English for Emails

 Email တွေဟာ လုပ်ငန်းခွင်အတွက် တကယ်ကို အရေးပါတဲ့ အသုံးဝင်တဲ့ ဆက်သွယ်မှုတစ်ခုပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ ဒါကြောင့် professional ဆန်တဲ့ email တစ်စောင်ကို အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လိုမျိုးရေးရမလဲ ၊ ဘယ်လို ဝေါဟာရတွေ၊ အသုံးအနှုန်းတွေကို သုံးရမလဲဆိုတာနဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို Email ပို့တာနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး အခြားသိသင့်သိထိုက်တဲ့ အချက်တွေကို လေ့လာလို့ရမယ့် resource လေးတွေကို ပြောပြပါမယ်။

အဲ့ဒါကတော့ Learn English British Council website က English for Emails ဆိုတဲ့ section ပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။

📌Email Address တွေကို မှန်မှန်ကန်ကန်နဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လိုအသံထွက်ရမလဲ ။ Email addresss တွေနဲ့ ပတ်သတ်ပြီး သိသင့်သိထိုက်တာတွေကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-1-email-addresses

📌Email တစ်စောင်မှာ ပါဝင်တဲ့ အပိုင်းတွေကို အင်္ဂလိပ်လို ဘယ်လို သုံးနှုန်းပြောဆိုရမလဲ ဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-2-sending-and-receiving-emails

📌ကိုယ့်ဆီကို ဝင်လာတဲ့ Emails တွေကို သူ့နေရာနဲ့သူ သေသေသပ်သပ်ဖြစ်အောင် Email မှာပါတဲ့ category အမျိုးမျိုးကို သုံးပြီး ဘယ်လိုမျိုးလုပ်ရမလဲဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-3-organising-your-emails

📌အင်္ဂလိပ်လို email တစ်စောင်ကိုရေးတဲ့အခါ ဘယ်လိုမျိုး အစချီပြီး ဘယ်လိုမျိုး အဆုံးသတ်ရသလဲ ဆိုတာကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-4-starting-and-finishing-emails

📌ကိုယ်က email ပို့ပြီး arrangement လုပ်တဲ့အခါ သုံးရမယိ့ common phrase တွေကို အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-5-making-arrangements

📌Email ကနေ ကိုယ်ကတစ်ခုခုမေးမြန်းချင်တဲ့အခါဖြစ်စေ၊ ကိုယ့်ကို တစ်ယောက်ယောက်က တစ်ခုခုမေးလာတဲ့အခါမှာ ဖြစ်စေ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို မှန်မှန်ကန်ကန် စနစ်တကျ မေးတတ်ဖြေတတ်ချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-6-enquiries

📌ရှင်းလင်းပြီး ဖတ်ရလွယ်ကူတဲ့ သေသပ်တဲ့ Email တစ်စောင်ကို ဘယ်လိုရေးရမလဲ၊ ဘယ်အချက်တွေကို ထည့်ရေးရမလဲဆိုတာ သိချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-7-organising-your-writing

📌Email ရေးရာမှာ ဖြစ်တတ်တဲ့ common mistakes တွေက ဘာတွေလဲ အဲ့လိုမျိုး error တွေမရှိအောင်ဝဘယ်လိုလုပ်ရမလဲ သိချင်ရင် အောက်ပါ link မှာ လေ့လာပါ။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-8-proofreading

📌Professional ဆန်တဲ့ Email တစ်စောင်ရေးဖို့အတွက် သိထားသင့်တဲ့ dos & don'ts တွေ ၊ etiquette တွေအကြောင်းကို အောက်ပါ linkမှာ လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။
https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/english-for-emails/unit-9-email-etiquette

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Phrasal Verbs with "Take"

 📌Take over

Meaning : to take control of something (တာဝန်လွှဲပြောင်းမှု ရယူ)

e.g. David has taken over as the new manager of the football team.

📌Take up

Meaning: to begin a sport, hobby or a challenge (တစ်ခုခုကို စတင်လုပ်ဆောင်)

e.g. He took up karate at a young age and is now an expert.

📌Take on

Meaning: to hire/employ staff (ဝန်ထမ်းခန့်ထား)

e.g. The department store took on more staff over the busy Christmas period.

