English Fever- A Fun Content

I would like to introduce to the Myths and Reality of the way people speak the English language in India.

Myths-

• Every person who speaks fluent English is either intelligent or well educated.
• English is difficult because each word has a different pronunciation that is hard to remember.
• Tenses are hard to memorize.
• You can impress native English speakers by imitating their accents.
• You can learn English by reading books

Reality-

• English is a language and not a skill.
• English words have spoken beauty and written beauty. This is the reason words are written and spoken differently.
• Many beginners try to translate in the mind from their native language to English. In this phase, they find it difficult to speak let alone expressing their views.

I would like you to read the following topics to understand it in a simpler way-

1. No English No Disaster 
2. Over obsessed English speakers
3. How to exactly learn the English language
4. Is accent important?
5. How to avoid shortcuts in social media chats
6. Not to Fear the world if your English is poor

No English No Disaster

It is imperative that most of the Educational content, conventional or digital are in the English language. However having the equivalent level of command on the native language is equally fruitful.

People in countries like,

• Japan
• China
• France
• Russia

use their native language in almost every stuff so much so, that a requirement of interpreter has become a must have at international platforms. Nonetheless this has not stopped them in any sector.

Therefore the takeaway is , English is not must when you are able to express in your language confidently.

In Russia, Engineering is taught in Russian. 

France has given birth to many renowned mathematicians and physicists. 

Japan is a world leader in quality electronic goods and motor vehicles.

China has evolved as a global manufacturing hub.

India has contributed a lot in science and technology in the ancient times because it was written in our then native language Sanskrit. India has felt the need for provision of technical education in regional languages and taken a good step towards achieving it. 

To know more, Click the link below

Engineering in Regional Indian languages

Therefore, it is better to express in native language with confidence and clarity.

Mind that when you speak in a language you are not comfortable with, it lowers your confidence because your whole focus would be on speaking correctly rather than the actual content.

Over obsessed English speakers

Slowly but gradually, English literally has eaten some of the words in our native languages. 

1. People tend to use more English words most often while speaking just to show that they know it. 
2. There are people who speak the same sentence in the conversation twice, once in native language, followed by the same in English. This is like fu**ing your language upside down.
3. There are few other people who say 'bahar ka khana, unhygenic' in India and pose for an instagram pic on London street with a caption such as 'Amazing street food, Exploring wonders'. You may wonder what street food has to do with English. These are the same people who answer in English while question is asked in Hindi.

It is understandable how difficult is it to speak in native language without using necessary English words but we have to preserve the essence of the regional languages for generations to come.

How to exactly learn the English language

In schools, the typical approach of teaching spoken English is 

words -> grammar/tenses -> paragraph reading

This approach doesn't really help because no one ever remembers the tenses properly and grammatical terminology throughout their life. It is sad to learn that English at many places is taught as a maths formula. You remember the past participle, third person singular, add good prepositions and here you go speak out the sentence.

How to really learn English language?

Babies learn language just by listening it. 

When the baby listens his mom saying everyday 'I am going to boil the milk' he doesn't understand it but he realizes that after saying these words, mom is placing vessel on fire and adding some liquid. This is how English is learnt. Now the baby grows and says the same sentence even before going to school. At school he comes to know why mom uses only those words to say that. The problem is we are doing it vice-versa. 

The hack is just watching movies, youtube videos in English language without subtitles from the beginning itself.

I learnt the same way accidentally though when Discovery TV Channel used to be available at the local cable network in only English language.

Personally I think that Grammar has come later and the language has originated first in English.

The reason can be noticed from below:

1. This is a umbrella.
2. This is an umbrella.

Leave aside grammar for a moment. 

First sentence is incorrect because you find a speed breaker while speaking it. You can speak smoothly the second sentence. Infact I have experimented with this and it works almost every time. This might be the reason why there are so many grammar rules that have no origin or logic.

I have cut the lemon in half and put it on the table

You find it difficult to write the first sentence because pat is reserved for a different word. The second sentence is difficult to speak in a flow. 

I have cut the lemon in half and pat it on the table

I have coot the lemon in half and put it on the table

This is a reason why English has a spoken beauty and a written beauty.

