Descendants of the Sun

Then we walked/headed diagonally across the field towards/to reach her farmhouse in which she unhooked her bra/necklace and she put on another bra/necklace, reaching behind her back/neck to do up/fasten the hooks/hook. There was a clasp attached to the necklace/bracelet. She threw on a jumper but it was itchy/scratchy so she ripped it off (= remove a piece of clothing very quickly and carelessly), crumpled it (into a ball) and chucked/slung/tossed it onto the floor. Then she put/threw/slipped on/slipped into a hoodie with a diagonal white stripe on the front and brought along her diary which has a diagonal black stripe on the cover. Then we went for a pleasant saunter in the countryside/a rural area/town in Tokyo/a suburb of Tokyo/the suburbs of Tokyo/suburban Tokyo where we started strolling leisurely/saunter pleasantly along a road that runs/is parallel to the river. For example, Queen's Road Central is parallel to Wellington Street. The two roads are parallel. Later, we reached the city centre where we walked/headed diagonally across the square towards/to reach her favourite cafe. As we were strolling there, a pedestrian asked us how they could get to the shopping centre/mall. To reach the shopping centre, you cut through/across (= get to somewhere by a quicker and more direct way than the usual way) the park/car park/It's quickest if you cut diagonally through/across the park. The route/path goes diagonally through/across the city/park. She drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other and wrote down the tasks she needed to do/carry out/complete during/in the daytime and at nighttime, showing each part in a different colour. The top/upper part coloured yellow showed the tasks in the daytime while the bottom/lower part coloured red showed the tasks at nighttime. She teaches piano too. Some of her students still can't distinguish (the difference) between a tenuto and an accent/distinguish a tenuto from an accent/tell the difference between a tenuto and an accent/tell a tenuto from an accent/discriminate between a tenuto and an accent. Some of them were always in and out of the zone during their lessons. Some of them use convenient piano benches/Some of their piano benches are convenient because they can store the piano books inside the piano benches/stools. Sit with your knees straight. Don't sit with your knees apart/open. Don't sit with your ankles locked/crossed/with locked ankles/in the figure four (leg) lock position. It's an alternating pattern of notes with lines through the middle and notes in the spaces between the lines. A sharp/flat means playing the next key to the right/left, whether (it's)/be it black or white.
She occasionally runs over time/the lesson occasionally runs over/overruns by five minutes. While drinking her hot chocolate in sips, she talked about her family holiday to Japan where they had/stayed in adjacent/adjoining rooms at a hotel that is adjacent to/handy for the train station which made their family holiday a breeze. On our family holiday to Japan, we asked for adjacent/adjoining rooms and our hotel is adjacent to/handy for the train station. Both our adjoining rooms and the location of the hotel made our family holiday a breeze.

There was one time/Once while my cousin was on holiday in Japan, he could hear voices from the adjoining room in his hotel which sounded spooky, being sinister (= making you feel that something bad or evil might happen) or ghostly in a way that caused fear and unease/being strange and frightening/gave him the jimjams. There's a cemetery near his hotel which he didn't realize until he arrived at his hotel. The cemetery was/became really spooky/menacing (= making you think someone is gling to do something bad/threatening)/had a really spooky atmosphere late at night/There's something sinister about the cemetery/The cemetery had a sinister appearance. On the first night, he overheard a (creepy) ghost story/someone on his phone tell a (creepy) ghost story outside his room. Out of interest, he walked to the door, looked through the peephole and eavesdropped on his phone call/conversation/ghost story but it got/became a bit/increasingly spooky/which created a rather (= rather) spooky atmosphere and he later regretted secretly listening to it because it made him hard to fall asleep. Then he opened the curtains and looked out the window. He noticed a sinister-looking man/a man whose face/look was menacing sitting on/at the corner of the cemetery who looked up, noticed my cousin and moved menacingly towards him, giving/with a low menacing laugh which he could faintly hear in his hotel room which only had/with only/as it only had one huge fixed window. The man had dark, sinister eyes that made him nervous when he looked at him. Later, we moved over to the table by which we sat on the sofa/settee. She took a stack (= neatly piled)/pile of leaflets and envelopes out of her bag and placed/sorted/arranged them in/into two (neat) (separate) piles/and stacked them (up)/piled them (up) (neatly). It turned out the leaflets were an ad/advert/advertisement for her piano teaching/to promote/advertise her piano teaching and she was going to send them to other people's houses. She had five hundred envelopes to stuff with leaflets/had five hundred leaflets to stuff into envelopes. Then she sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor where she was stuffing leaflets into the envelopes, tearing the sheets of stamps along the perforations and sticking a stamp on each envelope. While doing so, I sank back into/leaned back against the cushions and took/had a sip/a few sips of the (mint/hazelnut) hot chocolate, us continuing to chat. She's recently had an interview for teaching piano at a music centre during which she was tested on piano music to measure her knowledge of piano music and her ability to play the piano. She said both the interview and the test were a breeze. You've really got to prepare for these things. You can't just wing it. She once hadn't prepared for an interview/She hadn't prepared for an interview (just) the once so she had to wing it and in the end, she didn't get/land the job. She turned up without thinking about the questions she might get asked so she was only able to come up with wishy-washy answers. Just as a manager can't take a wishy-washy approach to meetings/problems/dealing with problems, so you can't take a wishy-washy approach to interviews. You can't... just as/in the same way as/in the same way that a manager... If a wishy-washy manager is too scared to talk to their staff, problems will get worse. In the same way, if you write something wishy-washy in your assignments or exams, you won't get any marks. When we headed back, she knocked on the door with a door knocker but no one answered the door so she put the key into the keyhole and turned the door handle/door knob to open the door after which she filed her nails and plucked her eyebrows.

She originally invited her friend to her place that night but her friend had informed her about/of taking a rain check on (= cannot accept an invitation now, but would like to do so at a later time) that drink due to work so she was terribly/bitterly/deeply/sorely disappointed/absolutely gutted at/by/about it, slumping her shoulders. Mind if I take a rain check on that drink? I have to work late tonight.

2.
One day during my trip, I visited my friend's house which backs onto (= its back faces it) a river. She looked through the peephole and opened the door. She's tall, six foot one and big boned (= of a person or animal, of larger than average build without being fat). She has a good/great/lovely/beautiful/amazing figure. She does a lot of exercise and consumes healthy food to keep her figure. I've never seen her lose her figure/She does a lot of exercise and consumes foods that are good for her health and the figure so she's watching her figure. Most women have to watch their figure. She also loves dancing and has weekly dancing lessons. Dancing is fun and great for your figure. She doesn't (like to) talk shop at the weekends/over a coffee. She had several artificial Christmas trees. We can make a killing on these artificial Christmas trees if we are able to market them in time for the holidays. She's looking to book a holiday package so she's mulling over all the options/all the packages she's interested in. She needs a few days to mull things over before she makes up her mind. Unlike her younger brother who tends to dwell on the past/past memories instead of moving forward, She's a positive person who doesn't dwell on past mistakes and present miseries. She always says to her younger brother so you made a mistake. There's no need to dwell on it/I don't want to dwell on this subject for too long/I have no time to dwell on present miseries (= great unhappiness). Apparently, her brother has recently broken up with her girlfriend so he's been wandering around/moping about, wandering around there not doing anything, looking and feeling unhappy/dilly-dallying (= waste time by being slow or through aimless wandering or indecision) all week/acting like a lovesick teenager. As he's down in the dumps, of course I didn't rub it in. He's got a job selling insurance but he isn't exactly making a killing. Her dad is fuddy-duddy/a fuddy-duddy/a stick in the mud and a creature of habit. Every time the whole family dines out, he has to go to the same restaurant. Her parents made a killing with/on the sales of their house in Tokyo. Her elder brother got hitched last year. When his wife bore him a son, he couldn't hide his delight/joy. She had borne four kids by the time she was thirty. When the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, it alarmed him/he was alarmed/He felt a growing sense of alarm when the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, realizing she might face the terrifying prospect of unemployment. Many workers would face the gloomy/grim/bleak prospect of losing their jobs. Fortunately, he wasn't sacked. The prospect of sharing an office with a colleague of his who's a bully fills him with horror. His wife is alarmed/appalled at/by/concerned about/for her husband about/for/at/by/over/upset about/over/at/by/dreads (= very worried)/doesn't relish the prospect of sharing an office with him. He had a crush on a female colleague of his. Traveling around the world alone is a daunting prospect so he relishes the exciting/attractive prospect of traveling the world with her. He secretly relishes the prospect/thought/idea of being alone with her/chance of/for a date (to dinner) with her/of going.../opportunity for a date with her/of/for going... A date with her is an exciting/attractive prospect. There was one time/once an instance when he went to a bar, being under the impression that she would be there so he said my plan didn't work out so it's back to the drawing board. However, this time he knew for sure that she would be at a party. Knowing she would be there, he said to himself hopefully, touch wood she's going to be in there most of the time. At the party, he plucked up (his/the) courage to approach her, asking her out to dinner next week so he's excited/thrilled/delighted at the prospect of seeing her again.

They have two domestic helpers because their farmhouse is enormous and they lack any/have no inclination towards/for housework. She and her family manage/run/own/have a farm. She showed me around her farmhouse including her room. She said we'll have more space if we knock down the adjoining wall. They've adopted several dogs and cats. They understand when you've adopted a pet, you have/take responsibility for playing with that pet and taking care of its physical needs, ensuring that it's loved and well fed/make/give a commitment to.../you've committed to playing.../you cannot back out of your commitment to play... One of her dogs and one of her cats have recently borne/given birth a litter (= born at the same time and have the same mother) of puppies and kittens. The dog seemed parched so I gave it some water. Her grandad/grandpa had just got home from going fishing and hooked his cane over the back of the chair. He's such a cheapskate that he cuts his hair himself. He's very kind and generous who kept saying make yourself home and kept offering me food and drinks. You make me feel like a freeloader. A freeloader is a person who takes advantage of others' generosity, such as food, money and a room in a house without giving anything in return/exchange. How's your day been? Sit, take a load off. Spill the beans/the tea. Come in/Come on in and take a load off (your feet). How many salmon/bass/fish did you hook? While doing fishing, he inadvertently kicked his shoe into the lake which was then floating on the surface of the water so he immediately hooked the shoe out of the water with his cane. Then he sat on the sofa/settee and watched a nature/wildlife documentary where it featured a pack of wolves/a parliament of owls/a pride of lions/a swarm of bees in the forest and their lives/a school of fish/whales/dolphins swimming in the ocean and their lives. He's seventy now and he doesn't get around/about much anymore/still can get about. Amazing/Last week, she was in Japan and nexr week he'll be in South Korea. He (really) gets about, doesn't he? He's set his Facebook account so that only/configured his account to allow only friends to see his photos. How many Covid jabs/shots/vaccines/vaccinations did you have/get? So did I. Did you have AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna? In Hong Kong, we had BionTech and Sinovac. These were the main ones. And I had the latter. She was supposed to make a speech but someone else agreed to do it for her. Before that, she said to herself hopefully, touch wood someone else will do it for me. I'm so relieved that I don't have to make/give/deliver a speech. It's/That's (such) a load/weight off my mind. Her grandma was most of her life a non-smoking teetotaller and lived modestly. A vacant plot of land and a vegetable land adjoins his house. A barn also adjoins an area of land/the field where the farm animals live. She has a stallion and a gravid mare who has borne several foals. Most animals bear their young in spring. She put her dog on a lead, tying the lead to her dog to her collar/tying the lead to his harness. While showing me around her farmhouse, she hooked a trailer/tractor to her car, drove her car to the other side/end of her farm, unhooked the trailer/tractor from her car and left them there. Simultaneously, she showed me a beautiful and serene lake nearby in which a flock of ducks and ducklings, a gaggle of geese and a few swans and cyngets were swimming. Standing by it, I took in the beauty and the serenity of the lake. Near the lake, I also noticed a flock of birds/cuckoos, a covey/bevy of quail/quails, a murder of crows, a herd of deers and fawns and a mob/court/troop of kangaroos and joeys as well as bears/pandas/wolves/foxes and their (bear) cubs.

Cuckoos are able to lay their eggs in other birds' nests. On her farm, she has a flock of chickens and chicks, a flock of sheeps and lambs, a rafter of turkeys and cattle. Some of her hens aren't laying well (= not producing many eggs). Later, I threw her the rope/threw the rope to her who then caught the rope and knotted it around/tied it to the post/tree. The tree she planted had never/finally borne fruit/took a long time to bear fruit. Then we walked/headed diagonally across the field towards/to reach her farmhouse in which she unhooked her bra/necklace and she put on another bra/necklace, reaching behind her back/neck to do up/fasten the hooks/hook. There was a clasp attached to the necklace/bracelet. She threw on a jumper but it was itchy/scratchy so she ripped it off (= remove a piece of clothing very quickly and carelessly), crumpled it (into a ball) and chucked/slung/tossed it onto the floor. Then she put/threw/slipped on/slipped into a hoodie with a diagonal white stripe on the front and brought along her diary which has a diagonal black stripe on the cover. Then we went for a pleasant saunter in the countryside/a rural area/town in Tokyo/a suburb of Tokyo/the suburbs of Tokyo/suburban Tokyo where we started strolling leisurely/saunter pleasantly along a road that runs/is parallel to the river. For example, Queen's Road Central is parallel to Wellington Street. The two roads are parallel. Later, we reached the city centre where we walked/headed diagonally across the square towards/to reach her favourite cafe. As we were strolling there, a pedestrian asked us how they could get to the shopping centre/mall. To reach the shopping centre, you cut through/across (= get to somewhere by a quicker and more direct way than the usual way) the park/car park/It's quickest if you cut diagonally through/across the park. The route/path goes diagonally through/across the city/park. She drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other and wrote down the tasks she needed to do/carry out/complete during/in the daytime and at nighttime, showing each part in a different colour. The top/upper part coloured yellow showed the tasks in the daytime while the bottom/lower part coloured red showed the tasks at nighttime. She teaches piano too. Some of her students still can't distinguish (the difference) between a tenuto and an accent/distinguish a tenuto from an accent/tell the difference between a tenuto and an accent/tell a tenuto from an accent/discriminate between a tenuto and an accent. Some of them were always in and out of the zone during their lessons. Some of them use convenient piano benches/Some of their piano benches are convenient because they can store the piano books inside the piano benches/stools. Sit with your knees straight. Don't sit with your knees apart/open. Don't sit with your ankles locked/crossed/with locked ankles/in the figure four (leg) lock position. It's an alternating pattern of notes with lines through the middle and notes in the spaces between the lines. A sharp/flat means playing the next key to the right/left, whether (it's)/be it black or white. The pages keep getting blown around by your fan. Can you turn the fan a little to the left/right/along so that the pages doesn't keep turning/flipping over/the sheets doesn't fall off the stand? He's made a good start but needs to carry on working on the basics, such as note reading/He's done really well to get to grade two, but now needs to reinforce his note reading skills in order to progress onto more challenging repertoire. I think his sightreading is quite good but there is room for improvement. He's making rapid progress with the four pieces that she's learning. He's doing a good job. From January onwards, we'll be back to four pm as usual. Would you also like her to commence weekly lessons? Since you missed half an hour's lesson last time, you can pay half an hour less in February/you can deduct half an hour's fee in February.

