How to use 'so that' and 'so as'

Many students find it difficult to use 'so that' and 'so as'. In this post, I would like to show readers how to use them correctly.

1 'so that' is followed by a clause

Example 1:

You must study hard so that you can pass the exam with flying colours.

Example 2:

The fat lady needs to exercise so that she can remain slim all the while.

Example 3:

The teacher speaks slowly and clearly so that her students will be able to understand her lessons.

[A clause consists of a subject and a finite verb.]

2 ‘so as’ is followed by an infinitive.

Example 1:

John works hard so as to earn a lot of money.

Example 2:

She copied the text carefully so as not to make a single mistake.

Example 3:

He studies hard so as to pass his exam with high grades.

The joy of teaching

When I was a boy, I dreamt of becoming a teacher. This dream was realised when I graduated from a teachers' college in 1973.

I really enjoyed teaching in Jerantut, Pahang where I mingled well with students. Seeing improvement in my students really made me happy because all my effort was paid off.

One year, I was asked to teach Form 4 and 5 Science in Malay. It was hard work as I had to translate text from English into Malay for my class because not reference books in Science in Malay were in the market then.

To ensure their success in the SPM exam, I volunteered to give extra class to the hostellites at weekends.

Imagine my joy when the school's results in Sains Am (General Science) improved from 5% to 25% and the Principal Encik Yaakub Isa personally thanked me for doing a good job. This job satisfaction was beyond description.

I was so close to the students that they did not feel shy to ask me questions about Science when they encountered difficulties in their studies.

Although I am now teaching as a free lance tutor, I still enjoy teaching because I like to interact with my students so as to talk about something that interests them to kill boredom in the classroom.

When to use the indefinite article 'an'

The indefinite article is used:

1 to state the occupation of a person

e.g. He is an engineer.

2 in front of words with vowel sounds

e.g. An apple, an elephant, an iron, an owl, an urn, an unused pen, an hour, an honour, an heir, an honest boy

Although the following words begin with vowels, there are no vowels involved.

a university, a uniform, a one-arm bandit, a unicorn

How to download videos from You Tube

Sometimes after viewing certain clips from You Tube, you would like to save them in order to view them again using media player later. To do this you need to download the video clips from You Tube.

In this post, I will share with readers how to do it.

1 First, you need a downloader. The YouTube-Downloader is ideal for this purpose. Click here to download it free of charge.

2 Next go to YouTube site and choose the title of the video clip you like to download. Right click the title and click Properties.

3 Under Link Properties and beside Address is the url of the video clip. Highlight it and right click. Go to copy and click once.

4 Start YouTube-Downloader and place this url into the box below Enter video URL. [If you have started YouTube-Downloadr already, the url will be entered automatically.]

5 Click OK and the software will download this video file for you.

The software also allows you to convert the flv files to other formats.

Happy downloading video clips from You Tube.

The story of body size

I enjoyed serving as a temporary teacher in Heng Ee Secondary School, Penang for a stint of three months. I was very young then. I was asked to teach Malay, replacing a trained teacher who had gone on a Malay course – a requirement for teachers who were trained in English before as the medium of instruction would be changed to Malay.

Cycling to work was a novelty for teachers because most of them drove to school. The headmaster allowed me to park my bicycle at a designated place away from the boys’.

Came pay day and with the cheque I went to the Malayan Banking (now Maybank) to cash my cheque. The casher, being a busy-body, did not believe that I was a teacher as I looked more like a schoolboy than a teacher. She kept telling people that I was too young to be a teacher.

Even when I was serving as a trained teacher in Jerantut Secondary School in Pahang, one teacher used to tell the others that I was one of the boys when I was running with the boys in Sports Practice session.

Doing dana does not need to involve money

To practise getting rid of greed, Buddhists often do dana in the form of giving food and robes to monks, donations to the needy and so on. If you don’t have much money, can you do dana?

