Little History of Photography: Narrative

aceoflifewellbeingblog.com

First version: 

Image Keeper 

You might not know me, or maybe you do. All depends on when you were born. I am not that common any more nowadays. I don‘t know exactly how old I am, I only know that I have seen many pictures come and go during my lifetime. The most important ones stayed, others had to leave their place after some time. I know every single picture that has ever been glued onto my pages. One of the first pictures I can remember was the one of a young woman. Her beauty was tremendous, but the look on her face made it appear as if she was sad. So serious, but yet so young. Her skin appeared to glow in contrast to the dark background, making it seem like as if she was surrounded by a halo. 

Time passed by and the pictures changed. Suddenly the halo was gone and the photographs became more glamorous. They were staffed with props that seemed to fulfill just one purpose: providing the people with something they could lean on as they were forced to stand still for hours, because of the exposure time, that is to say the time needed for the chemical reaction to take place that creates the picture, was very long. 

With industrial revolution setting in and photography becoming more affordable, many people longed for older photographic styles that they connected with nobility, making the halo reappear. But as time went on and more innovative techniques of reproducing a picture came into being, new trends were created, making photography change. Now we are in the year 2014 and my services are no longer needed. Pictures have lost their status. They are now longer the luxury items they once used to be, but I am lucky. My family loves traditions and keeps filling me with pictures. 

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Summary: 

On first glance my story had all the elements that were needed for a narrative. The initiating event needed more stressing, and the text as a whole had to be formulated in more detail. 

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Final version:

Image Keeper 

You might not know me, or maybe you do. All depends on when you were born. I am not that common any more nowadays. I don‘t know exactly how old I am, I only know that I have seen many pictures come and go during my lifetime. The most important ones stayed, others had to leave their place after some time. I know every single picture that has ever been glued onto my pages. I will never forget one of the first pictures I had the pleasure and honor to show. It was the picture of a young woman. She was stunningly beautiful, but the look on her face made it appear as if she was sad. So serious, but yet so young. Her skin appeared to glow in contrast to the dark background, making it seem like as if she was surrounded by a halo. 

Time passed by and the pictures changed. Suddenly the halo was gone and the photographs became more glamorous. They were staffed with props that seemed to fulfill the purpose of providing the people with something they could lean on and distracting viewers from the morose expression on their faces when they were forced to stand still for hours as the exposure time, that is to say the time needed for the chemical reaction to take place that creates the picture, was very long. 

With industrial revolution setting in and photography becoming more affordable, many people longed for older photographic styles that they connected with nobility, making the halo reappear. But as time went on and more innovative techniques of reproducing a picture came into being, new trends were created, making photography change even more. Now we are in the year 2014 and my services are no longer needed. Pictures have lost their status. They are no longer the luxury items they once used to be, but I am lucky. My family loves traditions and keeps filling me with pictures. 

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A day in the life of...

It is a foggy winter day in Graz, Thursday to put it more precisely, when Susan gets up at 7:30 am. Like every other day she takes a shower, gets herself dressed and has breakfast, before heading off to university. As she tends to forget her phone at home, she usually runs late for class. At least 15 minutes. At university she always meets up with her friend Ingrid. They know each other for three years now. You could argue that they are really close. Today however something is wrong. They don‘t seem to get along quite well. They keep teasing and snapping at each other. They tend to do that a lot, but this time it is really bad. But today is not like every other day. “Has Ingrid really forgotten my birthday?“, Susan thinks. Tired and disappointed she walks home. It‘s already 8 o‘ clock when she arrives there, because on Thursdays she has class all day. At around eleven o‘clock – noises. Somebody is in her garden. It becomes louder and louder, suddenly knocking, laughters. Susan tensley walks towards the balcony. She steps out, but there is nothing. Suddenly the lights go on. All her friends are there, singing “Happy Birthday“. 

foggy Graz 

at university 

birthday party 

Vocabulary Notebook

linguistics.ohio.edu

In order to improve my vocabulary and learn the words we need to know for the PCs, I print out the lists on vocabulary.com or write them down myself. I enjoy writing glossaries and I am used to it, because of my Russian classes. In my opinion this is also the best way to remember words. I search for synonyms, antonyms and also look up how all the words are pronounced correctly. I always print out all the lists and glossaries, because I can‘t learn by using the computer. 

If I have to look up a word, I mostly use online dictionaries, because then I can also immediately look at synonyms, antonyms and the pronunciation. In addition I am faster in looking up things on the internet and typing them into a document, than searching for them in a paper dictionary. I also have dictionary apps on my smart phone, thus I can look up a word wherever and whenever I need it. Websites like pons.eu, antimoon.com, dictionary.reference.com, englishpage.com are really very useful when it comes to looking for word definitions. 

I also use the games on vocabulary.com to improve my vocabulary, but it‘s easier for me to remember the words if I see everything I have to study on a printed version. When I study, I read through all the words, and mark the ones I don't know immediately. I keep writing down the really complicated ones and if I still haven‘t memorized them by then, I write them on a Post-it and attach them to my bedroom door. I do that in all my languages and I can really recommend it. Works every time ;).

When I read through an English article or watch my series and I don‘t understand a word I it comes into my personal vocab-book. Like all the techniques described above, I use these little books as well in Russian and in Spanish. 

Maybe that's not the most creative and modern way to study, but for me it's the most effective. 

Pronunciation Diary - Part 2

In order to find out where our weakness lies when reading an unknown text, we did a Pronouncing Diagnostic Exercise. The exercise consisted out of reading a tex aloud for about 30 seconds, while being recorded. Our teachers then listened to these recordings and gave us some feedback on our pronunciation, intonation, sounds that we had trouble with and voicing. 