Her pianist friend wants to give her students a lesson too. Some of my students' levels are a lot lower than university standards so when you teach them always find something positive to say first then be gentle with any criticism. When she asked her friend in a different field to write a testimonial. Her friend replied in the following way. Hi, sorry I am only seeing this now. I wish you the very best with your business but I don't feel comfortable putting my name to something that I don't use or know. I hope you understand. Wishing you the best.She occasionally runs over time/the lesson occasionally runs over/overruns by five minutes. While drinking her hot chocolate in sips, she talked about her family holiday to Japan where they had/stayed in adjacent/adjoining rooms at a hotel that is adjacent to/handy for the train station which made their family holiday a breeze. On our family holiday to Japan, we asked for adjacent/adjoining rooms and our hotel is adjacent to/handy for the train station. Both our adjoining rooms and the location of the hotel made our family holiday a breeze. There was one time/Once while my cousin was on holiday in Japan, he could hear voices from the adjoining room in his hotel which sounded spooky, being sinister (= making you feel that something bad or evil might happen) or ghostly in a way that caused fear and unease/being strange and frightening/gave him the jimjams. There's a cemetery near his hotel which he didn't realize until he arrived at his hotel. The cemetery was/became really spooky/menacing (= making you think someone is gling to do something bad/threatening)/had a really spooky atmosphere late at night/There's something sinister about the cemetery/The cemetery had a sinister appearance. On the first night, he overheard a (creepy) ghost story/someone on his phone tell a (creepy) ghost story outside his room. Out of interest, he walked to the door, looked through the peephole and eavesdropped on his phone call/conversation/ghost story but it got/became a bit/increasingly spooky/which created a rather (= rather) spooky atmosphere and he later regretted secretly listening to it because it made him hard to fall asleep. Then he opened the curtains and looked out the window. He noticed a sinister-looking man/a man whose face/look was menacing sitting on/at the corner of the cemetery who looked up, noticed my cousin and moved menacingly towards him, giving/with a low menacing laugh which he could faintly hear in his hotel room which only had/with only/as it only had one huge fixed window. The man had dark, sinister eyes that made him nervous when he looked at him. Later, we moved over to the table by which we sat on the sofa/settee. She took a stack (= neatly piled)/pile of leaflets and envelopes out of her bag and placed/sorted/arranged them in/into two (neat) (separate) piles/and stacked them (up)/piled them (up) (neatly). It turned out the leaflets were an ad/advert/advertisement for her piano teaching/to promote/advertise her piano teaching and she was going to send them to other people's houses. She had five hundred envelopes to stuff with leaflets/had five hundred leaflets to stuff into envelopes. Then she sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor where she was stuffing leaflets into the envelopes, tearing the sheets of stamps along the perforations and sticking a stamp on each envelope. While doing so, I sank back into/leaned back against the cushions and took/had a sip/a few sips of the (mint/hazelnut) hot chocolate, us continuing to chat. She's recently had an interview for teaching piano at a music centre during which she was tested on piano music to measure her knowledge of piano music and her ability to play the piano.

She said both the interview and the test were a breeze. You've really got to prepare for these things. You can't just wing it. She once hadn't prepared for an interview/She hadn't prepared for an interview (just) the once so she had to wing it and in the end, she didn't get/land the job. She turned up without thinking about the questions she might get asked so she was only able to come up with wishy-washy answers. Just as a manager can't take a wishy-washy approach to meetings/problems/dealing with problems, so you can't take a wishy-washy approach to interviews. You can't... just as/in the same way as/in the same way that a manager... If a wishy-washy manager is too scared to talk to their staff, problems will get worse. In the same way, if you write something wishy-washy in your assignments or exams, you won't get any marks. When we headed back, she knocked on the door with a door knocker but no one answered the door so she put the key into the keyhole and turned the door handle/door knob to open the door after which she filed her nails and plucked her eyebrows. She originally invited her friend to her place that night but her friend had informed her about/of taking a rain check on (= cannot accept an invitation now, but would like to do so at a later time) that drink due to work so she was terribly/bitterly/deeply/sorely disappointed/absolutely gutted at/by/about it, slumping her shoulders. Mind if I take a rain check on that drink? I have to work late tonight.

about/over/at/by/dreads (= very worried)/doesn't relish the prospect of sharing an office with him. He had a crush on a female colleague of his. Traveling around the world alone is a daunting prospect so he relishes the exciting/attractive prospect of traveling the world with her. He secretly relishes the prospect/thought/idea of being alone with her/chance of/for a date (to dinner) with her/of going.../opportunity for a date with her/of/for going... A date with her is an exciting/attractive prospect. There was one time/once an instance when he went to a bar, being under the impression that she would be there so he said my plan didn't work out so it's back to the drawing board. However, this time he knew for sure that she would be at a party. Knowing she would be there, he said to himself hopefully, touch wood she's going to be in there most of the time. At the party, he plucked up (his/the) courage to approach her, asking her out to dinner next week so he's excited/thrilled/delighted at the prospect of seeing her again.

They have two domestic helpers because their farmhouse is enormous and they lack any/have no inclination towards/for housework. She and her family manage/run/own/have a farm. She showed me around her farmhouse including her room. She said we'll have more space if we knock down the adjoining wall. They've adopted several dogs and cats. They understand when you've adopted a pet, you have/take responsibility for playing with that pet and taking care of its physical needs, ensuring that it's loved and well fed/make/give a commitment to.../you've committed to playing.../you cannot back out of your commitment to play... One of her dogs and one of her cats have recently borne/given birth a litter (= born at the same time and have the same mother) of puppies and kittens. The dog seemed parched so I gave it some water. Her grandad/grandpa had just got home from going fishing and hooked his cane over the back of the chair. He's such a cheapskate that he cuts his hair himself. He's very kind and generous who kept saying make yourself home and kept offering me food and drinks. You make me feel like a freeloader. A freeloader is a person who takes advantage of others' generosity, such as food, money and a room in a house without giving anything in return/exchange. How's your day been? Sit, take a load off. Spill the beans/the tea. Come in/Come on in and take a load off (your feet). How many salmon/bass/fish did you hook? While doing fishing, he inadvertently kicked his shoe into the lake which was then floating on the surface of the water so he immediately hooked the shoe out of the water with his cane. Then he sat on the sofa/settee and watched a nature/wildlife documentary where it featured a pack of wolves/a parliament of owls/a pride of lions/a swarm of bees in the forest and their lives/a school of fish/whales/dolphins swimming in the ocean and their lives. He's seventy now and he doesn't get around/about much anymore/still can get about. Amazing/Last week, she was in Japan and nexr week he'll be in South Korea. He (really) gets about, doesn't he? He's set his Facebook account so that only/configured his account to allow only friends to see his photos. How many Covid jabs/shots/vaccines/vaccinations did you have/get? So did I. Did you have AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna? In Hong Kong, we had BionTech and Sinovac. These were the main ones. And I had the latter. She was supposed to make a speech but someone else agreed to do it for her. Before that, she said to herself hopefully, touch wood someone else will do it for me. I'm so relieved that I don't have to make/give/deliver a speech. It's/That's (such) a load/weight off my mind. Her grandma was most of her life a non-smoking teetotaller and lived modestly. A vacant plot of land and a vegetable land adjoins his house. A barn also adjoins an area of land/the field where the farm animals live. She has a stallion and a gravid mare who has borne several foals. Most animals bear their young in spring. She put her dog on a lead, tying the lead to her dog to her collar/tying the lead to his harness. While showing me around her farmhouse, she hooked a trailer/tractor to her car, drove her car to the other side/end of her farm, unhooked the trailer/tractor from her car and left them there. Simultaneously, she showed me a beautiful and serene lake nearby in which a flock of ducks and ducklings, a gaggle of geese and a few swans and cyngets were swimming. Standing by it, I took in the beauty and the serenity of the lake. Near the lake, I also noticed a flock of birds/cuckoos, a covey/bevy of quail/quails, a murder of crows, a herd of deers and fawns and a mob/court/troop of kangaroos and joeys as well as bears/pandas/wolves/foxes and their (bear) cubs.

Cuckoos are able to lay their eggs in other birds' nests. On her farm, she has a flock of chickens and chicks, a flock of sheeps and lambs, a rafter of turkeys and cattle. Some of her hens aren't laying well (= not producing many eggs). Later, I threw her the rope/threw the rope to her who then caught the rope and knotted it around/tied it to the post/tree. The tree she planted had never/finally borne fruit/took a long time to bear fruit. Then we walked/headed diagonally across the field towards/to reach her farmhouse in which she unhooked her bra/necklace and she put on another bra/necklace, reaching behind her back/neck to do up/fasten the hooks/hook. There was a clasp attached to the necklace/bracelet. She threw on a jumper but it was itchy/scratchy so she ripped it off (= remove a piece of clothing very quickly and carelessly), crumpled it (into a ball) and chucked/slung/tossed it onto the floor. Then she put/threw/slipped on/slipped into a hoodie with a diagonal white stripe on the front and brought along her diary which has a diagonal black stripe on the cover. Then we went for a pleasant saunter in the countryside/a rural area/town in Tokyo/a suburb of Tokyo/the suburbs of Tokyo/suburban Tokyo where we started strolling leisurely/saunter pleasantly along a road that runs/is parallel to the river. For example, Queen's Road Central is parallel to Wellington Street. The two roads are parallel. Later, we reached the city centre where we walked/headed diagonally across the square towards/to reach her favourite cafe. As we were strolling there, a pedestrian asked us how they could get to the shopping centre/mall. To reach the shopping centre, you cut through/across (= get to somewhere by a quicker and more direct way than the usual way) the park/car park/It's quickest if you cut diagonally through/across the park. The route/path goes diagonally through/across the city/park. She drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other and wrote down the tasks she needed to do/carry out/complete during/in the daytime and at nighttime, showing each part in a different colour. The top/upper part coloured yellow showed the tasks in the daytime while the bottom/lower part coloured red showed the tasks at nighttime. She teaches piano too. Some of her students still can't distinguish (the difference) between a tenuto and an accent/distinguish a tenuto from an accent/tell the difference between a tenuto and an accent/tell a tenuto from an accent/discriminate between a tenuto and an accent. Some of them were always in and out of the zone during their lessons. Some of them use convenient piano benches/Some of their piano benches are convenient because they can store the piano books inside the piano benches/stools. Sit with your knees straight. Don't sit with your knees apart/open. Don't sit with your ankles locked/crossed/with locked ankles/in the figure four (leg) lock position. It's an alternating pattern of notes with lines through the middle and notes in the spaces between the lines. A sharp/flat means playing the next key to the right/left, whether (it's)/be it black or white. The pages keep getting blown around by your fan. Can you turn the fan a little to the left/right/along so that the pages doesn't keep turning/flipping over/the sheets doesn't fall off the stand? He's made a good start but needs to carry on working on the basics, such as note reading/He's done really well to get to grade two, but now needs to reinforce his note reading skills in order to progress onto more challenging repertoire. I think his sightreading is quite good but there is room for improvement. He's making rapid progress with the four pieces that she's learning. He's doing a good job. From January onwards, we'll be back to four pm as usual. Would you also like her to commence weekly lessons? As you missed half an hour's lesson last time, you can pay half an hour less in February/you can deduct half an hour's fee in February.

Her pianist friend wants to give her students a lesson too. Some of my students' levels are a lot lower than university standards so when you teach them always find something positive to say first then be gentle with any criticism. When she asked her friend in a different field to write a testimonial. Her friend replied in the following way. Hi, sorry I am only seeing this now. I wish you the very best with your business but I don't feel comfortable putting my name to something that I don't use or know. I hope you understand. Wishing you the best.She occasionally runs over time/the lesson occasionally runs over/overruns by five minutes. While drinking her hot chocolate in sips, she talked about her family holiday to Japan where they had/stayed in adjacent/adjoining rooms at a hotel that is adjacent to/handy for the train station which made their family holiday a breeze. On our family holiday to Japan, we asked for adjacent/adjoining rooms and our hotel is adjacent to/handy for the train station. Both our adjoining rooms and the location of the hotel made our family holiday a breeze. There was one time/Once while my cousin was on holiday in Japan, he could hear voices from the adjoining room in his hotel which sounded spooky, being sinister (= making you feel that something bad or evil might happen) or ghostly in a way that caused fear and unease/being strange and frightening/gave him the jimjams. There's a cemetery near his hotel which he didn't realize until he arrived at his hotel. The cemetery was/became really spooky/menacing (= making you think someone is gling to do something bad/threatening)/had a really spooky atmosphere late at night/There's something sinister about the cemetery/The cemetery had a sinister appearance. On the first night, he overheard a (creepy) ghost story/someone on his phone tell a (creepy) ghost story outside his room. Out of interest, he walked to the door, looked through the peephole and eavesdropped on his phone call/conversation/ghost story but it got/became a bit/increasingly spooky/which created a rather (= rather) spooky atmosphere and he later regretted secretly listening to it because it made him hard to fall asleep. Then he opened the curtains and looked out the window. He noticed a sinister-looking man/a man whose face/look was menacing sitting on/at the corner of the cemetery who looked up, noticed my cousin and moved menacingly towards him, giving/with a low menacing laugh which he could faintly hear in his hotel room which only had/with only/as it only had one huge fixed window. The man had dark, sinister eyes that made him nervous when he looked at him. Later, we moved over to the table by which we sat on the sofa/settee. She took a stack (= neatly piled)/pile of leaflets and envelopes out of her bag and placed/sorted/arranged them in/into two (neat) (separate) piles/and stacked them (up)/piled them (up) (neatly). It turned out the leaflets were an ad/advert/advertisement for her piano teaching/to promote/advertise her piano teaching and she was going to send them to other people's houses. She had five hundred envelopes to stuff with leaflets/had five hundred leaflets to stuff into envelopes. Then she sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor where she was stuffing leaflets into the envelopes, tearing the sheets of stamps along the perforations and sticking a stamp on each envelope. While doing so, I sank back into/leaned back against the cushions and took/had a sip/a few sips of the (mint/hazelnut) hot chocolate, us continuing to chat. She's recently had an interview for teaching piano at a music centre during which she was tested on piano music to measure her knowledge of piano music and her ability to play the piano.

2.
One day during my trip, I visited my friend's house which backs onto (= its back faces it) a river. She looked through the peephole and opened the door. She's tall, six foot one and big boned (= of a person or animal, of larger than average build without being fat). She has a good/great/lovely/beautiful/amazing figure. She does a lot of exercise and consumes healthy food to keep her figure. I've never seen her lose her figure/She does a lot of exercise and consumes foods that are good for her health and the figure so she's watching her figure. Most women have to watch their figure. She also loves dancing and has weekly dancing lessons. Dancing is fun and great for your figure. She doesn't (like to) talk shop at the weekends/over a coffee. She had several artificial Christmas trees. We can make a killing on these artificial Christmas trees if we are able to market them in time for the holidays. She's looking to book a holiday package so she's mulling over all the options/all the packages she's interested in. She needs a few days to mull things over before she makes up her mind. Unlike her younger brother who tends to dwell on the past/past memories instead of moving forward, She's a positive person who doesn't dwell on past mistakes and present miseries. She always says to her younger brother so you made a mistake. There's no need to dwell on it/I don't want to dwell on this subject for too long/I have no time to dwell on present miseries (= great unhappiness). Apparently, her brother has recently broken up with her girlfriend so he's been wandering around/moping about, wandering around there not doing anything, looking and feeling unhappy/dilly-dallying (= waste time by being slow or through aimless wandering or indecision) all week/acting like a lovesick teenager. As he's down in the dumps, of course I didn't rub it in. He's got a job selling insurance but he isn't exactly making a killing. Her dad is fuddy-duddy/a fuddy-duddy/a stick in the mud and a creature of habit. Every time the whole family dines out, he has to go to the same restaurant. Her parents made a killing with/on the sales of their house in Tokyo. Her elder brother got hitched last year. When his wife bore him a son, he couldn't hide his delight/joy. She had borne four kids by the time she was thirty. When the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, it alarmed him/he was alarmed/He felt a growing sense of alarm when the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, realizing she might face the terrifying prospect of unemployment. Many workers would face the gloomy/grim/bleak prospect of losing their jobs. Fortunately, he wasn't sacked. The prospect of sharing an office with a colleague of his who's a bully fills him with horror. His wife is alarmed/appalled at/by/concerned about/for her husband about/for/at/by/over/upset about/over/at/by/dreads (= very worried)/doesn't relish the prospect of sharing an office with him. He had a crush on a female colleague of his. Traveling around the world alone is a daunting prospect so he relishes the exciting/attractive prospect of traveling the world with her. He secretly relishes the prospect/thought/idea of being alone with her/chance of/for a date (to dinner) with her/of going.../opportunity for a date with her/of/for going... A date with her is an exciting/attractive prospect. There was one time/once an instance when he went to a bar, being under the impression that she would be there so he said my plan didn't work out so it's back to the drawing board. However, this time he knew for sure that she would be at a party. Knowing she would be there, he said to himself hopefully, touch wood she's going to be in there most of the time. At the party, he plucked up (his/the) courage to approach her, asking her out to dinner next week so he's excited/thrilled/delighted at the prospect of seeing her again.

