イギリス英会話ブログ

I’m sorry I have neglected the 中級編 recently - I’ve been pretty busy with work and other interests. When I was teaching in the Eikaiwa school, I always used to find it fascinating to think about WHY my students were learning English.

neglected - 怠った　／ fascinating - 非常に興味深い

Some people had a clear reason - they needed English for work or forthcoming travel plans. But the majority did not have a very clear reason for studying. Most of them just seemed to enjoy coming to the school and talking with a foreigner (me) and learning some useful English. Also, many people did not really improve very much - but they were always enthusiastic and seemed to be making a sincere effort to fit English into their busy lives.

forthcoming - 今度の／来る　／majority -過半数　／ improve - 上達する

enthusiastic - 熱心な　／ a sincere effort - 忠実な努力

Although learning a language does involve quite a lot of ‘boring’ studying - ie., learning vocabulary and grammar - I think it also stimulates the mind. Words in themselves are interesting and students who do well often have an interest in learning new words. I have always found that learning a new language really stimulates my imagination. As I learn, I imagine opportunities in the future when I will be able to use the language - who will I meet? What will we talk about? Will we become friends? Will we be able to understand each other? People with work and family responsibilities can enjoy learning English because it gives them some private time which they can use to think about themselves as individuals - how they would like to be and what they would like to do in the future.

involve - 伴う／含む　／stimulates - 刺激する／させる

words in themselves - 言葉自体　／ as individuals - 個人として

I think it is true to say that language is similar to music in many ways - music needs to be ‘in tune‘ and ‘harmonious‘ if we are going to enjoy listening to it. Language needs to be grammatically harmonious, and styled with interesting intonation and stress patterns to be comprehensible in an enjoyable way. It is good to speak with a sense of rhythm but this is usually only possible if you (a) understand the grammatical structure of what you are saying and (b) have had enough exposure to native speaker’ conversations.

similar to - 〜に似ている　／ in tune - 音程が合っている

harmonious - 和声（的）／ grammatically - 文法的に

comprehensible - 理解可能　／ exposure - さらされている状態

Last year sometime I saw Ehara-san of 「オーラの泉」fame on TV and he was talking about how speaking is not so different to singing. I think this is good advice for sometimes shy Japanese people - and for singers, too. We need to be aware of our voices and how we sound when we are speaking, in English as in any language.

of 「オーラの泉」fame - 「オーラの泉」でよく知られてきた（江原さん）

be aware of - 〜を意識する