IrishOboe

Can you say "toy boat" quickly three times? I can't, so I included it in my list of tongue twisters my students could pick from for my Tongue Twister class. Well, one after the other said it flawlessly to my absolute shock. They had a great time watching me fail miserably at trying it. If that wasn't interesting enough, I shared this with friends at my English Free Zone and one boy (born and raised in Japan) could of course say it with no trouble. However, the boy who was born in Brazil (to Japanese parents) had the same trouble I did even though his Japanese is so good his friends didn't believe him when he said he was from Brazil. If I was getting my PhD I think I would pick this as my research topic. What makes a tongue twister hard? It's fascinating to think about. This shows that it can't simply be a matter of whether or not your tongue can get into that position or not. It appears that the lack of tongue flexibility helps the Japanese with that one. Fascinating.

Not too much happened last week but I’m sure I’ll find a way to go on and on about it. Sunday morning, May 7^th, I decided to see how fast I could run a mile so I went to Dragon park, which has a labeled running track. I could have gone faster since my second 800 meters was faster than my first, but still, I think it’s the first time in my life I’ve run an eight minute mile. In college, ten minutes was pushing it. In high school, I don’t think I could even run a mile . . . (More)