They have two domestic helpers because their farmhouse is enormous and they lack any/have no inclination towards/for housework. She and her family manage/run/own/have a farm. She showed me around her farmhouse including her room. She said we'll have more space if we knock down the adjoining wall. They've adopted several dogs and cats. They understand when you've adopted a pet, you have/take responsibility for playing with that pet and taking care of its physical needs, ensuring that it's loved and well fed/make/give a commitment to.../you've committed to playing.../you cannot back out of your commitment to play... One of her dogs and one of her cats have recently borne/given birth a litter (= born at the same time and have the same mother) of puppies and kittens. The dog seemed parched so I gave it some water. Her grandad/grandpa had just got home from going fishing and hooked his cane over the back of the chair. He's such a cheapskate that he cuts his hair himself. He's very kind and generous who kept saying make yourself home and kept offering me food and drinks. You make me feel like a freeloader. A freeloader is a person who takes advantage of others' generosity, such as food, money and a room in a house without giving anything in return/exchange. How's your day been? Sit, take a load off. Spill the beans/the tea. Come in/Come on in and take a load off (your feet). How many salmon/bass/fish did you hook? While doing fishing, he inadvertently kicked his shoe into the lake which was then floating on the surface of the water so he immediately hooked the shoe out of the water with his cane. Then he sat on the sofa/settee and watched a nature/wildlife documentary where it featured a pack of wolves/a parliament of owls/a pride of lions/a swarm of bees in the forest and their lives/a school of fish/whales/dolphins swimming in the ocean and their lives. He's seventy now and he doesn't get around/about much anymore/still can get about. Amazing/Last week, she was in Japan and nexr week he'll be in South Korea. He (really) gets about, doesn't he? He's set his Facebook account so that only/configured his account to allow only friends to see his photos. How many Covid jabs/shots/vaccines/vaccinations did you have/get? So did I. Did you have AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna? In Hong Kong, we had BionTech and Sinovac. These were the main ones. And I had the latter. She was supposed to make a speech but someone else agreed to do it for her. Before that, she said to herself hopefully, touch wood someone else will do it for me. I'm so relieved that I don't have to make/give/deliver a speech. It's/That's (such) a load/weight off my mind. Her grandma was most of her life a non-smoking teetotaller and lived modestly. A vacant plot of land and a vegetable land adjoins his house. A barn also adjoins an area of land/the field where the farm animals live. She has a stallion and a gravid mare who has borne several foals. Most animals bear their young in spring. She put her dog on a lead, tying the lead to her dog to her collar/tying the lead to his harness. While showing me around her farmhouse, she hooked a trailer/tractor to her car, drove her car to the other side/end of her farm, unhooked the trailer/tractor from her car and left them there. Simultaneously, she showed me a beautiful and serene lake nearby in which a flock of ducks and ducklings, a gaggle of geese and a few swans and cyngets were swimming. Standing by it, I took in the beauty and the serenity of the lake. Near the lake, I also noticed a flock of birds/cuckoos, a covey/bevy of quail/quails, a murder of crows, a herd of deers and fawns and a mob/court/troop of kangaroos and joeys as well as bears/pandas/wolves/foxes and their (bear) cubs.

Cuckoos are able to lay their eggs in other birds' nests. On her farm, she has a flock of chickens and chicks, a flock of sheeps and lambs, a rafter of turkeys and cattle. Some of her hens aren't laying well (= not producing many eggs). Later, I threw her the rope/threw the rope to her who then caught the rope and knotted it around/tied it to the post/tree. The tree she planted had never/finally borne fruit/took a long time to bear fruit. Then we walked/headed diagonally across the field towards/to reach her farmhouse in which she unhooked her bra/necklace and she put on another bra/necklace, reaching behind her back/neck to do up/fasten the hooks/hook. There was a clasp attached to the necklace/bracelet. She threw on a jumper but it was itchy/scratchy so she ripped it off (= remove a piece of clothing very quickly and carelessly), crumpled it (into a ball) and chucked/slung/tossed it onto the floor. Then she put/threw/slipped on/slipped into a hoodie with a diagonal white stripe on the front and brought along her diary which has a diagonal black stripe on the cover. Then we went for a pleasant saunter in the countryside/a rural area/town in Tokyo/a suburb of Tokyo/the suburbs of Tokyo/suburban Tokyo where we started strolling leisurely/saunter pleasantly along a road that runs/is parallel to the river. For example, Queen's Road Central is parallel to Wellington Street. The two roads are parallel. Later, we reached the city centre where we walked/headed diagonally across the square towards/to reach her favourite cafe. As we were strolling there, a pedestrian asked us how they could get to the shopping centre/mall. To reach the shopping centre, you cut through/across (= get to somewhere by a quicker and more direct way than the usual way) the park/car park/It's quickest if you cut diagonally through/across the park. The route/path goes diagonally through/across the city/park. She drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other and wrote down the tasks she needed to do/carry out/complete during/in the daytime and at nighttime, showing each part in a different colour. The top/upper part coloured yellow showed the tasks in the daytime while the bottom/lower part coloured red showed the tasks at nighttime. She teaches piano too. Some of her students still can't distinguish (the difference) between a tenuto and an accent/distinguish a tenuto from an accent/tell the difference between a tenuto and an accent/tell a tenuto from an accent/discriminate between a tenuto and an accent. Some of them were always in and out of the zone during their lessons. Some of them use convenient piano benches/Some of their piano benches are convenient because they can store the piano books inside the piano benches/stools. Sit with your knees straight. Don't sit with your knees apart/open. Don't sit with your ankles locked/crossed/with locked ankles/in the figure four (leg) lock position. It's an alternating pattern of notes with lines through the middle and notes in the spaces between the lines. A sharp/flat means playing the next key to the right/left, whether (it's)/be it black or white. The pages keep getting blown around by your fan. Can you turn the fan a little to the left/right/along so that the pages doesn't keep turning/flipping over/the sheets doesn't fall off the stand? He's made a good start but needs to carry on working on the basics, such as note reading/He's done really well to get to grade two, but now needs to reinforce his note reading skills in order to progress onto more challenging repertoire. I think his sightreading is quite good but there is room for improvement. He's making rapid progress with the four pieces that she's learning. He's doing a good job. From January onwards, we'll be back to four pm as usual. Would you also like her to commence weekly lessons? As you missed half an hour's lesson last time, you can pay half an hour less in February/you can deduct half an hour's fee in February.

