[初級英語音声学] 第一章〜第三章

1章は、現代英語の標準発音について。英語ネイティブな国々での発音の多様性と、リンガフランカとなった英語の多様性から入り、この本ではGA (General American)を扱うことを宣言する。なので、RP (Received Pronunciation) を目指す人は別の本を読むべき。

2章は、ちょっと面白い。つづり字と発音の関係について。13個のルールを提示しているのだ。たぶんこれはフォニックス(Phonics)とは違うはず。正直、私は初めてみた。この部分だけでも一読に値する。

3章は、音素（phoneme）。ある言語において、語の意味を区別する音声上の最小単位を音素という。例えば、bigという単語の場合、/b/、/i/、/g/が音素で、/p/、/i/、/g/とするとpig、/b/、/e/、/g/とするとbeg、/b/、/i/、/d/とするとbid、と音素を替えると意味が変わる。

「音素は話者の意識の中に存在する抽象的な単位で、実際の発話の中で現われる位置が決まって初めて発音することができる。」これは興味深い。まず、文字という表象と音声という表象の二つが自然言語にはあるわけだが、音声による表象単位である音素は、物理的音声でいうと結構多様であり、すなわち音素という概念は抽象的であるということ。そしてその抽象は文字の設計とも関係している（していた）ということであろう。この抽象が捨象として取扱う音のバリエーションを異音という。

異音の例としての日本の「ん」は、「脱・日本語なまり」で見たとおり。ここでは、英語の異音の例として[p]を取上げている。peace、speak、topmost、pool、spoon、keptにおいて"p"の物理的な音、すなわち調音は全て異なる。が、英語ネイティブはそれらをすべて"p"と認識する。

なお、音素の体系は、分析方法によって、同じ言語についても複数存在するらしい。

こつこつ。

改訂新版 初級英語音声学 を読む

英語音声学について、簡にして要を得た書籍を一冊読んでおきたいと考えた。選んだのは、これ。

改訂新版 初級英語音声学

この本が、入門書としては定本のようだ。

以前は、音声学の本というと、訳のわからない口腔の断面図と、訳のわからない用語（なんちゃら摩擦音）に溢れていて、到底実践に役立つように思えなかったが、今は違う。そこで、入門的なものでよいので、一冊おさえておこうというきっかけだ。

[脱・日] 第1章 日本語の音と音声学の基礎 (2)

子音の分類を経て、後半は母音を取り扱う。

母音は基本的には三次元なので、子音よりもシンプルである。しかし、シンプルさゆえの問題もあり、日本語で区別していない近接母音を発音・聴取ともに区別できるようになるには結構な訓練がいるだろう。

子音に引き続き、日本語と英語の母音の特徴に関して、母音の全体像の上での解説がすばらしい。その中で、日本語なまりに関するポインタも折り込まれている。

[脱・日] 第1章 日本語の音と音声学の基礎 (1)

これはなかなかすごい。

まず、自分自身に驚くのだが、日本語の調音についてほとんど無知であることを知った。知ってるつもり、というレベルではなく、存在として認識していなかったに等しい。

次に、日本語の調音を自分で発声しながら探っていくことが、調音を理解するのにこれほど有効とは思わなかった。そしてそのことは、この本に書かれている日本語の調音が、巷の英語発音本で軽く触れられているような日本語調音の説明とはレベルが違うことに支えられている。そして、そういう巷の説明がいかにいいかげんかということに気がつき、驚いた。

そして、日本語の調音がかなり複雑である事実に驚いた。例えば「ん」は、後続の文字（発音）によって7種類が使いわけられているのだ。このことから、いくつかの私自身の誤謬があきらかになった。まず第一に、英語よりも日本語の方が発音の種類が少なく、発音も簡単という誤謬だ。そんなことはない。例えば「ん」を含む単語を正しく発音することは、日本語ネイティブ以外には結構難題だ。第二に、英語ネイティブが日本語をしゃべるときにあのような特有のしゃべり方になるのは、アクセントと複式呼吸を多用する発声方法にあると思っていた。それは一因なのだが、実は彼らが発音しにくい日本語の発音があり、それを英語にある発音で代用していることも大きな原因なのだと思う。

