少人数制で楽しく身につく英会話教室・英会話スクールなら「アミックインターナショナル」

My sister who lives in Sapporo sent me this photo the other day.

“My car is covered with snow!  It’s troublesome to remove it before driving!”

I sent back a photo I took while walking around my neighborhood in Saijo.

“Are you all right? LOL”

I like the contrast between the North area and the South area of Japan.

I found blooming apricot trees!  A happy spring is coming!

My sister enjoyed the Snow Festival in Sapporo.

She said the lights and the projection mapping on the snow were beautiful!

Which February do you like better?

Hitomi

重信校に通って頂いている画家のSakamotoさんをご紹介します！

Sakamotoさんが描かれた絵画についての解説を英語でブログにされていて、そのお手伝いをアミックの外国人講師がさせて頂いています。講師も非常に興味深く読ませていただいているそうです。皆さまも是非ご覧ください。

https://www.nihonbijutsu-club.com/az/#info

Here in Japan, we recently celebrated a very fun and unusual holiday on February 3rd– Setsubun. But did you know that the USA also had a very strange and interesting holiday this week?

One of my favorite and one of the most unusual American holidays is celebrated on February 2nd every year. The name of the holiday is “Groundhog Day”, and it celebrates the approach of spring and the end of winter.

A groundhog is a small furry animal that is only a little larger than a rabbit. They live in holes in the ground, and are native to North America.

If you were to see a groundhog, you might not think it’s anything special. But once a year, on Groundhog Day, the groundhog gets its chance to shine. 

According to tradition, when the groundhog comes out of its hole on February 2nd, if it can see its shadow on the ground, that means there will be six more weeks of winter. However, if it doesn’t see its shadow, it means that spring will come early.

Every year, news trucks and reporters flock to a small town in Pennsylvania where the “official” groundhog, named Punxsutawney Phil, lives to see if he spies his shadow. This year, it seems that Phil did not see his shadow, so people in the US can look forward to a short winter and early spring!

It might seem like a very strange and silly tradition, but it’s still a lot of fun.

“Groundhog Day” is also the name of a very funny movie starring Bill Murray that was made in the 1990s. It tells the story of a news reporter who is sent to report on Groundhogs Day, but somehow gets stuck living the day again and again and again and again… I highly recommend this movie for anyone who likes slightly dark humor. 

What are some strange or unusual holidays that you celebrate?

–Veronica

English has one of the largest vocabularies of all the languages in the world. I grew up speaking English so I thought it was normal to often have two words for what is, more-or-less, the same thing. Only when I became a teacher of English did I realise how enormous and complicated the English vocabulary is.

At university I started learning Spanish and I noticed an interesting thing, when there were two words for the same thing in English often the Spanish word would be similar to one English word and not the other. For example, in English ‘decision’ and ‘choice’ have the same meaning, and the Spanish word ‘decisión’ matches the first English word but not the second.

When I researched why this happened I learnt a lot more about the history of the English language, and I understood why English has such a large vocabulary. This short video helps explain the ‘double vocabulary’ of English!

– Helen

This Sunday I will be going to Kagawa Prefecture for the first time ever to visit Kompirasan. This occasion will be a bit more of an event than the average sightseeing visit though. I will be traveling there with my wife and her parents to have what is known as a yakubarai ritual performed for my wife. This ceremonial cleansing from evil influence and bad luck (I’ve also seen “exorcism” as a possible translation for extra theatrics) is usually done the year before maeyaku, or the year before yakudoshi which is the inauspicious year. That’s two years of preparation to soften the impact of the big bad year! It’s an interesting religious custom/superstition and I’m looking forward to observing the ritual firsthand.

Joe