執筆者 Modern English | 2014年01月14日 | Words
“He says he saw an alien, but I’m skeptical of his story.” Someone who is skeptical overall does not believe things too easily. A skeptic probably doesn’t believe in aliens, the Loch Ness Monster or ghosts. You can also be skeptical about only a certain instance: “I...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年01月11日 | Phrases
“Hello. This is Bob Johnson. I’m not in right now, so please leave a message after the beep.” This phrase is a common way to end the recorded message played by an answering machine. Another common phrase is, “Please leave your name and number,” because with that...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年01月10日 | TOEIC
“We need to ________ the inconvenience to our customers from this renovation.” Fill in the blank. A. ensmallen B. minimize C. minimal D. smallify 「この改築によるお客様への不便を最小限に止めないといけません。」 AとDは「small」で言いたいことはわかりますが、実在する単語ではありません。BとCでは、Bが動詞でCが形容詞です。この場合「need...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年01月09日 | Trivia
The English language has many words with the same or similar meanings. But sometimes when writing, we can’t think of a different word so we use the same one over and over. This is not considered good writing. In this situation, we can use a thesaurus. It is a book...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年01月08日 | Idioms
“Do you need to take a break?” “No, I’ve got my second wind.” If you are doing something tiring, such as working or running, you will, of course, start to feel tired. However, if you just keep going, you may start to feel less tired. This is called getting your second...