📌Take off

Meaning (1): leave the ground and fly (လေယာဉ်စတင်ပျံသန်း)

e.g. The plane was able to take off once the runway was clear.

Meaning (2): become popular or successful (လူသိများ အောင်မြင်)

e.g. Exile by Taylor Swift has really taken off in the charts.

📌Take (something) in

Meaning: to observe something (လေ့လာဆန်းစစ်)

e.g. They took in every detail to tell their friends about it later.

📌Take after (somebody)

Meaning: resemble somebody else, usually a family member (မိသားစုဝင်/ တစ်စုံတစ်ယောက်နဲ့ တူ)

Mark is very hard-working. He takes after his father.

📌Take apart

Meaning: to disassemble something (ကိရိယာ တန်ဆာများကိုဖြုတ်သည်)

e.g. He took his laptop apart to see if he could fix its problem.

Ref: www.vocabulary.cl.com

 

10 Useful Idioms about Health

 

📌Clean bill of health

Definition: A report or certificate declaring that someone is healthy. (ကျန်းမာရေးကောင်းမွန်ကြောင်း ထောက်ခံချက်လက်မှတ်)

e.g. If you wish to apply for this job you must produce a clean bill of health.

e.g. The doctor’s given me a clean bill of health.

📌 as fit as a fiddle

Definition: to be in the excellent state of health (ဒေါင်ဒေါင်မြည် ကျန်းမာ)

e.g. My grandmother is in her eighties but she’s as fit as a fiddle.

e.g. You may feel unwell now but after a few days of rest and medication, you’ll be as fit as a fiddle.

📌Be the picture of (good) health

Definition: To look very healthy. (ကျန်းမာရေး အရမ်းကောင်းပုံပေါ်)

e.g. My grandpa exercises every day without fail. He is the picture of health.

e.g. The doctor says Linda is the picture of health.

📌In the pink of health

Definition: In very good health (ကျန်းမာရေး အရမ်းကောင်း)

e.g. It took a month of bed rest followed by physiotherapy, but I’m in the pink of health now.

e.g. It’s so good to see you in the pink of health!

📌Under the weather

Definition: Slightly unwell or in low spirits. (နေထိုင်မကောင်းဖြစ်၊ ဖျားနာ)

e.g. I’m sorry I can’t make it. I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.

e.g. The sandwich I ate for breakfast is making me feel under the weather.

📌Look like death warmed up

Definition: To look or feel very sick. (အရမ်းနေမကောင်းဖြစ်/ဖျားနာ)

e.g. Oh dear! You look like death warmed up, I think you should see a doctor!

e.g.She shouldn’t be working all night when she’s so ill, she looks like death warmed up.

📌Frog in one’s throat

Definition: Difficulty in speaking because of a cough or sore throat (ချောင်းဆိုး/လည်ချောင်းနာပြီး စကားပြောရခက်ခဲ)

e.g. I’m tired of feeling like I’ve a frog in my throat. I can barely talk.

e.g. Conducting today’s workshop was so difficult. I had a frog in my throat all day.

📌Go under the knife

Definition: To have a surgery; it could also mean cosmetic surgery. (ခွဲစိတ်ကုသမှုခံယူ)

e.g. My mum’s not worried about the operation. She’s been under the knife several times.

e.g. Stacy went under the knife last week.

📌On one’s last legs

Definition: To be very tired or near to death (အရမ်းမောပန်း / အသည်းအသန်ဖျားနာပြီး အသက်အန္တရာယ်နဲ့နီး)

e.g. He was always the picture of heath, it’s shocking to see him on his last legs.

e.g. We’d been out shopping all day and I was on my last legs when we reached home.

📌As right as rain

Definition: To be in excellent health (ကျန်းမာရေး အလွန်ကောင်းမွန်နေ)

e.g. Nancy isn’t ill anymore. I saw her this morning and she’s as right as rain.

e.g. If I keep a proper diet and exercise regularly, the doctor says I’ll be as right as rain.

Ref: www.englishonyourmind.com

 

 

How Improving English Language Skills can contribute to Socio-Economic Development of Myanmar?

 

Before Myanmar’s independence in 1948 was gained, a significant number of records indicate that almost all Myanmar’s university students used to speak English fluently having taught in English as the medium of instruction during the British colonial era, and the quality of Myanmar’s education was ranked one of the tops in Asia.