これらの説明の中に、どの日本語の調音が、外国語を発音する際に日本語なまりの要因となるのかのポインタが置いてある。その詳細は先の章にて解説される構成になっている。

まだこの章自体、半分程度。

こつこつ。

[脱・日] 序章 気づかない日本語なまり

日本語なまりを自己評価する。私は、80点。多少発音は練習してきているから、いい方だと思う。

こつこつ。

脱・日本語なまり

英語の発音を改善する取組を少しやってみることにした。
まず「脱・日本語なまり」という本をやってみる。

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4872591704

ホームページに音声や映像が置いてある。

http://www.let.osaka-u.ac.jp/~kamiyama/phon_get_rid_of_your_japanese_accent.html

半分くらい読めればいいかなと思ってる。
ここはあくまで簡単な読書メモにしようとおもっている。ちゃんと読めるといいなぁ。

[SI] Academic/Job Interview Context

A typical fully-equipped scenario for academic/job interview self-introductions looks like:

1. Start with a smile on your face & give details about Name, Place after greeting.
   
2. If necessary only add your family details.
   
3. Tell about your educational details.
   
4. Share about why you want to do JOB or enter SCHOOL so.
   
5. About your Project or Achievement in Brief.
   
6. The person who inspired you a lot.
   
7. Then about your interests/hobbies.
   
8. Also how you will spend your time when you are free.
   
9. Tell about skills.
   
10. Then conclude by saying THANKS to the Person who is listening to you.
    

In many cases, you don't need to mention all of these items. Interview is an interactive process.

[SI] Presentation Context

Here is a basic construction of self introduction in (business) presentations.

• Greeting
• Name, place
• Affiliation
• About your career briefly
• About your affiliation briefly

Everything except greeting can be skipped. Typical situation you drop some items from this list is the moderator of your session already introduced you and you shouldn't repeat that because it violates no-duplication principle. BTW, in that case, please don't forget to say thank you to the moderator before greeting.

The purpose of self introduction in this context is roughly these three:

• Provide essential background information which, without that, the audience must have difficulty to understand your presentation
• Show your warm and polite attitude to build good rapport with the audience.
• Give some ice-breaking to make audience relaxed and ready to enjoy and interact with your presentation.

So if you can improve any of these, it's okay to talk about items your moderator has already mentioned.

[SI] Contexts

I've just chosen three contexts you may be interested in.

• Presentations
• Interviews
  
  • Job
  • Academic
• Dating

Actually, I only have experience of business presentations. So I'm not sure what I will write about other contexts are useful or not. I will curate information on the Web for such contexts and, at least, it will help me improve my self-introduction skill for business presentations.

[SI] Background information

I think this is the last principle of self introduction: background information of both the counterparts and yourself is essential to build and deliver a good self introduction. This is also a premise for other principles. If you don't know the background of counterpart, how you can imagine what kind of relationship you would like to build with the person?

For non-native speakers, how well you can express your background is a key point of your self introduction and succeeding conversation. Your countries history, culture, tradition, issues, trends, etc.

Okay. Principles are enough. I would like to move on to more specific factors. In next entry, I will take a look at contexts of self introductions.

[SI] Be Unique

If you are thinking of self introduction, you must live in a city where millions of people live or your field of activity must be so large that your self introduction matters for your good achievements. See, the heart of the problem is the number of people in modern society. Too many people, you don't remember most of them. To be memorable, you have to be unique. At least, your self introduction should contain something unique. Otherwise, people don't remember you. Being unique to be remembered? Yes. That's a ridiculous and terrible idea. But it's the real world we live in.

Note that this factor conflicts with the principle of BoF. You should make a good balance between your uniqueness and homogeneity.

[SI] Define Your Goal or Blue Print

Before you introduce yourself to a new acquaintance, you should always ask yourself questions such as "What kind of relationship would I like to develop with this person?" or "How would I like to connect with this guy?", to define your goal or blue print that the self-introduction will initiate.

You don't need to have a clear goal. Our encounter is often to be more accidental or not planned. Relationships can develop in such a direction that we've never imagined. But if you can clarify or picture your goal and blue print, that will help build the content of your self introduction.

[SI] Birds of a Feather

Third principle of self introduction must be Birds of a Feather. If you are a programmer or an IT engineer you are likely to be familiar with this term. Birds of a Feather or BoF is a type of casual events, where people who are interested in a topic gather and chat about it. "Birds of a feather flock together."

So when you meet someone, you try to find similarities with the person, which you can use as a scaffold to develop the conversation. There are some subtle aspects in this topic. Firstly, you subconsciously prefer people who speak like you. For example, if you are visual type, you tend to use visual terms to express your understanding of abstract topics, such as "I see...", "From my viewpoint,...", "His new idea looks good.", and so on. Consequently, you prefer who use similar visual terms because you can understand the person easily. Secondly, BoF principle affects non-verbal communications: body language, eye movements, what you wear, etc. Research says these non-verbal factors affect counterpart's impression on you far more than what you speak.

