海老蔵関連ニュースを英語で!

いま一番ホットな話題と言えばこれですね。 ヒアリングの練習に使っちゃいましょう。
動画は下記をクリックしてください。
本文
Japan’s Kabuki prince apologized Tuesday for embarrassing the country’s most viewed theater. Ebizo Ichikawa faced the
swarm of reporters.
His eyes still blood shot  from a drunken brawl a few weeks ago. Ichikawa said “I thought I was going to die.” when the man was beating me. The incident in  Tokyo rich neighborhood came on the same day Ichikawa skipped his media events, citing health reasons. The actor admits  drinking heavily that night but maintains that he was a victim. That sounded a little to quite the media frenzy.
Ichikawa comes from one of the Japan’s most famous Kabuki families. He’s considered the future of the traditional all male theater.
This woman says it’s an embarrassment for a actor considered a face of Kabuki.  Theater operator, Shochiku has already suspended
Ichikawa and cancelled the New Year’s program starring the actor. At least three major companies have halt TV ads featuring the actor. The cancelled shows could cost organizers up to two million dollars .
Akiko Fujita, ABC news Tokyo.

英作文チャレンジコーナー(はいはい道新) Hokkaido Newspaper “Readers’ voice column”

昼食のために会社近くの地下飲食街に行きました。どの店も混んでいましたが、たまたますいている店が目につき飛びこみました。見渡すと店内が煙草の煙で煙っています。店前に「全面禁煙」の掲示があったはず、と思って再度見たらなんと「全席喫煙」。 煙草は好きではないのですが、他の店を探す時間もなかったので食事しました。 禁煙の店は年々増えていますが、逆に全面的に喫煙を打ち出した店を見るのは初めてです。驚きました。(12月7日)
 
 
 
I was looking for somewhere to take a lunch in the underground food court  near my office.
Every restaurant I walked by seemed crowded, but I happened to find one that was less crowded so I dashed  in there.
 
Looking around, I saw a lot of cigarette smoke wafting throughout the room.
 
I took a second look at the signboard at the entrance, thinking to myself that it said “ALL NON SMOKING SEATS”.
 
Actually it was opposite – “ALL SMOKING SEATS”!  My jaw almost dropped,
 
 
 I didn’t want to inhale  smoke while eating my lunch,  but I  took the table because I didn’t have enough time to find another restaurant.
 
Non smoking places are on the increase year by year.  And it was my first time to see a restaurant where smoking is totally allowed.

宿題出します!

熱心な生徒さんの中から、英作文に自分でチャレンジしてみたいので宿題を出してほしいというリクエストがありました。(感心!)

それでは遠慮なくいきますよー。 

先日遠出をして、人気の飲食店に出かけました。日曜の昼過ぎで超満員でした。4歳ぐらいのお子さんを連れた若いご夫婦にあぜんとしました。子どもが店内で騒いでもまったく注意しようとしないのです。(北海道新聞 2010/11/11

がんばってみてください。

 

悪徳業者と手を組んでいたバンクオブアメリカ

 

被害者の一人、アレンジョーンズさん。BANK OF AMERICA系列のクレジットカードで81ドル(6500円前後)の返済が遅れ、自宅に催促の電話が来るようになった。留守電に残されたメッセージは、おもわず耳をふさぎたくなるような、差別・侮辱そして卑猥用語だらけ。とても由緒ある銀行とは思えないものだった。返済を迫る電話は早朝から深夜に及び、完済後も続いた。

もう一人の被害者、バージニア州のジェフバーグさんは、まったくお金を借りていないのに返済催促の電話に悩まされ続けた。またしてもBANK OF AMERICAの系列だった。相手の勘違いが判明するまで約一か月もの間、いやがらせが続いた。

ずさんな顧客管理と不快な電話応対。BANK OF AMERICAともあろうものがなんという醜態! 銀行の生命線であるクリーンなイメージが侵されてもかまわないのか? TV局はさらに極秘調査を続けた。

