1.身の回りのことなど
先週は通勤電車で座ってテキストをひろげながら、DLした番組をiPhoneで
聞きながら、単語や表現チェックをすることはできましたが、夜にメルマガを
作成する時間が取れませんでした。
これはフィットネスを優先しているからなんですが、今日はアクアウォーク
という、水中で様々な方法で楽しく歩くレッスンに参加しました。
手足を大きく動かしながら水中で歩くのは結構いい運動になります。
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
2. 英語に関するあれこれ
別所哲也さんのpodcast(J-WAVE TOKYO MORNING)を聞いていたら、ゲストが
映画コメンテーターのLiLiCoさんでした。LiLiCoさんはスウェーデン出身という
ことでしたが、なんとフリーセックスはgender-freeというという意味らしいです。
勘違いしてましたー（あせ）
3.実践ビジネス英語
■NHKラジオ 実践ビジネス英語 2012/6/6 Lesson 5 Workplace Blunders (1)
■前回の復習です
at the end of the day
many introverts make good executives
thrive
take something to heart
contradiction in terms
get something off to a good start
■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
Workplace Blunders
I hear you were trapped in the bathroom last week and an NYPD rescue team
had to be called in.
I banged on the door for a while, but there wasn't anymore nearby.
What an awkward jam to be in.
I decided to swallow my pride and call Paul to come and rescue me.
He kindly explained that the door probably wasn't locked, but was just
a little tricky to open.
I'm glad to hear you were able to extricate yourself from a sticky situation.
I thought I'd be the laughingstock of the office.
I was happily surprised by the way everybody sympathized with my predicament.
I'm glad I wasn't in your shoes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
blunder, 大失敗、へま
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a stupid or careless mistake:
ex) No doubt, America has had some terrible foreign policy blunders -
some real, others embellished imagined.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
be trapped in, ...に閉じ込められる、...から出られなくなる
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
trap
prevent (someone) from escaping from a place:
ex) Twenty workers were trapped by flames.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
bang, ドンドンたたく、ドンと打つ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
strike or put down (something) forcefully and noisily:
ex) Someone was banging on the door.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
awkward jam, （やっかいな）苦境、非常に困難な状況
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jam
<informal> an awkward situation or predicament:
ex) I'm in a jam.
awkward
causing difficulty; hard to do or deal with:
ex) This also means that you have to be prepared to listen to some hard
truths and awkward question.
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swallow one's pride, プライドを捨てる、恥を忍ぶ
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swallow
resist expressing (a feeling) or uttering (words):
ex) Depressed, we bit our tongue, swallowed our pride and voted Libertarian.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
tricky, やりにくい、扱いにくい、面倒な
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(of a task, problem, etc.) requiring care and skill because difficult or awkward:
ex) Completing one set of objectives or the other isn't too hard, but
completing them both is a tricky task.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
extricate oneself from, ...から抜け出す
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[with obj.] free (someone or something) from a constraint or difficulty:
ex) Her efforts towards extricating women, particularly Dalit women, from their
state of subordination in the society are well known.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
sticky, 面倒な、難しい
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
<informal> involving problems; difficult or awkward:
ex) Don't expect too much and make sure you don't get into any sticky situations.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
laughingstock, 笑いもの、物笑いの種
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
a person subjected to general mockery or ridicule:
ex) We are the laughing stock of Europe with our ridiculously high prices
for everything and our stupid infantile government.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
predicament, 苦境、窮地、ピンチ
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
a difficult unpleasant, or embarrassing situation:
ex) The word crisis is too often used to exaggerate the predicament of a club
experiencing hard times.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
in someone's shoes, （人）の立場になって
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
be (or put oneself) in another person's shoes
be (or put oneself) in another person's situation or predicament.
ex) Yes, I know that sounds strange and mildly racist, but until you've been
in my shoes for that situation, you just don't know.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
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
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なしです。
■もう一度読んでみよう
Workplace Blunders
I hear you were trapped in the bathroom last week and an NYPD rescue team
had to be called in.
I banged on the door for a while, but there wasn't anymore nearby.
What an awkward jam to be in.
I decided to swallow my pride and call Paul to come and rescue me.
He kindly explained that the door probably wasn't locked, but was just
a little tricky to open.
I'm glad to hear you were able to extricate yourself from a sticky situation.
I thought I'd be the laughingstock of the office.
I was happily surprised by the way everybody sympathized with my predicament.
I'm glad I wasn't in your shoes.
■前回の復習の答えです
at the end of the day, 結局のところ
many introverts make good executives, 多くの内向的な人が優れた管理職になっている
thrive, 繁栄する、成功する
take something to heart, ...を真剣に受け止める、...を肝に銘じる
contradiction in terms, 名辞矛盾、ことばの矛盾
get something off to a good start, ...をうまく始める