BoF doesn't mean you have to pretend or mimic someone else to get attention from them. It means, by taking into account of this aspect of communication, you can avoid needless conflicts with or misunderstanding from new acquaintances, therefore increase your chance to create good relationships faster.

[SI] "Hello World" of Self Introduction

I would like to begin with American or casual setting as a "Hello World" example for self introduction. That is something like this:

• Hi, I'm Aka. Good to meet you.

Variations are:

• Hi, I'm Aka. Aka [family name]. Good to meet you.
• Hi, I'm Aka from [affiliation]. Good to meet you.

You can briefly add your attributes, which the counterpart can't avoid to ask you to follow the context you both are in.

• Hi, I'm Aka, the project manager of [project name]. Good to meet you.
• Hi, I'm Aka, an IT engineer. Good to meet you.
• Hi, I'm Aka. I work in the CE manufacturing industry for 10 years. Good to meet you.
• Hi, I'm Aka, 32 years old, single, and I like driving for my free time. Good to meet you.
• Hi, I'm Aka. I majored politics at [a name of university]. Good to meet you.

Economics of words always governs your expressions including self introductory statements like these.

"Good to meet you" is brief, hence the best. But you should avoid duplication in your conversation so if other guys already used "good to meet you" you should use different expressions:

• Nice to meet you.
  
• Pleased to meet you.
  
• It's good to meet you.
  
• It's nice to meet you.
  
• It's pleased to meet you.
  

No-duplication of words and expressions also governs your choice of expressions.

[SI] Self Introduction

There are tons of opportunities you have to introduce yourself in a variety of daily situations, and actually I introduce myself in English at least once a week both in business and private contexts. Recently, questions about self-introduction came up to my mind: what kind of self-introduction is considered good or attractive? Is there any technique to improve that? Is there any protocol I should follow?

I would like to dig into this topic for a while on this blog.

[Why's] 4.Floating Little Leaves of Code

• http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-4.html
• 1. The Leaf as a Status Symbol in Ambrose
• Animal Perfect L.L.C. is a firm, which build new animals and salvage old-style animals for parts.
• Starmonkeys are one of such animals.
• "A lot of Rubyists like to think of methods as a message."
• A Ruby program consists of two parts:
  
  1. Defining things.
  2. Putting those things into action.
• Assignment (=) is the simplest example of defining something in Ruby.
• Starmonkey creation process looks in Ruby as follows:
  

  starmonkey = ratchet.attach( captive_monkey, pipe.catch_a_star ) + deco_hand_frog
  

• 2. Small and Nearly Worthless
• Nil: "In Ruby, nil represents an emptiness."
• False: "Generally speaking, everything in Ruby has a positive charge to it. This spark flows through strings, numbers, regexps, all of it. Only two keywords wear a shady cloak: nil and false draggin’ us down."
• True: "To be honest, I can’t be around someone who always has to be right. This true is always saying, 'A-OK.'"
• 3. Chaining Delusions Together
• TBW
• 4. The Miracle of Blocks
• TBW

[Why's] 3.A Quick (and Hopefully Painless) Ride Through Ruby (with Cartoon Foxes)

• http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-3.html
• "My conscience won’t let me call Ruby a computer language." A fascinating expression.
  
• "We can no longer truthfully call it a computer language. It is coderspeak. It is the language of our thoughts." Okay. I agree with the author about this characteristic of Ruby but...
  
  • Schemers may say "We use not English but abstract trees of data and codes when we design and analyze programs.",
  • Haskeler may say "You can't prove your correctness. We should change our way of thinking. Category theory is an alternative mathematical...",
  • Common Lisper may say "Ah, that's a kind of the loop macro. Some love that kinda stuff. But others don't. Enjoy."
• "Try to focus on the look of each of these parts of speech. The rest of the book will detail the specifics. I give short descriptions for each part of speech, but you don’t have to understand the explanation. By the end of this chapter, you should be able to recognize every part of a Ruby program." This is practical and effective way to start introducing a language. This long section, "2. The Parts of Speech" provides exactly this type of quick tour of Ruby. Good.

[Why's] 2. Kon’nichi wa, Ruby

• http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-2.html
• This chapter looks a scene setting or an concensus process between the author and readers. The chapter contains little information about Ruby itself.
• In a nutshell, important information in the chapter as an introductory book for Ruby is:
1. At first sight, the author thought Ruby was meaningless. But later they clicked. (That can happen to you as well.)
2. By learning Ruby, you may be able to improve your brain performance.
3. Using Ruby costs nothing.
4. Enjoy cartoons with foxes.

[Why's] 1.About this Book

• http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/chapter-1.html
• Haha. Just nonsense.

Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby

Let me get something straight: I just would like to learn writing programs in Ruby. I don't need any grammatical explanations if I can write Ruby programs without them. Moreover, I don't need any author's grammatically-looking half-baked explanations, because they are just confusing. Basically, usage and pragmatics are important for me.

The next material I would like to try is http://mislav.uniqpath.com/poignant-guide/book/. Hope this meets my requirements.

[Ruby Tutorial] Numbers in Ruby

I like numbers. :-)

• http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/numbers_in_ruby.html
• The author uses the word "literal" with no explanation. So, this tutorial must be not for programming newbies.
• "In Ruby, numbers without decimal points are called integers", this statement is wrong. For example "1234e-2" is a floating point number.
• Class Hierarchy
  
  • This diagram is very interesting. Ruby has Object class and Class class. Okay. In that case, using the term "object" may sound confusing, ex. "objects of Object class", "Object is a super class of Class class". Should I use "instance" and avoid "object"?
  • The spec uses both. "Classes in Ruby are first-class objects---each is an instance of class Class." Interesting. See http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.0/Class.html
• IMHO, REPL or irb is a good tool to try and learn this kind of basic feature of Ruby but the author doesn't use it in this tutorial so far.

Okay. I will give up this tutorial here, unfortunately. I don't recommend you to use this material as an introduction to Ruby.

[Ruby Tutorial] Some Features of Ruby

• http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/features.html
• Statement delimiters
  
  • This tutorial says "a linefeed is treated like a semicolon." Then, how about a carige return?A little bit interesting.
  • The ruby specification, http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-2.0/doc/syntax/miscellaneous_rdoc.html, says "Ruby uses a newline as the end of an expression." Then, what's a newline? Perhaps, there is no standardized rule for this topic but UTR#13, an effort in Unicode, is worth referencing: http://www.unicode.org/standard/reports/tr13/tr13-5.html
  • The tutorial uses the word "statement" while the spec uses "expressions." AFAIK, statements and expressions are different entities in computer languages. Also, I'm not sure Ruby has statements.
  • Consequently the description in the tutorial is incorrect or insufficient.
  • I'm not a "language lawyer." I just wandered why the author didn't use the original description in the spec: "Ruby uses a newline as the end of an expression." This is more concise and informative than the author's explanation.
• Keywords
  
  • I don't understand why the author included a description about truth value treatment of Ruby here, esp. in an item about Keywords.
  • As for truth values, Ruby and CL looks quite similar. CLers expect the truth value of everything other than nil or '() is non-nil.

[Ruby Tutorial] My First Ruby Program

• http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/first_ruby_program.html
• A typical "hello world" session. This is not interesting but inevitable.

[Ruby Tutorial] Ruby Installation

• http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/ruby_installation.html
• This tutorial may be tightly bound to Rails to motivate newbies to learn Ruby. This tells me that Rails is still a killer application for Ruby, and there is no other killer application for Ruby thus far after Rails.

[Ruby Tutorial] Introduction

• http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/introduction.html
• This chapter is well-written and concise, but contains nothing interesting.

Tutorial on Rubyleaning.com

Okay. Let's back to learning Ruby. The next material I would like to try is rubyleaning.com or <http://rubylearning.com/satishtalim/tutorial.html>. This is a free online material, which enables me to link from my blog entries that decrease the amount of citation from original text. I may quit somewhere in the middle of the material when I feel bored. I'm still in a kind of rehabilitation to learn computer science and boring materials are extremely harmful for me to rebuild CS study into my life.

Which Version Should I Use on Mac? 1.8, 1.9 or 2.0? And How?

Here are comparisons between 1.8 and 1.9 as well as 1.9 and 2.0.

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/21574/what-is-the-difference-between-ruby-1-8-and-ruby-1-9
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15799687/what-are-the-major-differences-between-ruby-1-9-3-and-ruby-2-0-0

Version 2.0 looks fine. Also, Rails4's primary target of ruby version is 2.0. One small caveat is most ruby books have not yet revised for 2.0. But the differences between 1.9.3 and 2.0.0 is so small and that won't hurt learning process. Okay. Let's go with 2.0.

Next. How? I've found an informative blog entry about this.

• http://www.moncefbelyamani.com/how-to-install-xcode-homebrew-git-rvm-ruby-on-mac/#step-1

So, I'd like to put here a journal of what I did on my mac (MBP15, OSX10.8.4) following above entry.

• Download and Install the Command Line Tools via Xcode
  
  • I had Xcode in my mac ,so followed only the procedures to install CLT via Xcode.
  
  
• Fix Homebrew errors and warnings, and update
  
  • I have Homebrew but don't use it on a daily basis. So, firstly check and fix current errors and warnings with brew doctor.
    

