Show 448 Wednesday 25 July

Watch today's show at YouTube.

Hi, I’m Sarah, welcome to The Daily English Show.

Last Thursday, Show 442, I asked people to send me some emails so I could point out your mistakes and help you improve your English.
And I got a couple of emails – which is great. And please keep sending me those emails too because I’m planning to keep doing this, every Wednesday.

The first email was from Yumi and actually, as she writes:

... this is not exactly an e-mail to ask you to correct my English errors. I just miss the English transcripts of your shows on your site. I used to check out the words I didn't understand, so it was really helpful for my studies.

Well, I’m really glad you found them useful and thanks for writing to tell me. And I’m sorry there has been no transcripts recently. But the good news is – I’m working on it – I’m slowly catching up and I’ve already done a couple of weeks of the old transcripts and the rest will be up soon.

And she also writes:
I'm a third generation Japanese living in Brazil and one really good thing that happened to me when I started watching your videos is that I became more interested in the Japanese culture, something I wasn't really fond of.
Thank you, I'm learning a lot from your excellent work.

Wow, that’s really cool.

Unfortunately for this exercise, Yumi’s email is almost perfect. The only thing I would change is that I would say I became more interested in Japanese culture rather than the Japanese culture.

You just mean Japanese culture in general so you don’t need the.

By the way, if anyone disagrees with any of my corrections – feel fee to tell me in the comments.
The next email is from someone called Lasz.
Is that how you pronounce your name?
This another problem ... it’s really hard to know how to pronounce names.

Anyway, Lasz writes:
I'd like to write a lot more, but the movie I'm watching, holds my attention to strong.

OK, first thing – your to should be too. And I would also change holds to is holding.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today Microsoft has had trouble getting visas for foreign programmers to work for them in the United States. They are now planning to open a development center in Canada which they say will allow them to recruit people affected by immigration issues in the US.

Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation with 76,000 employees in 102 countries.
Microsoft is now planning to open a development center in Vancouver, Canada.
A Microsoft spokesperson said that one of the attractions of Vancouver was that it was close to its headquarters in Redmond, Washington, and it was not bound by US immigration policies.
The immigration issues aren’t the reason they are building the center. But the spokesperson said: "It does help us address that challenge we have in the United States of hiring very qualified people, many of whom are graduating from schools in the US, but who cannot acquire the necessary documentation to work in the US."
According to cnetnews.com high-tech companies have been pushing hard to get the US government to increase the number of visas they are allotted.
H-1B is a category of visa for skilled workers. Cnet News reported Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wants unlimited H-1B visas, and a Google executive has credited the company's success to foreigners and called for expanded ability to hire them.

And that was Stick News for Wednesday the 25th of July.
Kia Ora.

conversations with sarah
#274 What do you think of Microsoft?

Step 1: Repeat Mike’s lines.
Step 2: Read Mike’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Mike What do you think of Microsoft?

Sarah I’m not really sure ... some people say they are evil though ...

Mike Why are they evil?

Sarah Ah ... something about their business tactics.

Mike Do you have a PC or a Mac?

Sarah PC.

Mike Why did you buy a PC?

Sarah Um ... when I wanted to buy it I didn’t know what kind of computer to buy so I just bought the one my boyfriend recommended.

Mike That’s so lazy! You should do the research yourself.

Sarah Yeah, I guess so. I just didn’t really care ... and there’s so many to choose from. And it’s really hard to do the research and ask shop staff questions in Japanese ...

Mike Excuses, excuses ...

links

today's news
H-1b visa

music

show start, cws start, qa start
artist: Matthew Tyas
album: Music for the movies vol1
tracks: Superheros, Intellectuel, Three ways to run away
from: Oloron Sainte-Marie, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

qa bgm
artist: Birds of Fire
album: A night in Istanbul
track: Tempête sous le crâne
from: Lyon, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo