こんにちは😊
今日はThe Japan Timesより「Drawing on Seattle startup revolution, Fukuoka angling to be entrepreneur hub」という記事の
ご紹介です。
福岡市のスタートアップ企業のこと、福岡市が日本人だけでなく、外国人にとっても起業する街として
いかに魅力的かということなど書かれていますので是非読んでみてくださいね。
ますます活気を増し、グローバル化が進む福岡。ワクワクしますね。
こんにちは😊
今日はThe Japan Timesより「Drawing on Seattle startup revolution, Fukuoka angling to be entrepreneur hub」という記事の
ご紹介です。
福岡市のスタートアップ企業のこと、福岡市が日本人だけでなく、外国人にとっても起業する街として
いかに魅力的かということなど書かれていますので是非読んでみてくださいね。
ますます活気を増し、グローバル化が進む福岡。ワクワクしますね。
こんにちは😊
今日はThe Washington PostよりExecutive Order(大統領令)についての記事のご紹介です。
先日、トランプ大統領が難民とイスラム圏7カ国からの入国を禁止する大統領令を出したことで、
全米の空港でデモが行われ、世界からも批判の声が上がっていますが
そもそもExecutive Orderって何?って思われている方もいらっしゃるんではないでしょうか。
下記The Washington Postの記事に、Executive Orderとは何なのか、
どのようになされるのか、またこれまでどのようなExecutive Orderが出されたかなど
説明されていますので、気になる方は是非読んでみて下さい。
英語レベルは(中)上級です!!チャレンジしてみてくださいね。
____________________________________________________
こんにちは😊
今日はBBC NEWSよりご紹介です。
少し前になりますが、イギリスBBC の「100 Women 2016」に
キャスターの小林麻央さんが選ばれましたね。
BBC の「100 Women 2016」は記事中にも書いてありますが、
毎年、世界でもっとも影響力がありインスピレーション(感動/勇気)を与えた女性100人が
選ばれるものです。
(ミシェル・オバマ前大統領夫人のスピーチの記事に続き、
影響力のある女性シリーズになりますが、ご了承くださいね。)
少し長めの記事ですが、麻央さんが書いているブログ「KOKORO」から
引用、英訳されている部分がほとんどですので、
麻央さんのことを少しでもご存知の方には読みやすい内容となっていると思います。
英単語や英表現も少し辞書を使えば、難しくないと思います。
英語で読んでも、とても心に響く、勇気づけられる内容ですので
是非是非読んでみてくださいね。
____________________________________________________
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こんにちは😊
今日はMichelle Obama大統領夫人のファーストレディーとしての最後のスピーチをご紹介したいと思います。
健全なライフスタイルや女子教育の推進、軍人家族の支援に力を入れてきたミシェル夫人、
初の黒人のファーストレディーとして、マイノリティーのロールモデル(模範となる人)として多大なる影響を与えてきました。
1月6日のホワイトハウスで教育関係者が集まる式典でのスピーチですが、日本人の私たちにとっても、とてもパワフルで勇気付けられるメッセージです。
以下、CHANNEL NEWSASIAの記事に力強いメッセージが抜粋されていますので是非読んでみて下さい。
またスピーチの動画も添付しております。動画ではオバマ夫人の感極まった様子が伺えます。
*Photo from WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
___________________________________________________
7 JAN 2017
WASHINGTON: Michelle Obama urged young Americans not to fear the future but fight for it, delivering an emotive farewell speech on Friday (Jan 6) in which she said being first lady was the greatest honour of her life.
After eight years in the White House, the 52-year-old will be leaving with her husband Barack Obama on Jan 20, when Donald Trump is sworn in as president.
“For all the young people in this room and those who are watching, know that this country belongs to you, to all of you, from every background and walk of life,” she said in the East Room of the White House.
“Being the first lady has been the greatest honour of my life,” she said at an event for School Counsellor of the Year. “I hope I have made you proud.”