その結果BANK OF AMERICAは、取り立て専門の会社と契約を結び回収に当たらせていたことが判明。 またその会社は、出所直後の前科者を中心に採用し、いやがらせ電話をさせていたこともわかった。

TV局はすぐに銀行側に対し釈明を求めたがノーコメント。そこで次に頭取を街頭で待ち伏せ、直接話しかける手段をとる。 頭取は、問題になっている留守電メッセージについて、素直に非を認め善処を約束。

それからわずか二日後、同行は取り立て会社との契約を解除した。

しかしこれで問題がすべて解決したわけでない。BANK OF AMERICAはなぜこのような低俗な回収屋と手を組んでいたのか? 銀行としてのイメージ低下リスクを危惧しなかったのか? 

最後にTV局はこう結んでいる。 「今回の事件は、債権回収の即効性を最優先させたが故の結末である。」

「お客様、ご返済が滞っております。お早めにお支払いくださいませ」と上品にやるよりも、「おいっ、てめえ、早く払えこの野郎」とやった方が能率よく回収できるのだ。 

動画は下記をクリックしてください。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOxJMsqVTRs

英文は下記の通りです。

The phone calls were ugly and harrowing. They came early in the morning late at night over and over again.
 
At least tough times, there may be no surprise that debt collector calls are at the country’s top consumer complaints,   but these ones crossed all boundaries of decency – racist, pornographic, even targeting someone who owed nothing.  Tonight our exclusive  investigation has  found that the callers behind these vile shakedowns were hired by a company working for one of the America’s banking giants.
 
Chief investigators correspondent, Brian Ross is here to break the story. And Brian this evidence  is truly stunning.  It really is George.  The tactics of American debt collectors have reached an all time low – including racist and obscene phone calls used in some cases on behalf of major American corporations.
RECEIVED AUGUST 7th AT 0810 p.m.  An overdue payment of 81 dollars on a Bank of America credit card led to the following messages from a debt collector.
 
Go mother xxxxx back to mother xxxxx Africa.
 The recipient Allen Jones of Dallas says the calls came even after he told  them  his bank of America  account had been paid.
 
The representative acted like we could call you as many times as we want.  And the racist obscene calls  continued late at night and early in the morning.
This is your mother xxxx  wake up call, man.
In Lynchburg Virginia, in the case of mistaken identity, another Bank of America customer Jeff Burg was hounded with a similar rough phone tactics.
 
Yeah I have you scared you don’t want to pick up the phone now?  Is it because you are now in bed with your sister, or with your mom or with your cousin? Huh or what? Little punk.
Burg said he received call like that for  months till they finally realized they had the wrong Bank of America customer. “I had no way to put an end to the phone call.
 
The calls to the Bank of America’s customer all came from a debt collection agency  ACT in Harlingen Texas.
“That sounds like to me a whole lot.” one of the debt collectors who made the offensive calls, Calros Oliva , a company supervisor,  testify in a lawsuit that he was hired there just seven months after leaving prison.
 
“They have a prison mentality. These are the people ACT chose to hire to collect debt from Bank of America.” The company says the callers were rogue operators and that it has since improved oversight.
  
What happened  did not represent the policies and the work that our employees do.
 
But jury held both the callers and ACT responsible in a verdict of more than 1.5 million dollars. Yet bank of  America continued to use the same debt collecting agency. Even after we sent them tapes for the phone calls,
Get your mother ******, **** :*** up and go pick some mother ****
cotton fields.
 
The bank refused to provide anyone to talk to us on camera. So we went looking for its CEO Brian Moynahan.
can a story for ABC” to ask him why his bank  still use the agency and gave him a copy of the phone call. 
 
 
That kind of language , is that acceptable in your effort.?
No that would not be acceptable. I’ll find out.
You let me know? Yep. Thank you very much.
 
