Multilingualism and Identity

Japanese for Beginners - How to Start

Japanese for Beginners - How to Start Do you want to learn how to speak Japanese, but dont know where to start? Below you will find lessons for beginners, writing lessons, information on pronunciation and comprehension, where to find dictionaries and translation services, information for travelers to Japan, and  audio and video lessons. Try not to be overwhelmed. The Japanese language will seem very different at first from your native language, but it is not as hard to learn as many people think. It is quite a logically laid out language and once you learn basic reading skills it will be easy to pronounce any word you can read. Introduction to Japanese Are you new to Japanese? Familiarize yourself with Japanese and start learning basic vocabulary here. Japanese Vowels: Learn the pronunciation and how to write them in hiragana.Japanese Verb Conjugations: See the conjugations for the most common verbs.Japanese Grammar: Learn the characteristics of how sentences are constructed.Japanese Writing Systems: An overview of the three writing systems.Greetings and Everyday Expressions: Useful for tourists.First Meetings and Introductions: These tips will help in both business and social interactions.Simple Japanese Phrases: Learn a variety of simple phrases. Learning Japanese Writing There are three types of scripts in Japanese: kanji, hiragana and katakana. Japanese does not use an alphabet and all three systems are commonly used. Kanji has blocks of meaning and thousands of characters. Hiragana expresses the grammatical relationship between kanji symbols and katakana is used for foreign names. The good news is that hiragana and katakana have only 46 characters each and words are written as they are pronounced. Japanese Writing for Beginners - Introduction to Japanese writing and understanding how kanji, hiragana, and katakana are used.Kanji - 100 Most Frequent Characters: With thousands of different characters, these are the meanings of the top 100. Pronunciation and Comprehension Familiarizing yourself with the sounds and rhythms of the language is a good place to start. Audio and video lessons can help. Hearing someone speak in Japanese and being able to answer appropriately is very rewarding for the beginner. Audio PhrasebookJapanese Language Videos: Use these videos to see how to pronounce sounds from Hiragana and to use different expressions. You may learn better by seeing as well as hearing a person speak in Japanese. Japanese for Travelers If you need quick survival skills for your trip, try these. Japanese for Travelers: Learn phrases relating to getting around by train, taxi, bus, car, air, and walking.How to Order at a Restaurant: Youre going to need to eat, here are phrases that will come in handy. Dictionaries and Translations Choosing the right words for a translation can be difficult. There are many ways to look up Japanese words and to translate from English to Japanese and back again. Top 3 Japanese Dictionaries: If you want a book to have handy either on paper or electronically, these are the best.Top 10 Online Dictionaries: Access these from your mobile device or computer.Learning About Translating: Its not as simple of plopping words into an online form.Online Translations: The best of the bunch.

International Marketing and Branding for Hotels Literature review

International Marketing and Branding for Hotels - Literature review Example From this discussion it is clear that  the Handbook of Hospitality Marketing Management edited by Haemoon Oh and Abraham Pizam also talks of the increasing market share of branded hotels. The share of total room supply by branded hotels in the US increased from 61% in 1990 to over 70% in 2000. The handbook also points out that a majority of business and leisure travellers prefer to stay at branded hotels rather than ‘unflagged’ operations. Hotel guests perceive relatively lower risk in choosing a branded hotel as compared to choosing an independent hotel.As the paper highlights  Prof. Chekitan Dev of the Cornell University writes that the hotel industry has become a complex, fragmented, global and competitive brand business with over 300 international brands operating in the market. The brand structure in the hotel industry varies from owner operators, to managed properties and franchisees. Managed and franchised hotel properties often change brands. Prof. Dev writes that there is an urgent need to fill many gaps in our understanding of brand management in relation to the hotel industry.  The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) reports that in 2013, 41% of their customers travelled for business and 50% travelled for leisure. The profile of the typical business traveller is male (64%), age 35 – 54 (52%), employed in a professional or managerial position (61%), with an average household income of $ 127,000.

