2008 - A Bad Year for China

There has been a lot of bad news in China since the beginning of the year. The bad news includes:
1. a severe snowstorm in January and February,
2. a breakout of Tibet riots in March,
3. a protest against the China government by the pro-Tibetan supporters to extinguish Olympic torch in March and April, and
4. a horrible earthquake in Sichuan in May.

To better learn English, I was told to learn English by taking the following steps:
1. to engage in learning tasks
2. to explore the newly learnt words, information, or ideas
3. to express or talk with others about the topic
4. to evaluate how much I have learnt.

I will try to make these steps of learning a habit in my daily life.

Phonics and Reading

Today, I read the story, "French Adventures - Part I". It took me 45 minutes to read the whole book. I can understand the story and I like the story. Although there are a number of new words I can't pronounce them correctly, I can understand them from the context.

Terri then explained to me, I can improve my pronunciation by learning phonics. She taught me ten vowel sounds. The five short vowel sounds, a, e, i, o, and u; and the five long vowel sounds, ae, ee, ie, oe, and ue. These are ten basic sounds of English.

1. short a; such as racks, advanture
2. short e;
3. short i;
4. short o;
5. short u;
6. long ae;
7. long ee;
8. long ie;
9. long oe;
10. long ue;