As first lady, Obama focused her public role on encouraging healthy lifestyles, education for girls and in supporting military families.
But it was as a role model for minorities that the first African-American first lady wielded the most influence – most spectacularly by denouncing Donald Trump’s attacks on immigrants and Muslims during the White House race.
“If you or your parents are immigrants, know that you are part of a proud American tradition,” she told the audience.
“With a lot of hard work and a good education, anything is possible, including becoming president. That’s what the American dream is all about,” she said.
“Know that religious diversity is a great American tradition too,” Obama said. “Our glorious diversity is what makes us who we are.”
During last year’s campaign Obama was a vociferous critic of Trump.
She made no direct reference to the president-elect Friday but the mogul’s victory framed her remarks.
“You cannot take your freedom for granted,” Obama said. “You have to do your part to protect and preserve those freedoms.”
“So don’t be afraid – you hear me young people? Don’t be afraid, be focused, be determined, be empowered … lead by example, with hope, never fear.”
In a speech delivered in New Hampshire in October, a few weeks before the election, the first lady had denounced, her voice trembling with emotion, what she called Trump’s “frightening” attitude towards women.
“It has shaken me to my core in a way that I couldn’t have predicted,” Obama said, in a takedown of the now president-elect that sent shockwaves around the country and beyond.
“This is not normal. This is not politics as usual. This is disgraceful. It is intolerable,” she charged.
In addition to her work combating obesity and assisting veterans’ families, over the last two years Obama has spoken more pointedly on questions of race and inequality in American society.
A recent Pew Research poll found that 72 per cent of Americans hold a favorable opinion of the first lady.
But despite her political superstar status and a reputation for style, wit and tact, Obama has repeatedly said she has no electoral ambitions herself.
“Michelle will never run for office,” Barack Obama reiterated in an interview several weeks ago. “She is as talented a person as I know. You can see the incredible resonance she has with the American people. But I joke that she’s too sensible to want to be in politics.”
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こちらでスピーチ動画ご覧いただけます。(スピーチ抜粋/字幕付き)
こんにちは😊
今日はBBC NEWSより「Why Japan celebrates Christmas with KFC/ なぜ日本はケンタッキーフライドチキンでクリスマスを祝うのか 」という記事のご紹介です。
グローバルカフェの講師たちも疑問に思っているようで、この話題はこの時期カフェで頻繁にあがっています。
記事中には「クリスマスにはKFC」という習慣がどうやって生まれたのか、またどうやってここまで定着したのかにも言及されていて、とても興味深いです。謎が解けました。
またクリスマスセットの売り上げが年間売り上げの3分の1を占めているというのも驚きですね。
KFCのマーケティングについて書かれていますが、マーケティング専門用語は使われていませんので、
初心者の方も辞書を使いながら是非挑戦してみてください。
____________________________________________________
By Eric Barton
19 December 2016
Every Christmas, Ryohei Ando gathers his family together for a holiday tradition. Just like their father did as a child, his two children will reach deep into a red-and-white bucket and pick out the best piece of fried chicken they can find.
Yes, it’s a Merry KFC Christmas for the Ando family. It may seem odd anywhere outside Japan, but Ando’s family and millions of others would never let a Christmas go by without Kentucky Fried Chicken. Every Christmas season an estimated 3.6 million Japanese families treat themselves to fried chicken from the American fast-food chain, in what has become a nationwide tradition.
“My kids, they think it’s natural,” says Ando, a 40-year-old in the marketing department of a Tokyo sporting goods company.
While millions do celebrate Christmas with KFC, others in Japan treat it as a romantic holiday similar to Valentine’s Day, and couples mark the occasion with dinner in upscale restaurants. For other Japanese families, Christmas is acknowledged but not celebrated in any particular way.
But for those who do partake, it’s not as simple as walking in and ordering. December is a busy month for KFC in Japan – daily sales at some restaurants during the Christmas period can be 10 times their usual take. Getting the KFC special Christmas dinner often requires ordering it weeks in advance, and those who didn’t will wait in line, sometimes for hours.
