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Howdy! I've always been fascinated by other cultures and languages, so I figured it was time to actually learn them rather than romanticize in my head them and think "If only..." I'm semi-decent in Spanish, and I'm intending to learn Korean (which I'm working on currently), Japanese, French, and Italian in my lifetime. How could I say no to making new friends in the process, and even teaching them a bit of my language in exchange? I look forward to everyone I meet and everything I learn here. If you are contributing in any way to this site, I admire and thank you.
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  • Answered
    They're saying the Federal Reserve buys US Treasuries FROM 18 primary dealers. So there are 18 dealers FROM WHICH, the Federal Reserve buys said treasuries. What I'm sure is confusing you is the word "Treasuries," because you're probably thinking of the single institution known as the "United States Treasury," which is where the US government's revenue is managed, among other things. US TreasurIES (plural), are, to put it (almost) simply, when you invest money in the government through bonds, notes, or bills that are issued by the US TreasurY (governmental department), and then the government pays you back with interest, depending on the type of loan you chose (these loans are called "securities"...in fact, US Treasuries are basically securities through the US Treasury). An example would be the war bonds that the American people bought to help finance World War II. These Treasuries usually regarded as the safest investments there are, as returns are consistent, but not as rewarding as riskier investments. Therefore, the sentence is saying that the Federal Reserve, which is in charge of regulating banks and monetary value/policy in America, has 18 dealers (there are actually 21 now) for their transactions involving Treasuries--the "dealers" being, in particular, big banks and broker-dealers that turn around and buy/sell these securities to/from each other, such as Deutsche Bank in Germany, Nomura in Japan, or Goldman Sachs here in the US). Basically, this is all done in the effort to borrow money when the government needs to raise cash, and thus stimulate the economy if it happens to do something right with that cash. I hope that shed some light. I'm not very well-read in this area, and I might have gotten it wrong, but hopefully now you know what the sentence is saying, even if you don't know all the details :)
    0 voted
    March 21, 2013
    0
  • Answered
    It sounds right to me. It just depends, did you mention that "A" is a male in a previous sentence? If you know the gender of the person you're referring to, and how many of them there are, you use his/her/their accordingly. So if you said earlier who "A" is, then your gender pronoun would reflect that in this sentence. But if you aren't sure of the gender, it gets a little too formal, in my opinion: if you know it's singular, you would put "his/her" or "his or her", but if it's plural, you put "their." I personally don't like using "his or her" a million times, so I tend to just say "his," even though that might be technically politically incorrect, or "their," even if that might be technically grammatically incorrect. It's your call how you use it, though, because obviously you're gonna speak differently in an essay than you do in a casual conversation. On that note, what did A have to say about Koreans? (Is A an American? We tend to be good at stigmatizing on our own terms).
    0 voted
    February 9, 2013
    2
  • Answered
    I've always thought the most effective way to convey the validity of two contradictory arguments is to show that you understand where they both come from. That way, you don't even need to say you find things right about both, because you mention aspects of each one that would appeal to the "logical" and "fact-based" parts of people, and then your audience can choose for itself. One example could be the famous "nature vs. nurture" debate, which is basically between two schools of thought that assert people are either born a certain way (nature), or they are made a certain way by their surroundings (nurture). After gathering your evidence from whatever sources that support each argument, you could say something like, "Indeed, the influence of one's environment is unavoidable, and we, as humans, are bound to adjust our behavior according to it (e.g., a boy's inclination to imitate the authoritarian male figure, a French woman learning English and losing her accent entirely after spending enough years in a homogeneous American suburb). Nevertheless, there are certain innate predilections that can drive us in any environment (e.g., the desire to procreate, the will to survive)." I just made that up, so it's probably flawed, but you know what I mean? You're showing that you understand the correct aspects of both arguments. There aren't any expressions, per se, that I tend to use, unless I am following the structure above: "Blah blah blah point A, [however/but/nevertheless/on the other side of the coin/regardless/at the same time/yet/on the other hand/still] blah blah blah point B." One more thing. If I want to show that I comprehend both theories on an issue, but I ultimately have to take a stand on one, I'll usually say something valid about the theory I disagree with, but then point out something that makes me agree with the opposing theory. So, for example: "While it is natural for any adolescent, as a result of inevitable biological triggers, to be more frequently guided by his or her emotions, the inclination to rebel, regardless, is cultivated by having something to rebel against in the first place, and thus a parent that promotes a foundation of respect, rather than fear or passivity, will, with few exceptions, raise a more mature child." I show there that I agree with parts of both theories, but ultimately I agree with one, on the whole, more than the other.
    0 voted
    February 3, 2013
    2
  • Corrected

    *Brand image positioning - Cooperate with VM department, participate in poster shooting. Provide main theme of new season to VM and sales department so that visual merchandising and sales assistants in training can be thoroughly acquainted with new season concept. 