    $ brew doctor
    Warning: You have uncommitted modifications to Homebrew
    If this a surprise to you, then you should stash these modifications.
    Stashing returns Homebrew to a pristine state but can be undone
    should you later need to do so for some reason.
        cd /usr/local/Library && git stash && git clean -d -f
    
    Warning: /usr/bin occurs before /usr/local/bin
    This means that system-provided programs will be used instead of those
    provided by Homebrew. The following tools exist at both paths:
    
        git
        git-cvsserver
        git-receive-pack
        git-shell
        git-upload-archive
        git-upload-pack
    
    Consider amending your PATH so that /usr/local/bin
    occurs before /usr/bin in your PATH.
    
    Warning: Your Homebrew is outdated.
    You haven't updated for at least 24 hours, this is a long time in brewland!
    To update Homebrew, run `brew update`.
    $

  • Secondly, fix them.
    
    1. Uncommitted modification problem
       

       $ cd /usr/local/Library && git stash && git clean -d -f
       cd /usr/local/Library && git stash && git clean -d -f
       No local changes to save
       Removing Aliases/fsa
       Removing Aliases/omake
       Removing Contributions/cmds/
       Removing Contributions/install_homebrew.rb
       Removing Formula/abyss.rb
       Removing Formula/blast.rb
       Removing Formula/bowtie.rb
       Removing Formula/bwa.rb
       Removing Formula/chmox.rb
       Removing Formula/cliweather.rb
       Removing Formula/clojure-contrib.rb
       Removing Formula/clustal-w.rb
       Removing Formula/cufflinks.rb
       Removing Formula/dia.rb
       Removing Formula/emboss.rb
       Removing Formula/fast-statistical-alignment.rb
       Removing Formula/fastx_toolkit.rb
       Removing Formula/gmap-gsnap.rb
       Removing Formula/gmock.rb
       Removing Formula/haxe.rb
       Removing Formula/hmmer.rb
       Removing Formula/knife-completion.rb
       Removing Formula/libpar2.rb
       Removing Formula/mira.rb
       Removing Formula/mod_python.rb
       Removing Formula/mod_wsgi.rb
       Removing Formula/mosh.rb
       Removing Formula/mosml.rb
       Removing Formula/mrfast.rb
       Removing Formula/muscle.rb
       Removing Formula/netsed.rb
       Removing Formula/o-make.rb
       Removing Formula/paml.rb
       Removing Formula/phyml.rb
       Removing Formula/plink.rb
       Removing Formula/primer3.rb
       Removing Formula/prodigal.rb
       Removing Formula/quickfix.rb
       Removing Formula/quicktree.rb
       Removing Formula/rails-completion.rb
       Removing Formula/rats.rb
       Removing Formula/samtools.rb
       Removing Formula/staticrouted.rb
       Removing Formula/synergy.rb
       Removing Formula/tabix.rb
       Removing Formula/tophat.rb
       Removing Formula/transcode.rb
       Removing Formula/uif2iso.rb
       Removing Formula/velvet.rb
       Removing Formula/vimeo-downloader.rb
       Removing Formula/xaw3d.rb
       Removing Formula/xml2rfc.rb
       Removing Homebrew/pkgconfig/
       Removing Homebrew/test/test_external_deps.rb
       Removing Homebrew/vendor/multi_json/
       $ 

    2. Path problem. At the time of install, Homebrew appended /usr/local/bin at the end of /etc/paths. So, it's a little bit strange for brew doctor to warn up the order problem. Anyway, one way to fix this problem is change the order of paths in /etc/paths but you shouldn't. It affects command selection system-widely. You should modify something bound to more smaller part of your system such as your account or your programming environment like shell or emacs.
       
       Let's begin with shell. There are three famous configuration file for shell which are loaded when a shell starts: .profile, .bash_profile and .bashrc. Here is a stack overflow entry that explains the difference between them.
       
       • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/415403/whats-the-difference-between-bashrc-bash-profile-and-environment
       
       Okay. Editing $PATH in .bashrc with "if [ -f ~/.bashrc ]; then; source ~/.bashrc; fi" in .bash_profile sounds good as my start point. I created .bash_profile and added "export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH" at the end of my .bashrc.
       
       Next. Emacs. I already have
       

       (defun set-exec-path-from-shell-PATH ()
         "Sets the exec-path to the same value used by the user shell"
         (let ((path-from-shell
         (replace-regexp-in-string
          "[[:space:]\n]*$" ""
          (shell-command-to-string "$SHELL -l -c 'echo $PATH'"))))
           (setenv "PATH" path-from-shell)
           (setq exec-path (split-string path-from-shell path-separator))))
       
       ;; call function now
       (set-exec-path-from-shell-PATH)

       in my emacs init file, which sync the emac's exec-path and PATH automatically.
       
