About silent letters in English words

English is an interesting language to study. One of the peculiarities is its pronunciation. For example, English words are not pronounced as they are spelt. A good example is ‘oven’ which is pronounced as ‘are vern’ and not ‘old vern’. In this post I would like to share with readers the silent letters in certain English words. The letters is mute when we pronounce the words. Look at the following examples:

1 debt, plumber, subtle, doubt, climber [ b is mute or not pronounced]

2 descend, , science, scythe, scent, sceptre [ c is mute]

3 knight, knead , knob, knack, , knuckle [ k is mute]

4 sign, gnash, gnarl, design, gnaw [ g is mute]

5 honest, honour, exhaust, heir, exhibit [ h is mute]

6 almond, salmon, walk, alms, palm [ l is mute]

7 answer ,wriggle, wrath, wreck, writhe [ w is mute]

8 psychology, raspberry, pseudonym, pneumonia, psychiatry [ p is mute]

9 debris, island, isle, viscount, aisle [ s is mute]

10 often, fasten, glisten, listen, jostle [ t is mute]

11 biscuit, guard, circuit, guilt, guitar [ u is mute]

Who says English is a dull language to study?

Dry black fungus soup and health

I read in the health section of a local newspaper about the goodness of dry black fungus. According to the article, drinking black fungus soup daily will reduce our cholesterol level. Besides, it can reduce the occurrence of hardening of the arteries and prevent strokes too.

In terms of nutrition, black fungus contains protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, carotene, Vitamin B1 and B2 as well as fibre.

The soup is prepared in a stainless pot or a slow cooker in following manner:
1 Soak 20 g of black fungus overnight.
2 Take out the softened fungus and start cutting it into small strips.
3 Slice 3 to 4 pieces of ginger.
4 Get ready 10 destoned red dates
5 20 qizi (red) seeds are needed too
8 Put all the above ingredients in a pot and add in 2 litres of water.
9 Stew for 8 hours.

You can get 8 bowls of soup from the above preparation.


Drink this soup empty-stomached and take in food two hours later. Do this daily and you can see the reduction in the cholesterol level. Try it for yourself.

The return of deities to Earth

This is the fourth day of Chinese New Year. The Chinese will be busy welcoming deities who will return from the heavenly realm today. Such is the belief.

In Buddhism, deities belong to one of the six impermenant realms. When they have enjoyed their stay there, they will be born into one of the other realms, namely the animals, hungry ghosts, hells, azuras and human beings. The aim of all Buddhists will be to practise so that they do not recarnate anymore but go to the Pureland of Amitabha Buddha by chanting the name of Amitabha Buddha diligently every day and do good all the time as well as refrain from all evils. This is the surest way of becoming enlightened because in the Pureland, the surroundings are very conducive for practising to achieve enlightenment.

So much about the little Buddhism that I have learnt.

How to prolong your life

I was switching on the TV to see whether there was any more Chinese New Year variety show or concert when the normal schedule was back to normal as it was the third day of the Chinese New Year. Anyway I did not switch it off the idiot box as one doctor was talking about longevity in the breakfast show. I would like to share what was mentioned by the doctor about keeping us physically fit and living longer.

According to the geriatrician, a doctor who studies diseases of the elderly, ideally we should be able to live up to 120 years old provided we do certain things regularly. The first thing we should perform daily or regularly is exercising. We must exercise a few times a week and the easiest way to do it is by walking. The next on the list is taking a balanced diet and refraining from taking too much sugar, salt and fats. Keeping the mind active is very important too. We can do this by playing chess or computer games, learning a foreign language,and doing something totally new to us.

The lady he mentioned that has lived up to 122 years and is still kicking, when interviewed, has an active mind as she can converse logically and understand whatever questions put to her.

Long live all my friends.

Rubbish and Chinese New Year

Today is the second day of Chinese New Year. Usually daughters who are married are not allowed to go back to their parents' homes during the first day of Chinese New Year. Hence they will be too eager to do so today. For those who place importance on cleanliness they will start to put the brooms to good use again today because the day before they were not supposed to disposed of rubbish which to the Chinese is 'money' which should be be discarded on the first day of Chinese New Year.