Her pianist friend wants to give her students a lesson too. Some of my students' levels are a lot lower than university standards so when you teach them always find something positive to say first then be gentle with any criticism. When she asked her friend in a different field to write a testimonial. Her friend replied in the following way. Hi, sorry I am only seeing this now. I wish you the very best with your business but I don't feel comfortable putting my name to something that I don't use or know. I hope you understand. Wishing you the best.She occasionally runs over time/the lesson occasionally runs over/overruns by five minutes. While drinking her hot chocolate in sips, she talked about her family holiday to Japan where they had/stayed in adjacent/adjoining rooms at a hotel that is adjacent to/handy for the train station which made their family holiday a breeze. On our family holiday to Japan, we asked for adjacent/adjoining rooms and our hotel is adjacent to/handy for the train station. Both our adjoining rooms and the location of the hotel made our family holiday a breeze. There was one time/Once while my cousin was on holiday in Japan, he could hear voices from the adjoining room in his hotel which sounded spooky, being sinister (= making you feel that something bad or evil might happen) or ghostly in a way that caused fear and unease/being strange and frightening/gave him the jimjams. There's a cemetery near his hotel which he didn't realize until he arrived at his hotel. The cemetery was/became really spooky/menacing (= making you think someone is gling to do something bad/threatening)/had a really spooky atmosphere late at night/There's something sinister about the cemetery/The cemetery had a sinister appearance. On the first night, he overheard a (creepy) ghost story/someone on his phone tell a (creepy) ghost story outside his room. Out of interest, he walked to the door, looked through the peephole and eavesdropped on his phone call/conversation/ghost story but it got/became a bit/increasingly spooky/which created a rather (= rather) spooky atmosphere and he later regretted secretly listening to it because it made him hard to fall asleep. Then he opened the curtains and looked out the window. He noticed a sinister-looking man/a man whose face/look was menacing sitting on/at the corner of the cemetery who looked up, noticed my cousin and moved menacingly towards him, giving/with a low menacing laugh which he could faintly hear in his hotel room which only had/with only/as it only had one huge fixed window. The man had dark, sinister eyes that made him nervous when he looked at him. Later, we moved over to the table by which we sat on the sofa/settee. She took a stack (= neatly piled)/pile of leaflets and envelopes out of her bag and placed/sorted/arranged them in/into two (neat) (separate) piles/and stacked them (up)/piled them (up) (neatly). It turned out the leaflets were an ad/advert/advertisement for her piano teaching/to promote/advertise her piano teaching and she was going to send them to other people's houses. She had five hundred envelopes to stuff with leaflets/had five hundred leaflets to stuff into envelopes. Then she sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor where she was stuffing leaflets into the envelopes, tearing the sheets of stamps along the perforations and sticking a stamp on each envelope. While doing so, I sank back into/leaned back against the cushions and took/had a sip/a few sips of the (mint/hazelnut) hot chocolate, us continuing to chat. She's recently had an interview for teaching piano at a music centre during which she was tested on piano music to measure her knowledge of piano music and her ability to play the piano.

She said both the interview and the test were a breeze. You've really got to prepare for these things. You can't just wing it. She once hadn't prepared for an interview/She hadn't prepared for an interview (just) the once so she had to wing it and in the end, she didn't get/land the job. She turned up without thinking about the questions she might get asked so she was only able to come up with wishy-washy answers. Just as a manager can't take a wishy-washy approach to meetings/problems/dealing with problems, so you can't take a wishy-washy approach to interviews. You can't... just as/in the same way as/in the same way that a manager... If a wishy-washy manager is too scared to talk to their staff, problems will get worse. In the same way, if you write something wishy-washy in your assignments or exams, you won't get any marks. When we headed back, she knocked on the door with a door knocker but no one answered the door so she put the key into the keyhole and turned the door handle/door knob to open the door after which she filed her nails and plucked her eyebrows. She originally invited her friend to her place that night but her friend had informed her about/of taking a rain check on (= cannot accept an invitation now, but would like to do so at a later time) that drink due to work so she was terribly/bitterly/deeply/sorely disappointed/absolutely gutted at/by/about it, slumping her shoulders. Mind if I take a rain check on that drink? I have to work late tonight.

The next day, we went to the harbour to watch a (big) firework/the (big) fireworks/a (New Year's Eve) firework display/a fireworks display/a display of fireworks. Thousands of people jammed into the square/by the harbour to watch the fireworks as a signal that the festival had started/, signifying that the festival had started. The sky was alight with hundreds of fireworks/They let off the fireworks at midnight.

2.
One day during my trip, I visited my friend's house which backs onto (= its back faces it) a river. She looked through the peephole and opened the door. She's tall, six foot one and big boned (= of a person or animal, of larger than average build without being fat). She has a good/great/lovely/beautiful/amazing figure. She does a lot of exercise and consumes healthy food to keep her figure. I've never seen her lose her figure/She does a lot of exercise and consumes foods that are good for her health and the figure so she's watching her figure. Most women have to watch their figure. She also loves dancing and has weekly dancing lessons. Dancing is fun and great for your figure. She doesn't (like to) talk shop at the weekends/over a coffee. She had several artificial Christmas trees. We can make a killing on these artificial Christmas trees if we are able to market them in time for the holidays. She's looking to book a holiday package so she's mulling over all the options/all the packages she's interested in. She needs a few days to mull things over before she makes up her mind. Unlike her younger brother who tends to dwell on the past/past memories instead of moving forward, She's a positive person who doesn't dwell on past mistakes and present miseries. She always says to her younger brother so you made a mistake. There's no need to dwell on it/I don't want to dwell on this subject for too long/I have no time to dwell on present miseries (= great unhappiness). Why the long face? (= why do you look sad?) Apparently, her brother has recently broken up with her girlfriend so he's been wandering around/moping about, wandering around there not doing anything, looking and feeling unhappy/dilly-dallying (= waste time by being slow or through aimless wandering or indecision) all week/acting like a lovesick teenager. As he's down in the dumps, of course I didn't rub it in. He's got a job selling insurance but he isn't exactly making a killing. Her dad is fuddy-duddy/a fuddy-duddy/a stick in the mud and a creature of habit. Every time the whole family dines out, he has to go to the same restaurant. Her parents made a killing with/on the sales of their house in Tokyo. Her elder brother got hitched last year. When his wife bore him a son, he couldn't hide his delight/joy. She had borne four kids by the time she was thirty. When the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, it alarmed him/he was alarmed/He felt a growing sense of alarm when the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, realizing she might face the terrifying prospect of unemployment. Many workers would face the gloomy/grim/bleak prospect of losing their jobs. Fortunately, he wasn't sacked. The prospect of sharing an office with a colleague of his who's a bully fills him with horror. His wife is alarmed/appalled at/by/concerned about/for her husband about/for/at/by/over/upset about/over/at/by/dreads (= very worried)/doesn't relish the prospect of sharing an office with him. He had a crush on a female colleague of his. Traveling around the world alone is a daunting prospect so he relishes the exciting/attractive prospect of traveling the world with her. He secretly relishes the prospect/thought/idea of being alone with her/chance of/for a date (to dinner) with her/of going.../opportunity for a date with her/of/for going... A date with her is an exciting/attractive prospect. There was one time/once an instance when he went to a bar, being under the impression that she would be there so he said my plan didn't work out so it's back to the drawing board. However, this time he knew for sure that she would be at a party. Knowing she would be there, he said to himself hopefully, touch wood she's going to be in there most of the time. At the party, he plucked up (his/the) courage to approach her, asking her out to dinner next week so he's excited/thrilled/delighted at the prospect of seeing her again.