    3. Outdated problem.
       

       $ brew update
       

    
    
  • Thirdly, recheck my Homebrew.
    

    $ brew doctor
    Your system is ready to brew.
    $ 
    

  
  
• Update git.
  

  $ which git
  /usr/local/bin/git
  $ git --version
  git version 1.8.1.2
  $ brew update
  Already up-to-date.
  git-crypt     git-gerrit  git-url-sub     topgit
  $ brew info git
  git: stable 1.8.3.4, HEAD
  http://git-scm.com
  /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.1.2 (1286 files, 182M)
  /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4 (1327 files, 29M) *
    Built from source
  From: https://github.com/mxcl/homebrew/commits/master/Library/Formula/git.rb
  ==> Dependencies
  Optional: pcre, gettext
  ==> Options
  --with-blk-sha1
   Compile with the block-optimized SHA1 implementation
  --with-gettext
   Build with gettext support
  --with-pcre
   Build with pcre support
  --without-completions
   Disable bash/zsh completions from "contrib" directory
  ==> Caveats
  The OS X keychain credential helper has been installed to:
    /usr/local/bin/git-credential-osxkeychain
  
  The 'contrib' directory has been installed to:
    /usr/local/share/git-core/contrib
  
  Bash completion has been installed to:
    /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d
  
  zsh completion has been installed to:
    /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
  $ brew upgrade git
  ==> Upgrading 1 outdated package, with result:
  git 1.8.3.4
  ==> Upgrading git
  ==> Downloading http://git-core.googlecode.com/files/git-1.8.3.4.tar.gz
  ######################################################################### 100.0%
  ==> make prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4 CC=cc CFLAGS= LDFLAGS= install
  ==> make CC=cc CFLAGS= LDFLAGS=
  ==> make clean
  ==> make CC=cc CFLAGS= LDFLAGS=
  ==> Downloading http://git-core.googlecode.com/files/git-manpages-1.8.3.4.tar.gz
  ######################################################################### 100.0%
  ==> Downloading http://git-core.googlecode.com/files/git-htmldocs-1.8.3.4.tar.gz
  ######################################################################### 100.0%
  ==> Caveats
  The OS X keychain credential helper has been installed to:
    /usr/local/bin/git-credential-osxkeychain
  
  The 'contrib' directory has been installed to:
    /usr/local/share/git-core/contrib
  
  Bash completion has been installed to:
    /usr/local/etc/bash_completion.d
  
  zsh completion has been installed to:
    /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions
  Warning: Could not link git. Unlinking...
  Error: The `brew link` step did not complete successfully
  The formula built, but is not symlinked into /usr/local
  You can try again using `brew link git'
  
  Possible conflicting files are:
  /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash -> /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.1.2/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash
  ==> Summary
   /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4: 1327 files, 29M, built in 72 seconds
  $ brew link git
  Linking /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4... Warning: Could not link git. Unlinking...
  
  Error: Could not symlink file: /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash
  Target /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash already exists. You may need to delete it.
  To force the link and overwrite all other conflicting files, do:
    brew link --overwrite formula_name
  
  To list all files that would be deleted:
    brew link --overwrite --dry-run formula_name
  $ brew link --overwrite --dry-run git
  Would remove:
  /usr/local/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash -> /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.1.2/share/zsh/site-functions/git-completion.bash
  
  $ brew link --overwrite git
  Linking /usr/local/Cellar/git/1.8.3.4... 218 symlinks created
  $ which git
  /usr/local/bin/git
  $ git --version
  git version 1.8.3.4
  $ 
  

• Install ruby and rails.
  

  $ curl -L https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails --autolibs=enable
    % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                   Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  100   184  100   184    0     0     37      0  0:00:04  0:00:04 --:--:--   202
  100 13784  100 13784    0     0   1944      0  0:00:07  0:00:07 --:--:--  7976
  Please read and follow further instructions.
  Press ENTER to continue.
  Downloading RVM from wayneeseguin branch stable
    % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                   Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  100   124  100   124    0     0     63      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:--   147
  100 1081k  100 1081k    0     0   110k      0  0:00:09  0:00:09 --:--:--  219k
  
  Installing RVM to /Users/aka/.rvm/
      Adding rvm PATH line to /Users/aka/.bashrc /Users/aka/.zshrc.
  Aka  Adding rvm loading line to /Users/aka/.bash_profile /Users/aka/.zprofile.
  Installation of RVM in /Users/aka/.rvm/ is almost complete:
  
    * To start using RVM you need to run `source /Users/aka/.rvm/scripts/rvm`
      in all your open shell windows, in rare cases you need to reopen all shell windows.
  