However in Buddihsim, Maitreya Buddha will welcome all rubbish to be thrown into His bag because to Him, anything unwanted including suffering will be borned willingby by Him. The Buddha is so compassionate that He will try to alleviate whatever suffering human beings may have and is very willing to shoulder all the agony experienced by them.

About Xin Nian - the Chinese New Year

Today is Chinese New Year. The happiest persons will be children and unmarried men and ladies because they are entitled to be given hongbao or ang pow (red packets containing money ) on this day. Once you are married you have to give hongbao instead of receiving them.

According to belief, the giving of hongbao to children is to ward off misfortune and evil. Hence hangbao is also known as yasuiqian which is money to suppress sui, a monster believed to do harm to children.

I will tell readers about the origin of Chinese New Year or xin nian.

In ancient time, there was a creature called 'nian' which came out to kill human beings every year. Later the Chinese leant that it was afraid of the colour red, light and din. Hence the Chinese people wore red attire, lit up their dwelling and played fire-crackers to drive the monster away on the said day when it was supposed to appear.. From then onwards the Chinese celebrate Xin Nian, a day of rejoice for having beaten nian, the monster.

Hongbao were given to children on Chinese New Year eve and not on xin nian day as is practiced today. There are many taboos too on this auspicious day. For example, no sweeping of floor is to be done lest money will be swept away, no uttering of words like ‘die’, and ‘break’ and no scolding to children too.

Happy Chinese New Year to all readers who celebrate this auspicious day

Time for Reuninion Dinner again

Today is the day when the Chinese will hold the annual Reunion Dinner or Tuan Yuan Fan in Mandarin. It is the eve of Chinese New Year and all family members who work outstation will come back to dine together, exchanging news and maintaining the good bond among them.

I can still recall how I boarded the train from Kuala Lumpur after a bus journey from Jerantut, collecting soot on my face just to be home for this occasion. The train was so packed that I had to stand allowing the soot carried by the wind to be deposited on my exposed face. I didn't notice this until my mum asked me how I got a blackened face.

Steamboat is the favourite for the feast. We will throw meat balls, fish balls, bean curds, bittergourds stuffed with fillet, crab meats, vegetables, cuttlefish and sea cucumbers into a pot which is then heated. When it is steaming hot, we will be 'fishing' with our chopsticks. I enjoyed savouring food this way. So do members of my family.

Happy having reunion dinner to Chinese all over the world.

All the ingredients to be put into the steamboat pot



These are the edibles to be 'fished'

How to write an essay with one-word title

Whenever I want to give a one-word title to my students for writing an essay, I use the brainstorming method. I will ask them to write down anything that comes to their minds about the title in question. Later on, they can sort out the things they have written. It usually works unless the person is of one-track mind and keeps on thinking of the same thing expressed in different ways.

Let us take an example. Suppose you were to write an essay with the one-word title ‘Money’, you can do brainstorming with a few friends and sort out whatever is churned out from their mouths and yours.
These may be the things mentioned in the session:
Buy things, get service, very important, pay, rich, poor, made of paper or metal, root of all evils, risk lives to get money, committing crimes, show off, generous, hungry, smuggling, kidnapping, cheating, professional killers, hatred, help the poor and the needy, build schools, orphanages, old folk homes, need not be physical, credit cards, online transactions

From the above we can actually sort them out by a number of points which go together such as:
a) What is money – It is made of paper or metal such as nickel –very important because it is something we use to buy things and get services from others
b) Rich people have a lot of money to enable them to live a comfortable life, some of them like to show off – poor people with little money sometimes have to go hungry as they have not enough money to buy food
c) Money can be used to do good things – those who are generous and kind-hearted will donate to help the poor and the needy, build schools, orphanages and old folk homes
d) Money is also the root of all evils – people are willing to risk their lives to get money – commit crimes such as smuggling, kidnapping and cheating to get money, hire professional killers to terminate the lives of their enemies and those who have offended him
e) Nowadays, money need not appear in physical form – credit cards can be used in place of money in hand to purchase things and get services – online transactions can be used to pay utility bills and other bills.

By sorting out the scrambled words and phrases listed, you can now proceed to write your essay with enough points to come to the required number of 350 words or above.

