This month’s wine class is coming together nicely.  We’ve selected some good ice wines – 1 German and 1 Canadian.  It should be a good tasting battle!

Come on, Canada!

Now I am preparing for the wassails.

Previously, I said we would have a wine wassail and a beer wassail.  That is changed.  Instead, we will have a wine wassail and a mead wassail.

serving the wassail

Also, I can now announce the food.

It will be…

meatballs!

sweet and sour meatballs

Ice Wine Course (lesson time)

1 Canadian ice wine

1 German ice wine

Wassail Course (party time)

1 wine wassail

1 mead wassail

Other Info

Saturday December 19th, starting at 7:30 PM

6 places

FEC students: 2,500 yen

non-students: 3,000 yen

Thank you!

New student Sawako passed her white-list vocabulary today.  She proved her mastery of 600 beginner-level words.  Congratulations, Sawako!  You are now a Yellow.

600 more, please!

Thank you for studying with us, Sawako!  Please keep studying hard.

————————————————————————————

A CHALLENGE to ALL YELLOW STUDENTS

I am also Yellow, in my Japanese vocabulary.  Let me invite you all to a friendly challenge.

A new year is coming.  I want to be Pink before the end of next spring – before the cherry blossoms are finished.

Therefore I am declaring my goal.  Pink in spring 2010.

Who will join me?

Yeah!

Ordered the chicken today.  Went to Fresta this morning, and reserved a whole chicken.

We have 6 bottles ready!

UPDATE:

We have 6 students signed up.  Thank you, people!  We also have 2 special guests.

These people are guaranteed to have chairs.

If extra people come, they are welcome, but will have to sit on stools.

That is the law.

Our friends the O’s had a party on Sunday.

They cooked a turkey.

Mr O. and I made the stuffing.

The O’s had 28 guests.

There were several musical performances.  A brass quintet; a string quartet; pianists; singers…

Noriko and I performed together.

That’s me, in my grandfather’s tuxedo.

It was a little tight, so I dieted for a week.

Lost 3 kg!

Unfortunately, just as black is slimming, white is fattening.

That white tux made me look like Colonel Sanders.

Others have suggested  a pork sausage.

Must continue that diet.

Big excitement tonight.

Yoko Yasuda is our first student to pass the Pink vocabulary list.

She correctly answered 7 random questions, plus several bonus questions.

This means that Yoko has functional knowledge of over 1,800 English words.

Yoko now advances to Green.

Congratulations, Yoko san!

“I study a little every day,” says Yoko, “and I like to write my diary.  And I am blessed with an excellent teacher, Kyle.  My final dream is to pass the Black level.  I will keep going!”

Thank you, Yoko, for your motivational words.

Fukuyama English Centre is proud of you!

It’s decided.  For this Saturday’s wine class, we’ll have Rosemary & Lemon Roasted Chicken, with an Apple & Rosemary stuffing.  That should be perfect with our Beaujolais!

It should look like this.

PS: I, Kyle, am cooking.  Shigeko can rest this time.

We still have places open.  Who else is coming?

November 28th is Beaujolais night at Fukuyama English Centre.

We will study:

• the Gamay grape
• the Beaujolais region
• different Beaujolais wines
• Beaujolais and food pairings

We will also have a little something to eat.

There will be several bottles of Beaujolais to taste.

Please come!

11/28 starting at 7:30PM

FEC Students 2,500 yen

Non-students 3,000 yen

6 students maximum, so please tell us you’re coming!

There are a lot of different Beaujolais wines.

Beaujolais is here.

We have been studying intonation, so I thought that students might like to see this.

Fascinating information from the Max Planck Society.

Scientists looked at recordings of crying babies.  There were 30 French babies, and 30 German babies.  All of the babies were aged between 2 and 5 days old.

Conclusion: (a) Babies cry differently, according to their parents’ language.  (b) Babies, before they are born, have already picked up the sound of their parents’ language.

In the third trimester, babies are good listeners.  They hear sounds and voices, especially the mother’s voice.

“The sense of hearing is the first sensory system that develops”, says Angela Friederici, a Director at the Max Planck Institute.  “What gets through are primarily the melodies and intonation of the respective language.”

In French, word stress is usually at the end.  Mama.  Papa.  Intonation ordinarily rises.

In German, word stress is usually at the start.  Mama.  Papa.  Intonation ordinarily falls.

Well:

German babies’ cries tend to start higher and louder, then fall in pitch and volume.

French babies’ cries tend to start lower, then rise in pitch and volume.

Image: MPI für Kognitions- und Neurowissenschaften

Very interesting.  Good job, Max Planck Institute!

Students, there is a moral in this somewhere.  I’ll leave you to find it for yourselves.

PS: I would love to record 30 Japanese babies…

Takeko Okada is the winner of Fukuyama English Centre’s first film festival.  Takeko wins for her slideshow entitled Students and Rabbits.

Students and Rabbits is a delightful short photo documentary.  It presents elementary school children taking care of rabbits.  Wonderful!

Girls and rabbits.  Can you think of anything cuter?

Takeko wins the CRYSTAL POLAR BEAR.

Congratulations, Takeko!

Last month’s Cabernet Sauvignon wine class was great fun.  Six students came.  We tasted six bottles of wine.  Three were supplied by FEC; three were donated by students.  Thank you, Hiro & Hiro!

Thanks also to Shigeko, for her always excellent coq au vin.  Great job, Shigeko!

coq

vin

Next wine class: Beaujolais!