In the following lines I am going to write about the feedback I got and what I did in order to improve my pronunciation. 

Feedback 

As I already knew I have got problems in pronouncing the “z in “zero“. I pronounce it as an “s”, rather than a “z”. My “t” and “d” sounds at the end of a word are also often difficult to distinguish and sometimes almost silent. I also have some work to do in order to be able to distinguish different sounds involving the letter “a”, like in can, bath, saw, for example. 

As you can see I still have a long way to go, before my pronunciation is perfect (if that ever happens). 

Practice, practice, practice!

www.missiontolearn.com

In order to improve my pronunciation I had a look at the following website: 

http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/s-pronounced-z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFezTa9SGuU

http://www.speakmethod.com/sandzsounds.html

I consulted the following websites to get more information on the “d” and “t” sound:

http://www.grammar.cl/english/pronunciation-ed.htm

http://www.englishclub.com/pronunciation/-ed.htm

http://www.multimedia-english.com/videos/different-pronunciations-for-t-examples--3825

http://www.elementalenglish.com/past-tense-verb-pronunciation-t-d-id/

How to pronounce the letter “a” in a correct way I found on this website: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPP9BcuVklI

I also looked at different websites in order to get a better understanding of American English. I particularly found this one useful, because you really get the chance to practice your pronunciation: 

http://pronuncian.com/

Pronunciation Diary :)

Hey there! 

To begin with, I would like to ask a question: why is pronunciation so important? 

Many people think that pronunciation is not actually that important if your grammar and vocabulary in general is good. Wrong. Pronunciation is the key to a successful communication. Done right, it enables you to understand the person you are talking to without any problems. This fact is also more than important for becoming a good interpreter. Who is going to enjoy listening to an interpreter whose accent is much worse than Arny‘s? 

How good does the pronunciation have to be? 

For my part, I am a perfectionist (which is undoubtedly not the right way to start off the day), so I want to speak like an American, not like an Austrian that tries to talk like an American. However, I think in general it is not important if you do not sound exactly like a native. You should have a good, more or less neutrally pronounced English. That means that you should not pronounce a Spanish r instead of an English one, for example. 

How can you improve your pronunciation? 

• One of the best ways to improve your pronunciation is undoubtedly talking to natives. This means, get a tandempartner! There are so many Americans in Graz if you just start searching for them. First of all you will have the chance to generally improve your English (grammar, vocab, expression) and secondly you learn so much just by listening how they pronounce a word. In addition to that you also see what they do with their lips when they pronounce a word. Babies only learn by imitating their parents, for example. Why shouldn‘t that be possible for us too? Imitate, imitate, imitate! :)
• Now that we did pronunciation exercises in class and most of you know what you still have to work on, you can also ask one of your fellow students to help you. As we don‘t all have the same problems, this is also very helpful in improving your pronunciation. 
• I would also recommend watching TV shows or series. That's how you also learn how the words should sound. Even if you don‘t directly speak while watching them your brain is capable of memorizing the sound and after some time it automatically reproduces them. 
• Vocabulary.com and dictionary.reference.com are also good measures to improve your pronunciation. You can listen to the words, dictionary.reference.com also shows you where exactly the word is stressed and where the difference lies between pronouncing the verb and the noun. 

What have I done so far to improve my pronunciation? 

I love speaking English. That is why I try to talk as often as possible to my friends from the States. I also learn by imitating people and as stated before, I think that is one of the best ways to improve pronunciation. I also watch series and TV shows, which can be as well considered as learning by imitating. Vocabulary.com and dictionary.reference.com always help me to find out how to pronounce a word correctly and, again, as you can listen to how it is pronounced correctly, you learn by imitating. I am really a fan of learning by imitating (as you might have noticed), because if i hear a word once, it usually stays in my mind and I immediately memorize it. 

“The debt deflation theory” by professor Irving Fisher would take EU authorities far in the battle against rising debt. As the American Revolution has shown, deflation is an underestimated danger with the potential to lead to economic disaster. If total debt grows too high, as happens in Western Europe, deflation gets mortal. The eurostat index depicts that deflation has dropped. The tendency of falling prices is seen in many countries. Similar to Japan’s crisis, the eurozone economy is in endangered by high debt ratios and sustained deflation. Zsolt Darvas from the Brussels think tank Bruegel equates deflation with bleakness. He accuses the European approach of the debt crisis and mentions the dilemma of states being pushed to “internal devaluations”. Vicious dynamics such as the “denominator effect” are witnessed in countries like Italy, where debt rises faster than GDP. The same is true for private debt, where with crash diets for erred states, economic self destruction was only enhanced. For Mr Darvas, let inflation elevate means escaping from the deflationary spiral. Responsible for money shifting to Germany is the ECB and non counteracting member states which fear Germany would leave the eurozone. Europe hope for global growth to fight the deflation virus.

Comments: 

This summary undoubtedly contains the most important information from the text "Europe already has one foot in ‘Japanese’ deflation grave", nevertheless in my opinion it is too detailed. A five-year-old would not really get what is written here. Maybe because the author of the summary uses many expressions that have also been used in the original text. 

Furthermore the beginning of the summary is too abrupt, not showing information regarding the author as well as when and where the article was published. By reading the first line "The debt deflation theory by professor Irving Fisher..." one gets the impression that this is the name of the original text and Mr. Fisher is its author. In addition the following historic facts do not have to be necessarily mentioned in this summary. 

In regard to coherence the text is missing some linking words. In the middle of the text the author of the summary speaks of "internal devaluations" for example, and in the next sentence he uses the term "denominator effect" without linking these two sentences. Another aspect why the text sometimes appears to be incoherent could be the fact that it is not divided into paragraphs, it is to say it is not really structured.