It’s my day off again today, they seem to come round very often now that I have one per week! Mind you I spent the morning doing mail and stuff. Then went out to the new Outlet Village in Tosu. There wasn’t too much there ( apart from the really cool Lego shop – I love Lego!!), but it was nice to have a drive out in the country.

On the way back I popped into a bookstore and bought a load of new books and stuff. One was really good, for adults it had loads of cool English and the first word on the CD was “Dude!”. Can’t be bad! Mind you although the book was good, the CD made me fall asleep – where’s the genkiness? There was also one really fantastic book telling Japanese people the mistakes that are often made. One great chapter was saying “You might want to say to a foreigner “You have a high nose”, but this is Japanese English, and most foreigners would understand “You have a long nose” better. But this may come across as a little rude, so it’s probably best to say “I like the different shape of your nose. I wish I had a nose like that”…… Makes no wonder most Japanese people are totally confused about English with weird stuff like that around!

But I also picked up the Pokemon English book. The CD was quite good ( not too genki but OK), and apart from the “Fine thank you, and you?” phrase it has some really good stuff in it. If you teach kids it’s maybe worthwhile picking a copy up!