Show 216 Tuesday 5 December

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Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.
Today I picked up a magazine in Hirafu at the information center... it’s called the welcome center but it’s basically an information center.
It was a free magazine and there was a sign saying “pick me”.
I don’t know why they wrote pick me. It looks funny to me ... so maybe it was a mistake. Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was on purpose and they meant pick me as choose me not the other things on the shelf. Anyway I didn’t ask them so I don’t know.

I used to point out mistakes to people in restaurants and shops in Japan. Often there are small English mistakes on chalkboards or signs that could easily be changed in a couple of seconds and I thought they would appreciate someone telling them. But I stopped doing it because people didn’t seem happy at all.
I don’t know why. Maybe they just don’t care about the mistakes or maybe they do care but they are really busy and they think that the other things that they have to do are more important.

Anyway back to pick me ... If you wanted to write this sign differently ... Actually I can’t exactly remember how it’s usually written – but it could be something like this: “Free magazine. Please take one.” Or “Take free”.

STICK NEWS

Kia ora in Stick News today a wine in New Zealand has been stripped of its gold medal after it was discovered to be cheating.

New Zealand’s biggest wine show was held in September.
A wine called Wither Hills got a gold medal. The same wine was then sent to a magazine to be judged for their wine rating issue.
One of the judges decided to test the sample bottle against the same wine from the local supermarket. That’s when it was found that something was amiss.
It turns out the wine that won a gold medal was not from the same batch as most of the same wine in the supermarkets.
The gold medal wine was from batch BR315. Only 2228 cases of this batch were made out of a total of 100,000 cases. This gives consumers a 1 in 50 chance of buying the gold medal wine.
According to the competition rules: "the wine supplied must be identical to that made available for sale on the New Zealand market".
So, the wine broke the rules. And yesterday the competition’s chief judge announced that it would be stripped of the gold medal.

The sneaky wine also won a silver medal in another competition. That medal is now under investigation and may also be lost. And that was Stick News for Tuesday the 5th of December.
Kia Ora.

the snow report

This morning I saw someone clearing snow off the post office roof. Ahh so that’s now they do it.
Today I had a great day snowboarding. The mountain was open for the first time all the way down to the bottom so we could have a long run.
This machine was making a lot of noise. I wonder what it is ...
I took some video while snowboarding ... this is probably a really stupid thing to do because if I fall over the camera could break. But anyway.

conversations with sarah
#128 Did you tell them nicely?

Step 1: Repeat Bob’s lines.
Step 2: Read Bob’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Bob Why don’t you point out mistakes anymore?

Sarah Because I almost always got negative reactions.

Bob I wonder why. Did you tell them nicely?

Sarah Yeah, definitely. Well, I mean, I tried to – but I don’t know if it always came across that way.

Bob Maybe they can’t change the mistakes anyway.

Sarah Like if the menus were already printed, you mean?

Bob Yeah.

Sarah Yeah, true. But often it’s on a blackboard or whiteboard so it would only take 2 seconds to change. I used to do the blackboards in a bar that I worked at. If customers told me about a mistake I would always say thanks and change it straight away.

Bob But the people you told didn’t do that?

Sarah Yeah, last year when I was in Hirafu I saw a sign which said “grass wine” instead of “glass wine” so I pointed it out but they didn’t change it. And I went back that shop a couple of times too and they never changed it ... so I wonder why I bothered telling them.

Notes

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