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February 08, 2009

Comments

Aviatrix

I've been reading your blog for a long time. I like your photos and am impressed at how much your English has improved. You rarely make grammar errors anymore, so maybe I'll try and push you to an even higher level of English.

In this entry you said "staying up all nights." Even if it's multiple nights, English speakers just say "staying up all night", as in "I stayed up all night three nights in a row."

I am pretty sure you know what "passive voice" is, such as when you say "the flares can be seen almost every day" and there is nothing wrong with using it. Using it a lot is quite formal, and I think you are doing it to avoid having vague subjects like "They have to maintain 66 satellites" or "You can see flares almost every day." You might sound more like a native speaker if you used those expressions more, but there's another trick you can try in English and that's to use nouns when the subject of the verb isn't that important. "It's a great service, but maintenance of 66 satelites is very costly."

Oh and "watching them as much as possible" (not "many").

Interesting article, too. I didn't know about Iridium flares.

mochi

> Aviatrix

Thank you very much for your good advice about my English. I really feel that it is a great help for me to improve my English. I'll email to you later.

Kanji

I am still debating in myself if I am going to have Iphone or Blackberry. It seems that I phone has lots of applications, that sound pretty usuful. On the other hand, I am wondering if I could maneuver all applications that I download like this one. At any rate, thank you for the information.

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