They have two domestic helpers because their farmhouse is enormous and they lack any/have no inclination towards/for housework. She and her family manage/run/own/have a farm. She showed me around her farmhouse including her room. She said we'll have more space if we knock down the adjoining wall. They've adopted several dogs and cats. They understand when you've adopted a pet, you have/take responsibility for playing with that pet and taking care of its physical needs, ensuring that it's loved and well fed/make/give a commitment to.../you've committed to playing.../you cannot back out of your commitment to play... One of her dogs and one of her cats have recently borne/given birth a litter (= born at the same time and have the same mother) of puppies and kittens. The dog seemed parched so I gave it some water. Her grandad/grandpa had just got home from going fishing and hooked his cane over the back of the chair. He's such a cheapskate that he cuts his hair himself. He's very kind and generous who kept saying make yourself home and kept offering me food and drinks. You make me feel like a freeloader. A freeloader is a person who takes advantage of others' generosity, such as food, money and a room in a house without giving anything in return/exchange. How's your day been? Sit, take a load off. Spill the beans/the tea. Come in/Come on in and take a load off (your feet). How many salmon/bass/fish did you hook? While doing fishing, he inadvertently kicked his shoe into the lake which was then floating on the surface of the water so he immediately hooked the shoe out of the water with his cane. Then he sat on the sofa/settee and watched a nature/wildlife documentary where it featured a pack of wolves/a parliament of owls/a pride of lions/a swarm of bees in the forest and their lives/a school of fish/whales/dolphins swimming in the ocean and their lives. He's seventy now and he doesn't get around/about much anymore/still can get about. Amazing/Last week, she was in Japan and nexr week he'll be in South Korea. He (really) gets about, doesn't he? He's set his Facebook account so that only/configured his account to allow only friends to see his photos. How many Covid jabs/shots/vaccines/vaccinations did you have/get? So did I. Did you have AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna? In Hong Kong, we had BionTech and Sinovac. These were the main ones. And I had the latter. She was supposed to make a speech but someone else agreed to do it for her. Before that, she said to herself hopefully, touch wood someone else will do it for me. I'm so relieved that I don't have to make/give/deliver a speech. It's/That's (such) a load/weight off my mind. Her grandma was most of her life a non-smoking teetotaller and lived modestly. A vacant plot of land and a vegetable land adjoins his house. A barn also adjoins an area of land/the field where the farm animals live. She has a stallion and a gravid mare who has borne several foals. Most animals bear their young in spring. She put her dog on a lead, tying the lead to her dog to her collar/tying the lead to his harness. While showing me around her farmhouse, she hooked a trailer/tractor to her car, drove her car to the other side/end of her farm, unhooked the trailer/tractor from her car and left them there. Simultaneously, she showed me a beautiful and serene lake nearby in which a flock of ducks and ducklings, a gaggle of geese and a few swans and cyngets were swimming. Standing by it, I took in the beauty and the serenity of the lake. Near the lake, I also noticed a flock of birds/cuckoos, a covey/bevy of quail/quails, a murder of crows, a herd of deers and fawns and a mob/court/troop of kangaroos and joeys as well as bears/pandas/wolves/foxes and their (bear) cubs.

Cuckoos are able to lay their eggs in other birds' nests. On her farm, she has a flock of chickens and chicks, a flock of sheeps and lambs, a rafter of turkeys and cattle. Some of her hens aren't laying well (= not producing many eggs). Later, I threw her the rope/threw the rope to her who then caught the rope and knotted it around/tied it to the post/tree. The tree she planted had never/finally borne fruit/took a long time to bear fruit. Then we walked/headed diagonally across the field towards/to reach her farmhouse in which she unhooked her bra/necklace and she put on another bra/necklace, reaching behind her back/neck to do up/fasten the hooks/hook. There was a clasp attached to the necklace/bracelet. She threw on a jumper but it was itchy/scratchy so she ripped it off (= remove a piece of clothing very quickly and carelessly), crumpled it (into a ball) and chucked/slung/tossed it onto the floor. Then she put/threw/slipped on/slipped into a hoodie with a diagonal white stripe on the front and brought along her diary which has a diagonal black stripe on the cover. Then we went for a pleasant saunter in the countryside/a rural area/town in Tokyo/a suburb of Tokyo/the suburbs of Tokyo/suburban Tokyo where we started strolling leisurely/saunter pleasantly along a road that runs/is parallel to the river. For example, Queen's Road Central is parallel to Wellington Street. The two roads are parallel. Later, we reached the city centre where we walked/headed diagonally across the square towards/to reach her favourite cafe. As we were strolling there, a pedestrian asked us how they could get to the shopping centre/mall. To reach the shopping centre, you cut through/across (= get to somewhere by a quicker and more direct way than the usual way) the park/car park/It's quickest if you cut diagonally through/across the park. The route/path goes diagonally through/across the city/park. She drew a diagonal line from one corner to the other and wrote down the tasks she needed to do/carry out/complete during/in the daytime and at nighttime, showing each part in a different colour. The top/upper part coloured yellow showed the tasks in the daytime while the bottom/lower part coloured red showed the tasks at nighttime. She teaches piano too. Some of her students still can't distinguish (the difference) between a tenuto and an accent/distinguish a tenuto from an accent/tell the difference between a tenuto and an accent/tell a tenuto from an accent/discriminate between a tenuto and an accent. Some of them were always in and out of the zone during their lessons. Some of them use convenient piano benches/Some of their piano benches are convenient because they can store the piano books inside the piano benches/stools. Sit with your knees straight. Don't sit with your knees apart/open. Don't sit with your ankles locked/crossed/with locked ankles/in the figure four (leg) lock position. It's an alternating pattern of notes with lines through the middle and notes in the spaces between the lines. A sharp/flat means playing the next key to the right/left, whether (it's)/be it black or white. The pages keep getting blown around by your fan. Can you turn the fan a little to the left/right/along so that the pages doesn't keep turning/flipping over/the sheets doesn't fall off the stand? He's made a good start but needs to carry on working on the basics, such as note reading/He's done really well to get to grade two, but now needs to reinforce his note reading skills in order to progress onto more challenging repertoire. I think his sightreading is quite good but there is room for improvement. He's making rapid progress with the four pieces that she's learning. He's doing a good job. From January onwards, we'll be back to four pm as usual. Would you also like her to commence weekly lessons? As you missed half an hour's lesson last time, you can pay half an hour less in February/you can deduct half an hour's fee in February.

Her pianist friend wants to give her students a lesson too. Some of my students' levels are a lot lower than university standards so when you teach them always find something positive to say first then be gentle with any criticism. When she asked her friend in a different field to write a testimonial. Her friend replied in the following way. Hi, sorry I am only seeing this now. I wish you the very best with your business but I don't feel comfortable putting my name to something that I don't use or know. I hope you understand. Wishing you the best.She occasionally runs over time/the lesson occasionally runs over/overruns by five minutes. While drinking her hot chocolate in sips, she talked about her family holiday to Japan where they had/stayed in adjacent/adjoining rooms at a hotel that is adjacent to/handy for the train station which made their family holiday a breeze. On our family holiday to Japan, we asked for adjacent/adjoining rooms and our hotel is adjacent to/handy for the train station. Both our adjoining rooms and the location of the hotel made our family holiday a breeze. There was one time/Once while my cousin was on holiday in Japan, he could hear voices from the adjoining room in his hotel which sounded spooky, being sinister (= making you feel that something bad or evil might happen) or ghostly in a way that caused fear and unease/being strange and frightening/gave him the jimjams. There's a cemetery near his hotel which he didn't realize until he arrived at his hotel. The cemetery was/became really spooky/menacing (= making you think someone is gling to do something bad/threatening)/had a really spooky atmosphere late at night/There's something sinister about the cemetery/The cemetery had a sinister appearance. On the first night, he overheard a (creepy) ghost story/someone on his phone tell a (creepy) ghost story outside his room. Out of interest, he walked to the door, looked through the peephole and eavesdropped on his phone call/conversation/ghost story but it got/became a bit/increasingly spooky/which created a rather (= rather) spooky atmosphere and he later regretted secretly listening to it because it made him hard to fall asleep. Then he opened the curtains and looked out the window. He noticed a sinister-looking man/a man whose face/look was menacing sitting on/at the corner of the cemetery who looked up, noticed my cousin and moved menacingly towards him, giving/with a low menacing laugh which he could faintly hear in his hotel room which only had/with only/as it only had one huge fixed window. The man had dark, sinister eyes that made him nervous when he looked at him. Later, we moved over to the table by which we sat on the sofa/settee. She took a stack (= neatly piled)/pile of leaflets and envelopes out of her bag and placed/sorted/arranged them in/into two (neat) (separate) piles/and stacked them (up)/piled them (up) (neatly). It turned out the leaflets were an ad/advert/advertisement for her piano teaching/to promote/advertise her piano teaching and she was going to send them to other people's houses. She had five hundred envelopes to stuff with leaflets/had five hundred leaflets to stuff into envelopes. Then she sat cross-legged on a cushion on the floor where she was stuffing leaflets into the envelopes, tearing the sheets of stamps along the perforations and sticking a stamp on each envelope. While doing so, I sank back into/leaned back against the cushions and took/had a sip/a few sips of the (mint/hazelnut) hot chocolate, us continuing to chat. She's recently had an interview for teaching piano at a music centre during which she was tested on piano music to measure her knowledge of piano music and her ability to play the piano.

