1.身の回りのことなど
先週、人間ドックに行きました。問診の時に朝食を抜くのはダイエットにはよくない
と言われました。食事の回数が減ると逆に栄養の吸収がよくなりすぎるのだそうです。
受けたアドバイスは朝食を中心にとり、夕食を減らすと良いというものでした。
そんなものですかねー
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2. 英語に関するあれこれ
私の会社の友人である江端智一さんがEE Times Japanというエレクトロニクス技術
のサイトで、「英語に愛されないエンジニア」のための新行動論、という連載を
始めました。
江端さんのこれまでの英語での仕事の経験、特にアメリカ駐在中の苦労話
が読めることでしょう。楽しみです。
3.実践ビジネス英語
■NHKラジオ 実践ビジネス英語 2012/4/12 Lesson 1 The Big Announcement (5)
■前回の復習です
bottom out
bounce back
glacial pace
erode
off the mark
inflation-adjusted income
popular perception
■意味を考えてみよう。今日取り上げる単語が含まれています
The big question now is whether the whittling away of the middle class
is a permanent change.
Will a rebound in the economy fix the situation?
Many companies are betting that the squeeze on the middle class isn't
a short-term trend.
They're concentrating more on catering to upper- and lower-income ranges.
Investors are paying higher stock prices for smaller, more focused
businesses than they are for consolidated ones.
There were some holdouts who still thought bigger was better.
Our management saw the writing on the wall, and so they
voted to break up the company.
It was time for them to wake up and smell the coffee.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
whittle away, （...を）徐々に減らす [徐々に損なう]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
whittle something away/down
reduce something in size, amount, or extent by a gradual series of steps:
ex) The shortlist of fifteen was whittled down to five.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
rebound in the economy, 経済の回復
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
an increase in value, amount, or strength after a previous decline:
ex) They revealed a big rebound in profits for last year.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
squeeze on, ...の引き締め、...への（経済的）圧迫
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
a strong financial demand or pressure, typically a restriction on borrowing,
spending, or investment in a financial crisis:
ex) Industry faced higher costs and a squeeze on profits.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
cater to, ...の要求を満たす、...の需要に応える
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
try to satisfy (a need or demand):
ex) Over time, Indians are becoming more market savvy and catering to the
demand of the American consumer.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
consolidated, 統合された、合併整理された
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
consolidate
combine (a number of things) into a single more effective or coherent whole:
ex) The service consolidates a number of separate services that used to exist
in different parts of the country.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
holdout, 拒否する人、反対者、同意しない人
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
a person who resists something or refuses to accept an offer:
ex) Count me as among the last holdouts on this issue.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
see the writing on the wall, （悪い）前兆を見てとる
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
the writing is on the wall
there are clear signs that something unpleasant or unwelcome
is going to happen:
ex) People are tired of him and it is clear to all of us that
the writing is on the wall.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
その他にも、次も押さえておきたい。[誌面の都合上省略] ★は重要表現
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
wake up and smell the coffee, 目を覚まして現実を見る
■もう一度読んでみよう
The big question now is whether the whittling away of the middle class
is a permanent change.
Will a rebound in the economy fix the situation?
Many companies are betting that the squeeze on the middle class isn't
a short-term trend.
They're concentrating more on catering to upper- and lower-income ranges.
Investors are paying higher stock prices for smaller, more focused
businesses than they are for consolidated ones.
There were some holdouts who still thought bigger was better.
Our management saw the writing on the wall, and so they
voted to break up the company.
It was time for them to wake up and smell the coffee.
■前回の復習の答えです
bottom out, 底に達する、底を打つ
bounce back, 立ち直る、盛り返す
glacial pace, ゆっくりした速度、遅々として進まないペース
erode, （徐々に）損なう[衰退させる、疲弊させる]
off the mark, 的外れで、間違って
inflation-adjusted income, インフレ調整後の所得
popular perception, 世間一般の認識、一般的な見方
