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English LingQ Podcast 1.0, #249 Mark & Steve – The Lake, a Bookstore and Democracy

#249 Mark & Steve – The Lake, a Bookstore and Democracy

Steve: Hi Mark.

Mark: Hi Steve.

Steve: Well, here we are again.

Mark: Yes, we are.

Steve: We had a one-week hiatus.

You know what I want to talk about today?

Mark: I was away, actually.

Steve: I know.

Mark: Up the coast. We had some nice weather, so…

Steve: Well, talk a little bit about that. Where exactly did you go?

Mark: Well, we seem to go up to the same area, for the last few years anyway. Just up the coast here north of Vancouver; I guess it's slightly north. It's really not very far; it's a 35-minute boat ride. It's called the Sunshine Coast. You take a ferry about 40 minutes and then we drove up to a lake, which is an hour from the other side of the ferry. Sakinaw Lake, it was called, which was actually great because the weather was so hot. It's always nice to be in a lake where the temperature is a little warmer and fresh water, of course, as opposed to the salt water here in the ocean where we normally do our swimming. So we were at the lake for three or four days and then we stopped at another friend who lived along the coast. These are all summer places that friends have and we like to stop in on our friends that have summer places. It's a very economical way to vacation. Steve: You know it's interesting that it's called the Sunshine Coast; actually, here, it's a rainforest. I mean it's a little less rainy up there. It's not rainy in the summer. In the winter it rains there as much as here, I think.

Mark: I mean it's not very far away, as I said, in kilometers. As the crow flies, as they say, it's even less far, but it's, you know, 40 minutes away by ferry. But, actually, they do get less rain than we do…

Steve: Okay.

Mark: …especially the further north you go. Like Powell River, apparently they get half as much rain as we do.

Steve: Really. Powell River is actually a beautiful location.

Mark: Yeah.

I mean that's not to say they don't get rain. I guess that just tells you how much rain we get.

Steve: Right.

But Powell River, it's beautiful. And you can tell by the vegetation there, more Douglas fir and sort of Arbutus trees and less Cedar and less Hemlock.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: So, ah… But, hey, you know what I want to talk about? You know that I like to go to bookstores.

Mark: Bookstores have a special shrine devoted to you.

Steve: Right.

And so… I mean I do have a lot of books. I like buying books and I think books are a great value, you know? Fifteen dollars and you've got something that you spend a lot of time with, you go back to and I like looking at books that I've read before. Anyway, one of the sections that I like to go to, of course, is the Language Section. So I went to the Language Section, just to see what people are up to.

Mark: And machine-gun a few LingQ cards.

Steve: Well, I always have some LingQ cards to hand out. But it was interesting to see, people are developing these… I mean the idea is that, really, people (A) they don't want to spend much money and (B) they want to learn it right away. Mark: Right.

Steve: So now there's more and more sort of “Chinese in a Day”, $10. Sure, Chinese? Learn Chinese in a day only $10, why wouldn't I, right? And then they've also got things that work with your iPod. Although, those are things that anyone can do, really. You just fill up things in your iPod that you can then easily see in the menu.

And there was one girl there who was interested in Japanese, so I chatted with her for a while and her boyfriend was Mexican, so I chatted with him -- two LingQ cards handed out. And then this fellow arrives and he's got one of the bookstore assistants with him… Mark: Right, yeah.

Steve: …and he's also looking at Japanese. And so she shows him the Michel Thomas Series, which is like eight CDs, $99.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And so I can't resist, so I say, “No, you want to buy the cheapest thing you can find.” He said, “Well why?” I said, “First of all, because you may not continue.” You know? Mark: Right.

Steve: And most people buy something and they never do anything with it.

Mark: Or they try it for a week and then it gathers dust in the corner.

Steve: Um-hum. So I said, “First of all for that reason and second of all because you want to really only have this sort of starter-type content for a short while. I would buy…” In fact, my strategy, in the past, has been to buy two starter sets. When I started on Korean about five-six years ago, buy the teach yourself and buy the colloquial and they cover the same ground and I just listen and listen.