Two days later, Bank of America  essentially fired the collection agency as a result of what we raised in our investigation according to the debt collection agency chairman. Bank of America says the decision has nothing to do with our story.
 
They say that there’s one action I got to believe regulators will take a look at this.
Absolutely  the Federal Trade Commission says their jurisdiction is preparing a major crackdown.
And one official there said the problem is the abusive phone calls work, and the bottom line has too often trumped  common decency and the law. 
 
 

 

さっぱり聴き取れねえ・・・オレはまだまだだな~

ウィリアム王子の婚約発表の冒頭部分、リスニングに挑戦してみたところ、さっぱりできなかった。(悲)

かろうじて聞き取れたのは、friends, for a while, surpriseのみ。 今までオレはなにをやってきたのだろう? と自責の念に駆られてしまう。

Kenya の部分など Canyon に聞こえてしまった。

米語ばかりやっていると、イギリスの英語はまったく異なものに聴こえてくるから不思議です。 英語学習者のみなさん、気をつけましょう。

参考までに、動画と文章を記しておきます。 

 
It was about three weeks ago on holiday in Kenya.
We had a little private time away together with some friends and I just decided that it was the right time really.
We had been talking about marriage for a while so it wasn’t a massively big surprise.
 I took her up somewhere nice in Kenya and I proposed.
 

英作文チャレンジコーナー

「ダムは必要悪だと思っていました」と、今本博健氏は告白する。 河川工学などを専門に、京大教授として約30年。 定年退官し名誉教授となった2001年、近畿を流れる淀川水系のダムの必要性を検証する委員会に加わったときも、「必要なダムはつくらせてくれ」と主張した。 だが個別のダムの功罪を吟味するうち考えを改めた。 今は「ダムの時代は終わる」と断言する。 (北海道新聞 2010年11月14日朝刊)

‘I thought that dams were necessary evils”, he confesses.
  
Mr.Hirotake Imamoto served as a professor at the University of Kyoto for about thirty years, specializing mainly in river engineering.
 
Following his retirement in 2001, he became a professor emeritus and joined a committee whose mission was to verify the necessity of dams built across the Yodogawa river and its tributaries in Kinki district.
 
During all these years, Imamoto used to advocate “Let us build dams if they are needed.”
But then he altered his idea after examining merits and demerits of each dam already built.
 
Now he asserts “The era of Dams will be over”.

160m 上空から落下! 九死に一生を得たパイロット PILOT’S PLUNGE CAUGHT ON CAMERA

 
 
遊覧飛行が大好きなパットンさん、パラシュートにエンジンを付けて飛んでいたとき、まさかの悲劇が・・・
 
160m上空から落ちて軽傷ですんだのは幸運だった、と言いつつ「退院したらまた飛びたい」のコメントに奥さんはあきれ顔・・・・
 
  
偶然撮られた墜落の動画、僕は直視できません。
 
怖い物好きの人だけどうぞ。
 
動画は下記をクリック。

 
    An Idaho pilot is lucky to be alive this morning after a harrowing accident. His engine-powered parachute malfunctioned, sending him plummeting 100 feet to the ground.

And it was all caught on camera. Neal Karlinsky has his incredible story of survival.

 

Hoyt Patton loves to fly. He really is in an authorized aircraft known as PPC or powered parachute. And here‘s what it looked like from his point of view last week in footage licensed by ABC news. Taking off, rising up about a hundred feet, and then… disaster.

His parachute tangled and Patton plummets straight into the ground.

 

Can you help me? As he calls out for help, eye witnesses rush over to him.

“WE’VE GOT TO GET HIM OUT OF THE ****”

 

From his hospital bed, Patton says he knew he was going to crash.

 

He has a broken pelvis, ribs, and elbow. Watching the video is hard to even imagine how he survived. It’s like falling off a ten-story building.

 

“I’ve seen him do some pretty crazy take-off and landing. It’s scary to me but he’s not scared”  Patton knows he very lucky. “Lucky guy. This could have been a wheelchair.