She said both the interview and the test were a breeze. You've really got to prepare for these things. You can't just wing it. She once hadn't prepared for an interview/She hadn't prepared for an interview (just) the once so she had to wing it and in the end, she didn't get/land the job. She turned up without thinking about the questions she might get asked so she was only able to come up with wishy-washy answers. Just as a manager can't take a wishy-washy approach to meetings/problems/dealing with problems, so you can't take a wishy-washy approach to interviews. You can't... just as/in the same way as/in the same way that a manager... If a wishy-washy manager is too scared to talk to their staff, problems will get worse. In the same way, if you write something wishy-washy in your assignments or exams, you won't get any marks. When we headed back, she knocked on the door with a door knocker but no one answered the door so she put the key into the keyhole and turned the door handle/door knob to open the door after which she filed her nails and plucked her eyebrows. She originally invited her friend to her place that night but her friend had informed her about/of taking a rain check on (= cannot accept an invitation now, but would like to do so at a later time) that drink due to work so she was terribly/bitterly/deeply/sorely disappointed/absolutely gutted at/by/about it, slumping her shoulders. Mind if I take a rain check on that drink? I have to work late tonight. The next day, we went to the harbour to watch a (big) firework/the (big) fireworks/a (New Year's Eve) firework display/a fireworks display/a display of fireworks. Thousands of people jammed into the square/by the harbour to watch the fireworks as a signal that the festival had started/, signifying that the festival had started. The sky was alight with hundreds of fireworks/They let off the fireworks at midnight.

2.
One day during my trip, I visited my friend's house which backs onto (= its back faces it) a river. She looked through the peephole and opened the door. She's tall, six foot one and big boned (= of a person or animal, of larger than average build without being fat). She has a good/great/lovely/beautiful/amazing figure. She does a lot of exercise and consumes healthy food to keep her figure. I've never seen her lose her figure/She does a lot of exercise and consumes foods that are good for her health and the figure so she's watching her figure. Most women have to watch their figure. She also loves dancing and has weekly dancing lessons. Dancing is fun and great for your figure. She doesn't (like to) talk shop at the weekends/over a coffee. She had several artificial Christmas trees. We can make a killing on these artificial Christmas trees if we are able to market them in time for the holidays. She's looking to book a holiday package so she's mulling over all the options/all the packages she's interested in. She needs a few days to mull things over before she makes up her mind. Unlike her younger brother who tends to dwell on the past/past memories instead of moving forward, She's a positive person who doesn't dwell on past mistakes and present miseries. She always says to her younger brother so you made a mistake. There's no need to dwell on it/I don't want to dwell on this subject for too long/I have no time to dwell on present miseries (= great unhappiness). Why the long face? (= why do you look sad?)/What's up/What's wrong? Apparently, her brother has recently broken up with her girlfriend so he's been wandering around/moping about, wandering around there not doing anything, looking and feeling unhappy/dilly-dallying (= waste time by being slow or through aimless wandering or indecision) all week/acting like a lovesick teenager. As he's down in the dumps, of course I didn't rub it in. He's got a job selling insurance but he isn't exactly making a killing. Her dad is fuddy-duddy/a fuddy-duddy/a stick in the mud and a creature of habit. Every time the whole family dines out, he has to go to the same restaurant. Her parents made a killing with/on the sales of their house in Tokyo. Her elder brother got hitched last year. When his wife bore him a son, he couldn't hide his delight/joy. She had borne four kids by the time she was thirty. When the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, it alarmed him/he was alarmed/He felt a growing sense of alarm when the company announced it was going to lay off/pay off a hundred workers, realizing she might face the terrifying prospect of unemployment. Many workers would face the gloomy/grim/bleak prospect of losing their jobs. Fortunately, he wasn't sacked. The prospect of sharing an office with a colleague of his who's a bully fills him with horror. His wife is alarmed/appalled at/by/concerned about/for her husband about/for/at/by/over/upset about/over/at/by/dreads (= very worried)/doesn't relish the prospect of sharing an office with him. He had a crush on a female colleague of his. Traveling around the world alone is a daunting prospect so he relishes the exciting/attractive prospect of traveling the world with her. He secretly relishes the prospect/thought/idea of being alone with her/chance of/for a date (to dinner) with her/of going.../opportunity for a date with her/of/for going... A date with her is an exciting/attractive prospect. There was one time/once an instance when he went to a bar, being under the impression that she would be there so he said my plan didn't work out so it's back to the drawing board. However, this time he knew for sure that she would be at a party. Knowing she would be there, he said to himself hopefully, touch wood she's going to be in there most of the time. At the party, he plucked up (his/the) courage to approach her, asking her out to dinner next week so he's excited/thrilled/delighted at the prospect of seeing her again.

They have two domestic helpers because their farmhouse is enormous and they lack any/have no inclination towards/for housework. She and her family manage/run/own/have a farm. She showed me around her farmhouse including her room. She said we'll have more space if we knock down the adjoining wall. They've adopted several dogs and cats. They understand when you've adopted a pet, you have/take responsibility for playing with that pet and taking care of its physical needs, ensuring that it's loved and well fed/make/give a commitment to.../you've committed to playing.../you cannot back out of your commitment to play... One of her dogs and one of her cats have recently borne/given birth a litter (= born at the same time and have the same mother) of puppies and kittens. The dog seemed parched so I gave it some water. Her grandad/grandpa had just got home from going fishing and hooked his cane over the back of the chair. He's such a cheapskate that he cuts his hair himself. He's very kind and generous who kept saying make yourself home and kept offering me food and drinks. You make me feel like a freeloader. A freeloader is a person who takes advantage of others' generosity, such as food, money and a room in a house without giving anything in return/exchange. How's your day been? Sit, take a load off. Spill the beans/the tea. Come in/Come on in and take a load off (your feet). How many salmon/bass/fish did you hook? While doing fishing, he inadvertently kicked his shoe into the lake which was then floating on the surface of the water so he immediately hooked the shoe out of the water with his cane. Then he sat on the sofa/settee and watched a nature/wildlife documentary where it featured a pack of wolves/a parliament of owls/a pride of lions/a swarm of bees in the forest and their lives/a school of fish/whales/dolphins swimming in the ocean and their lives. He's seventy now and he doesn't get around/about much anymore/still can get about. Amazing/Last week, she was in Japan and nexr week he'll be in South Korea. He (really) gets about, doesn't he? He's set his Facebook account so that only/configured his account to allow only friends to see his photos. How many Covid jabs/shots/vaccines/vaccinations did you have/get? So did I. Did you have AstraZeneca or Pfizer or Moderna? In Hong Kong, we had BionTech and Sinovac. These were the main ones. And I had the latter. She was supposed to make a speech but someone else agreed to do it for her. Before that, she said to herself hopefully, touch wood someone else will do it for me. I'm so relieved that I don't have to make/give/deliver a speech. It's/That's (such) a load/weight off my mind. Her grandma was most of her life a non-smoking teetotaller and lived modestly. A vacant plot of land and a vegetable land adjoins his house. A barn also adjoins an area of land/the field where the farm animals live. She has a stallion and a gravid mare who has borne several foals. Most animals bear their young in spring. She put her dog on a lead, tying the lead to her dog to her collar/tying the lead to his harness. While showing me around her farmhouse, she hooked a trailer/tractor to her car, drove her car to the other side/end of her farm, unhooked the trailer/tractor from her car and left them there. Simultaneously, she showed me a beautiful and serene lake nearby in which a flock of ducks and ducklings, a gaggle of geese and a few swans and cyngets were swimming. Standing by it, I took in the beauty and the serenity of the lake. Near the lake, I also noticed a flock of birds/cuckoos, a covey/bevy of quail/quails, a murder of crows, a herd of deers and fawns and a mob/court/troop of kangaroos and joeys as well as bears/pandas/wolves/foxes and their (bear) cubs.