Try to write an essay on with one word as the title and see if the above method works.

Red Streams

Serving in Pahang brought me to many interesting places. One weekend, Boo Cheng Kee took me on his motorcycle again. This end we headed for Sungai Lembing. I had heard about the town being an iron-ore mining area but had not been there before.

After a three-hour journey, we finally set foot on Sungai Lembing. What impressed me most was that the streams in Sungai Lembing were red in appearance. Could it be the iron content that made it acquire the colour? No ron-mining activities were carried out. The small town seemed very quiet.

We continued our journey until we reached the sea. There was no through road and we had to turn back.

Shangri-la in Jerantut

When I was serving as a trained teacher in Jerantut, my colleague Boo Cheng Kee used to take me along on his motorcycle to somewhere in the country side. The place we went to was scenic, peaceful and invigorating. Vegetables grown by farmers welcomed us as we strolled on the road flanked by luxuriant green grass. The smell of the grass endeared us to Mother Earth. Our faces were caressed by the cool and soothing breeze that blew as we sauntered in the country side.

We just walked around beaming to the country folk who were chatting after a day's hard work. They seemed so contented with life, unlike city-dwellers who never feel having enough money and property to their collection.

My friend, Boo gave the place a name, that is 'Shangri-la'which carries the meaning of a piece of pure and untouched land where nature is left as it is with no pollution whatsoever. I agreed with him because we did not feel any pollution anywhere here then.

Qigong Practice - La qi

In Zhineng Qigong, there is one independent exercise which everyone can learn to benefit himself. It is known as la qi (dragging the qi, a type of energy that flows through your body).

Here is how you do la qi:
1 Flex both arms in front of you until each forms an L-shape, with the vertical palms facing each other.
2 Place the vertical palms about 20 cm apart.
3 Move the palms towards each other until the distance is half, that is 10 cm.
4 Move the palms away again until their distance is 20 cm.
5 Repeat step 3 and 4, concentrating on the movement of palms.
6 Notice that with practice, you will feel repulsion of qi when both palms begin to approach each other.
7 If you have experienced step 6, your qi is flowing out of your palms.
8 Practise for about 10 minutes, then place the qi-generating palms on the part of your body where you experience pain to heal it.

Whenever I relax my arms qi will naturally flow and I can feel the tingling sensation at the fingertips. When you have enough practice, you should be able to experience the same feeling. Hence when I do la qi, I will experience great repulsion when my vertical palms move inwards.

Happy ‘la qi’ing!

About fish, pineapples and mandarin oranges

Besides the colour red which is auspicious, the Chinese also use fish, pineapples, and mandarin oranges during Chinese New Year for the same reason.

Fish is eaten in the dish 'yu sheng' and the dinners will be scooping 'sheng' (a raise in pay or going up for promotion) happily in the process of partaking of the dish containing fish. Fish which is pronounced as 'yu' in Mandarin has the same pronunciation as another word which means 'surplus'. Hence 'nian nian yu yu' translated as 'there is surplus every year' is often uttered in greeting to wish the other party having overflowingn income year in and year out.

Pineapple is pronounced as 'ong lai' which means 'everything prosperous come my way'. It is put on the altar while praying to the deities.

The mandarin orange which is articulated as 'gan' in Mandarin or 'kan' in Malay means 'sweet'. Hence this fruit is supposed to bring sweet things to the Chinese. Mandarin oranges are always brought along to be given to the relatives we visit (By the way, I am a Chinese) in the hope that sweet things (good things) will befall them. They will reciprocate by giving us the same type of fruit too.

So do I

When writing your essay, one very useful structure is 'So do I' and the gang. The following examples will illustrate this point.

1 He comes from a poor family. So do I.
2 Kassim liked to play kites when he was small. So did I.
3 He will join the newly-formed club. So will I.
4 She has paid the club subscription. So have I.
5 Every Chinese is celebrating Chinese New year next Monday. So am I.

Kitchen Deity Reports to Jade Emperor tomorrow

According to the lunar calendar, the 24th day of the 12th moon for this year falls on tomorrow. It is the day the Chinese are sending their deities to the heavenly realm and they will only return to Earth on the 4th day of Chinese New year.

