小説を読みながら、語彙を増やしましょう。
夏目漱石の小説『坊っちゃん』の原文と毛利八十太郎が英訳した "Botchan (Master Darling)" を併せて見ていきます。
【あらすじ】
数学教師としての初日を迎えた主人公は、「先生」と呼ばれることになじめないまま、なんとか授業を進めます。
●----------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER III.
My teaching began at last. When I entered the class-room and stepped upon the platform for the first time, I felt somewhat strange. While lecturing, I wondered if a fellow like me could keep up the profession of public instructor. The students were noisy. Once in a while, they would holler "Teacher!" "Teacher,"--it was "going some." I had been calling others "teacher" every day so far, in the school of physics, but in calling others "teacher" and being called one, there is a wide gap of difference. It made me feel as if some one was tickling my soles. I am not a sneakish fellow, nor a coward; only--it's a pity--I lack audacity. If one calls me "teacher" aloud, it gives me a shock similar to that of hearing the noon-gun in Marunouchi when I was hungry. The first hour passed away in a dashing manner. And it passed away without encountering any knotty questions. As I returned to the teachers' room, Porcupine asked me how it was. I simply answered "well," and he seemed satisfied.
When I left the teachers' room, chalk in hand, for the second hour class, I felt as if I was invading the enemy's territory. On entering the room, I found the students for this hour were all big fellows. I am a Tokyo kid, delicately built and small, and did not appear very impressive even in my elevated position. If it comes to a scraping, I can hold my own even with wrestlers, but I had no means of appearing awe-inspiring, merely by the aid of my tongue, to so many as forty such big chaps before me. Believing, however, that it would set a bad precedent to show these country fellows any weakness, I lectured rather loudly and in brusque tone. During the first part the students were taken aback and listened literally with their mouths open. "That's one on you!" I thought. Elated by my success, I kept on in this tone, when one who looked the strongest, sitting in the middle of the front row, stood up suddenly, and called "Teacher!" There it goes!--I thought, and asked him what it was.
"A-ah sa-ay, you talk too quick. A-ah ca-an't you make it a leetle slow? A-ah?" "A-ah ca-an't you?" "A-ah?" was altogether dull.
"If I talk too fast, I'll make it slow, but I'm a Tokyo fellow, and can't talk the way you do. If you don't understand it, better wait until you do."
go some ずいぶんやる、大成果をあげる
tickle くすぐる
sneakish こそこそした、卑怯な
audacity ずうずうしさ
noon-gun 午砲
dashing 一気に
knotty 解決が困難な
delicately 華奢に
scraping けんか
hold one's own 屈しない
awe-inspiring 畏敬の念を起こさせる
chap 男
precedent 前例
brusque ぶっきらぼうな、無愛想な
dull 活気のない
夏目漱石による原文は
こちら。
*** 慣用句を覚えよう ***
Bird(鳥)
A little bird told me (that...)
(…だと)ある人から聞いた
Birds of a feather flock together.
類は友を呼ぶ
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
手中の一羽は藪の中の二羽に値する、明日の百より今日の五十
eat like a bird
ついばむほどしか食べない
kill two birds with one stone
一石二鳥、一挙両得
the birds and the bees
(子供に教える)性の基礎知識
(as) free as a bird
自由気ままで
bird-brained, bird-witted
間抜けな、鈍い
bird-claw
鳥のつめのようにやせ細った
bird-wood
マリファナ
【参考】
▽
青空文庫