And so I said, I said to him, I said, “'Teach Yourself' is quite good. Why don't you get the ‘Teach Yourself Japanese'”? So the lady there said, “Oh no, no, I wouldn't take that because I bought the ‘Teach Yourself Ancient English' and I didn't like how the grammar was organized.” Mark: Well you told me that earlier and thought that, aye, okay, whatever, she wants to learn Ancient English, for whatever reason. Is anyone going to care if her grammar is not bang on? Is anyone going to notice? I mean who knows the grammar of Ancient English?

Steve: Well, exactly. I'm sure the grammar of Ancient English is more complicated than the grammar of Modern English. Mark: Right.

Steve: But, I'm sure, you know… Like Russian grammar is complicated. As long as all I'm doing is reading and listening I don't really have to have that much grammar. I can kind of figure it out.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And besides which, I pointed out, you know, the order in which you think it should be organized may not be the order in which the brain wants to learn it. You can always go to the Index if you're interesting in, you know, whatever, participles or.... I have no idea what's in Ancient English. But, at any rate, no, I mean you don't want to belittle. I mean that's what she likes to do, so that's fine. Mark: Right.

Steve: But it was interesting because this fellow said…so I said “Yeah, you should come to LingQ, but” I said, “with Japanese, you know, our Japanese Program is only about 80% effective compared to the programs for other languages, because of this issue of the Asian languages not being divided.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And he said, “Oh, it doesn't matter. It doesn't have to be Japanese.” I said, “Well, why?” “Well,” he said, “I just want to learn any language.” I said, “Well, why?” He said because he had an accident and so he had some brain damage. Mark: Right.

Steve: And he says sometimes he has trouble finding words and he thinks it would be useful for him to learn another language to take his mind of this problem that he has.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I said, “It's possible that it could.” I mean we do know that the brain, even if it's been damaged, it continues to create neurons. It continues to renew itself, rejuvenate itself. I mean people who all of a sudden become blind develop the neuro networks to read Braille at age 40.

Mark: And, as you say, I mean learning one language very often helps you in another.

Steve: Right.

Mark: So, obviously, the same should hold true for your native language and learning another language should help your native language.

Steve: That's right…like picking up the garbage next door. So I thought that was interesting, so, of course, I handed him a LingQ card.

Mark: Of course you did.

Steve: So… But it was interesting. So you have the two, I guess, extremes. On the one hand you have the $2-$300… Oh, of course he asked me what I thought of Rosetta Stone.

Mark: Which, I guess, recently Rosetta Stone offered to send you a sample.

Steve: Well, that's right. Because I published sort of a critique of Rosetta Stone on my blog, which I entitled “Seven Reasons Why I Would Not Use Rosetta Stone.”

Mark: Right.

Steve: Although I pointed out that I have not personally used it, but you've used it. Mark: Yeah.

Steve: I've heard from you and I read a number of reviews on the Internet, many of which…they were all positive. Mark: Right.

Steve: Most of them were written by people who are in some way connected with Rosetta Stone.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And that doesn't surprise me, Rosetta Stone are tremendous marketers. If you go to Google and put “learn…” any language, “Azerbaijani”, I don't care, “Finnish”, Rosetta Stone will come up top. Mark: I mean everybody has heard of them, more and more. Like when I used Rosetta Stone -- that was maybe seven-eight years ago -- it was nowhere near the household name that it's become. People didn't know about it. It was kind of new, here's this thing Rosetta Stone. But now everybody I talk to, even people who aren't necessarily interested in language learning, when I mention what I do, “Oh, yeah, are you kind of like Rosetta Stone?” They've heard of it. “What's that software, Rosetta Stone? Yeah, that's it.” Steve: And, of course, I mean I think this is good. I don't want to knock Rosetta Stone because what it is, it's good, it promotes the idea that you can learn on your own. And you have to learn on your own and you don't have to go to school, so all of this is good and makes people think of learning languages, it's already good. Mark: Plus, recently, they had their IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the stock market, which just raises awareness…

Steve: It raises awareness.

Mark: …as people hear about it.

Steve: Right.

Mark: Just in terms of PR value, that, of course, adds to…

Steve: …adds to the buzz.

Mark: …the buzz about Rosetta Stone.

Steve: But, from what I read, you know, they sort of pointed out that you have the sort of multiple choice things where you're picking. You know after going through it once, you know, is this a bird? You know you hear a word and you have to choose whether it's a bird, a car, a tree or an airplane or something. Mark: Right.