  # Aka,
  #
  #   Thank you for using RVM!
  #   I sincerely hope that RVM helps to make your life easier and more enjoyable!!!
  #
  # ~Wayne
  
  # In case of problems:
  #      run and read: rvm notes
  #         read docs: http://rvm.io/
  #        talk to us: http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=rvm (http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#plusr)
  #   read cheatsheet: http://cheat.errtheblog.com/s/rvm
  #  watch screencast: http://screencasts.org/episodes/how-to-use-rvm
  # open a bug report: https://github.com/wayneeseguin/rvm/issues
  
  rvm 1.21.18 (stable) by Wayne E. Seguin , Michal Papis  [https://rvm.io/]
  
  Searching for binary rubies, this might take some time.
  Installing requirements for osx, might require sudo password.
  Already up-to-date.
  Installing required packages: automake, libtool, pkg-config, libyaml, readline, libksba, openssl...................................................................................
  Certificates in '/usr/local/etc/openssl/cert.pem' already are up to date.
  Requirements installation successful.
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #configure
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #download
    % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                   Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
  100 5899k  100 5899k    0     0   212k      0  0:00:27  0:00:27 --:--:--  222k
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #validate archive
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #extract
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #validate binary
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #setup
  Saving wrappers to '/Users/aka/.rvm/wrappers/ruby-2.0.0-p247'........
  ruby-2.0.0-p247 - #importing default gemsets, this may take time.......................
  Creating alias default for ruby-2.0.0-p247.
  Recording alias default for ruby-2.0.0-p247.
  Creating default links/files
  Saving wrappers to '/Users/aka/.rvm/bin'........
  Fetching: i18n-0.6.4.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed i18n-0.6.4
  Fetching: multi_json-1.7.8.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed multi_json-1.7.8
  Fetching: tzinfo-0.3.37.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed tzinfo-0.3.37
  Fetching: minitest-4.7.5.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed minitest-4.7.5
  Fetching: atomic-1.1.12.gem (100%)
  Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
  Successfully installed atomic-1.1.12
  Fetching: thread_safe-0.1.2.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed thread_safe-0.1.2
  Fetching: activesupport-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed activesupport-4.0.0
  Fetching: builder-3.1.4.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed builder-3.1.4
  Fetching: rack-1.5.2.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed rack-1.5.2
  Fetching: rack-test-0.6.2.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed rack-test-0.6.2
  Fetching: erubis-2.7.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed erubis-2.7.0
  Fetching: actionpack-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed actionpack-4.0.0
  Fetching: activemodel-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed activemodel-4.0.0
  Fetching: arel-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed arel-4.0.0
  Fetching: activerecord-deprecated_finders-1.0.3.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed activerecord-deprecated_finders-1.0.3
  Fetching: activerecord-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed activerecord-4.0.0
  Fetching: mime-types-1.23.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed mime-types-1.23
  Fetching: polyglot-0.3.3.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed polyglot-0.3.3
  Fetching: treetop-1.4.14.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed treetop-1.4.14
  Fetching: mail-2.5.4.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed mail-2.5.4
  Fetching: actionmailer-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed actionmailer-4.0.0
  Fetching: thor-0.18.1.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed thor-0.18.1
  Fetching: railties-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed railties-4.0.0
  Fetching: hike-1.2.3.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed hike-1.2.3
  Fetching: tilt-1.4.1.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed tilt-1.4.1
  Fetching: sprockets-2.10.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed sprockets-2.10.0
  Fetching: sprockets-rails-2.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed sprockets-rails-2.0.0
  Fetching: rails-4.0.0.gem (100%)
  Successfully installed rails-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for i18n-0.6.4
  Installing ri documentation for i18n-0.6.4
  Parsing documentation for multi_json-1.7.8
  Installing ri documentation for multi_json-1.7.8
  Parsing documentation for tzinfo-0.3.37
  Installing ri documentation for tzinfo-0.3.37
  Parsing documentation for minitest-4.7.5
  Installing ri documentation for minitest-4.7.5
  Parsing documentation for atomic-1.1.12
  unable to convert "\xCF" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 for lib/atomic_reference.bundle, skipping
  Installing ri documentation for atomic-1.1.12
  Parsing documentation for thread_safe-0.1.2
  Installing ri documentation for thread_safe-0.1.2
  Parsing documentation for activesupport-4.0.0
  unable to convert "\x80" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 for lib/active_support/values/unicode_tables.dat, skipping
  Installing ri documentation for activesupport-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for builder-3.1.4
  /Users/aka/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rdoc/parser.rb:87: warning: Unsupported encoding : ignored
  /Users/aka/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/rdoc/parser.rb:87: warning: Unsupported encoding  ignored
  Installing ri documentation for builder-3.1.4
  Parsing documentation for rack-1.5.2
  Installing ri documentation for rack-1.5.2
  Parsing documentation for rack-test-0.6.2
  Installing ri documentation for rack-test-0.6.2
  Parsing documentation for erubis-2.7.0
  Installing ri documentation for erubis-2.7.0
  Parsing documentation for actionpack-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for actionpack-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for activemodel-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for activemodel-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for arel-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for arel-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for activerecord-deprecated_finders-1.0.3
  Installing ri documentation for activerecord-deprecated_finders-1.0.3
  Parsing documentation for activerecord-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for activerecord-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for mime-types-1.23
  Installing ri documentation for mime-types-1.23
  Parsing documentation for polyglot-0.3.3
  Installing ri documentation for polyglot-0.3.3
  Parsing documentation for treetop-1.4.14
  Installing ri documentation for treetop-1.4.14
  Parsing documentation for mail-2.5.4
  unable to convert "\x80" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 for lib/mail/values/unicode_tables.dat, skipping
  Installing ri documentation for mail-2.5.4
  Parsing documentation for actionmailer-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for actionmailer-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for thor-0.18.1
  Installing ri documentation for thor-0.18.1
  Parsing documentation for railties-4.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for railties-4.0.0
  Parsing documentation for hike-1.2.3
  Installing ri documentation for hike-1.2.3
  Parsing documentation for tilt-1.4.1
  Installing ri documentation for tilt-1.4.1
  Parsing documentation for sprockets-2.10.0
  Installing ri documentation for sprockets-2.10.0
  Parsing documentation for sprockets-rails-2.0.0
  Installing ri documentation for sprockets-rails-2.0.0
  Parsing documentation for rails-4.0.0
  unable to convert "\x89" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 for guides/assets/images/belongs_to.png, skipping
  [snip]
  unable to convert "\xFF" from ASCII-8BIT to UTF-8 for guides/assets/images/vijaydev.jpg, skipping
  Installing ri documentation for rails-4.0.0
  28 gems installed
  