However, as of today, the vast majority of the Burmese people still lack adequate English language skills despite the fact that they had studied English as a compulsory subject for eleven years in basic education. Some students are taking English language classes even after getting a degree. It is noticeable that the number of youth who speak English in the country is relatively low compared to other Asia Pacific countries since it was labelled “Very Low Proficiency” on 2018 Global English Proficiency Index. EF English Proficiency Index also reported in 2019 that the country took a significantly lower position of 86 out of 100 countries in terms of English language proficiency.

Source: EF EPI Asia Rankings 2019

Driving Forces behind low level of English Language Proficiency in Myanmar

There are a number of conditions that hamper the students from becoming confident speakers of English language. Firstly, a high proportion of English teachers employed in the government’s schools in Myanmar – where massive population of students are educated – are not competent users of English. A report of Australian Journal of Teacher Education on the language competency of English teachers in Myanmar, who participated in EfECT (English for Education College Trainers) teacher training program of the British Council Myanmar, stated that the teachers were weak and had low levels of English. They could not speak fluently in conversational situation, and their English was limited to simple vocabulary – this, in the report, is pointed out as the reason why the teachers use the native Burmese language both inside and outside of classrooms.

Secondly, since English teachers, themselves, lack an efficient level of language proficiency, they are not capable of conducting their classes in English and using English as a medium of instruction – indicated by Gary V. Ireland and Robert Van Benthuyse in their research paper entitled as Contemporary Issues in EFL Education in Myanmar. “Our official language is not English, so we often do not use it. Even in our own classrooms, we do not deliver our lessons in English because we are not confident to use it, and we are more comfortable using our own language”, said a participating teacher of EfECT program, which is also mentioned in Australian Journal of Teacher Education. As a result, the students are not exposed to English-speaking classroom environment and, this, in turn, costs them losing opportunities to speak English.
 

Thirdly, teachers with a low level of English language proficiency are more likely to employ a conventional teacher-centred pedagogy, which results passive learning and a limited interaction between students and teachers in classrooms, - according to a research on “Teacher Training in Myanmar: Teachers’ Perceptions and Implications” issued by International Journal of Instruction. Accordingly, the English language classrooms in Myanmar’s state schools are not dynamic or vibrant enough to conduce effective language learning.

Fourth, English language teaching pedagogy used in government high schools in Myanmar is found to be exam-oriented, training the students for a mere purpose of achieving good grades in exams through memorization of textbook contents – rather than facilitating the actual development of language skills – as stated in a research on “An Analytical Study of English Teaching Skills of Teachers in Government High Schools in Myanmar” by Ven.Suriya.

In the case of private providers of English language courses, the academic credentials of instructors working at language schools are not properly set up in Myanmar unlike Singapore and Malaysia, where teachers are required to hold a recognized TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification, in addition to a bachelor’s degree to ensure that the quality of teaching is standardized. “There are many teachers in Myanmar whose English may be defined as lower than ‘competent user’ (IELTS Band Score 6), but are offering both online and in-person classes nationwide”, said an experienced English teacher who prefers his name kept anonymous.

Source: Harvard Business Review

Why Learning English has become more important to the people in Myanmar?

Since English has been a lingua franca used in a wide range of contexts: education, research, business dealings, science, technology and so forth, “being able to communicate in English is perceived as a valuable asset for the academic and professional development of individuals and the nation’s socio-economic growth as a whole” - stated by Dr. Daniel Brooker, Senior International Education Manager from Cambridge Assessment English, in his research. This is particularly relevant to developing countries because English can provide people with access to various sources of information, knowledge and skills needed to conduct knowledge-based economic activities and produce value-added products and services.

Source: Harvard Business Review

As Myanmar is one of the developing countries, where FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) plays an important role as part of economic reforms, it is crucial to have a skilled and English-proficient workforce that can drive sustainable development of the country. However, an enormous number of the Burmese population, having grown up in an aforementioned unfavorable environment for English language acquisition, has not unfortunately achieved a sufficient level of English Language proficiency to thrive in this age of globalization and fast-paced world - risking repercussions on academic growth, employment opportunities, and career advancement. Thus, it is recommended to provide feasible approaches to effective English Language learning for the socio-economic development of Myanmar.