Steve: And since this is very easy one argument by one of the supporters of Rosetta Stone was that this makes it, you know, gratifying, you know?

Mark: Right.

Steve: You know you can immediately see what happened, so you're gratified right away. Mark: Right.

Steve: Whereas, if you're learning a language you often have the impression that you're not making any progress, was one point. Mark: Right.

Steve: But most of the people who commented on my blog just found it boring. And my objection and I put it on my blog is that it's not communicating, it's playing little games. And most of my activity is listening to my iPod.

Mark: Right.

Steve: If I'm in my car, if I'm wandering through a bookstore, if I'm mowing the lawn, whatever I'm doing I gain all this dead time. Mark: Right.

Steve: If I had to sit chained to a computer playing these games I wouldn't do it. Mark: Yeah.

I mean I don't know if it even qualifies as games; although, when I did it, yeah, it's kind of neat at first and you click all the…it's very easy. Like I sit down and I can just kind of go through it and I hardly ever get any…

Steve: You did it for Japanese when you were living in Japan.

Mark: I did it for Japanese when I was living in Japan. I'd hardly get any wrong. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ten minutes later I've done three units. Okay.

But how long are you going to sit there doing that?

Steve: Right.

Mark: And the worst part about it is, even if you do sit there and do it and you know it inside and out, at the end of it all you're still not very far. Steve: No.

Mark: You're still not capable of communicating. And I think I had two levels of it before I gave up and I would have been far better off getting into real content, listening to stuff, reading stuff and expanding my vocabulary.

Steve: Well, exactly. And that's where… Somebody else on my blog asked me if I knew about the Birkenbihl Method. And I had never heard of it, but I looked it up on the Web and I came to the site. And there's a lady in Germany who has developed this system which, in many ways, is very similar to what we're doing. Mark: Right.

Steve: She introduced some elements that are kind of complicated and I think unnecessarily confusing, complicated, things that people, in my mind, are not likely to continue doing.

Mark: Exactly. That's the thing I thought when I saw that. Steve: But the principle is, yes, don't learn words in isolation, don't worry too much about grammar -- there Rosetta Stone also agrees -- and a lot of emphasis on listening. But she separates listening from reading and you have to listen to the word-for-word translation. It gets quite complicated.

But, anyway, getting back to this fellow, I think that, yeah, what he's doing is he's going to try to train his brain; stimulate his brain, exercise his brain by learning another language. I think that's a good thing and that's, in fact, how you learn. And so with Rosetta Stone the fact that you could learn the word for the color yellow and never forget it, it just is not going to happen.

Mark: No.

Steve: You're going to forget it. And only when you've seen yellow in many different situations are you going to remember it; otherwise… I mean I'm quite good in Portuguese, but colors are difficult. I'm quite good in Russian and Portuguese. I find colors difficult. Was that green or yellow or red? I can't remember. Mark: Right.

Steve: Colors are hard. Colors are hard, so are numbers.

Mark: Numbers are hard, for sure.

Steve: Numbers are very hard.

Mark: Numbers are very hard.

Steve: Very hard. I get a date in Russian; I haven't a clue what date they're talking about. Mark: When I get a date in French I have to start dissecting it now. It takes me about three seconds after I've heard it before I'm, okay, that's what it was. Steve: It's surprising what's hard and what's easy. Mark: Right.

Steve: Things that you think would be easy to remember are often hard. Things that you would think are hard maybe are easy to remember because they're hard. Mark: Right.

Steve: We don't know how the brain is going to grab them. Anyway, so, hopefully, that person will get on our Website, so language learning as brain rehabilitation. Why not?

Mark: Well, yeah. I mean they often recommend that for seniors, that they study languages to keep their brain active and young, so it should work for him.

Steve: By the way, on another subject, President Obama was in Russia and gave speeches to students and gave speeches to the business community or at least met with the business community and opposition parties and other nongovernmental organizations, as well as, of course, meeting with the President of Russia and the Prime Minster of Russia and so forth.

And he stressed this idea that, you know, not all relationships have to be between the President and the President. That there are many things that people in society should get more involved.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And I read an interesting book about democracy and the democratization of so many things, you know, which is, to some extent, what the Web is about and, to some extent, what we're doing in language learning. The power of the publisher, the newspaper publisher, the power of the book publisher, of the media empire, of the teacher, of the school, of all of these institutions is getting less.

