Hokudai/Cast

Hokudai/Cast 239: Fabric and Lies

Word/Play dances around with words about lies and making things:

fabric fabricate fabrication

'Fabric' orginally meant 'to make.' So we have 'fabricate' and 'fabrication' both of which mean to make something. However, they also mean 'to lie.' And 'fabric' now means the cloth clothes are made out of.

By the way, 'make out of whole cloth' also means 'to lie' so we have two words that have to do with clothes (cloth and fabric) that mean 'to lie.' I wonder why that is, eh?

The How Do You Say...?" words are, again, fabric, fabricate, and fabrication. We sort of got off on a cloth tangent here today, didn't we?

Your Trilingual Lesson has the same three words as in Word/Play. Plus these five sentences:

What is the name of this fabric?

How can you fabricate such a story?

Toyota fabricates cars.

Is that a total fabrication?

That is a total fabrication.

Two Songs today. The first is in Japanese and it's called "Yoroley Blues" by Yoroley. It's from GBUC.net.

The second song is called "No Ifs" by Fish Leong. It's from Chinese Song.org and is, of course, in Chinese. You can see her YouTube video at our Hokudai/Cast blog.

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 239.

Be sure to watch Fish Leong's music video on Hokudai/Cast Blog
Take a virtual trip to Naoshima near Okayama by Tofugu on the MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 238: Who is a Pedestrian?

Interview returns with a simple interview. The interview is in English with a Hokuriku University student from Xian, China. Xian is home of the terracotta warriors, by the way.

Word/Play has five words dealing with people and what they do:

pedestrian pediatrician magician musician mortician

The 'ped' in pedestrian means 'foot.' But the 'ped' in pediatrician does not mean 'foot.' In pediatrician the root is 'pedia' which means child. The 'morte' in mortician means 'death,' of course. Such as in Harry Potter where the bad guy's name is Voldemort. His name means 'flee from death.'

Two Songs today. The first is in Japanese and it's called "夢　(Dream) by Arinko3Yoroley3. It's from GBUC.net.

The second song is called Poetry of the Day After by MayDay - WuYueTian - 五月天. It's from Chinese Song.org and is, of course, in Chinese. You can see their YouTube video at our Hokudai/Cast blog.

Your Trilingual Lesson has the same words as in your Word/Play section. Plus sentences like:

My elder sister wanted to be a magician but she's a pediatrician.

My elder sister is a pedestrian.

My elder brother wanted to be a musician but he's a mortician.

My elder brother is never a pedestrian. He drives everywhere.

We also have a How Do You Say...? bit with • elder brother and sister and • younger brother and sister in our three different languages.

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 238.

Be sure to watch a 五月天 • MayDay Concert on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And learn how to say How do you say...? in Mandarin with Peggy! on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 236: Pizza

How Do You Say...? returns with how do you say Sing? in Chinese and Japanese. (歌 in Japanese and 唱 in Chinese, by the way.) Listen carefully and try to repeat what the two ladies say.

On to the show.
Word/Play begins with a good word and some good food: Pizza. We discuss how it relates to pita bread and Ethiopia. Ethiopia? Well, listen and you might get the connection.The words are:

pizza pita pizzeria cafeteria

coffee Kaffa, Ethiopia coffee break ~teria

Two songs today. The first is in Japanese and it's called "Nakunarundawa" by The Kanders. It's from GBUC.net.

The second song is called 破晓 (Daybreak) by Valen Hsu 许茹芸 (Xu Ruyun). It's from Chinese Song.org and is, of course, in Chinese. You can see her YouTube video with karaoke-style subtitles at our MiraiSozo blog.

Your Trilingual Lesson is about April in Japan. What happens in April in Japan? Everyone rushes out to look at the cherry blossoms. People go to wherever there are cherry blossoms in bloom, spread out a plastic sheet, sing karaoke, drink, and have a picnic. Often in the evening or all day during the weekend. The words are:

English cherry blossoms look at April sing

Japanese 桜の花観る四月歌

Chinese 樱花看看四月唱

I'm going to look at cherry blossoms this April.

I'm not going to eat some cherry blossoms this April.

Are you going to look at cherry blossoms this April?

Who is going to look at cherry blossoms this April?

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 236.