     

    *Keep in touch with brand supplier - Carry on communications about stock and sales status consistently and dependably.

     

    *Work out promotion plan with sales department - Communicate with sales department regularly. Keep mind on sales data, and weather, actual consumers, comments from sales assistants and based on sell through % (not sure what "based on sell through %" means. Do you mean to say "sales percentages"?) and local factors. Recommend promotion style and ask for on/off styles. 

     

    *Regular store visiting - To ensure and understand products display and sales status, communicate with VM department punctually, replenish products, regulate goods structure in a timely fashion. Visit department store manager to understand more about competing brands' sales statuses, as well as for advice on improving my salesmanship. Understand the difference between target consumer and actual consumer, in addition to local wearing habits and preferences. Visit and investigate local competition.

     

    Let me know if you have any questions!

    0 voted
    January 22, 2013
    0
  • Corrected

    In case the other way doesn't work for you, I tried organizing these points differently, simply by separating them farther apart and making the titles of the main points more consistent by adding a dash (-) to all of them. Also, I'm assuming that you aren't using the words "I", "a", "an", or "the" because this is a CV and you're keeping it to the point. Sometimes, however, something makes more sense with one of those words added. 

     

    *Trend analyzing - Follow up fashion show from international fashion week--New York/Milan/London/Paris S/S,F/W (not sure what this means...do you mean you follow up with the people in charge of international fashion week in all these different cities?), and trend information from main online fashion site, combine elements suit for brand, use into select and place order. 

     

    *Sales analyzing - Closely assess weekly, monthly, quarterly statements (for example, stock structure and size assortment), and catch any problems immediately.

     

    *Make OTB plan - Plan for next season’s buying amount (not sure what a "buying amount" is. Do you mean price?) and detail about (when you say "detail about," do you mean you come up with the category and SKU for each store, or are you referring to what you said before about "planning next season's buying amount", meaning you "plan" the details?) category and SKU for each store on the basis of sales and stock data of previous season and next season’s target sale.

     

    *Purchasing – After receiving design package from brand supplier, recommend design suit for China market (according to region wearing habits, customs, price, sales data, etc.) and advise on altering details. After style is selected, contact domestic factory and place order, and ensure product's delivery to warehouse on time.

     

    *Keep in contact with factories and vendors - Place small orders for special weather. For example, if the new season's styles didn’t include enough knitwear and padded jacket for weather changing or coldest weather for Northeast of China, place small, quick delivery order in order to improve sales.

     

    *Merchandise distribution - new/replenish merchandise. After product arrives in warehouse, distribute and replenish to each store's supply according to SKU sales data, promotion and shop level.

     

    *Stock regulation - Balance each store's stock quantity and transferring (transfer what, exactly?) on time according to sales and promotion of each store.

     

    Excellent! The people reading this need to understand your specialties, and it looks like you have plenty, so just work on clarity in certain spots. Also, make sure you end each sentence with just one period--you don't need any extra spaces or marks. The same goes if you have a comma. 

    0 voted
    January 22, 2013
    0
  • Corrected

    Sorry it took so long to take a look at this. I was initially confused by it, but I realized these probably have to do with your job as a sales organizer at a fashion mall. I guess, to start, it would help to organize it a little more clearly. I saw you seemed to separate different sections with an asterisk (*), so I just made any sentence marked with a "*" the main point, and then whenever I saw a sentence end in a period (.), I put that under the one marked with the "*", and I marked it with a dash (-). I could be completely wrong, though, haha, but in terms of structure, I would suggest something along those lines. I see that everything is written in the present-tense. I would make it past if it is a job where you no longer work. 


    *Plan for theme promotion and select products based on sales data:

    -Keep pace with fashion trends (especially trends among target consumers) and online catchwords

    -Combine sales and stock status to organize and plan for special online promotion.

    -Make photo-shoot requests if needed for promo concept and provide main product/organize team members to go over further details and designs for promotion.

    -Make sure promotion starts on time. 