Mark: Right.

Steve: And, more and more, people can, you know, have a blog or have a podcast, set up a language class online or a language system online. And, similarly, in our society there are probably more things that people can do on their own and get the government out of so much of this stuff.

Mark: Right.

Steve: I mean we had a bit of a scandal here in Canada over the government providing $1.9 million to the Calgary Stampede, which is annual tourist event…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …where people rope cattle and charge around and probably the cattle get badly done by, which happens to them all the time on a working ranch anyway.

And then there was a large amount of money donated for the Gay Pride Parade in Toronto. And, of course, since the government is a conservative government and somewhat conservative socially, there was a great human cry that the government spent money on promoting this Gay Pride Parade. And, of course, those who were in favor of the Gay Pride Parade say that this is a great tourist attraction. It's a great big party, all kinds of people come. I mean I don't want to get into the issue of the Gay Pride Parade, but why is the government handing out $400,000 to the Gay Pride Parade, $1.9 million to the Calgary Stampede? You mean those events would not go on if the government didn't hand them money? Mark: I mean it's ridiculous. The government should not be in the business of giving money to anything like that.

Steve: Well, of course. Because then what happens is anybody that's got any kind of event, their major activity now becomes going after government money. Mark: Right.

Steve: It completely distorts everything. It's the same, you know, as in language teaching. Mark: Right.

Steve: We can't get any… Any organization that's helping immigrants to learn English is never going to look at LingQ, because their main modus vivendi, their business model, is extracting more money from government. Mark: Right.

Steve: And, certainly, I mean we hear in Russia where they are one of the more corrupt countries in the world according to some international…apparently they're ranked behind… I don't know, I don't remember the country, but it wasn't high on the list of non… I mean they're corrupt. And a big part of it is that the government's in everything. And the more government has got its fingers in different things the more you get these distortions.

Mark: Right.

Steve: But this interesting book that I read by a fellow whose name I can't remember… he has a Muslim name, actually, and he writes for Newsweek. But he wrote a bestseller on democracy…you know I can't remember his name anymore…but he made the point that this excess of democracy, though, has caused some problems. And…here we are. His name is…I can't remember…Zachariah? Fareed Zachariah. And it has caused problems. Like in California the people have had plebiscite after plebiscite saying you cannot spend more than this on this, you cannot have a deficit, you cannot do this, you can't spend…forty percent of the budget has to be spent on education. So with the result that their roads are falling apart, they're practically bankrupt… In other words, you get these popular movements where people have a single issue…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …that they're totally wrapped up about. They have a plebiscite, they win, because a motivated minority of people will always win against the vast majority who are yawning on the issue and pretty soon you restrict what government can do.

Mark: But I guess the problem there is that it's not true democracy, because only a motivated portion of the people voted on the issue. Steve: This is true.

Mark: If everybody voted on the issue then it presumably wouldn't have passed. Or, it may have, but the people would have had to deal with it. And then if you have that for one issue then you kind of have to have that for all issues.

Steve: Right.

Mark: So, all of a sudden, okay, 40% is going to schools, now we have a problem where our roads are falling apart, should we take some of this money out of school and everybody has to vote again. Presumably, people will say, yeah, that's a good idea, but if you have that publicized in isolation then I don't see how that would work. Steve: Well, that's right. Mark: You can't have a combination you have to open it up. Steve: That's true. Mark: Yeah.

I mean so it's really not an excess of democracy at all, it's just kind of a red herring thrown in there. Steve: Right.

And this book I read by Zachariah, he pointed out…which is an interesting book, by the way, it was a New York Times bestseller back in 2003. You know, we could have another session on it one day, but he points out that there were a lot of undemocratic governments that were, you know, monarchies, but where they had the rule of law…

Mark: Right.

Steve: …where they had a number of institutions.

Mark: Yeah.

Steve: Freedom of speech, rule of law, but the king decided.

Mark: Right.

Steve: Anyway…

Mark: So he's suggesting that democracy is a bad thing? Steve: No.

He's just saying that it's not necessarily the first step. Mark: Right.

Steve: And his biggest thing is land reform

Mark: Right.

