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Introduction
Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show. This is the first show of season 2.
Long time no see! I hope you had an excellent August.
I’ve been having a great summer surfing in Chiba.
The beach which I was at most of the time is really nice – but unfortunately there’s a lot of rubbish all over the beach. Which is dangerous and looks pretty awful I think. So I spent some time picking some of it up. And I took a few photos of the rubbish too – so the theme for today’s questionanswer: rubbish.
And I learnt a new word today when I was writing the news today: shibboleth. (I think I pronounced that right).
In Wikipedia it says a shibboleth is: “any word or phrase that can be used to distinguish members of a group from outsiders.”
For example during World War 2 when the United States military were looking for Japanese spies they got people to say lollapalooza because Japanese people often have trouble with the English l sound.
And today is the anniversary of 関東大震災, (Kantō daishinsai) which is Great Kanto earthquake in English. That was a huge disaster – and one of the crazy things that happened afterwards was that because of all the panic and confusion there were a lot of false rumours. One of them was that Koreans were poisoning wells. So people started finding Koreans and killing them. And the way they tried to find out if someone was Korean or not was by getting them to say:
15円 50銭 (jū-go-en, go-jū-sen) and がぎぐげご (gagigugego). Because Koreans pronounce J and G differently than Japanese.
So, yeah, it sounds like it was pretty crazy after that earthquake. But hopefully things will be a bit more organized when the next earthquake hits because of all the preparation that people have been doing. Like today all over Japan people have been doing earthquake drills as part of Disaster Prevention Day.
STICK NEWS
Kia Ora, this is Stick News. Today in Japan it’s disaster prevention day and 800,000 people across the country are taking part in earthquake drills.
At 11:58am, on the 1st of September, 1923 an earthquake hit Tokyo.
The magnitude was huge - between 7.9 and 8.4 on the Richter scale.
It was also bad timing. Because it hit at lunch time many people were cooking over fire.
At the time, there was also a typhoon nearby. The strong winds caused the fires to spread rapidly.
More than 100,000 people died.
The earthquake is now known in English as the Great Kanto Earthquake.
In 1960 September 1 was designated as Disaster Prevention Day to commemorate the earthquake and remind people of the importance of preparation.
And that was Stick News for Friday the 1st of September.
Kia Ora.
conversations with sarah
# 79 How was your summer holiday?
Sarah talks about her summer holiday.
Step 1: Repeat Mikako’s lines.
Step 2: Read Mikako’s lines on the screen and talk to Sarah.
Mikako So how was your summer holiday?
Sarah It was good.
Mikako You went surfing, right?
Sarah Yeah. I stayed out in Chiba and went surfing almost every day.
Mikako Almost every day? But you don’t look like you got much of a tan ...
Sarah No. My skin doesn’t go very dark.
Mikako Did you go to any festivals?
Sarah Yeah – I went to two fireworks festivals out in Chiba. How about you?
Mikako I didn’t go to any this year. I don’t really like festivals ...
Sarah Why not?
Mikako I don’t like crowds.
Notes:
Today's news.
Music by Galdson, from Ortigueira, Spain.
From the album Roots. Track 1: Roots.
Used with permisson from jamendo.com
Galdson's site.
Galdson's music at Jamendo
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