China232.com Blog

This can be applied to making any improvement in your life but here I’m going to use improving English as the example.

A lot of people tell me they want to improve their English. I ask them how they are going to do it. They tell me something like, “spend more time studying”. Their intentions are good but they are likely to fail. Their plan is not specific enough. They don’t have a plan for how they will study and when they will study. You need to know exactly what you will do and when you will do if you want to be successful.

Let’s look at this plan: “I’m going to read for 1 hour every night”. Is that a good plan? It’s better than the first one but still not good enough. You need to know what you are going to read and when exactly you will read it. If you say you will read at 8:00-9:00 every night then if it is 8:05, you know that you should be reading. If you just say you will read for an hour every night, what is likely to happen is you will keep delaying the reading until you are too tired, and then go to bed thinking that you will just start tomorrow.

Here is an an example of a good plan: “I will listen to one English podcast everyday starting at 8:00 pm. I will then go on the China232.com forum and ask any questions I have about the podcast, and if I have no questions, I’ll practice writing by answering one of the other questions, or writing my opinion on one of the topics”.

Now you have a good plan that you can put into action. Use this plan or make another one equally specific for your English study. Make sure you write down exactly what you will do and when you will do it. Try it for 30 days. See if you can do it everyday for 30 days. Once it becomes a habit it will be easier to maintain.

Good luck and let me know how it goes.

Andy

Learning and Improving English Phrases and idioms Self Improvement

Mutually exclusive is a term that pops up all the time in books I read. This is a mathematical term with a very precise meaning, but in general English it is used to mean that two things can’t happen at the same time.

For example, being in a relationship and being single are mutually exclusive. In other words, you can’t be in a relationship and be single at the same time. (unless you are a good liar. haha).

Often this term is used by saying that two things are “not mutually exclusive”. This means that the two events can, at least in theory, happen together.

Doing well in school and having a fun social life are not mutually exclusive if you know how to manage your time well.

Knowing how to use this term well will impress native speakers. I even know some native speakers who don’t know what it means.

Andy

Grammar and Word Usage Phrases and idioms

A “critical mass” is an important term to understand. I believe it was first used in physics but it also comes up often in a business context.

A critical mass is basically the smallest amount of something you need before a major change occurs. Don’t worry, I don’t blame you if you are still confused. Here are some examples:

Think about the discussion forum of this website. I’ve been thinking about ways to make it more popular. You’ve probably noticed that people don’t post very often at the moment. Since this is true it will make a new user less likely to sign up and make a post. Why? Because they can see that there is a good chance that no one will comment on their post. If the forum was more popular, it would attract more users. The biggest problem is that we haven’t reached our “critical mass” of users yet. I’m not sure what that magic number is, but I’m sure you can imagine that once the forum reaches a certain level of popularity, then it will grow quickly by itself. If the forum remains below the critical mass, then not much will happen. A critical mass is basically the magic number that causes a major turning point.

Epidemics (major diseases that spread throughout a population) need to reach a “critical mass” before they can really spread. Scientists know that if a certain percentage of the population gets a disease (the critical mass) then the disease will spread throughout much of the population. This is why it often seems like many people catch a cold at the same time. If many other people have a cold, the more likely you are to catch it.

People in business know how important it is to have many people know about their product. The more people who know about a product the more friends they can tell about this product. This is one reason that advertising is so important. Sometimes having the best product is much less important than having a popular product in terms of making money.

Hopefully China232.com reaches a critical mass soon and everyone knows about us.

Help us reach a critical mass by telling your friends and writing in the forum.

Thanks,

Andy

Business English Phrases and idioms

Take the high road.

This expression means to handle a situation in a kind and ethical way instead of retaliating and seeking revenge.

Here is a common situation where this expression is used:

Imagine your boss was in a bad mood one day and started yelling at you for no good reason and complaining about your work. You’d probably be upset by this and might want to retaliate by saying something negative to him. Let’s say that you discuss this with your friend and your friend says to you; “He’s just in a bad mood. Of course he shouldn’t have yelled at you, but if you get upset and yell back then you are just as bad as he is. You should take the high road and forget about it.”

Imagine your ex-girlfriend sees you and tells you that she never loved you and hated the whole time you were together. You could retaliate by saying something horrible to her, or you could take the high road by disregarding what she said or saying something like, “I’m sorry you feel that way”.

I know from experience it’s difficult to take the high road (I don’t always do it) but it’s certainly something we should all try to do.

Andy

Phrases and idioms

Juno, a teenage girl with a very sarcastic sense of humor, gets impregnated from her best friend. She’s faced with several tough questions like whether or not to keep the baby, how to tell her parents, etc. I don’t want to tell you too much about Juno except that she is hilarious and you should watch the movie.

I love this movie. I think it’s absolutely hilarious. I’d say it’s somewhere between a comedy and a drama. If you can understand the comedy than you should feel great about your English abilities. The English level isn’t too difficult but the comedy is quite sophisticated. It’s not a slapstick comedy. A slapstick comedy is one really old kind of humor. Something like someone throwing a cake in someone else’s face is an example of slapstick comedy. Slapstick is a very physical type of comedy. I personally don’t usually find slapstick comedy very funny.

I’d love to hear what you think.