Some letters have no meaning in words but they are for the eye delight such as below

I recommend you to use Grammarly Chrome extension while writing. 

Grammarly- The grammar checker

Is accent important?

Accent is like a street vendor making samosa. It develops on it's own. Accent is not important while speaking. 

Every American guy can understand Indian English Accent. Therefore we should be able to understand what they speak in american accent because they can't change easily to Indian accent as they speak it everyday.

At this point, accent is important not for speaking but listening.

How to avoid shortcuts in social media chats

Wishing a happy birthday on phone call is much appreciated rather than receving a 3 letter text message HBD. 

In my college friends' group, there was this person whom we called by his nickname. Literally none of us knew his original name. You got it right.

Feelings should be less expressed in abbreviations.

Life is not so fast enough that you fear of missing out and use word FOMO often.

Not to Fear the world if your English is poor

If you do not know speaking in a particular language that means you are good in some other language.

Do remember you can learn English easily when you think it as a language and not a skill.

Thank you for giving your time.

I appreciate your comments and suggestions.

Signing Off.

Yours Sincerely,

Kieron Elkunchwar

Do follow my blog:

School X

 

WFO Calls

IT Majors TCS and Wipro have planned of Return to Office for their employees.

With many getting vaccinated, it's time to get back to the old normal.

Infosys COO, Mr. Pravin Rao is quoted as saying,

 

"Assuming that impact of the subsequent wave is minimal, we expect maybe 20-30 percent of the employees to start coming to office within next 6 months"

source- Industry News 

The Butterfly Effect - How everything in the world is connected

Theory/Concept

The theory is about the effect of initial conditions and slight changes in initial conditions that lead to greater impact in a large worldly scenario. In a layman's language, even the flapping of butterfly wings in a remote forest could have an effect on larger things such as a tornado.

The Men Behind:

• Edward Lorenz - mathematician and meteorologist
• Henri Poincare - mathematician and engineer
• Norbert Wiener - mathematician and philosopher

Pre-requisite to Understand:

NA

The Story of Origin:

In the year 1961, Lorenz was running a numerical computer model for weather prediction. He was using the computer LGP-30 for this purpose.

                                            Librascope General Precision computer- 1956 

Fun Fact:

LGP-30 computer was priced at 47000 $ (back in 1956)

In today's equivalent- ₹ 3.5 crores

Weight of the machine- 360 kgs

Weather prediction usually depends on the initial conditions are given as input which the computer models run considering different parameters to predict the most probable weather outcome for the upcoming week. It is the same as predicting how long a car would run by taking input as fuel level and road conditions.

Lorenz ran the computer model from somewhere in the middle as a shortcut to avoid re-run from the beginning as it used to take the computer a few hours to compute given the large meteorological data for weather prediction.

He faced the same issue that we usually face while solving JEE numerical. If we use 0.1 instead of 0.11 somewhere in the middle of the calculation, as we go on multiplying with larger numbers the result would be way different from what would have been when the actual value 0.11 is used.

For example:

0.1*1000 =  100

0.11*1000 = 110

here the difference from the actual expected output (110) is 110-100 = 10

But the problem arises when we go on multiplying larger numbers

0.1*10000000 = 10 lakh

0.11*10000000 = 11 lakh

the same values multiplied by a larger number have given a difference of 100000.

This is where Lorenz made mistake while taking a shortcut and running the model from the middle which contained 12 equations and 12 variables in total.

In our terms, he hardcoded input as 0.506 instead of the actual value of 0.506127. This was not a deliberate approach. As we could see the computer screen had no display screen, a printer was used to print the output. The printer was capable of taking up to 3 decimal places whereas the computer used 6 decimals. Edward took the printer output and considered it as an input for his re-run of the computer model.

He went for a cup of coffee and came back after a couple of hours to see that the results of the prediction is nowhere near to that of the previous run. He then checked the computer hardware if it's in good condition and re-ran the model multiple times to get different outcomes each time.

You might be surprised why is this observation so fascinating. We also know that a slight change in the initial condition could make a huge difference in the final outcome. If we hold the gun with infinite ire range and just change the barrel angle by 1 degree, it would fire the bullet to a location 1000s of km away from the actual target.