Hollywood in the 1970s choose one question to answer from below Essay - 1

Hollywood in the 1970s choose one question to answer from below - Essay Example An era perceived as post-classical Hollywood came into being after retrenchment and recuperation took place (Hillier, 1993). This introduced new stylistic methods aimed at focusing on issues of women and society, marked by industrial restructuring, new cinema presentation modes, as well as aesthetic transformations (Kolker, 1980,2000 ). Hollywood movies exhibited the issues of feminism early in the 1970s informing the public by using movies like Women’s Liberation, Vietnam War as well as Movement of Civil Rights and many others. The 1970s era saw a great increase in movies dealing with feminist related themes, creating awareness and a new level of women roles in the film industry (Kolker, 1980,2000 ). Women taking lead roles in films became prominent, showing how women had recognized their importance and wanted to eliminate the gaps and difference created in society between them and men particularly noted as portrayed in many movies of Hollywood. (Williams, 2006). The movies as well tried to eradicate the traditional notion that females acted on films only purposely to fulfil men’s sexual desires. (Hillier, 1993). This act of portraying females is seen being particularly more pronounced in so many popular movies of Hollywood. (Corrigan, 1991) Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974) both depict the current changing position of women in Hollywood. Bonnie and Clyde puts a strong emphasis on women, in an era dominated by men. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, reflects on Alice playing multiple roles in an attempt to gain independence from male characters as well as accomplish self-realization. Emphasizing the common treatment of women and men were considered products of the new feminism wave launched in Hollywood, (Wood, 1986) making both movies to win awards. Bonnie and Clyde puts a focus on an era when feminist issues like sexuality became more pronounced in

Pricing Decisions Case Study on the Springfield Noreasters Essay

Pricing Decisions Case Study on the Springfield Noreasters - Essay Example The league baseball industry is pretty bleak in the city of Springfield as of 2008. A minor league ice hockey team was about to leave the city because of unimproved revenues over the time. The Nor’easters just opened up in the city and not a single match would be played for another one and a half year by the team. Most of the minor league baseball games in the US are well attended and there are as many as 176 minor league teams in the country. The fans considered the tickets to be affordable as they could closely watch the games. The government was also investing some bucks in the industry which was evident by player development programs and team funding. The marketing director should be delighted to know that the teams which provided value entertainment often had high attendance though the teams were mediocre. This shows that the industry has a great potential for the teams willing to entertain the audience, MarketThe citizens in the Springfield city can be said to be deprive d of the baseball league games as they had to travel to neighboring cities to watch these games. The market is very dilute for the baseball teams as no baseball team for the city exists. The Falcons, a minor league ice hockey team also was planning to leave the city because of low level of sales and numerous unsold tickets.   It was found in the secondary research that only 8% of the total sample Springfield population in 2005 attended a professional baseball game in that year.