Comparison between 2018 and 2019 Index

Source: EF EOU Scores Compared to 2018

EF EPI (2019) has reported that Myanmar experienced almost 2 % soar in the English language proficiency while many Asia countries witnessed a downward trend, compared to the year of 2018. It is somehow the good side of the coin despite low ranking, and we are confident that the ranking will probably improve in the following years if the following recommended strategies are systematically applied to language learning.

What are Effective Strategies for Learning English?
 

The following strategies can be deemed effective for a successful acquisition of English language proficiency. These learning approaches apply to not only the Burmese students but also wider Burmese population, particularly those who have spent decades on studying English, but still do not reach sufficient level.

1. Expose yourself to the language on a regular basic

According to International TEFL and TESOL training, the more you are exposed to the language, the more learning opportunities you have to get a good grasp of the language and sound natural. Even though you are neither raised in an English-speaking country nor surrounded by either native or non-native English speakers in your environment, you can still make it possible to get exposure to the language: taking advantage of the Internet and technology, you can have access to a variety of free resources designed for learning English, and thus read and listen to as much English language as possible.

Moreover, you can join English speaking clubs in your area, and actively participate in speaking activities whenever opportunity is given. Furthermore, you can write English essays for your school’s or university’s monthly magazine or chat online in English. It would be more effective if you can dedicate to practicing all four skills of the language on a daily basis.

2. Find interesting things in English to watch, read and listen to

British Council recommends learning English through things that interest and excite you in order to succeed in learning. It is true that having an enjoyable learning experience can help you get regular exposure to the language. Watching TV shows or movies, listening to songs and podcasts, and reading books and magazines in English, for example, can be engaging and gripping enough to motivate you to get into the habit of learning English on a regular basis - in such a way that is entertaining.

In addition, as vlogging has become a trend, following English speaking vloggers on Youtube and other social media platforms, would also be an ideal way to level-up your language skills while natural English with different accents can be exposed to. Learning English through these resources can provide you with enormous opportunities to learn real-life language input - authentic and varied language, which can hardly be learned in your classroom, reinforcing natural flow as you produce the language.

3. Enhance Productive Skills through improving Receptive Skills

Reading and listening are referred to as receptive skills, which is also known as passive skills, since the learners receive information (language input) whereas speaking and writing are labelled as productive skills or active skills as it requires learners to produce the language. Although it is true that you need to speak and write in English frequently in order to improve your oral and written communication, it is also crucial to have acquired sufficient language input through reading and listening so that you can gain more fluency and confidence, and sound natural when writing and speaking.

Starting with reading and writing, these two skills are inseparable in learning English: the more one reads, the better they write - having learnt a better vocabulary and recognized the nuances of the language. Because, it is very unlikely to produce a good written work of your own without experience of reading quality pieces.

Likewise, there is no exception to listening and speaking in this case. Practicing listening skills can have a significant impact on your speaking skill. Through listening to various native speakers of English, you can understand what they say in different contexts and how they say it using appropriate vocabulary, and you can, at the same time, learn pronunciation and intonation.

4. Be Active and Take Control of Your Own Learning

British council also highlights the importance of learners’ autonomy in effective language learning. In essence, you should choose to take more responsibility for your own learning - setting your own goals, doing self-study, and seeking opportunities to practice outside the classroom to upgrade your language skills; rather than being completely reliant on teachers for your progress. Since motivation is one of the most fundamental elements for a successful language acquisition, you should always be motivated to devote yourself to learning English and enhance your language proficiency through various ways.

5. Persevere and Stay Passionate

Throughout your learning journey, you need to bear in mind “Rome was not built in a day”- meaning it is very unlikely to develop a very high level of language competencies overnight. It requires you to exert relentless efforts, and maintain perseverance for a considerable period of time to become a fluent language user. You may not therefore reach your targeted level of proficiency unless you are not passionate and committed enough to learning the language for a certain period of time.

** This article was originally published in Diinsider's Change Magazine on September 8, 2020. Click on the link to read the original piece.

Drones in Tackling COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond

 

The popularity of using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which are commonly referred to as drones, is gaining steady momentum over the past few years thanks to its ample qualities useful to a number of sectors and a variety of purposes: increasing work efficiency and productivity, decreasing workload and production costs, improving accuracy, and so on despite the fact that they were originally developed for sensitive and complex military operations.