Steve: And that there are many countries where you can't go at them first with democracy if they don't have these other things in place. Mark: Right.

Steve: It's an interesting book. Mark: We'll save it for another time. Steve: We'll save it. We never run out of things to say.

Mark: No.

Steve: Look forward to your comments. Thank you.

Mark: Okay, bye-bye.

Steve: Bye.

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#249 Mark & Steve – The Lake, a Bookstore and Democracy #249 Mark & Steve - Der See, ein Buchladen und die Demokratie #249 Mark & Steve - El lago, una librería y la democracia شماره 249 مارک و استیو - دریاچه، کتابفروشی و دموکراسی #249 マーク&スティーブ - 湖と本屋と民主主義 #249 Mark & Steve - O lago, uma livraria e a democracia #249 Марк и Стив - Озеро, книжный магазин и демократия #249 Mark & Steve - Göl, Kitapçı ve Demokrasi #249 马克与史蒂夫 - 湖、书店与民主 #249 马克与史蒂夫 - 湖、书店与民主

Steve:    Hi Mark.

Mark:    Hi Steve.

Steve:    Well, here we are again.

Mark:    Yes, we are.

Steve:    We had a one-week hiatus. ||||||break ||||||ara verme ||||||pausa de una semana Tuvimos una pausa de una semana. スティーブ:1週間の中断期間があったんだ。

You know what I want to talk about today? 今日私が話したいことは何だと思う?

Mark:    I was away, actually.

Steve:    I know.

Mark:    Up the coast. マーク:海岸沿い。 We had some nice weather, so… 天気が良かったので...

Steve:    Well, talk a little bit about that. スティーブ:それについて少し話してください。 Where exactly did you go?

Mark:    Well, we seem to go up to the same area, for the last few years anyway. マーク:まあ、とにかくここ数年は同じエリアに行くことが多いね。 Just up the coast here north of Vancouver; I guess it's slightly north. |||||||||||biraz| バンクーバーの北、海岸沿いを少し北上したところかな。 It's really not very far; it's a 35-minute boat ride. ボートで35分ほどだ。 It's called the Sunshine Coast. サンシャイン・コーストと呼ばれている。 You take a ferry about 40 minutes and then we drove up to a lake, which is an hour from the other side of the ferry. フェリーで約40分、それから車で湖まで行き、フェリーの反対側から1時間。 Sakinaw Lake, it was called, which was actually great because the weather was so hot. Sakinaw Lake|||||||||||||| Si chiamava Sakinaw Lake, ed è stato fantastico perché il clima era così caldo. サキノー湖と呼ばれていたが、天気がとても暑かったので最高だった。 It's always nice to be in a lake where the temperature is a little warmer and fresh water, of course, as opposed to the salt water here in the ocean where we normally do our swimming. So we were at the lake for three or four days and then we stopped at another friend who lived along the coast. ||||||||||||||||||||kıyı boyunca|| These are all summer places that friends have and we like to stop in on our friends that have summer places. bunlar|||||||||||||||||||| これらはすべて友人たちが持っている夏の場所であり、私たちは夏の場所を持っている友人たちに立ち寄るのが好きなのだ。 Bunlar, arkadaşların sahip olduğu tüm yazlık yerlerdir ve biz yazlık yeri olan arkadaşlarımıza uğramayı seviyoruz. It's a very economical way to vacation. とても経済的な休暇の取り方だ。 Bu, tatil yapmak için çok ekonomik bir yoldur. Steve:    You know it's interesting that it's called the Sunshine Coast; actually, here, it's a rainforest. スティーブ:サンシャイン・コーストと呼ばれているのは興味深い。 Steve: Güneş Kıyısı olarak adlandırılmasının ilginç olduğunu biliyorsun; aslında burası bir yağmur ormanı. I mean it's a little less rainy up there. あそこは雨が少ないからね。 It's not rainy in the summer. In the winter it rains there as much as here, I think. 冬はここと同じくらい雨が降ると思う。

Mark:    I mean it's not very far away, as I said, in kilometers. マーク:つまり、僕が言ったように、キロメートル単位ではそれほど遠くないんだ。 As the crow flies, as they say, it's even less far, but it's, you know, 40 minutes away by ferry. ||karga|||||||||||||||| ||en línea recta|||||||||||||||| 遠くてもフェリーで40分はかかる。 But, actually, they do get less rain than we do… でも、実際、彼らは我々より雨が少ないんだ......。

Steve:    Okay.

