1. Pronouns

Before reading through this blog, please answer this question:

Which is correct?
a.) It is me.
b.) It is I.
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Review: Personal Pronouns

*sorry it's not allowed to upload a table here so just click on the image to enlarge*

RULE: A predicate nominative is in the nominative case.

Predicate Nominative
>> is a noun or pronoun in the predicate that refers to the same thing as the subject of the sentence and it follows a linking verb (am, is, are, may be, can be, will be, may have been, want to be, etc,).

Examples:
> It was they who are having a heated conversation.
> Who told you about it? It was she.
> It might have been he.
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So, the answer to the question is:
b.) It is I.

(Another dog called Battersea Dog's Home)
Other dog: Hello. Can I talk to Battersea Dog?
Battersea: It is I.
(Or he can also say "It is he." but since he's a dog, I think it's better to say, "It is it." Haha)

Now, you might think that it doesn't sound right to say "It is I". It is because the use of "me" or other pronoun in objective case as predicate nominative is widely accepted and you might often hear "It's me/him/us/them" rather than "It's I/he/we/they". In informal situations, it is acceptable to use objective case but if you are writing formal paper or speech or in examinations, it is still best to use the nominative case---the form "It's I."

Confused? Haha that's okay, you can't be wrong, they're both accepted anyway; it just depends on the situation. Try this exercise. Good luck!

Exercise: Supply the pronouns specified:
1. It might have been ______. (Third person singular, feminine.)
2. It could be _______. (third person plural)
3. That was ______. (third person singular, masculine)
4. It certainly wasn't ______. (third person plural)

Next time, I will discuss more on the use of 'me' and 'I'. ^_^

II. The Japanese Basic Grammar

After hundreds of teaching hours and hundreds of students, I still wonder about the following
(these are the common mistakes that my students make):

1. When a student talks in fragments, the sentence is either cut where the preposition should be or where a verb (usually taking a different form) is.

2. During a reading exercise, of course the reason for /r/ and /l/ mispronunciation I already know, but another thing which caught my attention is when students omit 's' at the end of plural nouns (that is very common).

3. Omission of articles. This also one of the parts of the sentence that students often forget: a, an, the.

Today, as I was reading the grammar section of my little booklet of Japanese phrase and dictionary, I finally found the answers to these questions! :D

I love these books. :)

So, I learned the following:

1. The Japanese verb has only two tenses: present and past. The future tense is only understood from the context. Interesting, it's much much simpler than English. (About prepositions: Well, I don't wonder much about the difficulty of students with the use of prepositions because IT IS REALLY HARD. Even I get confused sometimes. Haha!)

2. Plurals do not exist in Japanese language and all nouns have one single form which does not change according to the use of the noun in the sentence. I was studying Japanese before, how come I did not notice that earlier? ^_^

3. Pretty much the same reason as the second, article is often forgotten by the students because it also doesn't exist since the noun takes a single form. And so I learned that hon could mean book, a book, the book, books, or the books.

Now I know! ^__^

HELL WEEK

I just felt the need to post something here. :)

Lately, I'm really busy that I couldn't afford to write in my blogs (this is just one of my blogsites). But today, I couldn't resist the urge to post about my week. So I want to introduce you to the UP students' term "Hell Week".

Yep. As I assume you already know, hell is the opposite of heaven and a place in which no one would want to be in. In UP, whether the students like it or not, exams in different subjects usually fall on the same period. One season is the midterms (middle of the term/ semester); another is the finals week. During these times, students stay up during most of the nights, consume coffee more than they usually take, and go to class looking like a mess. The times when suddenly, 24 hours of the day is not enough and we'd wish it's 36 hours instead. This is also the time when professors give reports, exams, quizzes, papers, and whatever projects they might think of--- ALL to be accomplished during the week.

As an architecture student, I'm not used to this 'hell week' thing. And as all UP students know (only DIliman and Mindanao campus offer BS Architecture), we, the College of Architecture somewhat has our own culture. Instead of a week, we have "Hell Month/s". Haha! Yes, since most of the drawings required, or what we call 'plates', are impossible to finish in a week... most projects are to be done in a month's time or even longer. The good thing is, we don't have so much of objective type of written exams in our college, drawings alone keep us awake for loooong hours. In my case, I have experienced 40 hours straight without sleep (and food--- i survived with coffee, or water, or milk and some biscuits. Food makes me sleepy so it's a no-no.)

But this semester is a little different for me. For the first time in my college life, I don't have any architecture subject. I decided to drop my thesis last year and so here I am taking non-major subjects to fill up the units needed. And so, I'm also introduced to what other UP students experience during these times. Instead of using pens and colors to draw, I'm using keyboard to write reaction papers; instead of looking at big blank white or tracing paper, I'm deep into reading books. I don't have to count how many sheets of drawings I need to finish but instead, I'm counting how many pages I still need to read. This semester, I still haven't experienced falling asleep bent on my drafting table but instead, lately, I'm getting used to waking up with my book covering my face or my notes crumpled because I slept on it.

OH! But the stress is a little lighter this time. Nevertheless, I'd still choose to do plates than papers, take esquisse rather than exams, and prefer 'hell month' over 'hell week'.

But it's not all that bad, after one 'hell week', there are endless parties and celebrations that students look forward too, whether they pass or fail on whatever school requirements. ^_^ (Like on Friday night, I'll be attending a party. YEY! :D)

But I still have one reaction paper to submit tomorrow, two exams on Thursday, and one exam on Friday. OH! I gotta study!


*esquisse is French for sketch. In our college, that means on-the-spot design or any drawing exercise/exams.