According to a World Bank report on drones for development, the use of drones in development projects entails a lot of benefits: lower operational costs, lower operational risk to development workers in project areas, more efficient planning and implementation of projects, higher quality data available in larger quantities and more flexible, affordable verification tools. Thus, development professionals are increasingly looking into the usefulness of drones since they require extensive data collection, detailed mapping, as well as regular inspections; when conducted in remote or hard-to-reach areas to design, implement, and evaluate a number of projects efficiently and effectively.

The Uses of Drones in time of Pandemic

“Yes auntie, this is the drone speaking to you. You shouldn’t walk about without wearing a mask. You’d better go back home and don’t forget to wash your hands.” The video on a sharp-tongued drone talking to people is shot in Inner Mongolia, China in January. Drones with loudspeakers were flying above villages and cities, broadcasting health information to people, especially old people living in rural areas that lack effective communication channels to information.

From the start of the pandemic, drones are deployed on the frontline to combat the crisis. As remotely piloted devices, drones are naturally effective at minimizing human interactions, which is a key barrier currently for delivering services. They are mainly used in four ways: facilitating communication, disinfecting areas, delivering supplies, and measuring body temperature.

1. With drones, officials can oversee people’s activities and broadcast messages in dense areas of the city without the risk of contact with those who are potentially infected.
    
2. Medical supplies and samples can be delivered by drones to ensure both safety and speed. The UAVs are also used to deliver groceries or food to further reduce social contacts and risks.
    
3. Disinfectants are used to clean the public spaces that are potentially occupied by infected people. Spraying drones can cover 100,000m²  in an hour with a spraying tank of 16L. The speed is around 50 times faster than traditional methods.
    
4. Drones with infrared cameras are also used to take people’s temperature. So that people don’t have to contact the thermometer that has potentially been contaminated.

How Drones are Being Deployed in Multiple Sectors

Before the pandemic, applications of drones, along with their versatility, has already been seen in a wide range of sectors: transport, energy, water, agriculture, urban development, and so forth as reported by Asia Development Bank.

In the energy sector, for instance, drones equipped with thermal cameras can take three-dimensional (3D) pictures and videos to inspect damages, such as dents or holes, on wind turbines. Such inspection would otherwise have to be done manually by workers by climbing up the wind turbine blades using ropes, putting their lives at risk - which can be dangerous, time-consuming, costly, and ineffective. In a study, it is discovered that the use of drones in Argentina has improved inspection results for the country’s oil and gas refineries, and has brought exponential improvement of safety and efficiency to the country’s top-tier Oil & Gas players including YPF, Shell, Petrocuyo, Edelap and 360 Energía.

Drones are also useful for water projects to monitor remotely at specific times such as shortly after a rainstorm when there is typically more sediment in the water. UAV-based monitoring systems offer the benefits of low-cost imaging at higher spatial resolutions and fully controlled temporal scales.

Drones are also utilized in urban planning since drones, having equipped with Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) sensors, can not only give accurate data on the number of houses and trees and other physical structures in a given area but also create 3D maps and high-resolution aerial images to help implement the projects. The United States is a country which is employing drones to maintain its transportation infrastructure. Eighty percent of the US state highway departments now have UAS programs to inspect bridges, pavementments, light-poles, and to gather aerial views of highway construction progress.

Drones are also instrumental in the agriculture industry with its current uses ranging from fertilizer planning to weed and disease control and tree and land mapping to crop spraying.

In the case of fertilizer planning, nitrogen deficient areas in a crop can be clearly identified from above using drones fitted with cameras that have enhanced sensors which are calibrated to limit the effect of changing sunlight levels and allow a more accurate calculation of the green areas to be made. Drone operators, in controlling weed and disease, can accurately assess weed and disease levels in arable crops, and then weed species and disease can be pinpointed and targeted with high precision crop control measures.

Having the ability to cover large ground areas, drones can also map hundreds of hectares a day, highlighting ground features and any changes that may have occurred. Such data can be used to give area measurements for administration purposes or fed into machinery software to help the operator avoid hazards such as electric cables, flooded areas, changes in water courses, etc. When it comes to crop spraying, drones are capable of applying small quantities of pesticide or fertilizer to crops, orchards and forested areas. One country which has led aerial spraying using drones is China.

