実践ビジネス英語 dictation (aired 3/1,2) - かもめの英語ポケット

こんにちは。実践ビジネス英語"Talk the Talk"コーナーのディクテーションです。番組の2月後半のテーマは、'Shopping Online and Offline'（オンラインとオフラインのショッピング）でした。最近は、店頭で商品をチェックした後、smartphoneを使って最安値販売店を探す、という買い方が主流になっていることや、小さな個人商店が大型店に対抗するための工夫などが話題になりました。"Talk the Talk" ではHeatherさんの「shopping にできること」が語られます。「かもめの単語帳」は、よくHeatherさんが口にされる 'gut' について。

（S: 杉田敏先生　H: Heather Howard さん）

Shopping Online and Offline

S: Now, in our current vignette, the H&B staff discuss the vanishing boundary between online and in-store shopping. Umemura Seiji, for example, says many customers are now doing online research before making in-store purchases. Do any of your friends in the States do this, Heather?

H: They do. One man I know decided to buy a new camera before a trip to Europe last year, so he searched various retailers' websites to find the best deal on the model he liked and he then went to a local outlet of the winning retailer to actually purchase it.
Another friend of mine buys much of his clothing online, because stores usually don’t carry the small sizes he wears. However, he goes to the actual stores first to check out the fabrics and designs. He does the same thing with furniture. Oh, and he has also confessed to buying books online that he sees in bookstores.

S: The discussion eventually turns to how smaller retailers can compete with the big players who can offer lower prices, free shipping, and easy-to-use shopping apps. Lyons says there are people, himself included, who deliberately patronize smaller businesses.

H: I’ve done that myself sometimes and probably should do it more in the future. When I replaced my futons, for example, I bought the new ones from a small store near my home. I’m sure I could’ve gotten a lower price from a big retailer, but I wanted to use that store, you know, a family-owned business; it’s been in the neighborhood for years; the service was warm and personable.
As I recall, they were able to deliver the futons almost immediately, because they were located so close to my home. If we all bought from stores like this, even just every so often, it would be an enormous boost to local businesses and communities.
I was reading the other day about a languishing small county in the United States, where more than half the residents were driving to another county to shop in larger stores. Local high school students devised a plan calling on residents to spend just 10 percent more of their disposable income in the community, which calculated would boost the local economy by 7 million dollars.

S: Hmm. A good simple idea. Did it work?

H: Like gainbusters. A year after the project's launch, the amount of money spent in the county had risen by over 15 million dollars, more than double the students' goal. This led to higher tax revenues, which provided funds for other projects to rejuvenate the area.

S: Finally, Collins and Lyons talk about the difficulty of choosing from among the numerous products and purchasing options available. And Lyons recommends going with one’s gut feelings in such a situation.

H: Absolutely. I'm a big believer in going with the gut, in both big and small situations. Many of the wrong decisions I've made in my life were ones in which I ignored my instincts telling myself, for example, “Oh, I can find the time to do X,” instead of listening to that little voice saying, “Oh, no, you can't. Your schedule’s packed already.”

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かもめの単語帳

“I'm a big believer in going with the gut, in both big and small situations.”
( 大事小事において、直感に従うのが私の主義です)

be a believer in... : 〜を信じている
gut : 直感、本能。'gut feeling'は「勘、虫の知らせ」、'guts'は「内臓、根性」の意。

“Many of the wrong decisions I've made in my life were ones in which I ignored my instinct..."
( これまで、自分の決断が間違っていたとき、その多くは直感に従わなかった時でした)

wrong : 誤った
decision: 決定、決心
ignore : 無視する
instinct : 本能

とてもHeatherさんらしい〜と思いました。Dictationも、続けると人柄が伝わるものですね。ちなみに、talk中のlocal high schoolはSouth Dakota州Miner County(郡)の、その名もHoward High Schoolのようです。

最後までお読みくださり、ありがとうございました！