As I have written in my post last year, the kitchen deity, Zhaoqun, is the one who will report to the Jade Emperor about what had happened in every household for the whole year, be they good or bad things. It is believed that the purpose of offering Nian Gao, a sweet glutinous rice cake which is sweet, to the Kitchen Deity is to bribe the deity so that he will report only the good things to the Jade Emperor and leave out all the bad ones.

Have a happy journey to heavenly realm, Kitchen Deity.

Music to the ear is health to the body

It is indeed interesting to learn that music can do more than entertain. It helps to prevent strokes and heart diseases. This is because by listening to melodious music, our veins and arteries will dilate by 26%, enabling blood to flow smoothly without obstruction.

However, we should not listen to irritating or noisy music that makes you feel angry as such kind of music will shrink or constrict your arteries and veins by as much as 6%. This condition is detrimental to your health as it increases the chances of a heart attack.
Hence we should go for soothing and beautiful music and shun the noisy and deafening one.

Happy listening to music that is pleasant to your ear for your good health.

Red is an auspicious colour to the Chinese

Red is an auspicious colour to the Chinese. That accounts for anything red when the occasion warrants its use. This colour is often seen on Chinese New Year which happens to fall on 26th this month. The Chinese people all over the world will wear red clothing on this day to usher in the New Year which will bring good things to them. Wearing red attire brings good luck to the Chinese. Even money given to children are put in red packets known as Hongbao in Mandarin and Ang Pau in Hokkien.

The joss-sticks for praying to Emperor Jade on the 9th day of the Chinese New Year are also red. Red ribbons are tied to the cars carrying the bride and bridegroom before they sit together after performing the tea ceremony before the elders.

Drowning twice

When I was small, I did not go into the sea to play although I lived near the sea then. My dad had told me not to dip in the sea and I listened to his advice. That explained why I did not know how to swim before I joined a teacher's college.

I had the experience of getting drowned twice. The first one occurred at Sungai Pinang (Pinang River) when I was still a scout. I was sitting on a rock when I slipped and fell into the river and sank. After failing to get myself float (I did not know how to do it anyway), I lifted my hand twice to ask for help. Soon I felt someone approaching and then he brought me to the shore.He was a King Scout. I was very scared at that time.

The drowning repeated when I was teaching in Pahang. One day, we organised a trip to Taman Negara (the National Park). On the first day, we went to one lake to swim. It happened again when I fell off a rock and down into the lake I went. I sank and sank all the way down. When I struggled to go up I sank further until I touched the bed of the lake. I sprang to go up to lift my hand to ask for help only to find myself sinking again. Twice did I do this. Then help came when Anchor Choong, one of my colleagues approached me and brought me to safety.

Learning to make garbage enzyme

I heard that garbage enzyme has a lot of uses. These include ridding vegetables of toxic chemicals, washing cups and plates, washing cars, mopping floor and so on. Hence I read up aritcles from the Internet and started to do it myself today.

I bought a 5-litre plastic bottle. As we need to leave 30% empty space for the gas produced during enzyme formation, I made a mark to this effect. Then I made 10 equal marking below this mark. According to my reading the ratios for brown sugar, kitchen wastes (such as fruit skins, vegetables etc) and water are 1:3:10. Hence I pour brown sugar until it occupied the space from the bottom until the first marking. After I added in water up to the 10th marking. Kitchen wastes are then thrown in until it comes to the fourth marking from the bottom. I have to wait for three months before harvesting the enzyme.

I hope to produce this enzyme successfully.

Third-hand Smoke

Have you heard of third-hand smoke? We usually talk about second-hand smoke, that is, smoke that we inhale when someone is smoking. Well, third-hand smoke refers to the smoke deposited on the hair and clothing of a smoke. When someone has smoked and enters a lift and we happen to be in, we can smell the smoke. That is third-hand smoke emitting from his hair or dress.

Similar to second-hand smoke, third-hand smoke is detrimental to non-smokers’ health too. Some of the chemicals that get trapped on the smoker’s hair or attire contains carcinogens which cause cancer. Hence if a mother smokes and she carries her baby, the infant may touch her hair or clothing and these chemicals get transferred to the baby’s hand. If he sucks his fingers the chemicals go into his mouth, making him sick.

