English Recordings

1. He appeared as Don Juan.
2. The ghost appeared to him at midnight.
3. He appeared on a charge of murder.
4. By appointment to H.R.H.
5. We've got an appointment.
6. I don't approve of your decision.
7. She doesn't approve of me.
8. I'm apt to be away at the weekends.
9. Only children are apt to be spoiled.
10. He is apt to cause trouble.
11. She came in on her father's arm.
12. I'd give an arm and a leg to have her job.
13. He is a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.).
14. The Smiths asked me to dinner.
15. It's ours for the asking.
16. He asked for it.
17. It was the first time he asked Jane out.
18. The salary attached to the post is £1,000.
19. He is attached to the Russian Embassy.
20. There are no strings attached.
21. The soldiers came to attention.
22. All the soldiers stood to attention.
23. He paid no attention to my warnings.
24. He averaged 100 kms per hour.
25. He averages 12 hours of work a day.
26. He was a man of average height.
27. Next Sunday we are playing away.
28. He is away for a week.
29. Away with you!
30. Away with taxes!
31. He is the baby of the family.
32. She's having the baby in hospital.
33. That's not my baby.
34. The poor woman was left holding the baby.
35. She turned her back on her family.
36. I've got my back to the wall.
37. If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
38. I was glad to see the back of him.
39. I know this region like the back of my hand.
40. The farmhouse was at the back of beyond.

1. Act your age!
2. She doesn't look her age.
3. Age is beginning to tell on him.
4. She has come of age.
5. We are in the atomic age.
6. We've been waiting for you for ages.
7. We are months ahead of schedule.
8. Gloria came to the aid of her boyfriend.
9. They went to the aid of the sinking ship.
10. His only aim in life is to finish his work.
11. He aimed his rifle at me.
12. What are you aiming for in this life?
13. There is something in the air.
14. We are on the air from 7 to 8.
15. We are going to put a new programme on the air.
16. He likes to air his knowledge.
17. Suddenly he vanished into thin air.
18. My girlfriend likes to put on airs.
19. He has the air of a gentleman.
20. Our holiday plans are still up in the air (undecided).
21. All four were there.
22. They chose him, of all people.
23. He advanced on all fours.
24. It cost him all of £100.
25. It was not at all nice.
26. It rarely rains here, if at all.
27. He is about 60 for all I know.
28. The time went by all too quickly.
29. The score stands at 3-all.
30. He was very aloof with me.
31. He is a very aloof person.
32. A cup of coffee would not go amiss.
33. Don't take it amiss.
34. There's something amiss with the machine.
35. He's not exactly the answer to a maiden's prayer.
36. What do you make the answer?
37. Our prayers have been answered.
38. That is the answer to my dreams.
39. I demand an apology.
40. I owe you an apology. 

Since you may have a lot of opportunities to work with foreigners, I think you can understand foreign cultures more correctly than ordinary Vietnamese do. Therefore, it would enable you to create designs based on the foreign cultures. However, it seems to become boring for the Vietnamese. We don’t mean to hide things and intend to develop new products based on facts, but it isn't always case that it’s the best way to tell it how it is. No matter how enthusiastically we may convey the magnificence of Japanese culture, it might be a little boring for the local people. I think it is important to translate the facts into an attractive story for the Vietnamese.What we want you to do is not only creating designs but also making stories which are favorable for them.

All of us in the project team are responsible for not only conducting our specialized tasks but also creating a concept associated with the product.
Of course, designers in Suntory make an overall design for its products.
However, we design not only products as objects but also consumers' perceptions. In other words, we try to design products so that they reflect the consumers' perceptions or needs. It would be no exaggeration to say that what we design is the core value of our brand. We believe that the strength of Suntory's design comes from its designers' deep understanding of consumers.
Generally speaking, designers tend to create something for drawing attention. However, we give first priority to consumers' needs and then design products that bring pleasure amongst them. This is because our business is based on commodities.
Designers in Suntory often attend FGD so that we can make out what consumers anticipate.

I have been working for Suntory as a designer since I joined the company.
I have been in charge of not only designing products but also creating concepts from scratch. In my company, designers are engaged in concept-making, which is different from other food companies in the world.
Most of the food manufacturers don't have in-house designers in the first place.
Even if they do, their in-house designers are normally not in charge of concept-making, to say nothing of their external designers.
This is because most of the companies adopt "the division of labor" like an assembly-line in a factory. In other words, sections of, for example, researching, marketing　and designing, work independently at any stages of product development. In contrast, in Suntory, we designers are always assigned to a project team for product development in which staff members from three different sections, namely, marketers, researchers, and designers, work together to develop a new product by interacting each other. That is why I am engaged in concept-making, too.

We have focused on developing RTD tea products in Japan, which is one of our core competencies. We’d like to break into Vietnamese market by leveraging it. The soft drink market in Japan is fully mature. As for the soft drink market, it would not be overstatement to say that Japan is the most developed country in the world. By Japanese standards, we consider that a category for RTD green tea exists there in Vietnam and they can distinguish green tea from other kinds of soft drinks. However, as a result of the marketing survey what we've learned is that the category for RTD green tea seems to remain obscure in consumer cognition.

Before Maureen reports about the conference in Singapore, I've got an announcement to make about the new printer. As you may already know, we recently bought a new printer that has several useful capabilities. One is that we can now print on both sides of a sheet of paper, which will save a lot of paper. However, this option is a bit slow, so if you need double-sided copies quickly, it's better to use one of the photocopiers. Also, if you're not sure how to connect your computer to the new printer, let Patrick know and he'll show you how.

In spite of the abrupt yen appreciation, the prices of raw materials and crops keep rising, which brings about a lot of trouble to import industries including Suntory.
Under such circumstances, our sales and profits are rising steadily.
We have achieved 6 straight years of earning and revenue growth.
As you know, the world population is over 7billion, while some of the developed countries have the birth rate issue.
Japan is the very country.
According to a national census recently announced by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, the number of population except for foreigners has just started to decrease since records began.
The Japanese market is shrinking.

The last year's turnover of the Suntory group was around $22 billion. The sales of soft-drinks makes up about 60% of the total.The ratio of international sales of Suntory is still 25% at this point, while many Japanese leading companies' such as Toyota and Sony is about to reach 80%.The average ratio of international sales at these listed manufactures is reaching 50%. Compared with this average, Suntory's is quite low. It is often said that it is difficult for indigenous food manufactures such as Suntory to enter into foreign markets. As foods are something indigenous in the first place, it is unsuited for globalization.However, we have to enter into oversea markets because of the birth rate issue.

As I have described before, we also design consumers' perceptions.
It would not be an overstatement to say that this is the way how we define the word "designing' in our company.
We introduce a metaphorical technique to express consumers' perceptions in our designs.Using metaphors into a design is the resource of ideas and also the strength of our design.
We may often see metaphors attached in designs elsewhere.
However, most of them are based merely on visual sense alone.
In our cases, metaphors are mostly based on all of our five senses, namely sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste, which altogether enable us to associate rich and complex memories with our brands.
This is a traditional approach for designing in Japan and also called “Mitate” in our language.
Mitate has also been long used in “Chanoyu”, or our traditional tea ceremony, and “Haiku”, or the shortest poetry since early times.