WHY WE CHOSE FRANCE

Most French people speak the French language as their mother tongue, but certain languages like Norman, Occitan, Corsican, Basque, French Flemish and Breton remain spoken in certain regions. There have also been periods of history when a majority of French people had other first languages (local languages such as Occitan, Catalan, Alsatian, West Flemish, Lorraine Franconian, Gallo, Picard or Ch'timi and Arpitan). Today, many immigrants speak another tongue at home.
According to historian Eric Hobsbawm, "the French language has been essential to the concept of 'France'", although in 1789, 50 percent of the French people did not speak it at all, and only 12 to 13 percent spoke it fairly well.
English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a "world language", the lingua franca of the modern era, and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language.
Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow. It is, by international treaty, the official language for aerial and maritime communications.
English is an official language of the United Nations and many other international organizations, including the International Olympic Committee.
English is the language most often studied as a foreign language in the European Union, by 89% of schoolchildren, ahead of French at 32%, while the perception of the usefulness of foreign languages amongst Europeans is 68% in favour of English ahead of 25% for French.

SONY

The Greatest example of how English Speaking Countries have influenced Japan and Eastern Cultures.
SONY Co, were founded on May 7th of 1946 (notice that the second world ward ended at 1945), under the name Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha or TOTSUKO for the main letters, which means Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, translated to English.
The founders were Ibuka Masaru (an engineer) and Morita Akio (a physicist); Sony had a very modest and humble beginning with little machinery and even less equipments and workers. By the year of 1958 TOTSUKO became leader of manufacturing of recorders and tapes and was an inspiration for Japanese people for the success even after the war. But that same year the Founders Ibuka and Morita decided to change the name of the company to SONY CORPORATION in order to achieve new markets they said that the new name was more friendly and easy to pronouns. Rumors says that Sony is a nickname for some people but more used in pets, that’s why Masaru and Akio thought that this will be a friendly name.
This way SONY was able to place products in western markets, now after 50 years SONY is the biggest company for electronics and a referring for quality.
This is one of the examples of how the Japanese culture has been affected for English speaking countries.

Other examples are LG (Korean) and CANNON (Japanese).

History of Ireland

Geography
Ireland is situated in the Atlantic Ocean and separated from Great Britain by the Irish Sea. Half the size of Arkansas, it occupies the entire island except for the six counties that make up Northern Ireland. Ireland resembles a basin—a central plain rimmed with mountains, except in the Dublin region. The mountains are low, with the highest peak, Carrantuohill in County Kerry, rising to 3,415 ft (1,041 m). The principal river is the Shannon, which begins in the north-central area, flows south and southwest for about 240 mi (386 km), and empties into the Atlantic.
Government: Republic.

History

In the Stone and Bronze Ages, Ireland was inhabited by Picts in the north and a people called the Erainn in the south, the same stock, apparently, as in all the isles before the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. Around the 4th century B.C. , tall, red-haired Celts arrived from Gaul or Galicia. They subdued and assimilated the inhabitants and established a Gaelic civilization. By the beginning of the Christian Era, Ireland was divided into five kingdoms—Ulster, Connacht, Leinster, Meath, and Munster. Saint Patrick introduced Christianity in 432, and the country developed into a center of Gaelic and Latin learning. Irish monasteries, the equivalent of universities, attracted intellectuals as well as the pious and sent out missionaries to many parts of Europe and, some believe, to North America.

Norse incursions along the coasts, starting in 795, ended in 1014 with Norse defeat at the Battle of Clontarf by forces under Brian Boru. In the 12th century, the pope gave all of Ireland to the English Crown as a papal fief. In 1171, Henry II of England was acknowledged “Lord of Ireland,” but local sectional rule continued for centuries, and English control over the whole island was not reasonably secure until the 17th century. In the Battle of the Boyne (1690), the Catholic King James II and his French supporters were defeated by the Protestant King William III (of Orange). An era of Protestant political and economic supremacy began.
By the Act of Union (1801), Great Britain and Ireland became the “United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.” A steady decline in the Irish economy followed in the next decades. The population had reached 8.25 million when the great potato famine of 1846–1848 took many lives and drove more than 2 million people to immigrate to North America.