Be sure to watch Valen Hsu sing on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And learn how to say the days of the week on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 235: Staple Food

Today is the beginning of school at 北陸大学. We had an Entrance Ceremony. An entrance ceremony is similar to the graduation ceremony: students in suits, professors on stage, speeches, and national anthem singing. After the ceremony, a famous writer talks about the brain and how to stimulate it into action.

After today, the first-year students will be given a lot of information. A lot. They will be in classrooms listening to lots of teachers talking about school, academics, school rules, and where to buy lunch. Then, after a week or so, classes for the freshmen will begin. All great fun for everyone. Maybe.

On to the show.
Music! Two songs today. The first is in Japanese and it's called "Gem Ring" by YsaeK. It's from GBUC.net.

The second song is called 在梵高的星空下 (Beneath Van Gogh's Starry Night) by 尚雯婕 (Shang Wenjie). It's from Chinese-tools.com and is, of course, in Chinese.

Word/Play is about rice. Rice is the staple food of most of the planet. It is related to many words in many languages. Where did it come from? India. From Sanskrit to Greek and then into other European languages. In fact, most European languages, for example, use some form of 'rice' as the word for rice. Italian is 'riso,' German is 'reis'. For example:

rice curry sake pilaf risotto

A Quick Trilingual Lesson
From Chinese-tools.com

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 235.

Be sure to watch the music duet on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And learn simple Mandarin on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 234: 朋友 and Writing Words

Last Tuesday was the Spring Equinox and a holiday here in Japan. Great, eh? Everyone is still enjoying their vacation until the beginning of April. School starts April 5th at 北陸大学.

On to the show.
Music! Two songs today. The first is called "Memology" by HU4. It's from GBUC.net.
The second song is called "Wind of the Bel lChimes" and it's by Liu Xijun from Chinese-tools.com.

The Trilingual Lesson deals with the root: "scribe" or "script". Script means "to write" and we have 16 words with either scribe or script in them. For example:

script scribe ascribe scribble

postscript inscribe scribbler circumscribe

inscription scrivener scriptorium scripture

proscribe describe transcribe subscribe

A Quick Trilingual Lesson
From Chinese-tools.com

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 234.

Be sure to watch the music video on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And take a TOEIC test on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 233: Perimeter

Last week was 北陸大学's graduation. Students went to a ceremony in the morning to get their diplomas and in the evening went to a party. Now they have about two weeks before they begin their jobs. Luckily, over 95% of Hokuriku graduates have found jobs, even in this economu.

On to the show.
Music! One song today and it is in Japanese. It's called "No Job Blues" by Eddie + Kewpie. It's from GBUC.net.

The Trilingual Lesson has words related to enclosing or being around something. The base prefix today is peri which means 'around' or 'enclose'. When combined with other pieces of words, we can get a lot of new words. For example:

• perimeter - a line around something (meter is a distance)
• perigee - the point a space body is nearest the Earth (gee is from Ge, the Earth)
• perihelion - the point a space body is nearest the sun (helios means... see below)
• helios - Greek for 'the sun'
• heliotrope - the sun (helios) and turn (trope)

For example:

• The moon is in perigee.

And:

• A sunflower is a heliotrope.

A Quick Trilingual Lesson
From Chinese-tools.com

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 233.

Be sure to watch the music video on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And take a TOEIC test on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 232: Meters

First, exciting new changes are coming to 北陸大学's website at Hokuriku-u.ac.jp. From April there will be short videos of teachers and students talking about their experiences, their classes, and giving advice about university life.

For us, that is exciting because they will probably be speaking in our three languages: Chinese, English, and Japanese. Probably mostly in Japanese because, after all, Hokuriku University is a university in Japan.

On to the show.
Music! Two different languages, two great songs: Chinese and English. The first is called "Small Spring" by Ibumushi. It's from GBUC.

The second song is from Chinesesong.org. It's by 金莎 (Jin Sha) and it is called "New Season 换季 (huan ji)."

The Trilingual Lesson has a lot of words related to measuring things. Meter means three things. One of them is a distance (100 cm) and one is a machine used for measuring. The second meaning is the one we are going to use today.

• speedometer
• taxi meter
• thermometer
• Thermos bottle
• geometry
• isometry
• isoceles triangle

For example:

• According to the speedometer, we were only going 40 k/h, officer.

