English Recordings

The Reason I Bought DVDs from the UK

The other day, I bought a DVD titled, "The Very Hungry Caterpillar"" from Amazon.co.uk.
先日、私はAmazon.co.ukを利用して「はらぺこあおむし」というＤＶＤを個人輸入しました。

DVD prices are lower in the UK than in Japan, partly because of the strength of the yen.
イギリスのＤＶＤ価格は、円高の恩恵もあり日本のそれよりも廉価です。

However, I think that those of the US are even lower.
しかし、アメリカでの価格はイギリスのそれを下回るように思います。

The reason I bought it from the UK Amazon, as opposed to the US one, is that American DVDs are coded region 1 whereas British DVDs, like Japanese ones, are region 2 so they can also be played in Japan.
それにもかかわらず私がAmazon.co.ukでＤＶＤを購入した理由は、アメリカのＤＶＤがリージョンコード1であるのに対し、イギリスのＤＶＤは日本のデッキで再生することが出来るリージョン2だからです。

Now, I am waiting for my next order to be delivered from the UK.
現在、私は次の注文がイギリスから届くのを待っています。

It has already been shipped and is estimated to arrive sometime between 19 Jan - 27 Jan 2012.
それらは既に発送されており、配達予定日は1月19日から27日の間です。

I bought thirteen DVDs including Evangelion 2.22 and all together (postage included) it cost approximately 5,000 yen.
私は「ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：破」を含む13枚のＤＶＤを購入し、送料込みで約5,000円の代金がかかりました。

In Japan, the DVD of Evangelion 2.22 alone costs 6,000 yen!
一方、日本では「ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版：破」は1枚の定価が6,000円です。

Good bargain, don't you think?!
とても良い買い物をしたと思いませんか。

They edited out all the nudity.
That's just the writer's seudonym.
That is one of the great classics of Western literature.
That work was the author's unfinished masterpiece.
It made the best seller list.
Her manuscripts were discovered and published posthumously.
That piece is in the complete works but not the anthology.
That work went into several editions.
That's just a reprint not a new edition.
That novel is the last in the trilogy.
The translation beats the original.
The characters are two dimensional.
The author writes beautiful prose.
The text is hard to penetrate.
It's dense, but readable.
The narrative is very lucid.
That book is quite a tome.
It's a fast read.
It's a real page-turner.
It's just a whodunit.
The plot was too complex.
You're left with a lot of loose ends.
It picks up toward the end.
The story runs out of steam in the second half of the book.
It reads like a Harlequin Romance.
It was issued in hardcover, but it's out in paperback now.
You're better off getting a copy of it used.
It's everything you'll ever want to know about love and more.
It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
That book is hard to put down.

I'm going to try to catch the matinee.
Network TV is going downhill.
She rots her brain watching the soaps all day long.
They bleeped out all the four-letter words.
That B-movie must have been edited for TV.
That actress always stars in made-for-TV movies.
Canned laughter really sets my nerves on edge.
He does voice-overs for Disney specials.
The news team is broadcasting live from the scene.
The ratings are pretty high for a new prime time serial.
They had terrible TV coverage of the Olympics.
We had poor TV reception until we got cable.
Commercial sponsors pulled out because the show got controversial.
I set my VCR to tape the eleven o'clock news.
Those TV evangelists buy up Sunday morning cable time.
Saturday morning is all children's programming.
I'm hooked on the theme music to all those old shows.
That footage got aired on all the local affiliates.
They polled the studio audience for responses.
She was just promoted to anchorwoman for the weekend news.
That weatherman always makes sappy jokes.
I watch public TV because it doesn't run commercials.
He is the host for a gameshow.
That song was used for the jingle in my favorite commercial.
He was glued to the TV screen for the whole football season.
The sportscaster was screaming at the top of his lungs.
This episode is the pilot for a new series.
I was all keyed up so I watched the late show to unwind.
I'd rather stay home and watch reruns.
Sitcoms bore me to tears.

The remake outdoes the original.
Is that one based on a true story or is it fictitious?
That movie bombed because it had no plot.
The lead is played by my favorite actress.
The sequel took Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
I'm more into plain black-and-white than color .
That director really keeps you in suspense.
They shot the fight scene on location in L.A.
He had a body-double for the love scene.
I didn't stay to watch the credits.
That film ends on a real cliff-hanger.
It got rated R because of all the gratuitous sex.
Did you get a look at the trailer for that feature film?
They did a rotten job dubbing that film.
Those subtitles whizzed by too quickly for me.
The special effects and the camerawork blew me away.
That movie was pure Hollywood.
That actor made his debut as an extra in a sci-fi thriller.
The man who directed that movie made a big splash at Cannes.
The stuntman was injured in the filming of the chase scene.
I caught a double feature of two silent films.
I'II take a look at the movie pages to see where it's playing.
She got Best Supporting Actress for her role as the female cop.
She's become a star in her own right.
I was really taken by the script.
All the violence and gore really turned my stomach.
The comedy in that film was sort of slapstick.
It was a bit of a tearjerker.
I was riveted to my seat by the action scenes.
It is really unnerving when the sound is out of sync.

My daughter, Jane, never dreamed of receiving a letter from a girl of her own age in Holland. Last year, we were travelling across the Channel and Jane put a piece of paper with her name and address on it into a bottle. She threw the bottle into the sea. She never thought of it again, but ten months later, she received a letter from a girl in Holland. Both girls write to each other regularly now. However, they have decided to use the post office. Letters will cost a little more, but they will certainly travel faster.

Aeroplanes are slowly driving me mad. I live near an airport and passing planes can be heard night and day. The airport was built years ago, but for some reason it could not be used then. Last year, however, it came into use. Over a hundred people must have been driven away from their homes by the noise. I am one of the few people left. Sometimes I think this house will be knocked down by a passing plane. I have been offered a large sum of money to go away, but I am determined to stay here. Everybody says I must be mad and they are probably right.

(Jan 6th 2012)~<My chat with a friend.>Yesterday, one of my friend came to a shopping center near my house in the late afternoon, and then she sent me a text.　So I went to a cafe across from my house,(=So I went to a cafe opposite my house, ) then we had a little chat untill late that evening.　We talked about how difficult it is to educate kids. It was in the newspaper recently.　The question of the hour is the problems in our schools, and we need to find a good and effective solution. It`s really not an easy thing.

Fishing is my favourite sport. I often fish for hours without catching anything. But this does not worry me. Some fishermen are unlucky. Instead of catching fish, they catch old boots and
rubbish. I am even less lucky. I never catch anything -- not even old boots. After having spent whole mornings on the river, I always go home with an empty bag. 'You must give up fishing!' my friends say. 'It's a waste of time.' But they don't realize one important thing. I'm not really interested in fishing. I am only interested in sitting in a boat and doing nothing at all!

'The play may begin at any moment,' I said.
'It may have begun already,' Susan answered.
I hurried to the ticket office. 'May I have two tickets please?'

I asked.
'I'm sorry, we've sold out,' the girl said.
'What a pity!' Susan exclaimed.
Just then, a man hurried to the ticket office.
'Can I return these two tickets?' he asked.
'Certainly,' the girl said.
I went back to the ticket office at once.
'Could I have those two tickets please?' I asked.
'Certainly,' the girl said, 'but they're for next Wednesday's

performance. Do you still want them?'
'I might as well have them,' I said sadly.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
It will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!