Mark:    …especially the further north you go. Mark: ...soprattutto più si va a nord. マーク:...特に北に行けば行くほどね。 Like Powell River, apparently they get half as much rain as we do. |Powell River||||||||||| パウエル・リバーもそうだが、雨の量は我々の半分らしい。

Steve:    Really. Powell River is actually a beautiful location. パウエル・リバーは実際に美しい場所だ。

Mark:    Yeah.

I mean that's not to say they don't get rain. 雨が降らないわけではない。 I guess that just tells you how much rain we get. |||||||||biz| 雨の多さを物語っていると思う。 Sanırım bu, ne kadar yağmur aldığımızı gösteriyor.

Steve:    Right. Steve: Doğru.

But Powell River, it's beautiful. Ama Powell Nehri, çok güzel. And you can tell by the vegetation there, more Douglas fir and sort of Arbutus trees and less Cedar and less Hemlock. |sen||anlamak|||bitki örtüsü|||Douglas|çam||||Alıç||||Sedir|||süsen 植生を見ればわかるが、ダグラスファーやアービュタスの木が多く、シダーやヘムロックは少ない。 Ve oradaki bitki örtüsünden anlayabilirsin, daha fazla Douglas ladini ve biraz Arbutus ağaçları, daha az Sedir ve daha az Hemlock.

Mark:    Yeah. Mark: Evet.

Steve:    So, ah…  But, hey, you know what I want to talk about? スティーブ:それで......でもね、僕が何を話したいかわかる? Steve: Yani, ah… Ama, hey, ne hakkında konuşmak istediğimi biliyor musun? You know that I like to go to bookstores. 僕が本屋に行くのが好きなのは知っているだろう。

Mark:    Bookstores have a special shrine devoted to you. |||||shrine||| |||||tapınak|adanmış|| |||||altar especial||| マーク:書店にはあなたを祀る特別な神社があります。 Марк: В книжных магазинах есть специальный храм, посвященный вам.

Steve:    Right.

And so…  I mean I do have a lot of books. たくさんの本を持っている。 I like buying books and I think books are a great value, you know? 僕は本を買うのが好きだし、本はとても価値があると思うんだ。 Fifteen dollars and you've got something that you spend a lot of time with, you go back to and I like looking at books that I've read before. 15ドルで、多くの時間を費やし、何度も読み返し、前に読んだ本を見るのが好きだ。 Anyway, one of the sections that I like to go to, of course, is the Language Section. とにかく、私が好きなセクションのひとつは、もちろん言語セクションだ。 So I went to the Language Section, just to see what people are up to. Così sono andato nella sezione linguistica, solo per vedere cosa fanno le persone. それで、みんなが何をやっているのか見るために、言語部門に行ってみたんだ。

Mark:    And machine-gun a few LingQ cards. Mark: E mitragliare alcune carte LingQ. マーク:そしてLingQカードを数枚マシンガンで撃つ。

Steve:    Well, I always have some LingQ cards to hand out. |||||||kartlar||| スティーブ:僕はいつもLingQカードを配っているんだ。 Steve: Eh, her zaman verebileceğim bazı LingQ kartlarım var. But it was interesting to see, people are developing these…  I mean the idea is that, really, people (A) they don't want to spend much money and (B) they want to learn it right away. つまり、(A)あまりお金をかけたくない、(B)すぐに習得したい、ということだ。 Ama ilginç olan, insanların bunları geliştirmesi... Demek istediğim, gerçekten insanlar (A) çok para harcamak istemiyorlar ve (B) hemen öğrenmek istiyorlar. Mark:    Right. Mark: Doğru.