For example:

• This thermometer must be broken. There's no way it's only 15˙

A Thermos bottle keeps drinks either hot (thermos means temperature) or cold. It's a company name, by the way. Thermos.

'metry' means 'a way of measuring' so both geo (earth) and iso (same) mean to measure either the earth or have the same measurement. An isoceles triangle, for example, as two sides that measure the same.

A Quick Trilingual Lesson

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 232.

Be sure to watch the music video on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And take a TOEIC test on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 231: In and Perspire

Yes, once again we have two different songs in two different languages: Chinese and English. The first is called "Crazy (快疯了)" by Stefanie (孙燕姿 Sun Yan Zi). It's from Chinese-mp3.com.

The second song is from IODA Promonet.com. It's by Ruthie Foster and it is called "Stone Love."

The Trilingual Lesson today is going to be an inspriation. They all have something to do with breathing but slightly different in meaning. Of course.

• inspire
• inspiration
• perspire
• perspiration
• conspire
• conspiracy

Inspire means, literally, to breath in. But now it means to breath in good ideas or to make someone become a better person. For example:

• She has inspired me to study Chinese.

In the same way, 'inspiration' is the noun form. For example:

• He was my inspiration to study Chinese.

Perspire and perspiration both mean 'breath through.' Per means through. Many centuries ago it was believed that something was pushing water through a person. Today it means sweat - the beads of perspiration that show up on your face after working very hard.

And conspire means to breath with. Con means with. If two peope are breathing in unison, if they are breathing together, then they are very close. To conspire now means to plot or plan to do something. Usually it means to plot or plan to do something illegal. For example:

• They conspired to overthrow the government.

Trilingual Lesson

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 231.

Be sure to watch the music video on Hokudai/Cast Blog
And take a TOEIC test on MiraiSozo blog.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Hokudai/Cast 230: Leaps and Bounds

The music is in English and Chinese today. Not the same song. Two different songs. The first is called "Welcome Back" by Ruthie Foster. The song is from IODA Promonet.com.

The second song is song by Joey Yung and it's called "梦路 - Dream Road." It's from Chinese-mp3.com.

There is no Trilingual Lesson today, sorry, but the words in Word/Play are:

• leap year
• light year
• yearbook
• leaps and bounds

Leaps and bounds means a great change. It usually means a great improvement. For example:

• My Japanese ability is improving by leaps and bounds.

We would not normally say:

• My Japanese ability is improving by leaps.
• My Japanese ability is improving by bounds.

Nor would we say:

• My Japanese ability is getting worse by leaps and bounds.

While both "leap" and "bound" mean "jump", we don't separate the two in the phrase "leaps and bounds". Why? Good question. I don't know.

A Brief History of the Calendar

In 1582 it was noticed that Easter was not conforming to Spring. It was too early. The Catholic church lead by Pope Gregory didn't want Easter to be celebrated in the winter, so the church set about to reform the calendar. The calendar had been used in Europe since 50 BC. Because the earth's year is actually 365.25 days long and not an exact 365 days long, it meant that the calendar was too fast. In fact, it was 10 days too fast.

The Catholic church changed it all in 1582 by snipping out 10 days in March and adding a leap day every four years. The new calendar was called the Gregorian calendar after Pope Gregory. The Gregorian calendar is the one we use today. February 29th is the leap day that comes around every four years.

There are other calendars in use. Some of them are religious calendars such as the Hebrew calendar (it is now the year 5772~3 in the Hebrew calendar); and the Islamic calendar (it is now the year 1433~4 in the Islamic calendar).

Other calendars are used for festivals and important days of the years such as the Chinese calendar (it is now the year 4648~9 in the Chinese calendar). And still other calendars use the name of the reign or era. Japan uses such a calendar. It is Heisei 24 in Japan today but 25 years ago it was Showa 63.

We hope you enjoyed Hokudai/Cast 230.

We hope to see you next week.

You can always follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

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pizza	pita	pizzeria	cafeteria
coffee	Kaffa, Ethiopia	coffee break	~teria

English	cherry blossoms	look at	April	sing
Japanese	桜の花	観る	四月	歌
Chinese	樱花	看看	四月	唱

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