NY帰り、はみだし社員の英語お勉強日記

2005/08/27(土)21:48

ビジネス英会話のディクテーションにチャレンジ(8月26日)

今回の分はいつにもまして、長かったので死にそうでした。 しかも、未だに分からない所も何箇所かあり、 くじけそうです。 ディクテーションは奥が深いです。。 *********************************** Growing Pet Market (6) Friday, August 26 1: Chris, I think you told me before that you don't have a pet now, but you used to before, right? 2: Yeah, when I was a kid, my family had, actually we had two dogs, one when I was real little and then we got a second one a little, a couple years after that when I was in elementary school. And my parents keep a dog now. All my sisters' families have dogs and my brother's family has cats. I am the only one without a pet. 3: But you don't want to own a pet in Japan. 4: I would like to, but we try to travel as much as we can. And eventually, we may move to the U.S. for few years, so it seems a little bit unfair to put a dog... because we'd get a dog. It seems a little unfair to put a dog through a move like that. So we decided we'd wait for a while anyway and see if things settle down more. 5: Over the years, we are seeing more and more pets in Japan. Don't you think so? 6: Oh, yeah. I came about... a little over 20 years ago and I didn't see fairly many dogs at all. I've always lived in the city. I don't know, there're probably more dogs out in a country where there is more space, but wow! I see dogs all the time, every day nowadays. 7: And I see ads are saying pets allowed at for apartments. 8: Uh-huh. Yeah, I think it must have been really hard, a while ago, if you try to have a dog in the city. 9: Now, there are city audiences allowing pets and apartments and people with over that pets are trying live together peacefully. 10: Yeah, I think that can cause a lot of trouble. Especially because, I think, um... I think in Japan especially in the cities from what I've seen, people treat their dogs anyway, like children. And I think dogs need more discipline. And so, I think even little dogs can be extremely irritating if they are not properly trained, which actually, I think means training the owners. Even if it's a little tiny dog, I think you can physically control it better than even slightly larger dogs. But, little dogs can still be pretty noisy. I think people are more aware of training dogs in the U.S. than they're here. But, of course, there are plenty of people in the U.S. that don't control their dogs properly. 11: In the vignette, we talked about some services that are unique to Japan, like crematory services... 12: Right. 13: ...for pets or safe keeping of the ashes of pets. Another thing I notice in my neighborhood is the handbills or posters are looking for a lost pets. 14: Uh-huh. Well, people do that in the U.S. too. If your cat or dog wanders off, I think first, people drive around in their cars hoping to see it somewhere. They don't usually go that far, I think. 15: But then by the individuals, right? 16: Right. Yeah, and people might put it in the ad in a paper saying they lost their dog, if someone saw it, please call. And most people have the license, maybe with the dog license, the tag on the collar, they'll also put their address or phone number or both. So if someone finds a dog they can call up and you can go pick it up. 17: Here, it's... it's a professional service, it's like going to a private eye. 18: Uh! 19: And ask for consult the investigators about locating your lost pets. 20: Are they very successful? 21: I should say so, according to one program I saw on TV. 22: I haven't heard of that in the U.S., but also in the U.S., people treating their dogs like children is a growing trend, so maybe it's available some places. By the time I was in college, the dog we had as a pet, it gotten really old and my parents had it put down because they were afraid he hurt himself. He was mostly deaf and blind and sometimes he couldn't quite control himself, so they were afraid  he'd fall down the stairs. And they decided one day, just to have him put to sleep because he was obviously on his last legs. And then when you do that, the afterwards veterinarian takes care of the body and disposes of it. But recently, people are doing things like having their dogs stuffed... 23: Freeze dried (???Please a dries???分かりませんでした), cloned... 24: Yeah, cloned and that. Well, I don't think they can clone dogs yet, I've heard of cats, but dogs can't be far behind. 25: Right. 26: I just can't imagine it, I mean I was sad when they put our dog down and I hadn't even been living at home with them in a last couple years. I was away college. But, you know, I feel like it's... it's a pet, it's a dog, and you need to take care of it compassionately. I don't think I'd ever clone my pet. 27: Another thing we're seeing more and more of these days is guide dogs or seeing eye dogs. 28: Oh, yeah. That's a good thing, I think. As long as dogs are well-managed, it doesn't bother me if people bring them in to many kinds of places, formal places I don't think, like expensive restaurants, I don't think you should bring your dog. But when I was in Germany, I saw in some of the restaurants, not the fancy ones, but people would bring their dogs in. They were always well-mannered dogs. They would wait quietly under the owner seat. And sometimes you'd even see the waiters bring your water for them. So as far as I'm concerned as long as they are well-disciplined and well-mannered dogs, I don't care if people bring them. ------------------- あんな時、こんな時 ------------------- 29: Get a load of this. "Get a load of this" is quite casual. It introduces something a bit surprising that you think the other person will be surprised at as well. 30: You know what? "You know what?" you can say with all kinds of intonation. It's much more neutral and introducing and item of news. You could also say, "No what?" And even kids make a joke. They look at their friends and they say, "No what?" and the kid says, "What?" and they say, "That's what." So, it's no information at all. 31: now here this. I think people use it now even outside of the navy when they want sound very authoritative. 32: Guess what?   "Guess what?" it's often used to introduce surprising and happy news. 33: Hey. Yeah, probably. Also "hey" is used in many kids of situations depending on the intonation. And it's really pretty close to interjection. 34: One we didn't list here is "attention." I think in a... maybe sort of an emergency situation, you might here on a public address system that PA system, you might hear someone will say, "Attention!" And they might repeat it a couple of time. A little more politely would be, "May I have your attention?" or "May I have your attention, please?" Or even, "Attention, please." ------- 問題 ------- 35: Something like this would be very natural. "Have you heard?" or "Have you heard the latest?" 36: That's all for today. 37: Thanks for staying with us.

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