest entered the California market, where US Air had a 58 percent market share on its routes. By the mid -90s, Southwest had forced US Air to abandon those routes. On the Oakland to Burbank route, average one –way fares fell from $104to $42—and traffic tripled. In the early 90s, Southwest entered Baltimore Washington International Airport, where US Air had a significant hub and a 55 percent market share. By 2004, US Air had only 4.9 percent of BWI traffic, with Southwest ranking number one at 47 percent. So, US Air knows it’s in for a fight in Philly. Reluctantly, it has started to make changes .In preparation for Southwest‘s arrival, it began to reshape its image as a high fare, uncooperative carrier. It began to spread out its scheduling to reduce congestion and the resulting delays and to use two seldom-used runways to reduce bottlenecks .The Company also lowered fares to match Southwest and dropped its requirement for a Saturday-night stay over on discounted flights. US Air also began some new promotion tactics. It launched local TV spots on popular shows like “Friends,” American Idol,” and “Frasier” to promote free massages, movie tickets, pizza, and flowers. However, Herb Kelleher knows Philly won’t be a cakewalk .The airport is known for its delay, congestion, bureaucracy, and baggage snafus—factors that work against Southwest‘s strategy of 20-minute turnarounds for its planes. Therefore, southwest has unveiled a new promotion plan for Philly. Kelleher ditched his tired-and-true, cookie cutter approach. The airline held focus groups with local travelers to get their ideas on how it should promote its service – a first for Southwest. As a result, the airline developed a more intense d campaign and assigned 50 percent more employees to the airport than it would in a customary launch .Southwest also recruited volunteers to stand on local street corners handing out free, inflatable airline hats, luggage tags, and antenna toppers. The airlines is using billboards,TV,and radio to trumpet the accessibility of its low fares, pointing out that competitors make many fewer seats actually available at advertised low fares .The ads also note that frequent fliers earn free flights based on the number of Southwest flights ,not based on mileage. Southwest knows that Philadelphia passengers have other low-fare options, such as Frontier, AirTran, and American West. Further; some of the Southwest-wannabes are offering things like JetBlue’s 24 channels of free TV and XM satellite radio at each seat in addition to low fares. Southwest will have to distinguish itself—just advertising low fares will not be enough anymore.

what is your attitude towards your life? Life is an attitude.what is your attitude towards your life?to conrad:that sounds relaxing,thanks for your backup:] to blitzy:your attitude is abstract~ to jura:yes,life is precious,i can't save yesterday but i can velue tody~ to marie:we can achieve our goal and progress step by step:] to riog:you are struggling.^^to sonia:i know this sentence a long time ago.but i read a essay which have this sentence written in it recently.life is abstract .but we can feel it.in my eyes.you can easily tell me what your feeling is .you are sincerely .and you find out the meaning of the word for me you are serious.so maybe your attitude towards your life is serious and kindly to other people.anyway.point out what the attitude is don't make an important sense.we can live a happy life by feelings :)

how to communicate with foreigner?       i am a Chinese,i always communicate with others in Chinese or Cantonese.

      maybe that is why i am poor at my English communication.

      the topic which i can easily make it easy-going is quite boring to talk in English.

      what can i do with such situation?

      can you share your experience or your ways of communicating with me?

      thanks a lot :]