    -When organizing comprehensive promotion, contact channel manager and ensure exposure frequency of product.

    *Follow up promotion sales and keep improving immediately.

    *Follow up and make immediate improvements on style, product and price, etc. according to specific sales data of promotion, 

    *Change main channel on time: (You say this in the next point, so might as well combine them)

    *Change main channel on time based on sales data and ensure freshness and attractiveness to consumers.

    *Analyse products and put together the right promotion plan:

    -Decide how to promote seasonal quick seller and off-season dead stock according to sales and stock data (in-channel promo/corporate promo/main page promo/advertising)

    *Trace status of channel:

    -Correct any error/mistake on time, rearrange product ranking, update product category and keyword based on click rate:

    -Verify that every product is effectively linked to its related product.

    -Maintain high product review rate.

    -Update and add new and lacked search keywords to data department.

     

    You may want to organize this your own way, or maybe I misunderstood something and corrected it wrong. Either way, this was very good! Just make sure you pluralize things when theres more than one of them, make sure not to repeat the same point using different words, don't use the same words too much, and make sure the sentence is clear, since it's easy to get lost in all the big words and business language (I had the same problem with my resumé, haha).

    0 voted
    January 22, 2013
    0
  • Corrected

    First notebook entry: Introducing myself

    I'm (I would suggest using the apostrophe that looks like this ---->' as opposed to the accent mark that looks like this ---->` when typing in English. I'm assuming your keyboard is different from the one I have, though) learning the English language because I want to work abroad as well as make friends from other countries. (You don't need a space between the last word in the sentence and the period. Also, I would have just said to put "and make friends from other countries", but you seem to want to emphasize that you have two different reasons to learn the language, you could put "as well as" here. Either way, you don't need "also to," since "and" or "as well as" let us know that you have an additional reason). 
    My native language is Arabic, (you put a comma here, since you have a new, separate sentence you are marking with "and I") and I'm proud to say I grew up in Egypt :). (There are multiple ways to say this, but it's more natural not to separate a sentence with "and" too many times--there are exceptions, though. If you started the sentence with "I grew up in Egypt..." then it would work better to say "and I'm proud of this", but since you began the sentence with "My native language is Arabic, and..." the sentence would sound too cluttered otherwise. I was assuming you're proud to have grown up in Egypt, but if you're trying to say you're proud that your native language is Arabic <em>and</em> that you grew up in Egypt, you would write the sentence as: "I am proud to say my native language is Arabic, and that I grew up in Egypt." There are other ways to write it, this is just the first I came up with :). Also, you don't have to capitalize words like "proud" or "language" or "in" unless they're in the title of something or at the beginning of a sentence. In this case, since you're just using the words in a sentence, you don't need to).
    I enjoy painting, reading and listening to music :). (there's a silent "t" in "listen"...we have a lot of unexpected letters floating around in our words haha).


    In all, it would look like this:


    I'm learning the English language because I want to work abroad as well as make friends from other countries. My native Language is Arabic, and I'm proud to say I grew up in Egypt :). I enjoy painting, reading and listening to music :).

     

    Hope that helped! Let me know if you have any other questions. I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends from abroad with your passion for language and art! 

    0 voted
    December 24, 2012
    0
  • Corrected

    First notebook entry: Introducing myself

    I am learning English (you don't need a comma there) because I (always capitalize "I" when referring to yourself) want to earn a PhD in the US. (one of the annoying things about English and a lot of languages like it is having to add articles--the/a/an--to most words haha. Also, I know you meant to say "do" instead of "so", but "do" isn't always the best verb when writing about a PhD...usually you "earn" or "receive" or "study to get" one. "Do" for something like a PhD is used more frequently in really casual spoken conversations.) I really hate to learn new languages, (here, you actually <em>do </em>put a comma, since you're about to discuss the reason with "but...") but it is ("it" referring to the learning of new languages, which you hate...and I'm sorry to hear that :( )the only way to study abroad properly. (You don't need the word "properly" specifically--you could even use "effectively", "efficiently", or other words like that. Words like these are optional, but when you just say "it is the only way to study abroad", it sounds like you're saying that, unless you learn a language, it is impossible to study abroad, and that's not always true. I have a bunch of friends who studied in Italy and Spain and never had to learn a single word besides "hello" and "thank you." However, since learning the language enhances the experience of studying abroad, I would add a word like "properly" to emphasize how much more beneficial studying abroad becomes after learning a language. That's just me being nitpicky, though lol) My native language is Greek, (you put a comma here since you have another thing you're describing about yourself marked by "and I") and I grew up in Greece. I enjoy studying and traveling in other countries. (You could also say "I like to study and travel in other countries," but when you use enjoy, you enjoy the progressive action of a verb, so you write the "-ing" version of the verb, but using "like" or "love", you can say "to [verb]" or "[verb]ing". 