The genesis of Japan’s KFC tradition is a tale of corporate promotion that any business heading to Japan ought to study, one that sounds almost like a holiday parable.
According to KFC Japan spokeswoman Motoichi Nakatani, it started thanks to Takeshi Okawara, the manager of the first KFC in the country. Shortly after it opened in 1970, Okawara woke up at midnight and jotted down an idea that came to him in a dream: a “party barrel” to be sold on Christmas.
Okawara dreamed up the idea after overhearing a couple of foreigners in his store talk about how they missed having turkey for Christmas, according to Nakatani. Okawara hoped a Christmas dinner of fried chicken could be a fine substitute, and so he began marketing his Party Barrel as a way to celebrate the holiday.
In 1974, KFC took the marketing plan national, calling it Kurisumasu ni wa Kentakkii, or Kentucky for Christmas. It took off quickly, and so did the Harvard-educated Okawara, who climbed through the company ranks and served as president and CEO of Kentucky Fried Chicken Japan from 1984 to 2002.
The Party Barrel for Christmas became almost immediately a national phenomenon, says Joonas Rokka, associate professor of marketing at Emlyon Business School in France. He has studied the KFC Christmas in Japan as a model promotions campaign.
“It filled a void,” Rokka says. “There was no tradition of Christmas in Japan, and so KFC came in and said, this is what you should do on Christmas.”
Advertisements for the company’s Christmas meals show happy Japanese families crowding around barrels of fried chicken. But it’s not just breasts and thighs – the meals have morphed into special family meal-sized boxes filled with chicken, cake, and wine. This year, the company is selling Kentucky Christmas dinner packages that range from a box of chicken for 3,780 yen, ($32), up to a “premium” whole-roasted chicken and sides for 5,800 yen. According to KFC, the packages account for about a third of the chain’s yearly sales in Japan.
It also helped that the stores dressed up the company mascot, the smiling white-haired Colonel Sanders, in Santa outfits. In a country that puts high value on its elders, the red satin-suited Sanders soon became a symbol of a holiday.
This phenomenon is unique to Japan – and can seem strange to some outside the country. The idea is unlikely to take off in the home of KFC, says Kevin Gillespie, chef of two restaurants in Atlanta, Georgia.
“KFC on Christmas. It’s one of the strangest things I’ve heard,” Gillespie says. “If you brought a bucket of fried chicken to Christmas dinner, honestly, I’d be mad at you.”
It isn’t a crack on KFC’s products necessarily, says Gillespie. The general idea of bringing fast food to Christmas dinner “would be viewed as rude by most anyone,” Gillespie says.
In Japan, however, where around 1% of the population is Christian, Christmas isn’t an official holiday, Rokka says. So the idea that families are going to spend all day cooking a ham or turkey and side dishes just isn’t practical. Instead, they show up with a bucket of chicken.
“This is another sign of globalisation, where consumer rituals spread to other countries and often get translated in different ways,” Rokka says. “It’s not abnormal now to have an Ikea store everywhere in the world. This KFC for Christmas is just taking our consumerism and turning it into a holiday.”
Having done some travelling abroad, Ando knows that his country might is alone in celebrating Christmas with a bucket of KFC. But for him, he sees the tradition as more than just a company promotion.
For Ando, he’s still planning to get KFC for his kids this year. But he goes to a bakery for the Christmas cake. On Christmas night, the family will gather around the KFC bucket, just as Ando once did as a child, and just as his children will do in another generation.
“It’s kind of a symbol of family reunion,” Ando says. “It’s not about the chicken. It’s about getting the family together, and then there just happens to be chicken as part of it.”