As a matter of fact, Buddhists can do dana without involving money if they do not have extra money to spare. There are a number of ways this can be done.

1 If someone is organizing a donation campaign to collect money to help some fire victims and you have no money to donate, what you can do is to wish that the campaign will be successful. That very thought that it will succeed constitutes dana.

2 Someone is too scared to walk through a dark alley. You can do dana by accompanying him or her to walk through it. Your help in overcoming his or her fear is a form of dana too.

3 If someone is so sad until he wants to end his life and you manage to talk him out of it through your knowledge of Buddhism, you do dana too – saving a life through dharma.

American English

My country Malaysia was once colonised by the British. Hence the English that is taught in school has been British from then until now. With the advent of television, students in this country are exposed to more American films than British ones. As such, American English creeps into their essays as they don't know how to differentiate between British English and American English.

In this post, I hope to be able to enlighten local students on the differences between the two. For one thing, they differ in the spelling of certain words.

These include colour/color, favour/favor, favourite/favorite, sulphur/sulfur, and travelling/traveling.

For another, pronunciation differs too. For example, 'chance' is pronounced as 'chair ends' and 'can't' is sounded like 'care endt'.

The terms referring to things also differ. The following are some the words which mean the same, the former being English and the latter American.

1 biscuit - cookie

2 lift - elevator

3 lorry - truck

4 aeroplane - airplane

5 petrol - gas

6 break - recess

7 holiday - vacation

8 mobile phone -cellphone

Everyone of us has Buddha nature

When Gautama Buddha achieved enlightenment, he uttered, "How strange! All beings have Buddha nature but unfortunately they are clouded by avarice, hatred and delusion."

If all human beings are able to get rid of the three states of the mind, they can achieve Buddhahood.

We tend to ask for more, when we are given something. This is reflected in the proverb 'Given an inch, want a yard.' The Chinese proverb is even more fantastic. A greedy person is likened to ‘a snake who wants to swallow an elephant’. Hence our greed is insatiable.

As for hatred, it will never end as hatred begets hatred. It is only through forgiveness that one can get rid of hatred towards others. If we treat the one whom we hate as the one who has done something so horrible to us in his last life that we hate him when we meet him again in this life, then we should exercise forgiveness and pardon him. From then on, don’t hate him anymore. It will lighten your mental burden too if you rationalize in this way.

Delusion has to do with not having a true picture of life. Everything in this world is not constant. The atoms in all things are always in a state of motion. It explains the three states of water. When heated, the atoms move faster and turn into the gaseous state, assuming the form of steam. On the other hand, deprivation of energy by subjecting water to very low temperatures, turns it into ice. It explains why Buddhists offer flowers to the Buddha as they represent things impermanent. Getting rid of delusion means not placing too much attachment to ‘I’ or be too egoistic. If we always place others above self, we will not be placing too much importance to the self. In this way, we will be too willing to help others, to donate things or money to help the needy and so on.

Walking the Buddha’s path is not easy. It entails determination and will as well as self-sacrifice.

Acupuncture aids healing

I have gone for physiotherapy to treat my tennis elbow five times till now. Most of the time, the lady would apply acupuncture points to help in the healing process besides the usual electrical current, ultrasound and cold compress.

One day, he inserted two pins into my elbow side and lower arm near the elbow, I had this feeling of sharp pain when she was twisting the pins. According to her, this was the feeling I should get as she had poke at the right acupuncture points. The pain after the insertion of the pins lasted two days and on subsequent trips to the clinic she only used pressure to massage the meridian points.

Frankly speaking acupuncture really aids healing.

How to express the same situation in English

In English, we can use 'so' followed by 'do', 'does', 'did' or verbs to be to express similar situations.

The following are such examples.

1 They like to dance. So do we.

2 She goes to market daily. So does he.

3 John attended the meeting. So did I.

4 An acid is sour in taste. So is vinegar.

5 She was absent yesterday. So was I.

6 We were there last Sunday. So were they.