English Recordings

Mr.James Scott has a garage in Silbury and now he has just bought another garage in Pinhurst. Pinhurst is only five miles from Silbury, but Mr. Scott cannot get a telephone for his new garage, so he has just bought twelve pigeons. Yesterday, a pigeon carried the first message from Pinhurst to Silbury. The bird covered the distance in three minutes. Up to now, Mr.Scott has sent a great many requests for spare parts and other urgent messages from one garage to the other. In this way, he has begun his own private 'telephone' service.

Clocks and watches are relatively new inventions. Though some timekeeping devices, like sundials and water clocks, have been used for thousands of years, everyday people did not tell time all that often. (The mechanical clock as we know it was invented in the 1200s and was more fully developed in the 1500s.)
In the Roman Empire about 2,000 years ago, the town bell told time for everyone in earshot, but the hours of the day were counted differently than today. In Greek, hour referred to any particular part of the day. In Latin, it came to mean “one twelfth of the day.” There were two cycles of twelve, as there are today, but rather than numbering the hours from midnight, like we do, the hours were numbered from the beginning of daylight. (Other languages, like Swahili, also number the hours in this fashion.)
The twelve-hour day was then divided into four periods of three hours each. The town bell rang at four intervals during the day to signal the time to all who could hear. The first hour, called Prime, rang at 6:00 a.m.; hour three (Terce) rang at 9:00 a.m.; hour six (Sext) rang at 12:00 p.m.; and hour nine (None) rang at 3:00 p.m. The early Catholic Church adopted these daily patterns in their rituals, and monks recited prayers at the canonical hours of terce, sext and none every day.
What does this have to do with “noon”? Well, the word for the ninth hour, specifically the ninth hour of daylight, so 3:00, became “non” in Old English. As church traditions changed, the canonical hours of “non” began to happen earlier, closer to 12:00 p.m. We still don’t know if the time of the midday meal shifted from 3:00 to 12:00 or whether the time of Church prayers shifted, or both, but by the early 1200s, “noon” came to mean midday. In the 1300s, the earliest mechanical clocks showed a 24-hour dial, but by the 1500s, the 12-hour dial, starting at midnight, became standard. (The word afternoon came into common usage around this time as well.)
The nomenclature around time telling has a rich and divergent history. The terms watch, clock, day, time, calendar, years, morning, evening, even a.m. and p.m. each have surprisingly distinct etymologies. Time seems to be one realm where the disparate roots of the English language (Greek, Celtic, Old English and others) fuse with the various social influences on the language (the Catholic Church, political conquests, and foreign invasions).

She sells some apples.
He is single
It has small shirt.
It is small house.
He reads some articles.
She feels stinky.
He has smart kids.
I love jazz song.

I have just received a letter from my brother, Tim. He is in Australia. He has been there for six months. Tim is an engineer. He is working for a big firm and he has already visited a great number of different places in Australia. He has just bought an Australian car and has gone to Alice springs, a small town in the centre of Australia. He will soon visit Darwin. From there, he will fly to Perth. My brother has never been abroad before, so he is fending this trip very exciting.

Have you ever been impressed by art work that appeared to be incomplete or imperfect?

Today, I am trying to talk about a term that is one of the most difficult aspects of Japanese culture for me to describe. In Japanese, it's "wabi-sabi."

At the beginning of this month, I visited a pottery shop with my American friend. As soon as we got into the shop, he picked up a cup on a shelf and told me that it was a Japanese "wabi-sabi" item.

To my shame, I couldn't understand what he meant about the cup on the spot. The cup had some dents and irregular curved lines. I saw the dents as being for practical reasons; putting your fingers into them would help you grasp the cup.

It was kind of a rude awakening of my insensitiveness towards Japanese tradition. I noticed that I had gotten too used to it.

I checked out what "wabi-sabi" was on the internet. As with most Japanese concepts, it has various interpretations, but it comes down to aesthetics. From my view, it could be rustic elegance, refined beauty, and connected to nature.

From an article on the internet: "in the West, the concept of imperfection is frowned upon." "Wabi-sabi" items look like to be far from perfection. However, for a long time, it has to be regarded as things of value in Japan.

Anyway, it might sound weird, but I love it when I can learn about Japanese culture from people from other countries. This is because it pleases me to learn a different point of view regarding Japanese culture.

（^^）

Postcards always spoil my holidays. Last summer, I went to Italy. I visited museums and sat in public gardens. A friendly waiter taught me a few words of Italian. Then he lent me a book. I read a few lines, but I did not understand a word. Everyday I thought about postcards. My holidays passed quickly, but I did not send cards to my friends. On the last day I made a big decision. I got up early and bought thirty-seven cards. I spent the whole day in my room, but I did not write a single card!

I have just received a letter from my old school, informing me that my former headmaster, Mr. Stuart Page, will be retiring next week. Pupils of the school, old and new, will be sending him a present to mark the occasion. All those who have contributed towards the gift will sign their names in a large album which will be sent to the headmaster's home. We shall all remember Mr. Page for his patience and understanding and for the kindly encouragement he gave us when we went so unwillingly to school. A great many former pupils will be attending a farewell dinner in his honour next Thursday. It is a curious coincidence that the day before his retirement, Mr. Page will have been teaching for a total of forty years. After he has retired, he will devote himself to gardening. For him, this will be an entirely new hobby. But this does not matter, for, as he has often remarked, one is never too old to learn.

It was Sunday. I never get up early on Sundays. I sometimes stay in bed until lunchtime. Last Sunday I got up very late. I looked out of the window. It was dark outside. 'What a day!' I thought. 'It's raining again.' Just then, the telephone rang. It was my aunt Lucy. 'I've just arrived by train,' she said. 'I'm coming to see you.'
'But I'm still having breakfast,' I said.
'What are you doing?' she asked.
'I'm having breakfast,' I repeated.
'Dear me,' she said. 'Do you always get up so late? It's one o'clock!'

Last week I went to the theatre. I had a very good seat. The play was very interesting. I did not enjoy it. A young man and a young woman were sitting behind me. They were talking loudly. I got very angry. I could not hear the actors. I turned round. I looked at the man and the woman angrily. They did not pay any attention. In the end, I could not bear it. I turned round again. 'I can't hear a word!' I said angrily.
'It's none of your business,' the young man said rudely. 'This is a private conversation!'

When I entered ABC company, I joined a training program for new employees.
At the end of this program, the human resource department announced where each new employee should be assigned. I was unsurprisingly assigned to the design department. The human resource department gave me an information of a company dormitory where I was supposed to live. According to the information, the dormitory where I was supposed to live was a new annex. What with the word “new annex” and what with the image of ABC company, a conscious company in cultural activities, I guessed the dormitory must have been fantastic. I, however, could’t find any dormitory shown on a map I got form the human resource department. Because it was actually far from my expectation. The dormitory was so dilapidated that I passed it by. Getting to my dormitory, I was taken to my room.I found the room frowsy and hole-in-the-wall. I felt as if I was thrown in jail.Though I had spent three years in Osaka, which is called a merchant city, I couldn't become fond of it. At that time my boss thought that some people should have been transferred to a branch in Tokyo, but there was a problem that most of the people in the design department didn't want to transfer to Tokyo because they had grown up in Osaka and had never been away from Kansai. As for me, I would rather have transferred to Tokyo than have stayed there.
So, I asked my boss to let me transfer to the branch in Tokyo.