PROOFREADING Task # 1

EXPLORING THE ESSAY

TASK: Make all the necessary corrections to the underlined word or phrases.

What would happened if you wake up one day and suddenly found yourself in a world where you could not

communicate with someone. Ten years ago I accept a job teaching english in a rural area of Japan and found me

strugling with this problem. I had been in Japan only a little days, and I was feeling restless. I wanted to make some

fresh bread, so I set out for the store with the seemingly simple intention of buying some flour. The small town where

I live had only one store. I wondered around the store and started to feel overwhelm by the wide variety of strange

products. I had no idea it would have been such a chore to buy one simple grocery item. Just then, I saw one of my

students, in the parking lot. I rushed out and explained that I needed to know a word in Japanese. "How would you say

flour." I asked. He had told me the word was hana. I hurried back into the store, found one of the elderly clerks, and

asked in my better Japanese where could I find the flour. I felt warry when the clerk led me to the produce section and

pointed out to a display of beautiful yellow chrysanthemums. Nonetheless, suddenly it made cents. I was standing in

the flower section, not the flour section! When I ask my student for the Japanese word for flour, I did not specify

whether I meant flour or flower. That day, I learned the often-underestimated value of know simple vocabulary in a

second language."