2011/3/31 Thurs.
Business Communication in Action 実践ビジネス英語
Hello, everybody.こんにちは。みなさん。
Hello, everybody.こんにちは。みなさん。
Hello and welcome to the show.
This is Heather Howard.
Let's take a look at conversation at work.
April Fools (2)
Hughes urges Kim to check the date and she realizes it's April Fool's Day.
Wakimoto, Goto and Kim admit they were taken in.
Goto says this was her first personal experience with the tradition of putting pranks
on April 1st and that was an interesting cross-cultural experience.
Hughes apologizes and says he chose people he knew would take the joke as well.
hold your horses:
Right. This means stop, slow down, be patient.
The image is not of someone actually touching the body of a horse which might
be dangerous, but of keeping the reins tight to stop the horse or keep it still.
Hughes could also have said though, "Whoa! or Whoa there!"
Those are commands originally used on horses, oxen, other draft animals.
We can use it towards people to mean stop, calm down, slow down
depending on the situation.
But given the animal connection, it's very informal.
So we should be careful who we say it to.
Whoa! Stop! Calm down!
Right. To see something coming means to anticipate it, to expect it.
And "hook, line and sinker" comes from fishing.
The idea is that the person believed something completely.
So they swallowed not just the hook with the bait on it but the fishing line and
the sinker too.
Wakimoto also could have said, "I swallowed it hook, line and sinker."
A practical joke is a specific kind of joke.
It's one that aims to trick people or embarrass them, not just make them laugh.
For example, a practical joke might be tying someone's shoe laces together
so they fall over when they get up.
Firsthand refers to personal: personal experience.
Second is often used to mean used: like we would say, a secondhand clothes shop.
hear it firsthand 直接に聞く
hear it secondhand 人づてに聞く
My apologies.
Yes and if you'd like to apologize in a more formal manner, for example,
in a business letter, you can write things or say things like:
I would like to offer my apologies. Or I would like to extend my apologies.
This sentence has a couple of good expressions.
One is kick myself, kick oneself which you use when you're very angry,
you're frustrated with yourself over something, like:
"I could kick myself for missing that deadline."
And then there's "see through", which means to understand or realize the true nature
of something, you know, not to be fooled by an outward appearance,
like, for example, she saw through his elegance and realized he was actually insecure.
"Handle" is used frequently to mean deal with or respond to.
Besides jokes, for example, it can be used with things like:
She doesn't handle criticism well. Or he can't handle earthquakes.
handle a client クライアントの扱い
That's all for today.
Thanks for listening. See you soon.