By junko & kaori
身の回りのあれこれを題材に、日常会話で使えるフレーズを紹介＆解説します。楽しく英語を学びましょう！
Hi, everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. First of all, we apologize we haven't been updating the podcast for nearly two months. And we have an announcement: Time for English is moving to a new website. You...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the word "pet peeve"? A peeve is something that annoys you. A pet peeve is a minor annoyance that makes you upset or slightly angry whenever that...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. When you exercise, you want to make sure to stay well hydrated. And what does that mean? Well, it simply means to drink a lot of water. The verb "hydrate" means...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. If a meteorologist says in the morning "Another hot day is expected today in Tokyo, with highs in the upper 30s", make sure to stay cool and well hydrated. Today, you're...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. If you ask me if it pays to be able to speak English, my answer is definitely yes. It pays to be fluent in English. You can enjoy books and...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. During the Olympics, I often get this question: Should the Olympics take a singular verb or a plural verb? Singular means one. Plural means more than one. Actually, you can find...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "to have big shoes to fill"? Let's say, your boss is leaving the company, and you're filling his shoes. It means you're taking over his...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Today, I'm going to talk about the words "vaccine", "vaccinate", and "vaccination". A vaccine is a medicine. It makes you less likely to get a disease or virus. Each vaccine protects...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Vaccination rates are definitely rising, but so is the number of infected individuals in Tokyo. Under the circumstances, it seems wearing a mask is still a part of our daily...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. If an event is held no matter whether it rains or the sun shines, it's a "rain or shine" event. Some people say it's raining "cats and dogs" when it's...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. I think many of you are familiar with the idiom "When it rains, it pours". First, let's look at the verb "to pour". To pour in this idiom means to rain...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Here's another rain idiom for you: Last summer all residents of Japan received 100,000 yen cash handouts due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than spending it right away, I guess some...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. If an event is held regardless of the weather, it's a "rain or shine" event, as you learned last week. For example, you're planning a barbeque party this coming weekend....
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. When it rains, some outdoor events and activities, like baseball games, open-air concerts or barbecues, are cancelled or postponed. They are "rained out". There are other events, however, that won't be...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. When you're watching weather news on TV from the US, especially around this time of year, you're likely to see weather people using the phrase "a chance of rain". Are...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Today, I'm going to talk about the word "lift". To lift means to move something from a lower to a higher position. For example, you lift your glass to make a...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. I was translating a document and came across this idiom: There's an elephant in the room. Are you familiar with the expression? Elephants are big animals. In fact, they're the largest...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. When a meteorologist says there's a 70% chance of rain in Tokyo and 60% in Osaka today, it's a little more likely to rain in Tokyo than in Osaka. That...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Here's a quiz for you: What do the words plumber, bomber and climber have in common? The answer is (that) they all have the silent B in them. In English, some...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "something holds water"? To hold water literally means to contain water without leaking. But it's also used figuratively as an idiom. Collins Dictionary explains, for...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Last week, I talked about synonyms. Today, we're going to look at antonyms. Antonyms are the opposite of synonyms. If two words are antonyms, they have opposite meaning. For example, the opposite...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Last time, I talked about WHY and HOW COME. They mean the same thing. In other words, they are synonymous. If two words are synonyms, they have the same meaning or...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Some people use "how come" to mean "why". "How come" is another way to say "why". In other words, when you want to know the reason for something, instead of...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Last week, I used the word "symptom". I want to talk a little more about this word today. So, what is a symptom? A symptom is a sign that you have an...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Spring is coming, and so is the pollen. I'm already suffering from hay fever. Do you know what hay fever is? Hay fever is an allergic reaction to pollen. Pollen...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Last week, two phrases "look up to" and "look down on" were cited as examples of phrasal verbs. Today, let's make sure we know what they mean. If you look up...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Many verbs in English are followed by an adverb or a preposition or even both, like pick up, turn on, and get on with. They're called "phrasal verbs". A phrasal verb...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. A recent post by Business Insider, which is one of my favorite business publications, talks about how Japan has been dealing with the pandemic. The title of the post says...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Today, I'd like to talk about the word "stuck” because it's timely and relevant to all of us, for right now everyone is stuck at home because of the covid-19. When...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. I was in a business meeting the other day. And a gentleman also attending the meeting said, "You can't compare apples to oranges". Are you familiar with the expression "apples...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "throwing a wrench, or a monkey wrench, in the works"? A wrench is a tool that is used to tighten or loosen nuts and bolts. To...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Dictionary.com named the word "pandemic" its Word of the Year. Interestingly, its users' choice was different. They chose the word "unprecedented" as the People's Choice 2020 Word of the Year. Are...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. According to recent news from Reuters, Australia has secured to date 135 million vaccine doses for COVID-19 from multiple companies including Novavax, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and CSL. And Prime Minister Scott...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Recently, I read an article from the Guardian which was about the Oxford English Dictionary being unable to choose one single word as the word of the year for 2020....
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "the name of the game"? It's not about Minecraft or Fortnite. "The name of the game" is an idiom which means something that you must...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Today, I'm going to talk about the idiom "in a nutshell". Are you familiar with the phrase? When you say "in a nutshell", it means that you want to describe something...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. I was reading a book the other day, when I came across an expression "behind closed doors". Are you familiar with the phrase? Let's imagine: There's a room in front of...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "to put something on the back burner"? Let's think of a kitchen stove. Mine is a two-burner gas stove. Two burners are placed side by...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Just imagine: There's half a glass of water in front of you. Now, do you see it as half full, or half empty? It's a common question used as a psychological...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. I was walking down the street in the neighborhood. There were two girls walking just in front of me. One of the girls was wearing a tee shirt with a...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Do you subscribe to a newspaper, or a magazine, or any video services like Netflix? Taking out or buying a subscription means paying a certain amount of money regularly, like monthly...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. A few days ago I met up with a friend for lunch at a café. When she arrived, the first thing she said wasn't hi or hello or great to...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "to hit the books"? It's not about smacking or beating your books. You're not literally hitting the books. Instead, to hit the books means to...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Have you taken advantage of the GO TO TRAVEL campaign? Well, I haven't. I can't, actually. The government has decided that Tokyo is excluded from the campaign. I'm a Tokyo resident,...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Are you familiar with the expression "for here or to go”? If you want to say it in a complete sentence, you can say "Is that for here or to...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. As we promised last week, we're going to divide an hour into quarters today and learn how to use the word "quarter" to express time. First of all, a quarter means...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. Today we're going to look at the word "quarter". It's important to be able to use "quarter" in daily conversation in English, as effortlessly as you would use the word...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. The rainy season has officially begun. According to the Meteorological Agency, it begun on June 5 in the Kanto region; three days earlier than average and two days later than...
Hi everyone! Thank you for tuning in to Time for English. More people are now working from home, at least some days a week, due to the pandemic. Working from home, working remotely, teleworking or telecommuting, you can call it in different...
