2023/8/12/SMC

President's remark:

Today he talked about U-tube programs in which foreigners are interviewed. They are asked about their impression about Japan and Japanese culture. They are all friendly so when he walked in a park near his home, he happened to meet a foreign couple. He struck up a conversation and had a kind of happy time with them. If the situation was reversed, I would be overjoyed with a chance of speaking with a local person. We should be more positive about speaking to them, should we not? After all, it would be a waste not to use the ability we have strived to acquire for many years.

Word of the Day: SM Yu. Narisawa

"Procrastinate"

"Procrastinate" describes to delay doing something that you should do, usually because you do not want to do it idling away your time. It’s a disapproving word like “lazy.” This is my usual way of doing.

Examples:

1. People were dying of starvation while governments procrastinated.

2. I need to stop procrastinating and start working on my project.

3. She tends to procrastinate by checking social media instead of doing her

assignments.

4. Procrastinating only leads to unnecessary stress and unfinished tasks.

Be careful:

“Procrastinate” is an intransitive verb.

You don’t have to put any object after the verb.

I always procrastinate when it comes to preparing speech scripts for SMC.

Lecture: SM Eda

"Pronunciation and phonetic symbols"

The lecturer introduced the pronunciation of Enblish consonants including explanation about the movement of the tongue in a very tangble way.

p pen /pen/ s see /siː/

b bad /bæd/ z zoo /zuː/

t tee /tiː/ ʃ shoe /ʃuː/

d did /dɪd/ ʒ vision /vɪʒn/

k cat /kæt/ h hat /hæt/

g get /get/ m man /mæn/

tʃ chain /tʃeɪn/ n now /naʊ/

dʒ jam /dʒæm/ ŋ sing /sɪŋ/

f fall /fɔːl/ l leg /leg/

v van /væn/ r red /red/

θ thin /θɪn/ j yes /jes/

ð this /ðɪs/ w wet /wet/

(The rest is omitted.)

Table Topic Speech

1) Don't give children allowance.

2) Electronic textbooks don't have the same impact as the printed version.

3) You can lose weight without excersizing.

4) All couples must live together before getting married.

5) Peopel should be considered adults at 21.

Prepared Speech

1) Meeting my friends again: SM Yoko Narisawa

The other day, I went to 国立新美術館 in Roppongi in order to watch calligraphy exhibits with my friend. Her work was accepted for 毎日書道展. Since I know nothing about calligraphy, she gave me a detailed explanation of them. I was surprised to hear that she tried to write it about 100 times in order to finish one piece. If she makes a mistake along the way, she has to write all over again. It takes a lot of patience.

She always puts a great effort into polishing up her skills. She has the determination to head straight toward her goals. I’m proud of her.

Last week, in Yokohama, I met four female friends of mine who used to be my collegues long,long time ago. The meeting is our annual event at this time of the year. We had so much fun we forgot about the time and talked a lot with each other over lunch. I’d like to share one interesting story I heard from one of them.

Her husband used to be an NHK announcer. He is still active in various fields. The other day he appeared on TV program ‘ 開運なんでも探偵団　’as a guest. He had a small picture painted by 草間彌生 appraised. He bought it for 70 thousand yen about 15 years ago. He estimated its price at most 200 thousand yen. But to his surprise, it seemed to be worth 3 million yen. He thinks he’ll keep ir for the time being, and my friend expects to become much more valuable in the near future.

It was a lot of fun to meet old friends. I had a stimulating and exciting time with them.

2) A secret method of learning English: SM Kei Narisawa

The speaker started his speech with how strong the Japanese boxer Naoya Inoue is. He focused his attention on his back muscle, the part of the body which no one care too much about. Sure enough, back muscle is the most neglected but most essential muscle for athletes. Likewise, there has to be something most important to acquire in learning English. That's his secret. It is ch...gpt.

3) Phobias: SM Takahata

The speaker talked about strong fear that she feels when moving at high speeds or dropping suddenly, so she is not fan of roller coasters. And she introduced some phobias that are collectively known as "specific phobias", like achrophobia, claustrophobia, androphobia, gynophobia, trypophobia and so on. Her brother-in-law has a fear of spiders. She said that most people might have a "dislike", if not "phobia", that doesn't disturb your daily life.

Meeting Schedule

In-person: 9:30 AM on Aug.26 at Oyama Community Center (tea room)

(Coordinator: SM Takahata, Word of the Day: SM Noro, Lecturer: SM Kei Narisawa)

Zoom: 7:30 PM on Aug. 17 and 28