Steve:    So now there's more and more sort of “Chinese in a Day”, $10. スティーブ:だから今、"一日中国語 "のようなものがどんどん増えているんだ。 Sure, Chinese? Learn Chinese in a day only $10, why wouldn't I, right? たった10ドルで中国語が学べる。 And then they've also got things that work with your iPod. そして、iPodと連動するものもある。 Although, those are things that anyone can do, really. とはいえ、それは誰にでもできることだ。 You just fill up things in your iPod that you can then easily see in the menu. iPodの中にあるものを記入するだけで、メニューで簡単に見ることができる。

And there was one girl there who was interested in Japanese, so I chatted with her for a while and her boyfriend was Mexican, so I chatted with him -- two LingQ cards handed out. そして、そこに日本語に興味を持っている女の子がいたので、しばらく彼女とおしゃべりした。彼女のボーイフレンドはメキシコ人だったので、彼ともおしゃべりした。 And then this fellow arrives and he's got one of the bookstore assistants with him… ||||||||||||asistentes de librería|| そしてこの男がやってきて、書店の店員を一人連れて......」。 Mark:    Right, yeah. マーク:そうだね。

Steve:    …and he's also looking at Japanese. スティーブ:......そして彼は日本人にも目を向けている。 And so she shows him the Michel Thomas Series, which is like eight CDs, $99. それで彼女はミシェル・トーマス・シリーズを彼に見せた。

Mark:    Right. マーク:そうだね。

Steve:    And so I can't resist, so I say, “No, you want to buy the cheapest thing you can find.”  He said, “Well why?”  I said, “First of all, because you may not continue.”  You know? スティーブ:それで我慢できなくて、"いや、君は一番安いものを買いたいんだろう "って言ったんだ。彼は言った。まず、続けられないかもしれないから」と言ったんだ。わかる? Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And most people buy something and they never do anything with it. |||||||||||onunla| スティーブ:そして、ほとんどの人は何かを買っても、それを使って何かをすることはない。

Mark:    Or they try it for a week and then it gathers dust in the corner. Mark: Oppure lo provano per una settimana e poi prende polvere in un angolo. マーク:あるいは、1週間試してみて、隅っこで埃をかぶってしまう。

Steve:    Um-hum. スティーブ:うんうん。 So I said, “First of all for that reason and second of all because you want to really only have this sort of starter-type content for a short while. 第一にそのため、そして第二に、このようなスタータータイプのコンテンツは本当に少しの間だけにしておきたいからです。 I would buy…”  In fact, my strategy, in the past, has been to buy two starter sets. 私なら..."実際、私の過去の戦略は、スターターセットを2つ買うことだった。 When I started on Korean about five-six years ago, buy the teach yourself and buy the colloquial and they cover the same ground and I just listen and listen. |||||||||||||||||günlük konuşma||||||||||dinlerim|| 5、6年前に韓国語を始めたときは、"teach yourself "と "colloquial "を買った。

And so I said, I said to him, I said, “'Teach Yourself' is quite good. それで私は彼に言ったんだ、「『ティーチ・ユアセルフ』はなかなかいいよ。 Why don't you get the ‘Teach Yourself Japanese'”? なぜ『Teach Yourself Japanese』を買わないの? So the lady there said, “Oh no, no, I wouldn't take that because I bought the ‘Teach Yourself Ancient English' and I didn't like how the grammar was organized.” というのも、『Teach Yourself Ancient English』を買ったんだけど、文法が整理されているのが気に入らなかったんだ。 Mark:    Well you told me that earlier and thought that, aye, okay, whatever, she wants to learn Ancient English, for whatever reason. マーク:そう、君はさっき僕にそう言って、ああ、わかった、とにかく、彼女はどんな理由であれ、古代英語を学びたがっているんだと思ったんだ。 Is anyone going to care if her grammar is not bang on? ||||||||||perfectamente correcta|sobre ¿A alguien le va a importar que su gramática no sea exacta? A qualcuno interesserà se la sua grammatica non è perfetta? 彼女の文法が正しくなくても、誰も気にしないのだろうか? Кого-то волнует, что ее грамматика не на высоте? Is anyone going to notice? 誰も気づかないのだろうか? I mean who knows the grammar of Ancient English? つまり、古代英語の文法を知っている人はいるのだろうか?