The Writing in Japan
Japanese language is one of the most complex languages in the world, ever for a Japanese born and raised in Japan it takes years to learn it, they have to take Japanese language classes even at high school.
The most difficult to learn is their way of writing. It’s funny to think that Japanese didn’t have a way of writing, until they opened their boards and started to coexist with Chinese people. That’s when they adopted the way of writing of Chinese people, but Japanese readapted their characters to create their own alphabet, named Hiragana

But Japanese People have a very strong feeling of belonging to their culture so the new alphabet is used only for words which a Japanese origin, so for foreign words they created a new alphabet called Katakana:
But those two alphabets are just the base of the language and just use them is unpractical because the sentences became too and there are a lot of synonyms so they use the third alphabet, with more elaborated characters and each character is unique to describe something (a word, an idea, an animal, etc.) this alphabet came from the Chinese alphabet (actually Kanji means “Chinese character”) but the way each symbol reads is different in China that it is in Japan. There is a List of the 1400 indispensable Kanji’s called the joyo Kanji. This is a new example of how by the pressure of foreigners the Japanese culture has been affected.

The correct way of writ Kanji’s is considered an art in Japan it’s called Shodo.

¡Extraaa Extraaaaaa: Vegemite!

¡¿Because we love our Vegemite?!

Hello classmates, I hope you remember something about the presentation made by my teammates and I today, which was by far the shortest in the history of CELE (LOL xD).

On another point, I discuss the topic of a typical Australian food called “Vegemite”, which is particularly salty and not appreciated by the rest of the world apart from the Australians.

But for you to give an idea about this particular product, I add a video which made me scream as soon as I saw it: ¡¡¡Because we love our Vegemite!!!

But now just take a look at the next video, this made me wonder ¿¿¿Why Australians love Vegemite??? ¿Are they nuts?.

Look at the reaction of this people that have tasted this strange jelly that is so popular in Australia.

My question is.. ¿Would you like to try it?

P.S. Let me know your answers.

Alberto

The influence in Japan
SONY

The Greatest example of how English Speaking Countries have influenced Japan and Eastern Cultures.
SONY Co, was founded on May 7th of 1946 (notice that the second world ward ended at 1945), under the name Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha or TOTSUKO for the main letters, which means Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation, translated to English.
The founders were Ibuka Masaru (an engineer) and Morita Akio (a physicist); Sony had a very modest and humble beginning with little machinery and even less equipments and workers. By the year of 1958 TOTSUKO became leader of manufacturing of recorders and tapes and was an inspiration for Japanese people for the success even after the war. But that same year the Founders Ibuka and Morita decided to change the name of the company to SONY CORPORATION in order to achieve new markets they said that the new name was more friendly and easy to pronouns. Rumors says that Sony is a nickname for some people but more used in pets, that’s why Masaru and Akio thought that this will be a friendly name.
This way SONY was able to place products in western markets, now after 50 years SONY is the biggest company for electronics and a referring for quality.
This is one of the examples of how the Japanese culture has been affected for English speaking countries.
Other examples are LG (Korean) and CANNON (Japanese).

ENGLAND

Culture of England


The culture of England refers to the idiosyncratic cultural norms of England and the English people. Because of England's dominant position within the Inted Kindom in terms of population, English culture is often difficult to differentiate from the culture of the United Kindom as a whole. However, there are some cultural practices that are associated specifically with England.

Architecture and gardens

English architecture begins with the architecture of the Anglo-Saxons; at least fifty surviving English churches are of Anglo-Saxon origin, although in some cases the Anglo-Saxon part is small and much-altered. All except one timber church are built of stone or brick, and in some cases show evidence of reused Roman work. The architectural character of Anglo-Saxon ecclesiastical buildings ranges from Copic-influenced architecture in the early period; Early Christian basilica influenced architecture; to, in the later Anglo-Saxon period, an architecture characterised by pilaster-strips, blank, arcading, baluster shafts and triangular-headed openings. Almost no secular work remains above ground.