    So in all, it would look like this:


    I am learning English because I want to earn a PhD in the US. I really hate to learn new languages, but it is the only way to study abroad properly. My native language is Greek, and I grew up in Greece. I enjoy studying and traveling in other countries.


    Let me know if you have any questions! You already seem to know English pretty well, and I think you'll have no problem getting your PhD out here!

    0 voted
    December 24, 2012
    0
  • Answered
    I would say they can be used interchangeably, but sometimes "the" and "a" sound better in different situations. You know how people emphasize the importance of something by saying "It's not just a________, it's THE ____________"? For example: "In the 1940s, Humphrey Bogart wasn't just an actor, he was the actor." Well, the same kind of thinking applies here. "Instead, armed with a computer science degree and <a knack for> numbers, Mr. Kim became a star technology analyst on Wall Street." - You could say "the knack for", but "a knack" sounds better because there are various types of "knacks" people can have for numbers. The one Mr. Kim had in particular, helped him with technology analysis. "Cook caught Randall's eye when the MCC came to play against the Bedford first XI. The guests were a man short, so the 14-year-old Cook stood in for them. He was supposed to be making up the numbers, but he ended up making a century. Cook was blessed with <the knack for> seizing an opportunity. He was just 18 when he made his first-class debut for Essex and he made an unbeaten 69 in the second innings, batting in partnership with Andy Flower, who is now England's head coach." - Notice how the author of this passage spends time describing Cook, and building up a sort of legendary status for him. Cook sounds like someone who, in another lifetime, would not have ended up where he is now if it weren't for one little opportunity. This is highlighted in the sentence, "He was supposed to be making up the numbers, but he ended up making a century." Seizing opportunities, to this author, seems to be a characteristic of great men, so when he says "the knack," he is trying to set Cook apart from other men who have had opportunities and didn't properly take advantage of hem. "Philip Roth is neither Shakespeare nor Wilde, but he has always possessed <the knack of> confounding his audience." - As strange as it sounds, "the knack of" is technically correct. When you say someone has a "knack for" or "of" something, it describes varying degrees of skill. It could mean you have the hang of something, or you have a gift for it. It all depends on the context. "Confusing the audience" sounds like something Shakespeare and Wilde had in common (which makes sense when you read them), and the author is saying Roth has that same "knack" (and he uses "the"--because it is a particular type of knack), even though his writing is not of the same caliber.
    0 voted
    December 11, 2012
    3
  • Answered
    Aggregate basically means "all combined/together." The words that come before the word depend on what you're talking about and how you're talking about it. 1. The funds, at least in the aggregate, have underperformed to stock market. - Here, the writer's priority is to talk about how the funds haven't done well in the (don't know why it says "to") stock market. He knows that can be argued with, however, so he prefaces that by saying, "at least in the aggregate," meaning "at least the total of all the funds put together, not specific exceptional cases". He does it to clarify his point so he can find common ground with anyone who doesn't agree. I'd say he says "In THE aggregate" here because he's referring to a certain type of aggregate that has to do with these certain types of funds. However, he would be correct in using any of the other "aggregate" phrases you're wondering about. 2. Many other players have real production - which, in aggregate, can impact global supply. - Here, the author talking about how there are many countries/companies/people (which he calls "players," since the global economy is often compared to a game) who are producing a lot. Now, maybe individually, these "players" can't do much in terms of supplying the world with this product, but put together, "in aggregate," they can make a strong impact. This is serving to emphasize that power in numbers can create change. We aren't talking about specific numbers or data, so it works best to say "in aggregate," but it would be ok to use the other phrases here, too. 3. Taken in aggregate, however, the government data offer some degree of comfort. - Here the writer is probably making a point that makes something he said before more "comforting." He probably listed some individual facts that did not sound promising, but when he has "taken" all the facts available and put them "in aggregate", we see that in the big picture, everything is ok. Once again, he could use "aggregate" in those other ways, but this way serves to explain how everything he has talked about before can mean something else when looked at when it is all put together.
    0 voted
    December 7, 2012
    2