Photo from © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons
こんにちは😊
イギリスEU離脱のニュースに続き、今回のUS大統領選挙の結果には驚きましたね。
アメリカ国内ではデモが行われたり、真偽は分かりませんがカリフォルニア州がアメリカから独立する話まで出てますね。
トランプ氏の政治家としての手腕や政策がまだまだ未知なので、とても不安です。
外交政策もとても気になりますよね。
日本人にとっては日米同盟、日米安全保障条約、TPPなど気になる点は多数です。
他にも中東政策や気候変動の問題に対する姿勢など挙げだすとキリがないですよね。
以下 The Japan Times の記事はアジア政策や日本への影響について書かれています(記事を読んでも未知は解決しませんが)
是非読んでみてください。
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9 Nov, 2016
The victory of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump invoked memories of June’s Brexit vote, a reminder that the unexpected can always happen.
For Japan, a Trump presidency could mean more headaches, as he is new to politics, to say nothing of diplomatic expertise. In essence, the billionaire businessman represents uncharted waters, a situation that could undermine the Japan-U.S. alliance and upend regional security in Asia.
“It’s a complete mystery to me what his Asia policy is going to be. He lacks experience, he does not understand the subtlety and complexity of the regional picture,” said Andrew Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia University.
It is unclear to what degree Trump understands the importance and role of his nation’s alliances. Cooperating and coordinating with Asian nations is crucial in dealing with China’s increasing assertiveness in the South and East China seas.
U.S. President Barack Obama’s Asia pivot policy was a priority in his administration, with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton being a chief architect of the strategy to recommit the U.S. to the region to ensure stability. For his part, Trump has not expressed clearly what his policy will be in Asia other than to accuse China of stealing U.S. jobs and manipulating its currency.
For Japan, the biggest concern is how Trump will deal with the U.S. commitment. Clinton was the first secretary of state to announce that Article 5 of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty covers the Senkaku Islands, administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan. The gesture was echoed by Obama.
“It’s unclear if Trump will repeat that line,” said Fumiaki Kubo, a professor of American politics at the University of Tokyo. “The U.S. protested China’s militarization of islands in the South China Sea and conducted freedom of navigation operations in the area, but it is unclear if the U.S. will continue to do so under Trump.”
The real estate mogul also antagonized the U.S. Asian allies Japan and South Korea by accusing them of freeloading under the nuclear umbrella provided by the U.S. He also said U.S. allies have to pay more for the protection of U.S. forces. Japan’s expenditures for the so-called sympathy budget for the U.S. military hit ¥192 billion in 2016 — the highest in seven years.
It is unclear if Trump will really ask Japan to pay more and withdraw U.S. military forces if it does not.
But Ryo Sahashi, associate professor of international politics at Kanagawa University, warned that Trump could potentially ask each of its allies to take more responsibility and defend itself by itself.
“It could mean upgrading of the military capability and a slight increase in the defense budget is not enough,” said Sahashi.
The only thing for sure is that the Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement is almost dead under President Trump, who used anti-globalization rhetoric to attract disgruntled and dissatisfied voters.
While Obama is expected to make a last-ditch plea for Congress to ratify the 12-nation trade deal during the lame-duck session, he is facing staunch opposition from a Republican majority.
“If TPP does not happen, the U.S. will lose credibility among its allies and partners in Asia,” said Sahashi.
While the election results were surprising to many members of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s government, Abe promptly congratulated the former TV celebrity, and lauded him, saying he has not only succeeded in business with his extraordinary talents, and contributed to the U.S. economy, but now he is trying to lead the country itself.
“I am looking forward to working with the president-elect closely to strengthen the U.S.-Japan alliance as well as to take the chief responsibility to secure the peace and prosperity of the Asia Pacific region,” said Abe in his congratulatory statement.
Despite Abe’s words, Tokyo has not invested much in establishing a connection with the Trump camp, while it has maintained strong ties with Clinton, who met with Abe in September in New York while he was attending the United Nations General Assembly.