Lorenz observed the variations carefully noted every tiny aspect, the fluctuations, and the initial conditions. After 2 years, in 1963 he decided to publish this study in the paper called Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow.

The butterfly effect got its name from the references made by various researchers as an apt metaphor as they could not find a more suitable and understandable phrase for the work.

Why is it called Butterfly Effect?

Lorenz's studies showed that when two similar activities are under experiment and started at the same time with a slight difference in the input values, showed a larger difference as the graph progressed.

However, the basic curvature of the mapping remained the same and resembled a butterfly structure.

    

                                            Lorenz Attractor - curve (resembles a butterfly)

Fun Fact:

There have been 61 Hollywood movies so far having 'Butterfly effect' in their movie title.

Online Resources: Career/Education

 The Top 10 of Educational

Top 10 websites for your Career

1. Naukri
2. LinkedIn
3. Indeed
4. Monster
5. JobBait
6. CareerCloud
7. Dice
8. CareerBuilder
9. JibberJobber
10. Guide4info

Real Personal Horror Story

 

Disclaimer- This story is purely a personal experience and in any case is not intended to instill belief or encourage the fear of the existence of any unknown entity whatsoever. 

Spoiler alert- The below stories won't amaze you much. So have written the first two in detail and the rest short.

Scary Experience- 1/3

The Flying Spectacles

This happened when I was 7. We moved to a new rented house that used to be a storeroom for many years then. For the first few days, all went well. My usual routine is to come back home from school, eat little, watch TV and do assignments. Then again have dinner at 8 or 9 pm and watch TV again till 10 or 10:30 pm.

One day after coming back from school at 5 pm, there were not many assignments to do so I started watching TV. The TV was just a foot distance from the bed. It was a B&W TV of BPL makes. I used to watch very few TV programs like CID, Aahat, Titliyaan, etc. If there was no good program at any given time I tuned to movie channels like Sony max, and B4U that were popular then. 

Coming back to the story, I was watching TV and then felt bored so I rested a little and asked mom if the food is ready. She said, will be ready in 5 min. I knew that 5 minutes would extend to 30 minutes. I was bored so took out my little metal toy car and started playing. 

It was around 8 pm, I turned towards the kitchen to ask again to my mom. Since it was a single long room, I could see the kitchen area. As I turned I saw something unusual. There were spectacles in the air. It was not moving. It was still in the air. It was in the middle of the room at an adult man's height. The spectacle was something like the picture below. It was an old spectacle with a golden brownish frame and thick glasses. I went near to it, to say below it, and checked if some thread or steel wire is visible. I observed closely, but there was nothing. To confirm again I switched on the ceiling fan. It was not moving.  

I rushed to the bed and called mom to soon come near to me. I told her then that there is a spectacle hanging there. She said there's nothing. I was able to see it clearly. I took her to the spot and tried to show pointing towards it that there was actually a spectacle hanging above me. She said again there is nothing. I told her to raise her hand so that I could prove that she can touch it. She didn't and made excuses. My mom was thinking that I am not well. She checked if I had a fever. It was alright. She said me to go to sleep and told me to show the spectacles to dad after he comes home. 

I took out the kalnirnay Marathi calendar that was hanging on the wall, made a roll of it, and tried to hit that spectacle. I was too short then. After trying many times, I moved back and threw the calendar on the spectacles, and ran away to my bed out of fear without even seeing if it hit it. The calendar hit the tube light that was behind the spectacle at around the same level. My mom shouted at me and warned if I don't remain quiet now, I won't be getting food to eat. After all my plans failed with nothing much to do, I took the translucent shawl and checked if I can see it through the shawl. Yes, it was visible. Now my mom was sure that I was unwell. She switched off the stove and came near me to check again. I told her not to go back. Let dad come, we will show those specs to him. I fell asleep soon and when I woke up there was nothing. My dad also felt that there is something wrong with me. I didn't go to school the next day as my parents thought I should take a rest.

A few weeks passed, and I forgot that incident. On a particular night after midnight, someone knocked at our door twice. I came to know this when my parents asked about it to the house owner. After a few days, the same thing happened. I woke up this time as I was the first victim in the house. My dad asked who was that. No one replied. After 10 minutes again there was a knock. My dad angrily shouted at the person whoever it was. No response. Then nothing happened that night. On a random night, this thing happened again but at around 10 pm. This time it was louder. My dad opened the door to check as it was not late night and there were people around moving on the street. To our surprise there was no one, the gate was closed. We left that house within a month after this incident.

