Reading the Classics

There are hundreds of lists concerning "100 novels everyone should read" such as this one from the Telegraph or this one from goodreads. Fact is, hardly anyone will ever read all the books on such lists. They are classics, after all, and only hearing that word awakes the image of a bulky book with a dusty cover, written in a language that sounds more than strange to the modern reader. Such books can't be read as a bedtime story or while waiting for the bus. Reading them may take a lot of effort, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.

I have recently read "The Great Gatsby", a book you will certainly find on almost every list of "novels everyone should read". I became interested in reading it because a movie, based on the book, had just been published (what a strange logic, you might think, but I'm actually one of the few people that would rather read the book than watch the movie).

The Great Gatsby is written by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It takes place in the fictional town of West Egg, Long Island (a prosperous neighbourhood) in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, the novel's narrator, takes a job in New York and rents a small house on Long Island. His neighbour is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who organises many extravagant parties.

Nick has a cousin, Daisy Buchanan, whom he visits often. She lives on the other side of the Bay with her husband Tom.

Eventually, Nick receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties where he meets Jay Gatsby himself. Nick later learns that Gatsby knows Daisy because they have had an affair and that he is still in love with her. Gatsby's wild parties are only meant to catch Daisy's attention and impress her, should she really show up at Gatsby's house. Nick decides to arrange a meeting between the two. Daisy finds out that she still likes Gatsby and they begin an affair. However, Daisy's husband Tom grows increasingly suspicious of her and Gatsby's relationship...

I'm not going to tell you the ending, you can find it out yourself. It is unexpected, but not a happy one...

My copy of the book was published by Wordsworth. This publishing house offers cheap editions of many novels, "designed to appeal to the general reader and students", as the introduction of my copy claims. Since with such novels it is often essential to understand the historical background rather than all the words, I found it very helpful that there were many notes that helped the understanding. There was also an introduction, but it is probably wiser to read the novel first, as it is more of an interpretation than an introduction.

If you want to read a classic of American Literature that is neither too long or too difficult, I can definitely recommend reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". Or the lazy among you might just watch the movie :-)

Describing myself as a language learner

Our first written homework for the English course was a letter describing ourselves as language learners - our motivation to choose English, our strenghts and weaknesses and so on. We got back the correction of this first piece of homework today. You could tell from all the shocked and desperate faces that the marks weren't too great. In order to learn from our mistakes, we have to rewrite our letters as a homework. The following (everything written in italics) is my "improved" version:

Dear Fiona,

I decided to study English at the Department of Translation because, even though languages like Russian and Chinese are catching up, English is still the basis for most intercultural communication. Besides, apart from German, it is the language I have known longest.

My grandmother used to teach me English every other day when I was only in kindergarten. Eventually, my knowledge surpassed hers, but I was eager to continue learning - once I even bugged my aunt until she let me read the letters she had received from her American pen pal! I think this natural curiosity, in connection with a certain amount of stubbornness, is one of my biggest strengths when it comes to language learning. Due to these qualities I will always keep working on a task until I am fully happy with the result. I am also rather good at self-motivation so I am unlikely to procrastinate when it comes to doing my work.

Unfortunately, I am a bit of a perfectionist. I therefore tend to take criticism very personally, which is definitely one of my weaknesses when it comes to learning in general. An aspect of language learning which I am not yet content with is my lack of knowledge about grammar rules. Maybe as a result of having learnt English at such an early age, when grammar rules did not matter much, I rely on my intuition too often. I am already working on these grammar issues, though, by doing a great deal of online exercises that come with explanations at the end.

Best regards,

Sarah Maria Edelsbrunner

First of all, I am happy that I didn't make any obvious spelling mistakes. These are often easy to prevent by reading the printout carefully, but sometimes we are too lazy to do so. 

• One of my biggest problems was cohesion. Sometimes there was no connection between one sentence and the next and other times it was not clear what my "its" and "thats" were referring to. I know now that I should read more on cohesion and theme/rheme and I will be careful to connect my sentences properly in the writing part of the first Progress Check.
  