The only aid of Trump who visited Japan recently was Michael Flynn, who serves as Trump’s military adviser. In order to fill the gap, Tokyo on Wednesday hastily announced that it will dispatch Katsuyuki Kawai, special advisor to Abe, to the U.S. next week to meet the Trump camp.
こんにちは。
今朝、福岡の博多駅前の道路が陥落する事故がありました。
高島市長のフェイスブックによると「陥没直接の人的被害が無かったのは、朝5時に施工業者が地下で出水を発見して、5時10分に通行止めにし、その5分後に陥没が起きたので人や車の通行が無かったという報告を受けています。」とのことで、
けが人がいなくて本当に良かったです。
周辺地域は混乱する恐れもあるだろうし、在福外国人は情報源も少なく困ってしまう状況もあるかもしれません。
ジャパンタイムズのニュースをシェアしますので、外国人に状況を説明する際に参考にしていただければと思います。
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Nov 8 2016
FUKUOKA – A huge sinkhole opened up beneath a major road in downtown Fukuoka on Tuesday morning, disrupting traffic, power supplies and banking systems, with local authorities evacuating nearby areas for fear of more cave-ins.
The police and the city office said they have yet to receive any injury reports.
The site is around the area where construction work is under way to extend the city subway system’s Nanakuma Line. The police and the city are investigating to determine if the sinkhole was caused by the work.
The police are blocking nearby areas and calling on people in buildings near the accident site to evacuate the area.
The road apparently caved in around 5:15 a.m. at an intersection near JR Hakata Station in the capital of the prefecture, the city office said.
TV footage showed the hole filled with water from underground channels.
The city evacuated buildings including several offices near the site at 9:45 a.m., saying there were signs the cave-in could cause buildings to collapse.
Police also told nearby offices and households not to use gas, fearing gas leaks.
The Bank of Fukuoka said its online systems appeared to have been disrupted by the accident.
Fukuoka airport also temporarily experienced blackouts, forcing ticket machines to stop working briefly.
As of 10 a.m., the sinkhole had expanded to 30 meters long, 27 meters wide and 15 meters deep.
Some 800 households were affected by blackouts early in the morning, but power was restored gradually, reducing the number of affected households to about 170 as of 9:20 a.m., according to Kyushu Electric Power Co.
“When I came to the office, police instructed us to get out of the building. It seems like I need to stay at home for now,” said Tsuyoshi Ito, 48, who works near the accident site.
Another person who was in a nearby building said: “The lights suddenly went out and there was a big heavy sound. When I went out, there was a huge hole.”
In the past few years, there have been cases in which underground construction work has caused roads to cave in.
In October 2014, about three meters of road in the city of Fukuoka caved in several meters near where construction to move sewage was under way. No one was injured.
Last December, a sidewalk located in front of a building construction site in the city of Nagoya caved in about 5 meters deep. No one was injured but the site was about 300 meters from the Nagoya Railroad Co.’s Nagoya Station. A construction failure in a concrete wall between the sidewalk and the construction was blamed for the cause.
Also in Nagoya in June, several roads and part of a park sunk in near a site where construction was under way to build a tunnel to store rainwater.
こんにちは😊
今日も先日に続き、The Japan Timesからの記事です。
都市部にお住いの方は特に日々肌で感じることが多いと思いますが、
来日外国人増加に関するニュースです。
数字、統計を引用したニュースに頻出する表現がたくさん含まれていましたので、選んでみました。
日本を訪れる外国人が増えているという嬉しいニュースですし、英会話力の必然性も増しますね。
以下、The Japan Timesからの記事です。
____________________________________________________
21 Sep 2016
The estimated number of foreign visitors to Japan in August rose 12.8 percent from a year earlier to 2,049,200, a record high for August and topping 2 million for the second straight month, the Japan Tourism Agency said Wednesday.
The number of foreign visitors from January through August this year totaled 16,059,500, up 24.7 percent. The number exceeded 15 million at a faster pace than last year, when the number of foreign visitors for the entire year was a record high.