Other buildings such as cathedrals and parish churches are associated with a sense of traditional Englishness, as is often the palatial 'stately home'. Many people are interested in the English country house and the rural lifestyle, as evidenced by visits to properties managed by English Heritage and the National Trust. 

Folklore

English folklore is the folk tradition that has evolved in England over the centuries. England abounds with folklore, in all forms, from such obvious manifestations as semi-historical Robin-Hood tales, to contemporary urban myths and facets of cryptozoology such as the Beast of Bodmir Moor. The famous Arthurian legends may not have originated in England, but variants of these tales are associated with locations in England, such as Glastonbury and Tintagel. 

Examples of surviving English folk traditions include the Morris dance and related practices such as the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance and the Mummers Plays. In many, usually rural places, people still gather for May Day festivals on the first of May to celebrate the beginning of summer. This traditionally involves local children skipping around a maypole each carrying a coloured ribbon, resulting in a multi-coloured plaited pattern. The festival traditionally features Morris dancing and various festivities, culminating in the crowning of a 'May Queen'. Many regional variations of the festivals exist; the oldest still practised today is the "Obby Oss festival of Padstow, which dates back to the 14th century.

Literature

Due to the expansion of English into a world language during the British Empire, literature is now written in English across the world. Writers often associated with England or for expressing Englishness include Shakespeare (who produced twotetralogies of history plays about the English kings), Jane Austen, Arnold Bennett, and Rupert Brooke (whose poem "Grantchester" is often considered quintessentially English). Other writers are associated with specific regions of England; these include Charles Dickens (London), Thomas Hardy (Wessex), A. E. Housman (Shropshire), and the Lake Poets (the Lake District). In the lighter vein, Agatha Christie's mystery novels are outsold only by Shakespeare and The Bible.

Music

England has a long and rich musical history. The United Kingdom has, like most European countries, undergone a roots revival in the last half of the 20th century. English music has been an instrumental and leading part of this phenomenon, which peaked at the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s.

The achievements of the Anglican choral tradition following on from 16th century composers such as Thomas Tallis, John Taverner and William Byrd have tended to overshadow instrumental composition. The semi-operatic innovations of Henry Purcell did not lead to a native operatic tradition, but George Frederick Handel found important royal patrons and enthusiastic public support in England. The rapturous receptions afforded by audiences to visiting musical celebrities such as Haydn often contrasted with the lack of recognition for home-grown talent. However, the emergence of figures such as Edward Elgar and Arthur Sullivan in the 19th century showed a new vitality in English music. In the 20th century, Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett emerged as internationally-recognised opera composers, and Ralph Vaughan Williams and others collected English folk tunes and adapted them to the concert hall. Cecil Sharp was a leading figure in the English folk revival.

Finally, a new trend emerged out of Liverpool in 1962. The Beatles became the most popular musicians of their time, and in the composing duo of John Lennon and Paul McCartney, popularized the concept of the self-contained music act. Before th

e Beatles, very few popular singers composed the tunes they performed. The "Fab Four" opened the doors for other English acts such as The Rolling Stones, Cream, The Hollies, The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Genesis,Iron Maiden and Pink Floyd to the globe.

Some of England's leading contemporary artists include Eric Clapton, Elton John, George Michael, Blur, The Spice Girls, Bloc Party, Arctic Monkeys, Robbie Williams, Oasis,The Smiths, Radiohead, David Bowie, Coldplay, Muse and Mumford and Sons.

Philosophy

English philosophers include Francis Bacon, Sir Thomas More, John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell.

Religion

Christianity is the most widely practiced and declared religion in England. The Anglican Churc of England is the established church of England holding a special constitutional position for the United Kingdom. After Christianity, religions with the most adherents are Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Judaism, Buddhism, the Bahá'í Faith, the Rastafari movement and Neopaganism. There are also organisations which promote irreligion, atheist humanism, and secularism.