  
• I should also try not to use words that are too informal and use synoyms for words such as "a lot".
  
  
• Sometimes I used sentence structures and words that sounded "too German", especially when I tried to express the meaning of the German word "schon".

Naturally, one could find even more things to criticize but I think it will be more effective to pick out these three main causes of mistakes and make sure to avoid them in the future.

Dictionary review transcription

Last week, we did reviews on monolingual online dictionaries in our English class. What was special about this task was that we worked in groups and had to record ourselves with our smartphones. Everyone talked freely, without much thought (and personally, I liked it because it was different from usual tasks) - but we should have guessed there is a hitch somewhere. :-)

Most of us don't like to hear recordings of ourselves (I wonder why that is, some smart person should investigate it...) but for this task we had to listen to our own recording and write out the transcript of what we said. Here is mine (I assume it's okay to leave out the uhs and ahs that are only natural in spoken language):

The Macmillan dictionary has also some other very cool features, for example there is "Word of the Day", which is today, for example, "planetary"...it's rather useless, but it's there. Then we also have a BuzzWord (where is it..here). It changes every week and it seems to be a rather new or unusual word..and if you click on the BuzzWord you can read a whole article relating to this word. This week's word, for example, is duffin, which is apparently a mixture of a muffin and a doughnut..nice to know...and then there is also the Open Dictionary where you can add your own words, so most of the words there are rather informal.

When listening to the voice recording, I instantly noticed that I had used the word "also" in the wrong place in the first sentence. It should be "The MacMillan dictionary also has [...]" I suppose also overused the phrase "for example", for I said that three times in such a short talk...in my defence, we did have a lot of examples to show, but I could have expressed it differently. I also have the feeling that I didn't say quite as much as other people, although I might only get this impression because our video is longer than many others.

You see, I can be very self-critical, but of course I found positive aspects too. For instance, I was surprised (in a positive way) that my accent did not sound quite as American as I feared it would. :-) I am also happy with the fact that I managed to speak in relatively full and coherent sentences even though I was searching for information on the website while the voice recording was done.

My new favourite outdoor game

If you ever happen to see me at the Stadtpark, throwing a wooden pin, trying to hit targets (and possibly swearing), don't worry - I'm not reviving ancient hunting techniques, but simply playing Mölkky.

'Mölkky, what a strange name is that?' you might wonder. It is a game of Finnish origin and unfortunately almost only known there - but now I'm here to change that. :-)

The game consist of a wooden pin ("mölkky") used for throwing and 12 other pins with the numbers 1-12 on them (you can see them on the picture).

The pins are initially placed in a group (in a special order, but don't ask why) 3–4 metres away from the throwing place. 

The rules are simple. In turns, each player throws the mölkky and tries to knock over some of the wooden pins. If one pin falls, the player receives the amount of points marked on the pin. If more than one pin falls, the player will receive the number of pins knocked over as points (e.g. if you knock over the pins with the numbers one, two and five you will get three points, not eight.)

After each throw the pins are put up again in the exact place where they landed, not in the initial position. At first, that won't make much difference, but after a while single pins can be as far away as ten metres!

The first one to reach 50 points wins the game. Scoring more than 50 points, however (e.g. you already have 48 points and then knock over the pin with the "3" on it), will result in a "penalty". That means your score drops to 25 points.

Got it?

Let the game(s) begin! :-)

Getting to know fellow students

Brown hairs, big brown eyes, cute smile - may I introduce: Vanja, 19, from Bosnia.

yep, that's Bosnia :-)

Having come to Graz only three weeks ago, she bravely put up with all the paperwork in order to be able to study here. 

Vanja lives in a student home called Kolpinghaus, where she shares an apartment with another girl. She says, though, that she is also used to living alone, given that she is an only child. 

For some years, a couple of turtles had been keeping her company, but she eventually gave them to a zoo because they were too boring.