The number of foreign visitors in the first eight months of last year was 12,875,256, and 19,737,409 for the entirety of 2015.
As major factors behind the record number of visitors in August, the Japan Travel Agency cited increased port calls by cruise ships, airlines launching new routes and an increase in the number of flights, as well as continuous visit-Japan campaigns.
However, the year-on-year increase in August remained below 20 percent for the second consecutive month, following a 19.7 percent rise in July.
By country and region, the greatest number of visitors — some 677,000 — came from China, followed by 458,900 from South Korea and 333,200 from Taiwan.
Visitors from Southeast Asia increased notably, with Indonesia logging the largest increase of 30.9 percent, followed by Malaysia with a 26.0 percent rise and Vietnam with 24.9 percent.
rose XXX percent from 〜 〜からXXXパーセント増加(上昇)した
record high 過去最高の
up XXX percent XXXパーセント上昇した
at XXX pace XXXのペースで
for the second consecutive month 2ヶ月連続で
By country and region 国、地域別では
こんにちは😊
今日はThe Japan TimesのLIFEのコーナーより、豚骨ラーメンに関する記事です。
福岡人としては見逃せない記事ですね。
世界の住みやすい街の7位にランクした福岡は、美味しい食べ物で有名ですが、
豚骨ラーメンのことを語らずして福岡は語れません。
しかしながら、ラーメンを知らない人に豚骨ラーメンの説明を英語でするのはなかなか難しいです。
スープのことや替玉や屋台のことなど、ときどきカフェでも話題に上がっていますが
なかなか説明が難しいですね。
またラーメンの発祥の話は福岡の人にも面白く読んで頂けると思います。
以下、参考になる表現がたくさん含まれていますので是非参考にしてみてくださいね。
こちらのブログも合わせてどうぞ⇩
【英語で何て言う?】英語での説明のコツ/ お好み焼き、豚骨ラーメン、明太子
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16 Sep 2016
Fukuoka was named the world’s seventh most-livable city by Monocle magazine this year for its eco- and business friendly initiatives — but its status as a ramen mecca couldn’t have hurt. Within Japan, Fukuoka is known, perhaps more than anything else, for tonkotsu (pork bone) ramen, thanks in part to local ramen giants Ippudo and Ichiran. Both of these mega-chains make Hakata-style ramen: tonkotsu broth cooked at a rolling boil and served with thin, sturdy noodles. Thanks largely to the success of Ippudo and Ichiran, this basic style — named for the Hakata neighborhood where it was born — has become synonymous with tonkotsu ramen itself. Hakata ramen may loom large in Fukuoka, but other local styles still shine in its shadow.
While the smell of pork-bone broth being made is not exactly mouthwatering, it contains a promise of lip-smacking results. A short walk from Hakata Station, the acrid stench of boiling bones can be detected long before Hakata Issou is in sight. Open since 2012, Hakata Issou (www.hakata-issou.com) has made its mark on Fukuoka with what it dubs “Neo-Hakata” ramen. The rich and slightly sour broth is handmade, resulting in a delicate froth that fans call “tonkotsu cappuccino.” Each bowl is topped with locally sourced roast pork, scallions, nori and wood ear mushrooms.
The ramen world is full of apocryphal tales. The story of another local style, Nagahama, dates to 1953 when a fish factory relocated to Fukuoka’s Nagahama district. Its workers wanted a quick meal with no fuss, and so an enterprising ramen chef obliged by cutting ultra-thin noodles that could cook in an instant. Die-hard Nagahama ramen fans order their noodles kona-otoshi: dipped in boiling water only long enough to remove the excess flour before being dropped into a bowl of steaming tonkotsu broth.