 

Pilots like to say that any landing that you can walk away from is a good 4one. Patton couldn’t exactly walk away from this one but he had quite a story to tell. And he says this flight won’t be his last. For good morning America, Neil Karlinsky, ABC News, Seattle.

今日の料理は白菜づくしッ!!!

農村地帯に住んでいると、都会では信じられないことが起こります。

たとえば隣近所で家庭菜園を営む人たちから野菜をたくさんいただけること。

トマト、キュウリ、ゴーヤ、白菜、キャベツ、かぼちゃ、ピーマン、春菊、ねぎ・・・いやはやこんなにもらっていいのかしらん、と恐縮の連続・・・

そして昨日は何と、斜め前と裏のお宅から、白菜を2玉ずついただきました。計4玉!

こりゃ大変だ、腐らせる前にいただかなくては・・・

早速妻と相談し、手分けして料理することに・・・

料理本やインターネットをたよりに妻がつくったのは

「白菜、鶏肉の重ね蒸し」

そして白菜、生ハムのマリネ

それに対して白組の私は

誰でもできる野菜炒め(野菜はもちろん白菜)

そして白菜オンリーの味噌汁

以上4種類、家族4人分つくったものの、使った白菜は半玉分だけでした。

さあ、明日はなにをつくろうか・・・

ジョンレノンの誕生日に各地で集会

今年はジョンレノン生誕70周年、逝去30周年、ビートルズ結成50周年、解散40周年にあたる年。(なぜこんなに区切れいいのだろう?)

ニューヨークの暗殺現場には今年も大勢のファンが訪れて追悼したそうです。いつか僕も参加して、一緒にイマジンを歌いたいと考えています。

動画は下記をクリック。

 
Tomorrow would have been John Lennon’s seventieth birthday.  His widow Yoko Ono said that he dreaded turning forty, but thinking of seventy made him smile. So would the celebration that’s coming.
Peaceful, musical, all over the world. 
Our top rock fan Dan Harris will be right in the thick of it.
So many of us find it so hard to believe that this global icon of youthful rebellion and idealism would now be turning seventy.
A birthday that’s being marked in a big way.
All of John Lennon s solo albums are being rereleased in a box. There’s  
 There’s a new movie coming out that examines the teenage years of the future Beatle.
 I’m John
 Paul.
 And this new PBS documentary takes a look at the last decade of Lennon’s life.
 So, I had to contribute something.
 The documentary also contains rare home movies of the five years that Lennon took off from music to raise his son, Sean.
 I looked after the baby and I made the bread and I was a househusband and I’m proud of it.
 Even this active domesticity was radical.
For a father to be as involved in raising his family and making that a priority.
That  wasn’t – in the ’70s, you know that wasn’t a really thing that you  saw so much.
 Yoko Ono has said she is surprised by all the activity around her husband’s birthday.
But it is a testament to his enduring appeal.
 Life and career of John Lennon, singer song writer, symbol of an era, dead at forty.
 Nearly thirty years after he was shot and killed outside of his apartment building in New York City . Today, right across the street in the part of central park named strawberry fields in honor of John Lennon and his music.
 
So many of the songs are now , part of, you know, singalongs in nursery schools and lullabies and just the music that you grow up with when you live on this planet.
 And the world will live as one.
 And here we are at strawberry fields as the sun goes down.
And George, it’s worth noting that people visit this place pretty much every day of the year, rain or shine, and tomorrow on Lennon’s actual birthday, the crowd is expected to be huge.
More evidence that 30 years after he died, John Lennon still matters

7年前にミシガン州で消えた子犬、ケンタッキー州で見つかる。Michigan man finds long-missing dog in Kentucky

野村の載せる話はウソ臭いのが多い、という失礼なメールが知り合いから送られてきました。(怒)
でも確かに誰も信じませんよね、7年前に消えた犬が700キロ先で見つかるなんて。まあとにかく読んでみてください。
いつもの通り、動画は下記をクリック。