Mobile Phones: Impact on Interpersonal Relationships

Mobile Phones: Impact on Interpersonal Relationships According to the International Telecommunication Union, mobile phone users in the world will raise to more than 7 billion at the beginning of 2014. Additionally, the report of ITU in 2013 revealed that over one third people in the world use the web. China, a country with more than 591 million internet users doubtlessly, ranks first on the list of â€Å"Five Countries with the Most Internet Users† with the USA the following second 254 million. Among so large a number of internet users in China, Chinese people always use the web via mobile phones. By the end of December 2013, China had 500 million mobile Internet users [†¦] Among all the Internet users, the proportion of those using mobile phones to access the Internet rose to 81.0% from 74.5%, and the number of mobile Internet users grew steadily (â€Å"Statistical Report on Internet Development in China† 22). Therefore, in China, it is very convenient to contact a person—just call him/her or send a message. Meanwhile, one can easily observe that no matter in restaurants or on the road, there being a group of people who always lower their heads addicted to the mobile phones; one can easily observe that some looking down on screens of the mobile phones ignore the others at a meeting; one can easily observe that lots of people no longer listen to and communicate with others but focus on the mobile phones. Consequently, one must start to consider what the popularization of mobile phone has brought? And think about how does it work to interpersonal relationship? Good or bad? Have people fallen into â€Å"a world where [they] are slaves to the technology [they] mastered† (Gary Turk)? Have fallen into â€Å"a world of self-interested, self-image† (Gary Turk)? After reflection, a conclusion that mobile phone exerts a double-edged influence on interpersonal relationships, impairing our affection while it providing people with a more convenient platform for communication is drawn. Negative Impact on Interpersonal Relationships The wide use of mobile phones reduces the chances of face-to-face communication. Nowadays, with the emergence of various social instruments in them, such as Wechat, Micro blog, Facebook, it is common to see that people hold their mobile phones all day long. Most of the people would like to make contact with others by those instruments, but not through conversation. Psychologists Kaveri Subrahmanyam of California State University and Patricia M. Greenfield of U.C.L.A. wrote in the journal â€Å"The Future of Children† that electronic communications such as texting, social networking and instant messaging might be making teenagers less interested in face-to-face talks, according to their initial research (Arvidson â€Å"The Effects of Cell Phones on Relationships†). Now, people tend to use texts or calls to inform someone. For example, a mother will ask her kids to go to bed by texting them even though she lives in the next door to her kids. Therefore, some psychologist s make a suggestion that people should grasp more chances to communicate with others and pour their feelings into others face to face, because the number of messages they sent is inversely proportional to the feelings of accumulation in a way (Ni 180). In addition, people focusing on mobile phones when getting together will definitely hurt their relationships. When people get together, it ought to be a chance for them to communicate with each other directly and sincerely. However, most people are just keeping their heads down and phubbing is seen here and there. When people have meal with their parents or grandparents but just keep their eyes staring at the screens, the eldership of the family will feel lonely and think the young are impolite. Some couples text each other at home though they sit next to. And a group of friends get together, they are laughing not because the party but because the fun news they are reading on their phones. Warner said, â€Å"Increasing use of cell phones [†¦] was linked to a decrease in family satisfaction and increased stress over a two-year period† (â€Å"Cell Phones Raise Stress†). After a long time, it will do harm for people’s harmony of family and friendships. What’s more, being addicted to the mobile phones makes people lonelier. According to a survey made by the China Youth Daily, â€Å"46.1 percent said that reliance on mobiles was making people’s social circles smaller, and nearly 30 percent said it was making them lonelier† (Custer â€Å"Chinese Survey Shows Worry Over Impacts of Mobile Phone Use†). Most people have many friends on their Social Network Site. They talk every day, share interesting or sad things every day, but they do not know who those people really are and they might never meet them even once during their whole lives. When they turned off all the social instruments, they realized it was difficult for them to find someone to talk to; when people left their phones at home or some other places, they would become anxious and did not know what they should do. Spending too much time on mobile phones or relying on them will make people feel lonelier step by step. Also, communicating by mobile phones does harm for the sense of trust. Because when people communicate by texting or other social instruments, sometimes they do not really mean that. Talking through message is in a negative position, since it lack the face to face sensed presence and the recipient does not know the real surroundings the sender in, which offers chances to lie (Ni 177). For example, when someone send â€Å"hahaha† (It means happy or laugh at receiver), most of the time, he is not happy or laugh actually, maybe he is expressionless or upset. Sending message is loses the sense of reality and people cannot feel the real situation of their communication. Positive impact on interpersonal relationships Though mobile phone exerts a certain negative influence on interpersonal relationships, it also provides great convenience and enhances the flexibility on social interaction. For one thing, as a modern communication tool, the mobile phone breaks the formal time and place limitations , which makes people more accessible to communicate with others and then get further to strengthen the relationship. In the past, before the invention of the modern communication tools, if one person wanted to discuss something important with another person who lived in a far area, it was very inconvenient and that always cost a lot of time. But now, faced with the same situation, people just wave their fingers to press a call button, and then they can talk to others easily. Besides, owing to mobile phone’s convenience, the times for people to contact with their friends, relatives and partners become more frequent. An interviewer says: â€Å"Although I cannot meet my friends for a long time, the r elationship between us becomes closer rather than alienated by using this convenient communication tool to contact with each other occasionally†.(Ni 127)Therefore, the mobile phone is definitely an effective tool for people to maintain their relationships. For another, mobile phone can make the interpersonal relationships more comfortable. In the daily life of interpersonal communication, people sometimes will feel bashful, uncomfortable and nervous when meeting with others face to face. However, there doesn’t exist the same problem on the message communication, people can integrate themselves into the contacts with a more open and bold attitude when breaking away from definite communication environment (Ni 126). For instance, if a boy is too shy to express his love to a beautiful girl face to face, he can choose to bare his heart by sending a message or making a phone call so that he will not miss her. Since the mobile phone provides a comfortable communication platform, it is wise for people to grasp more chances to communicate with others. As a communication media, mobile phones enhance the flexibility on social interaction. People can do their business whenever they need, and make an appointment conveniently. In addition, it plays a vital role in family relationship, friendship and business relationship. People can chat with their family members or friends without the limit of place. Also they can talk to their business partner to keep a close relationship. However, mobile phones estrange people from one another. Most people spend too much time in playing phones and ignore talking to others. Technology and humanity are not necessarily compatible. One is about an anonymous push forward into the unknown†¦to explore it, to develop and exploit it, which is important. The other is about paying undivided attention to the individual and the world in front of you, developing relationships, and increasing consciousness (â€Å"Cell Phones May Hurt Interpersonal Relationships Just by Being in The Room, Study Says†).Both are necessary. The challenge is figuring out how to use technology to enhance humanity, not degrade it (â€Å"Cell Phones May Hurt Interpersonal Relationships Just by Being in The Room, Study Says†). Meanwhile, people’s sense of loneliness is increasing and the sense of trust decreasing with the popularization of mobile phones. Interacting in a neutral environment, without a cell phone nearby, seems to help foster closeness, connectedness, interpersonal trust, and perceptions of empathy – the building – blocks of relationships (Lin â€Å"How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships†). Therefore, when people have a meeting or party, phones should be gathered in one place. Set the rule that the one who uses his phone without permission will be punished. Perhaps it would be going too far to prepare for important conversations by throwing your cell phone into the closet, or leaving it in the car on first dates. But if you are spending the day with people you really care about, you might want to reconsider the next time you reach for your phone to reply to a text message or check sports sores. Just having that phone nearby is bad enough (Lin â€Å"How Your Cell Phone Hurts Your Relationships†) .So try to use your mobile phones appropriately, or you are likely to lose your friends and a happy life. Works Cited Arvidson, Erik. â€Å"The Effects of Cell phones on Relationships.† eHow. Demand Media, n.d. Web. 2 May 2014. http://www.ehow.com/info_10054161_effects-cellphones-relationships.html> Custer, C. â€Å"Chinese Survey Shows Worry Over Impacts of Mobile Phone Use.† TECH IN ASIA. TECH IN ASIA, 22 Feb. 2013. Web. 2 May 2014. http://www.techinasia.com/chinese-survey-shows-worry-impacts-mobile-phone/> â€Å"Cellphones May Hurt Relationships Just By Being In The Room, Study Says.† The Huffington Post . n.p. 5 Sep. 2012. Web. 24 May 2014. http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1855930/> Lin, Helen L. â€Å"How Your Cellphone Hurts Your Relationship.† Scientific American. n.p. 4 Sep. 2012. Web. 21 May 2014. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-your-cell-phone-hurts-your-relationships/> Look Up. Dir. Gary Turk. Perf. Gary Turk, Louise Ludlam, Stuart Damley, Daniel Cobb. Youtube, 2014. Film. Ni Huan à ¥Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ªÃƒ ¦Ã‚ ¡Ã¢â‚¬Å". â€Å"Shouji duanxin chuanbo xinli tanxi† à ¦Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã¢â‚¬ ¹Ãƒ ¦Ã…“ ºÃƒ §Ã… ¸Ã‚ ­Ãƒ ¤Ã‚ ¿Ã‚ ¡Ãƒ ¤Ã‚ ¼Ã‚  Ãƒ ¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢Ã‚ ­Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ ¿Ã†â€™Ãƒ §Ã‚ Ã¢â‚¬  Ãƒ ¦Ã… ½Ã‚ ¢Ãƒ ¦Ã… ¾Ã‚ (Research on Communication Psychology of Mobile Phone Messages).Beijing à ¥Ã…’-à ¤Ã‚ ºÃ‚ ¬:Communication University of Chinaà ¤Ã‚ ¸Ã‚ ­Ãƒ ¥Ã¢â‚¬ ºÃ‚ ½Ãƒ ¤Ã‚ ¼Ã‚  Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ ªÃ¢â‚¬â„¢Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ ¤Ã‚ §Ãƒ ¥Ã‚ ­Ã‚ ¦, 2009. Print. â€Å"Statistical Report on Internet Development in China†. China Internet Network Information Center, Jan. 2014. Web PDF. 27 May 2014. http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR/ReportDownloads/201404/U020140417607531610855.pdf> Warner, Jennifer. â€Å"Cell Phones Raise Stress.† CBSNEWS. CBS Interactive Inc, 14 Dec. 2005. Web. 2 May 2014. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/cell-phones-raise-stress/>