Scary Experience- 2/3

Ghost on the bicycle

It happened when I was in the 7th standard. My friends and I went to our friend's birthday party. As the majority of people worked for the Cement manufacturing company, they were provided free residential quarters. The colony where my friend lived was near to the hill. So it was far from other quarters. After the mini party, we were returning at 8 pm from his home. It was the month of November and the days were short. The time was 8 in the evening but it was pitch black. 

We were 4 friends on 3 bicycles riding our way home through the boulevard. The road was illuminated at several spots by the industrial street lights (the yellow lights). We started from there enjoying the sounds of the rustle of leaves as we were riding. Suddenly, while passing through the dark shadows of the trees, I felt as if someone jumped on my cycle and sat behind me, note that this part of the road was totally dark with no lights. As we were 4, I thought my friend who didn't bring his bicycle sat behind me. I insisted he switch the bicycle and made a typical excuse "Tyre me Hawa Kam hai". There was no response but he patted my back as a sign to ride fast, so I felt humiliated. I shouted at my other friend and told him why doesn't help him. To this, I heard "Mai toh iske piche hi baitha hu, tu kiski baat kr rha hai". Now I could figure out that he was really there. 

I could still feel the extra weight on my cycle as if some 60-70 kg bag is tied to it. I told them that I am unable to ride, please slow down. They were in a mood of racing, waited for a second or two, and told me "Agey aja milte hai turning pe". They were riding fast but I couldn't. I literally cried being on the empty remote road. Somehow I unmounted the bicycle and started to walk while steering it. At 50 feet distance, there was a light pole. I reached there and checked if the bicycle tires are flat but the tires were perfect. I didn't think for another second and just sped away towards the place where my friends asked to meet. As I was riding now, I didn't feel that unusual stuff. Upon reaching, I told them that my cycle chain fell off from the sprocket midway. I never told them what actually happened because I felt that it could be the talk of my class the very next day.

Scary Experience- 3/3

Girl on the bridge

I was in 6th Std if I am not wrong. My school time use to end at 4.10 pm and I used to reach home at 4.30 pm.  After eating some light food at 5 pm, I used to watch TV and then pack my bag for tuition classes. That particular day I reached tuition late. As a punishment the late you come and the late you go. An apt analogy for alone you come alone you go home. 

My town had a good forest cover inside the Orient cement factory compound so much so that it seems that the town was built around the jungle. Needless to say, this was the only company to win the environment award in the year 2003 in India.

Coming to the point, it was already 10 pm in the night, and all my friends left at 9 pm. I thought of taking the shortcut through this wooden bridge that was only used by cyclists and walkers during the daytime. When I reached the bridge, to my shock I saw a little girl in a blue skirt, a red hair band. She felt tensed. The first thing that came to my mind was, why the hell is that girl there at late night. I thought her parents might be somewhere around and she just got lost while playing. I approached her and asked why are you here now and where is your mom. She said she has lost her ball and her mother is at home cooking dinner. She said her mother would scold her if she didn't get the ball.

I didn't understand what is happening but felt like the problem is the ball. I asked her where did you see it last. She showed me thick bushes nearby. I dared to walk 10 ft in the bushes and actually found the ball but it was torn half of it was stuck in the earth as if it was there for many months or years. I turned back to ask her if this is the ball and there was no one. I was shivering with fear and got frozen for a minute and felt she is watching me and the next step I take I am gonna die. But the impulse action triggered and I ran towards home. I reached home but till I reached I felt that it was my last day.

Quote Compilation ( Few Of my Quotes)

I write quotes occasionally. Here are few of my quotes; 24 to say, in number. Please read and comment. It would motivate me a lot to write more. Do share and subscribe.

Read Time- 4:30 Min

Daily Life English (Only for Marathi speakers)

The rough compilation below is the handwritten notes of few of my fellow juniors during college whom I taught in free time. Since from the archives of 2016, I tried to put the snapshots in an organised format. The content contains only the words and sentences that are mostly needed while conversation. Do share and subscribe.