Sandie Clark came to work at the Estill County Animal Shelter Tuesday morning, she found two dogs left overnight in the “drop box.” (サンディークラークさんが火曜日の朝、動物保護収容所へ出勤してみると、dropboxに2匹の犬が置かれていました) One was a Weimaraner, but his high breeding wasn’t the only thing that set him apart. 一匹はワイマラナー。しかしこの犬を飼い主の元から引き離したのは血統の良さではありませんでした。 

There was a microchip inside him.  After a few calls later, she was on the phone with a Michigan man, who had last seen his six-month-old pup the day after Thanksgiving, 2003.(彼の体内にマイクロチップが埋められていたのです。何度か電話したのち、彼女はミシガン州の男性と通話できました。この男性は、2003年の感謝祭の翌日、生後6か月の子犬を盗まれていたのでした。)


Yeah, we found a dog down here and it’s got a microchip in it,’ and I said, ‘Holy cow, is it a Weimaraner?’ and they said, ‘Yes,’ and I said, ‘That’s Jake.'”
(はい、ここで犬を
預かっています。マイクロチップが入っています、と電話の向こうで相手が言ったので、「なんてこった。ワイマラナーでしょうか?」と聞いたんです。そしたら向こうが「はいそうです」と。それで「私が飼っていたジェイクに間違いありませんと答えました。」 
Davis said Jake was stolen from his backyard — perhaps by a family he’d help pack for a move to Kentucky.(ジェイクは裏庭で盗まれたとのこと、おそらくそのときケンタッキー州に引っ越しをする家族の荷造りを手伝いましたので、その家族が持っていったのではないかと思います。


“We got him back and it doesn’t matter anymore. 
(犬を取り戻したのでこれ以上大事にしません) We’ll take him home and take good care of him. (家に連れて行ってだいじにしてやります) We got him an appointment with the vet tomorrow at 2:30 and get him checked out and get some meat on his bones,” he said.(明日2時半に獣医に診てもらう予約をとりました。そのあと栄養をたっぷりつけさせてやるつもりです。)

Davis’s children were one and three years old when the family dog vanished.  The younger hardly remembers Jake — the elder never forgot.(その子犬が消えた時、デイビスさんの子どもは1歳と3歳でした。下の子はジェイクのことをほとんど覚えていませんが、上の子は決して忘れませんでした)

“When we showed her some pictures of him yesterday when she first got off the school bus and she said she always knew he was coming home,” Davis said.(スクールバスを降りるとき、娘にこの犬の写真をみせたところ、「いつかは帰ってくると思ってた」といったんですよ。

In dog years, Jake’s been gone nearly half a century.(犬の年齢を人間に合わせれば、半世紀は家を離れていた計算になります。) 

“I don’t know if he remembers me yet, but I’m sure he’ll get to be — once we get him home and he can see the kids — same house he was before, same backyard,” he said.(ジェイクが私のことを覚えているとは思えませんが、家に帰って子どもたちと会って、見覚えある家や裏庭を見れば、きっと思い出してくれると思います)

It was a 900-mile round-trip, but Davis and his brother Dave pick up Jake, take him home. 往復で900マイル(1500キロ)の旅ですが、デイビスさんと弟のデイブさんはジェイクを引き取りに来、家へ連れて帰ります。“I drive ten thousand miles ,ten times over to pick him up.(こいつを引き取るためなら一万マイルでも、その十倍でも運転してきますよ。 By mid-afternoon, Brad, Dave, and Jake got in the truck for a 450 mile trip back to Michigan.正午を過ぎたころ、ブラッドさんデイブさんそしてジェイクはそろってトラックへ乗り込み、450マイルの旅にでました。

That’s OK. They’ve got a lot of catching up to do.これでよし。離れ離れになっていた年月を共有できるまでかなりの期間を要するでしょうね。 That’s John Mcgary. ABC 36, your local news selects.