Ramen lore also has it that kaedama, the practice of ordering extra noodles, originated with Nagahama ramen, as noodles were served in small batches to keep them from getting too soggy. The best place to try Nagahama ramen is at one of Fukuoka’s characteristic yatai street stalls — try the ever-dependable Yamachan (1 Nakasu, Hakata-ku, Fukuoka; open 6 p.m.-2:30 a.m.), which operates yatai in Tenjin and Nakasu, as well as a brick and mortar shop in nearby Nagahama. It’s the local practice to polish off an evening of drinking with a bowl of noodles. Yatai are shuttered during the day, but open late into the night.
Before Nagahama-style ramen there was Kurume-style, which — according to another apocryphal tale — was developed when chef Miyamoto Tokio accidentally over-boiled his tonkotsu broth in 1947. The resulting brew was so flavorful that, Kurume-style ramen shops still recycle their old broth by pouring the remainder of each day’s batch into the next. In this way, Kurume broth retains its richness and doesn’t require the addition of extra fat. Hakata and Nagahama styles, by contrast, pour out old broth, start a new batch each day, and add pork fat for richness.
Honda Shoten offers quintessential Kurume ramen at 15 locations around Fukuoka Prefecture, and is currently featured at Ramen Stadium, a collection of eight ramen kitchens in Fukuoka’s Canal City (www.canalcity.co.jp). As these change regularly to showcase different ramen shops from across Japan, Ramen Stadium is an ideal introduction to the many varieties of the country’s most inscrutable noodle.
こんにちは😊
今日は最新のニュースでなくて恐縮ですが、セブンイレブンの他言語サービス導入のニュースです。
ためになりそうな表現が含まれているので、取り上げてみました。
記事の下に語彙を入れていますので参照にしてみてくださいね。
それにしても、画期的なサービスですね。コンビニ革命がすごいです。。
最近はブログを読んでくださったお客様に、英語の質問を受けたりして、とても嬉しく思っています。
分からない表現などございましたら、お店で遠慮なく聞いて下さいね😊
以下NIKKEI ASIAN REVIEWからです。
______________________________________________________
August 31, 2016
TOKYO — Seven-Eleven Japan will offer interpreters to shoppers at its nearly 19,000 locations nationwide as the convenience store giant aims to serve foreign tourists better.
The service initially will be available in Chinese and English, with Korean and Spanish under consideration.
International visitors are flocking to Seven-Eleven outlets, which are open around the clock unlike department stores or volume retailers. Besides buying goods, customers increasingly are using all-in-one copy machines at the stores that also issue event tickets and print photos. Foreign guests often ask clerks for help, but providing assistance has been a challenge in some cases.
Starting in September, shoppers and retail associates looking for information or answers will be connected to a support center in Yokohama run by call center operator transcosmos. They will speak with staff trained by Seven-Eleven, and their conversations will be translated by interpreters in Sapporo in three-way calls.
The new service, which will be offered from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., is an upgrade from the support Seven-Eleven now provides to customers and shop clerks through transcosmos. The service may be offered for longer hours depending on demand.
The member of Seven & i Holdings retail group offers tax-free shopping at 1,200 locations, not only in tourist destinations such as Tokyo’s Asakusa district and the city of Kyoto but also at places such as airports and ferry terminals.
The convenience store chain is taking on foreign staff as well, who now account for 20,000 of the company’s 380,000-member workforce in Japan. A growing number of stores in central Tokyo are run by non-Japanese personnel, and the chain wants to enhance support for them.
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the convenience store giant Seven-Elevenのことです。記事中の最後の方ではthe convenience store chainと言い換えていますね。Giantをいう単語で、例えばToyotaのことはAutomotive giant(巨大自動車会社)というように表現されることがよくあります。ちなみに中国などの経済大国のことはEconomic giantやBig power と表現されていることも記事中ではよくあります。
under consideration 検討中で
flock to 〜 〜に群がる、押し寄せる
around the clock 24時間営業の、24時間体制で
account for 〜 〜を占める(記事中の場合は380,000人の従業員のうち20,000人が外国人従業員です。)
ちなみに account for — % of 〜(〜の —%を占める)のような使われ方が多いです
*記事中の青字は固有名詞です