Welcome to E-com's Monthly Videocast. Happy Valentine's!
2010 has started to roll off. How is everybody enjoying their year so far?
Speaking of February, now it's a very good month for girls.
It's an advantage to be a girl. Any idea why?
So, here is a hint: roses.
So, today I would like to kind of introduce to you how we celebrate Valentine's Day in the United States.
Now, there's three important things to remember for Valentine's: roses, romantic dinner, balloons.
Three important key words here.
How we celebrate Valentine's Day in the United States is the guys will get roses,
maybe balloons or plan a very romantic dinner for their girlfriend or their wives.
So, you don't have to be dating in order to have a Valentine's.
You can be married, 'cause husbands plan this as well.
But, Valentine's Day is all about showing the love and the appreciation for your partner, for the woman.
So, unlike Japan, where girls give guys chocolate to say, 'Be my Valentine's.'
It's the other way, the guys will give the girls chocolates or balloons or roses,
but the highlight is the romantic dinner in the evening.
So, remember, next time you go to the United States during this season, be sure to plan ahead of time.
A lot of the restaurants you might see, might be booked with couples and a candlelit dinner.
But, also if you go to the stores, you want to be on the look out for nice balloons
with hearts that says, 'Be my Valentine's.'
That means, I would like you to be my Valentine's during this season.
Now it's time for Japanese English.
Now, have you ever been in a situation where you're talking to your American friend
and you're sure it's English, but they look at you and say, 'Sorry, what did you just say?'
That just might be American English. So, today we are covering situation issues.
Let's take a look at number 1. Have you ever told your friend, 'This is the boom in Japan.'
Your friend's gonna tell you, 'Did something explode?' Boom!
No, this is actually 'fad' or a 'trend'.
So, something that's that's very popular, you can say, 'This is the trend in Japan right now.'
But, you don't want to say, 'This is the boom,'
because they're gonna think, 'Oh no! Something exploded.'
Let's try number 2. Have you ever told your friend, 'I'm going to enter the miss contest.'
They're gonna say, 'Sorry, what kind of contest?'
This is actually 'beauty pageant'.
So, it is not a 'miss contest', but you want to make sure to say, 'beauty pageant',
to show how beautiful you are in a pageant.
The last one, maybe many people say, 'mother's complex' or 'father's complex'.
How many people actually used these words before?
This is actually, 'momma's boy' or 'daddy's girl'.
So, you want to be sure to say if you're talking about 'daddy', it's a girl.
If you're talking about 'Mom', it's a boy.
So, if your friend tells you, your guy friend tells you, 'Sorry, I need to go home, because my mom's gonna get mad.'
You can say, 'Gosh, you're such a momma's boy.'
So, let's not get these wrong.
Maybe next time you can tell your friend, 'You know what? This is the fad in Japan.'
Hope to hear from you.
How was the videocast for this month?
Speaking of February, I kind of remembered something when I was in high school.
During high school Valentine's Day, we would see a lot of girls carrying balloons that said, ’Happy Valentine's Day.’
Or walking around with roses.
This is because the boys in school would order balloons or roses to send to their girlfriend during class.
So, it's not very unusual to see a lot of girls walking around with roses or balloons that says, ’Happy Valentine's Day.’
So, you know, the popular girls, they always have maybe five or six balloons with,
like, a dozen roses and lots of chocolate.
So, maybe next time when you're watching an American drama, like a high school drama,
and you find a scene with girls holding balloons and roses, be sure to know, it's Valentine's season.
For those people who haven't already joined, I would like to introduce you to a new program.
This is called online English lessons.
Here at E-com, we use books, such as these, to provide online lessons for English learners.
So, if you're serious about learning English, give us a call.
We look forward to hearing from you soon.