ADAMA: how drones are being used in the agriculture industry.

Potential Future Uses of Drones in Development Sector

In addition to using drones in the face of the pandemic and the aforementioned sectors, the potential applications of drones, according to an article issued by the World Bank, are anticipated in other development work, including the delivery of medical supplies, fighting urban and forest fires, providing internet connectivity in rural and remote areas through a perpetually airborne network, radiological, atmospheric, and environmental sensing, meteorology, humanitarian operations, and natural resources conservation and management.

That being said, the drones have the potential to become a part of the new normal in the post-pandemic world. Some believe that the Covid-19 has brought the Golden Age of drone delivery, especially for the last-mile delivery. Drones are in their ways of becoming the future of delivery business. Amazon is planning to use a drone delivery system in the near future with the goal of delivering packages to their customers within or less than half an hour. The globally famous Domino’s Pizza is also implementing the idea of using drones for the delivery of their pizzas in partnership with Flirtey drone delivery service, and they had successfully carried out their first-ever pizza delivery by drone in New Zealand in 2016.

The Hype or the Clever way?

However, the applications of drones are not without controversy.

First of all, the efficacy and viability of the applications are being questioned. For example, the disinfection of air in the communities and cities is not known to be effective for disease control. Similarly, because drones cannot be close enough to people, the temperatures taken by drones are suspicious.

Secondly, the “drone ethics” is still under debate. Surveillance drones are very controversial, but not many drone companies are dealing with data privacy and protection issues.

Thirdly, it can be difficult to scale the applications. In many developing countries, there are not enough local skilled experts in this field. These “foreign-led, top-down, techno-centric interventions” can result in an exacerbated digital divide.

Technologies are born neutral, how we humans make use of them is more important. We need updated policies and guidelines to boost efficiency and efficacy while dealing with ethical issues. To integrate drones into the solution needs expertise and visionaries across the ecosystem. Time is still needed to see whether the use of drones is hype, or a clever new way to tackle crises.

 

** This article was originally published in Diinsider's Change Magazin on August 4, 2020. Clink on the link below to read the original article.

 http://www.changemag-diinsider.com/blog/drones-in-tackling-covid-19-pandemic-and-beyond?fbclid=IwAR1yeiieHqxYJrtc_gGAeiFqKgmLUA9ygwhPzkTvJeGpmA7iG33XI14lsII

 

"Beats Me" & Other Ways to say "I Don't Know"

 ကိုယ့်ကို တစ်စုံတစ်ယောက်က မေးခွန်းတစ်ခုခုမေးတဲ့အခါကိုယ်မသိဘူးဆိုတာကို "I don't know" လို့ပြန်မပြောဘဲ အင်္ဂလိပ်လို slang လေးသုံးပြီး ပြန်ဖြေကြည့်ပါမယ်။💁‍♀️💁‍♀️

🌟(It )Beats Me 🌟

Meaning ~ I don't know, or I don't understand.

(NOTE : Used to answer someone's question.)

E.g. Any idea who won the pennant last year?
"Beats me."

" I don't know " အစား အောက်ပါတို့ကိုလည်း သုံးလို့ရပါသေးတယ်။

🎈I'm not sure / unsure.

🎈 I’m not 100% sure on that.

🎈I haven't got the faintest idea.

🎈I have no clue / idea.

🎈I haven't got a clue.

🎈I am not the best person to answer that.

🎈I can’t remember off the top of my head. I’ll get back to you on that.

🎈I don’t have that information here right now.

🎈 I’ve been wondering the same thing.

🎈It’s a mystery to me.

🎈It’s beyond me.

🎈That’s not my area of expertise.