Share your thoughts here: Juno Discussion

Andy

Andys movie reviews

If someone is leading a “double life” it means that in one area of their life they act a certain way and portray a certain image, whereas in another area of their life they act and behave completely differently; hence the term “double life”. Usually the reason that the person needs to portray two different characters is that they have some secret part of their life that they don’t want other people to know about.

As an example, imagine a really nice mother who is a great wife, takes great care of her kids and has a nice job. Everyone thinks she perfect. Secretly however, she dates several men behind her husband’s back and tells no one about it. This woman is leading a double life.

Sometimes teens lead “double lives” because their parents won’t allow them to do certain things that their friends do. They seem like perfect kids in front of their parents, but do all sorts of “bad” things behind their parent’s backs.

Eliot Spitzer is a man who got caught leading a double life. Read about his story here. Eliot Spitzer’s story

Your comments are always appreciated.

Andy

Phrases and idioms

Governor Eliot Spitzer was well known for working to eliminate wall street wrongdoings as well as helping to bust several prostitution rings. He was thought of as an “upstanding member of society” with a high moral code.

Recently he was caught on a federal wiretap where he was arranging to meet with a high-priced prostitute (several thousand dollars) in a Washington hotel. He has since confessed his “double life”, publicly apologized to his wife, family, and the general public. Then he stepped down from his position as governor.

Helpful vocab:

Upstanding member of society: An upstanding member of society is a person who has high morals, tries to do what is right, and doesn’t do illegal things.

Wiretap: A wiretap is a way of secretly listening into other people’s phone calls. If you were a suspect of a crime, the police could “tap into” your phone conversations, (ie. listen to them without you knowing) to see if they could get evidence for your crimes.

Double life:  Click here to read my blog about it.

Stepped down: If someone “steps down” from a job or a position, it means they resign (quit). Often people do this to avoid having to get fired or making a big court case out of it.

I’d love to hear your opinions on this situation. Do you think Eliot Spitzer’s wife should divorce him? Do you think he is a terrible person?

Go here to the discussion forum to share your ideas: Eliot Spitzer discussion

Andy

Current Events

Manic depression is a type of mental or psychological disorder. A person with manic depression has very large mood swings. The person is sometimes incredibly happy and confident (the manic state) and other times they are completely depressed and upset. This disease is also called bipolar disorder. (”Bi” means 2 and “pole” means ends). In other words the person’s mood can easily range between the two extremes. People who have this disease often take medicine to help stabilize their mood.

Everyone’s mood changes from time to time but manic depression is a very extreme case. Sometimes you will hear this word used lightly in conversation. You might hear someone describe themselves as being “bipolar” or “manic depressed”. You should note that sometimes people say these terms to exaggerate someone’s behavior even though the person may not actually have this disease.

Your comments are always appreciated.

Andy

Phrases and idioms Psychology

The law of diminishing returns is a classic law of economics. The economics definition might be a little confusing so I’ll do my best in explaining the basic idea of it. Essentially it means that as you continue to add more of the same thing, the added benefit becomes less and less.

Here are a few real life examples which should help to clear up the meaning:

1. Imagine a student who is studying to take an easy test. Let’s assume that he can learn everything in about 10 hours of study. The first 10 hours of studying will have a much greater impact on his test score than his second 10 hours of studying. After a certain point, any extra studying will be a waste of time because he already knows the material.

2. Imagine now that you are going to clean your messy bedroom. The first hour of cleaning will make the most difference, the second hour should make less difference than the first hour, and eventually, if you continue cleaning your room, your extra time spent cleaning won’t make much difference at all because your room will already be clean.

3. How much money someone has works the same way. The first million dollars you earn makes a much bigger difference on the quality of your life than the second million dollars. After a certain point, extra money doesn’t make any difference in your lifestyle at all. In terms of lifestyle, there is not much difference between 30 billion and 60 billion dollars.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Andy

Business English

Here is an important term that you will often hear used in business, economics, and the news.

Everyone knows what the “cost” of something is. If I told you that going to a certain university as a full-time student for 4 years cost $10,000 per year, you would know that the total cost of the 4-year program is $40,000.

The opportunity cost is different. The opportunity cost also includes what else you are “giving up” by making that decision. The opportunity cost can be applied when you are making a decision between doing two or more things.

In our simple example, let’s say that you are considering doing one of two things:
a:)go to school for 4 years or
b:)not go to school and working instead.

Let’s assume that if you didn’t go to school you would be able to earn $30 000 per year during that time. That would be $120,000 that you wouldn’t have if you had instead chose to go to school. In this case we say that the opportunity cost of going to school is the $40,000 of tuition + the $120,000 that you would have earned if you chose to work instead. Therefore the opportunity cost of going to school would be $160,000. That sounds quite expensive. We could even complicate this further by including the money that you would have earned on investments during the time you were working.

Basically, the point of the opportunity cost is to help you evaluate the “real” costs of choosing one option instead of another.
It doesn’t only have to be about money either. For example, imagine that you have a girlfriend (or boyfriend) and you are deciding whether or not you will move to another country without her. You have decided that if you do move, you will break-up. That means that your girlfriend is an opportunity cost of moving because you will be losing her if you go away.

I hope this explanation was clear and you will be able to use this term confidently. Let me know if you have any questions.

Andy

Business English