Top-spinning

Playing with tops was my pastime when I was young. I made my own tops using guava wood. You need skill to carve a top out of the hard wood. After that, I smoothened the surface with the edge of one of the thick glass fragments thrown onto the top of coconut tree stumps by my parents. Then it was the job of driving a nail into the lower tip of the top. The nail had to be driven in vertically erect and not sideways so that balance could be achieved when it was spun. It was not an easy job to do that. The top was tested for stability when it spun and the nail hammmered to alter its position until it could spin smoothly.

Top-spinning was popular among my childhood friends. We used to 'pangkah' (split the top of the opponent) my friends' spinning tops. At other times we would see whose top could spin the longest.

Reading the dictionary

Reading the dictionary of a language we learn really helps a lot. Dictionaries are known as ‘teachers who don’t open their mouths’. Even our teachers have to refer to dictionaries when they come across words whose meanings they do not know too. Hence, reading the dictionary is part of language learning.

I enjoy reading the dictionary because I can always come across certain words which I need in the course of my writing. Those words whose meaning I am not sure of are explained in the relevant entries of the dictionary. Besides, we get to know the correct pronunciation. For example, most people will pronounce the word ‘abalone’ as ‘a bay lon’ but the correct pronunciation as shown in the dictionary is ‘a bay lon nee’.

Whenever we see words which are new to us, the best place to go is the dictionary. I have this experience of asking my colleagues the meanings of certain words in the newspaper which are new to me and they shrug their shoulders, saying they are aliens to them too. Hence what better place to get help when this happens is the dictionary.

How to pronounce words beginning with ‘p’ and ‘k’ correctly

The pronunciation of English spoken by non-native speakers is often influenced by their respective languages. In Malaysia, most of my students pronounce words beginning with ‘p’ and ‘k’ as if they are uttered in Malay. What I mean is ‘p’ and ‘k’ are pronounced without air coming out from the speaker’s mouth. They are pronounced as hard ‘p’ and ‘k’ as in the Malay language with words such ‘pakai (wear)’ and ‘kilat (shiny)’ as two of these examples.

I always advise my students to place their palms in front of their mouths when pronouncing words begging with ‘p’ and ‘k’ so that they can produce the correct pronunciation. Of course I have to pronounce the words myself to show them how they are pronounced before that.

Learning Malay the fun way

I use some easy-to-remember sentences to help my students to memorise words that go with certain affixes in the Malay language. For example, I ask my pupils to memorise the following sentence to remember 12 words that go with one group of affix namely meN...i / meN...kan:
Ali bin Hassan jalan kaki ke laut semalam nanti penyu hijau bertelur. Translated as 'Ali bin Hassan walked to the sea last night to wait for the green turtle to lay eggs', the iniatial letter of the words in the Malay sentence represents a word. The 12 words are anugerah, beri, hadiah, jatuh, kirim, kurnia, lempar, serah, nama, pinjam, hujan and bekal.

In this group, I assign the rules as follows:
1 The word after meN...i is followed by a person.
e.g. Raja itu menganugerahi pembesar itu wang yang banyak.
Dia memberi adiknya sebuah kamus.
2 The word after meN...kan is followed by a thing or matter
e.g. Saya menghadiahkan sebuah album foto kepada Ahmad.
e.g. Hakim itu menjatuhkan hukuman mati kepada pengedar dadah itu.
3 The word in front of di...i is a person.
e.g. Hashim dikirimi kawannya sepucuk surat.
e.g. Aminah dikurniai Tuhan seorang anak lelaki.
4 The word in front of di...kan is a thing or some matter
e.g. Seketul batu dilemparkan oleh Hasnah ke arah anjing itu untuk menghalaunya.
e.g. Fail itu diserahkan oleh kerani itu kepada majikannya.
[The words in bold are the words formed by combining the affixes meN...i, meN..kan, di...i or di..kan with words from the twelve members in the group mentioned in the sentence I ask my students to memorise. The words in italics are either persons or things]

So much for some fun in learning the Malay language.