Ref : www.7esl.com & dictionary.cambridge.org

 

Learning English is Fun

အင်္ဂလိပ်စာကို စာအုပ်တွေ ဖတ်ရှုလေ့လာပြီး formal ဆန်ဆန်လေ့လာလေ့ကျင့်ရတာငြီးငွေ့သွားတဲ့အခါ မိမိရဲ့ mobile phone ပေါ်မှာ application ကောင်းတာလေးတစ်ခုခုထည့်ထားပြီး informal learning လုပ်နေမယ်ဆိုရင်လည်း အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ တိုးတက်မှုကို အထောက်အကူ ဖြစ်စေပါတယ်။ 

ဒါကြောင့် ဒီနေ့မှာတော့ အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ လေ့လာနေသူတို့အတွက် 

ပျော်ပျော်ရွှင်နဲ့ ဂိမ်းကစားရင်း English exercises တွေလုပ်ပြီး ကိုယ့်ဘယ်လောက်ထိ တက်ကျွမ်းမှုရှိလဲဆိုတာ စမ်းစစ်ကြည့်နိုင်မယ့် application လေးတစ်ခုကို မျှဝေပေးချင်ပါတယ်။

 အဲ့ဒါကတော့ British Council က ထုတ်တဲ့ Johnny Grammar's Word Challenge ဆိုတဲ့ application လေးပဲဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

ဒီ application မှာတော့ 

✅Grammar

✅Word

✅Spelling 

ဆိုပြီး catagory သုံးခု ခွဲထားပြီး အဲ့ category သုံးခုနဲ့ ဆိုင်တဲ့ exercise တွေကို သတ်မှတ်ထားတဲ့ အချိန်အတွငိး အမြန်ဖြေရပါတယ်။ အချိန်ပြည့်သွားတဲ့အခါမှာတော့ မိမိရဲ့အဖြေတွေ မှန်သလား မှားသလား စစ်ဆေးကြည့်လို့ရပြီး များများမှန်ရင်တော့ badge တွေရမှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

စာအုပ်တွေနဲ့ exercise တွေလုပ်တာထက် ဒီapplicationပေါ်မှာ  exercise လုပ်ရတာကို သဘောကျမိတဲ့ အချက်ကတော့ သူပေးထားတဲ့ timerနဲ့ မေးခွန်းတွေ အကုန်ပြီးအောင် အမြန်ဖြေရတော့ တစ်ခါတည်း speed reading practise လုပ်သလိုလည်း ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

 

ပြီးတော့ word category မှာဆိုရင်လည်း topic အမျိုးမျိုးထပ်ခွဲပေးထားပြီး easy / Medium / Hard ဆိုပြီး level ပါ ရွေးဖို့ပေးထားတဲ့အတွက် ကိုယ့်က ဘယ်level ကိုတော့ အမှားမရှိအောင်ဖြေနိုင်လည်း ဆိုတာကြည့်ပြီး ကိုယ့်ရဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ကျွမ်းကျင်မှုကို သိရှိနိုင်ပါတယ်။ 

အခုပြောပြထားတဲ့ application ကို အောက်ပါ link တွေမှာ download ရယူနိုင်ပါတယ်။

iOS >>> Johnny Grammar Word Challenge by British Councilhttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/johnny-grammar-word-challenge/id432488501

Android >>> https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubl.spellmaster&hl=en

Improve Your Business English

Business English (လုပ်ငန်းခွင်သုံး အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ) တိုးတက်ချင်သူများအတွက် လေ့လာသင့်တဲ့ အသုံးဝင်မယ့် resource လေးတစ်ခုကို ပြောပြပေးချင်ပါတယ်။

အဲ့ဒါကတော့ learnenglish.britishcouncil.org website က "Business Magazine" section လေးပဲ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

ဒီ section မှာတွေ business နဲ့ ပတ်သတ်တဲ့ topic အမျိုးမျိုး ၊ situation အမျိုးမျိုးကို magazine article တွေအနေနဲ့ ဖတ်ရှုလေ့လာနိုင်မှာ ဖြစ်ပါတယ်။ 

ဒါကြောင့် Business  setting တွေမှာသုံးတဲ့ အင်္ဂလိပ်စာ ဝေါဟာရ အသုံးအနှုန်းတွေကို လေ့လာနိုင်မှာဖြစ်ပြီး အဲ့လို အခြေအနေ အမျိုးမျိုးကို ကြုံရတဲ့အခါ ဘယ်လိုကိုင်တွယ်ရမလဲ ဆိုတဲ့ tips and techniques တွေလည်း သိရှိရမှာ ဖြစ်တဲ့အတွက် ဗဟုသုတလည်း ရပါတယ်။ 

