Hi everyone,

Thanks, Chế Lan Hương, for the posting. You melt my heart. I lived in Nha Trang as a child and, of all cities of Vietnam, Nha Trang still captures my fondest memories.

My family was in Thành, right outside Cửa Tây. If you go through Thành, from Nha Trang, into Cửa Đông, out of Cửa Tây, the fírst home you see on the right side of the road was the first home we lived when our family moved from Pleiku to Khánh Hòa.

I attended primary school in Hà Dừa, then 6th and 7th grades in what is now L‎ý Tự Trọng High School in Nha Trang. It was called Võ Tánh then. While at Võ Tánh, I stayed with a friend of my parents, on the ground of Department of Health, facing Tân Quang Theater. Wonder if the theater is still there. I can tell you about truckloads of memories I have of that town. Oh, nostalgia!

Anyway, Lan Hương’s writing is superb. What can I say! Just one or two minor typos. You guys are so amazing. I am glad I have run into all of you. It is a great pleasure to discover so many talented friends.

Well, let me just be picky and pick some very small points in Lan Huong’s writing to discuss:

“Nha Trang is a center of politics, economy, culture, science and technology, and tourism of Khanh Hoa Province.” We say “a center” when we mean that it is only one center among many other similar centers. But Nha Trang is not just a center of Khanh Hoa. It is THE center of Khanh Hoa—the biggest, the best. So, we should say, “Nha Trang is the center of politics…”

“The difficult beaches differentiates…” Obviously, this is a typo. Should be “differentiate.”

“It is an ideal place for organizing a lot of major national and international events such as Sea festival, Miss Viet Nam, Miss Universe, Miss World, etc.”

. No need for “a lot of”.
. “Hold” sounds much better than “organize”. Why? Because “hold” has only one syllable and people use it everyday.

So, let’s change it to: “It is an ideal place to hold major national and international events, such as Sea Festival, Miss Vietnam, Miss Universe, Miss World, etc.”

Please note:
The comma after “events” and before “such as”.
“Sea Festival”: Probably both words should be capitalized as the proper name of the festival.

Let’s hope that other friends will chip in and share more about other cities. I would love to hear about YOUR cities. This is more than English practice. I’d like to know more about you, how you feel about yourselves and people and things around you. We want to know each other more. Please share. Don’t be so shy.

TODAY’s CHALLENGE

For today’s challenge, please write about ONE THING in your city that you like most.

I know it’s hard to pick one when you like so many. 🙂 But let’s stay with one, to have some focus.

You can incorporate this new challenge into yesterday’s challenge about your city.

Have fun. And, have a wonderful weekend. 🙂

Hoanh

Hi everyone,

Thank you for being so enthusiastic! You are the best! You guys are much better than I expected. I was nowhere close to where you are now when I was at your age. You guys have just given me a tremendous boost.

Let’s get more friends involved in this English challenge program. We will do our country a big favor by promoting English.

In addition to the challenges that I have in this Daily English challenge section, don’t forget other things, such as the wonderful lyrics of the songs that chị Huỳnh Huệ posts. They can be used as translation exercises. Or other ĐCN postings that you would like to translate. Be free. We don’t really have rules here, other than the rule against offensive postings.

Today I have just placed 3 links below the “Thử thách Anh ngữ” link (in the right column of our homepage). They are for Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus, Tự Điển Ngoại Ngữ tiếng Việt, and Grammar exercises. These are to aid you in your study.

For yesterday exercise, I will pick out just some points to discuss.

“There are many trees and grasses there.” Grass is a non-countable noun. Change to something like “There are trees and there is grass.” Very simple, but rhythmic.

“My friend living in Đà Nẵng.” Not wrong grammatically, but unclear. It can be changed to something like “My friend from Da Nang who has arrived here three days ago on a visit.”

“My grand mother was fell down” should be changed to “my grandmother fell down.”

“Fortunately , the doctor said that she had been fine , but she must have been rest in bed for one months” should be changed to “Fortunately, the doctor said [that] she would be fine but she must be on bed rest for a month.”

“Not problem” should be changed to “No problem.”

“Not importance” should be changed to “not important.”

“My life looks like monotonous”:

To look + adjective: to describe the look. Ex: She looks so gorgeous with that ao dai. Or, the house looks much bigger in the sunset. Or, you look great today. Or, my life looks monotonous. But in the context here, “My life may look monotonous” sounds better.

To look like + noun : to compare. Ex: He looks like a monkey. She looks like a difficult princess.

That’s it. Let’s use these challenges to get to know each other more and more.

Now, here is the happy challenge for today:

Please tell me about the city where you live. I would like to know more about your city.

You tell me about your city and I will tell you about my city (Washington DC). Oh, if you have a couple of interesting pictures of your city, you can send them to me and I will place them in your post. I am at tdhoanh@gmail.com.

Have a great day!

Hoanh