Being humble

Being humble has all the advantages that you can think of.
In the first place, people like to be with you because you are not arrogant. Secondly, you can learn from others because people usually like to teach you something that they assume you don't know because you don't show it. Thirdly, you have the virtue many people like to possess but fail to acquire because they can't resist the temptation to show off what they know. Fourthly, you can avoid many clashes with others.

How to use more than two adjectives together

When two or more adjectives are used to describe the same noun, they should follow this order:

Number, quality, size, shape, age, colour, origin/material, then a noun

Examples of sentences involving more than two adjectives are as follows:

1 A good small round old yellow rubber ball. [complete set 1]

2 Two shiny small square old gold Chinese coin. [complete set 2]

3 An old woolen overall. [two adjectives]

4 A ferocious big grey dog. [three adjectives]

5 Three round new black iron spheres. [four adjectives]

Writing as a hobby

Writing is a hobby enjoyed by many of us, bloggers included. When we pen our daily post, we are actually writing something. In order for that something to come out, it has to go through the mind. That is why we need observation, reading, listening to people talking and doing research.

I normally write when some bright idea comes to my mind and seldom do any planning. Of course, I will have some idea of what to write before I open my blog for insertion of text or pictures for illustration. Usually, I like to write something current such as festivals. At other times, I will think of things to write to help readers to master the English Language.

From time to time, I will relate my experience to readers when I dig my brains to recollect such events. All in all, I enjoy writing or blogging in this case.

Happy writing to those who enjoy this hobby.

Taboos during confinement for Chinese women

After a Chinese woman has given birth, she is subjected to tatoos as passed down from generation to generation. For example, she has to rest for about a month in order for the body to recover. Besides she has to drink certain Chinese herb soup boiled from danggui, taoren, quangong,baoqiang, dan licorice to help in the shrinking of the womb and to clear away the discharge.

The worst thing is she is not allowed to wash her hair, bathe and touch cold water because it is believed that her resistence to diseases at this time is very poor and doing the above things will make her vulnerable to diseases and make her recovery very slow. Furthermore, she is not allowed to drink unboiled water but drinking water boiled with duzhong is encouraged.

As if that is not enough she is not allowed to be under the fan and not to be in the open air. This is because she will sweat easily. Hence exposure to flowing air and cold will cause her to suffer from cold or influenza.

Nowadays new mothers will ignore all the above taboos and carry on life as usual. In the end, they will find that they will have rheumatism here and there when they grow old. Hence, there must be some good in the traditional practice as mentioned above.

The difference between ‘pretty’ and ‘beautiful’

A girl will feel flattered if you tell her, “You look beautiful.” However, she will suspect she is not so good-looking as another girl in your mind if you utter, “You are really pretty.”

Actually, the difference lies in the degree of beauty. A beautiful girl is more good-looking than a pretty girl. So next time, you better use ‘beautiful’ to describe the beauty of your girl friend so that she will feel satisfied and no suspicion is raised so as the existence of another good-looking girl that you think of.

A simple way to keep the vegetables fresh

I just received an email from a friend. He shared with me a simple way of keeping our vegetabels fresh. It is very simple. All you need is the aluminium coated plastic bags which are used to contain Quaker oats or milk powder.

Wrap your vegetables with a few layers of newspapers to soak up the water from the vegetables, then use this bag as the outer covering. Then put it in the fridge. The vegetables can be kept fresh for a week. These bags can be reused many times.

About some popular posts in this blog.

This is the second day of New Year and yet I haven't thought of how to go about making this year a memorable one.

I will still be penning things that come to my mind. Mostly they will centre on culture, languages, my personal experiences and others.

During the whole of last year, I noticed that most readers go for my posts on English. Down Ipoh Lane was the next popular one with readers. Religious matter took third position. On the average, about 10 to 15 people visit this blog daily.

I am now preoccupied with the learning of Japanese. I intend to learn more about this language and hope to be able to converse and write in this language.

I hope everyone will tide over the global economic downturn.

Happy New Year

I wish all readers of this post a very Happy New Year. Every success to you in all your endeavour in the year 2009.

New Year is a time for us to ponder over what we have done for the past year and try to do better this year after knowing all our weaknesses. It is also a good time to set our new year resolutions or things we want done for the coming year.

Happy New Year once again.