Robert Frosts Poetic Techniques Used in The Road Not Taken :: Robert Frost Poetry The Road Not Taken Essays

Robert Frost’s Poetic Techniques Used in The Road Not Taken Robert Frost utilizes several poetic techniques to reveal the theme in his poem, â€Å"The Road Not Taken†, which is stressing the importance the decision making of one is, regardless of whether or not it is agreement with the resolution of their peers, and how it can affect their future. The techniques exercised in this piece of work are symbolism, imagery, and tone. Symbolism is the most powerfully used technique due to the fact a good number of lines located in this poem is used to signify a certain object or idea related to our life or today’s world. Imagery is significant in drawing out the theme for the reason that it allows the reader to construct a depiction in their mind, permitting them to relate more to the poem and interpret the theme their own way. In this poem, imagery permits the reader to imagine the scene that this poem takes place in resulting in an enhanced understanding of the theme. The tone this work presents is an insecure attitude which allo ws the theme to be brought out due to the fact the theme relates to a dilemma in one’s life. As seen by the reader, these techniques strongly aid in the revealing of this specific theme. The first technique Frost utilizes to uncover the theme is the strongest method, symbolism. Exploiting symbolism is used by containing objects in the poem that represent an article of something relevant in the reader’s life; therefore, assisting in the presentation of the theme. The primarily symbolized object in this poem is the fork in the road, which is the basis of the theme. â€Å"Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, /And sorry I could not travel both / And be one traveler, long I stood / And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth† (Frost.