(လေ့လာရမယ့် Business topics တွေထဲက အချို့ကို ပုံမှာ တွေ့နိုင်ပါတယ်) 

ပြီးတော့ Article တစ်ခုချင်းစီမှာလည်း ကိုယ်ရဲ့ နားလည်နိုင်စွမ်းကို ဆန်းစစ်ပေးမယ့် reading exercise တွေပါဝင်တဲ့အတွက် Reading skill improve ဖြစ်ဖို့လည်း အထောက်အကူပြုပါတယ်။ 

Learn English - British Council ရဲ့ "Business Magazine" section ကို အောက်ပါ link မှ ဝင်ရောက်လေ့လာနိုင်ပါတယ်။ 

https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/business-english/business-magazine?utm_source=facebook-bclearnenglish&utm_medium=social-managed&utm_campaign=webcontent

*** Articles တွေရဲ့ difficulty level ကတော့ intermediate (CEFR level B1) or upper intermediate (CEFR level B2) learners တွေအတွက် ပိုသင့်လျော်ပါတယ်။

Growth Happens Outside Your Comfort Zone

 

Have you ever wished to discover new talents and  passions? 

Have you ever thought of reaching your next level of growth?

Have you ever dreamt of becoming  a better version of yourself? 

If your answer is “YES” to all the questions above, what you need to do, first and foremost, is just to push yourself out of your comfort zone. As said by Maya Angelou, an acclaimed American author and a poet - "If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be" -  you can hardly ever realise our hidden talents and capabilities until you  step out of your comfort zones, and try new things. However, it is, of course, easier said than done, to leave your comfort zone: it can be more or less challenging, intimidating, stressful, and uncomfortable when you attempt to take up new things for the first time. You should, nevertheless, try to get comfortable with being uncomfortable if you aspire to thrive and level up to your premium versions - since new challenges, along with new learning points and opportunities, can shape you into a stronger person in such ways as follows. 

First of all, you can discover new talents and passions that you have not noticed you had. When you venture outside familiarity and try something new, you are normally required to utilize your untapped knowledge and skill-set in order to address challenges and obstacles encountered along the way.Thus, you can find out a new area of work that you are passionate about, and have a knack for.   

Secondly, once you are familiar with being unfamiliar, you can become adaptable to change, and would be willing to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge. Having a drive to learn and improve could help you develop fresh perspectives, and discover new ways of doing things - which are pivotal to optimize efficiency and productivity. Furthermore, being able to conquer your fears and overcome challenges, you are more likely to see new challenges as new opportunities to demonstrate your capabilities.  

Thirdly, you can expand your social and professional network through creating meaningful and long-lasting relationships outside your sphere of comfort. Once you start doing something unfamiliar or different, you are more likely to meet and communicate with new people with diverse backgrounds and personality traits. Since new connections can open new doors, those different individuals you are connected with could possibly bring new opportunities - that you might otherwise not have access to - for your personal development and career growth. 

Fourth, pushing your boundaries can boost your self- confidence and self-esteem as you become more assertive, knowledgeable, and skilled - after you have accomplished things you didn’t assume you were capable of until you leave your comfort zone. As it is said “Success breeds more success”, each milestone you have achieved could instill confidence in you to make another breakthrough happen. At the end of the day, you would possibly be cognizant of the fact that there is more in you than you think.

All in all, it is true that it may seem overwhelming to step into the unknown. It is, nonetheless, worthwhile to embark on a journey of change and growth since you can gain a rewarding experience, which can, in turn, mold you into a better and stronger version of yourself. 

 

This article was originally featured in the Sunday Special section of The Global New Light of Myanmar published on 6 September 2020. Click on the link below to read it in the newspaper.

https://cdn.myanmarwebdesigner.com/gnlm/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/6_Sept_20_gnlm.pdf

 

The Power of Self-Belief

"You can become a victim of your circumstances or a master of your destiny"

~ Layne Beachley

Takeaways from the talk 💡💡

🌟If you want to become successful in anything, here are three things you need to remember.

✅1. You have to be willing to clarify your vision.

✅2. You have to surround yourself with a great team of people.

✅3. Write your goals down.

Click the link below to listen to the talk 👇👇
https://youtu.be/CKVSjIIt8t0

Sharing is Caring
Kyal Sin Phu
11 July 2020