    * To start using RVM you need to run `source /Users/aka/.rvm/scripts/rvm`
      in all your open shell windows, in rare cases you need to reopen all shell windows.
  
    * To start using rails you need to run `rails new `.
  $ 
  

  Make sure the latest versions of RVM, Ruby and Rails were installed.
  

  $ type rvm | head -1
  rvm is a function
  $ rvm -v
  
  rvm 1.21.18 (stable) by Wayne E. Seguin , Michal Papis  [https://rvm.io/]
  
  $ ruby -v
  ruby 2.0.0p247 (2013-06-27 revision 41674) [x86_64-darwin12.3.0]
  $ rails -v
  Rails 4.0.0
  $ brew doctor
  Your system is ready to brew.
  $ 
  

Good! But this is a long way, isn't this?

Try ruby

Tried "try ruby".

• This is an in-browser tutorial, which requires nothing but a web browser to try ruby. Obviously, this is something any computer language evangelist should do if he or she is serious about disseminating the language.
• Tutorial commands on ruby prompt may be a bit confusing or misleading for ruby newbies. Because those commands must be methods of the main object but it's hard for newbies to understand the difference between the methods and variables.
• "Methods. You've used English-language methods like reverse and symbolic methods like * (the multiplication method.) Methods are actions!" I think this sentence explains nothing. It contains abstract terms such as methods, symbolic, actions, and tell nothing about them. IMHO, following version is much better: "Methods. You've used word-like methods such as reverse and arithmetic-letter-like methods such as *. Methods are methods to make something happen."
• Explaining [] as a scope to target something sounds good.
• I quit this tutorial at #6. It's boring.

Restarting

I've been learning English for this two years, which has been consuming almost all my learning time. Consequently, I had no time to self-study computer science. That's why I stopped updating this blog.

However, I think my English writing skill has finally reached such a level that it enables me to learn computer science in English, I mean, with writing about it only in English. If I successfully achieve writing all blog entries from now in English, that will be also a great practice to learn English for sure.

Recently I was seeking a theme appropriate for the restart, and today I came up with an idea that Ruby is the best option for me currently.

I would like to start from the official documentation, <http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/documentation/>.