Steve:    Well, exactly. スティーブ:そうだね。 I'm sure the grammar of Ancient English is more complicated than the grammar of Modern English. 古代英語の文法は現代英語の文法よりも複雑なのは確かだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But, I'm sure, you know…  Like Russian grammar is complicated. Steve: でも、ロシア語の文法は複雑なんだ。 As long as all I'm doing is reading and listening I don't really have to have that much grammar. リーディングとリスニングだけやっていれば、文法はそんなに必要ないんだ。 I can kind of figure it out. なんとなくわかるよ。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And besides which, I pointed out, you know, the order in which you think it should be organized may not be the order in which the brain wants to learn it. スティーブ:それに、私が指摘したのは、あなたが考える整理整頓の順番は、脳が学習したい順番ではないかもしれないということだ。 You can always go to the Index if you're interesting in, you know, whatever, participles or....  I have no idea what's in Ancient English. ||||||||||||||partiler||||||||| ||||||||||||||participios||||||||| 分詞とか......そういうことに興味があるなら、いつでも索引を見ればいい。古代英語に何があるのかさっぱりわからない。 But, at any rate, no, I mean you don't want to belittle. |||||||||||küçümsemek |||||||||||menospreciar でも、とにかく、そうじゃなくて、けなしたくないということなんだ。 I mean that's what she likes to do, so that's fine. つまり、それが彼女の好きなことだからいいんだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But it was interesting because this fellow said…so I said “Yeah, you should come to LingQ, but” I said, “with Japanese, you know, our Japanese Program is only about 80% effective compared to the programs for other languages, because of this issue of the Asian languages not being divided. スティーブ:でも面白かったのは、その人がこう言ったんだ......だから僕は、「ああ、LingQに来るべきだよ、でもね」と言った。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And he said, “Oh, it doesn't matter. スティーブ:それで彼は、「ああ、関係ないよ。 It doesn't have to be Japanese.”  I said, “Well, why?” “Well,” he said, “I just want to learn any language.”  I said, “Well, why?”  He said because he had an accident and so he had some brain damage. 日本人である必要はない」。私は言った。「どんな言語でも学びたいんだ」。どうして?彼は事故に遭って、脳に障害があるからと言ったんだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And he says sometimes he has trouble finding words and he thinks it would be useful for him to learn another language to take his mind of this problem that he has. ||||||||||||||||yararlı|||||||||||||||| スティーブ:彼はときどき単語を見つけるのに苦労すると言っていて、自分が抱えているこの問題から気持ちを解放するために、他の言語を学ぶのは役に立つだろうと考えているんだ。 Steve: Ve bazen kelime bulmakta zorlandığını ve bu sorundan kafasını dağıtmak için başka bir dil öğrenmenin faydalı olacağını düşünüyor.

Mark:    Right. Mark: Doğru.

Steve:    I said, “It's possible that it could.”  I mean we do know that the brain, even if it's been damaged, it continues to create neurons. スティーブ:私は "可能性はある "と言ったんだ。つまり、脳はたとえ損傷を受けても、ニューロンを作り続けるということを知っているんだ。 Steve: Ben de, 'Bunun mümkün olabileceğini söyledim.' Yani, beynin, hasar görse bile, nöronlar yaratmaya devam ettiğini biliyoruz. It continues to renew itself, rejuvenate itself. |||||rejuvenate| |||||gençleştirmek| |||||rejuvenece| 自らを更新し、若返らせ続ける。 I mean people who all of a sudden become blind develop the neuro networks to read Braille at age 40. ||||||||||||||||Braille|| ||||||||||||||||Braille|| Voglio dire che le persone che diventano improvvisamente cieche sviluppano le reti neurologiche per leggere il Braille all'età di 40 anni. つまり、突然目が見えなくなった人が、40歳で点字を読むための神経ネットワークを発達させるということだ。 Yani birdenbire kör olan insanların 40 yaşında Braille okumak için sinir ağlarını geliştirdiğini kastediyorum.

Mark:    And, as you say, I mean learning one language very often helps you in another. マーク:そして、あなたが言うように、ある言語を学ぶことは、他の言語でも役立つことが非常に多いということです。 Mark: Ve dediğin gibi, bir dili öğrenmek genellikle diğerinde yardımcı olur.

Steve:    Right. Steve: Doğru.

Mark:    So, obviously, the same should hold true for your native language and learning another language should help your native language. ||açıkça|||||||||||||||||| ||||||se sostiene|||||||||||||| Mark: Así que, obviamente, lo mismo debería ocurrir con tu lengua materna y aprender otro idioma debería ayudar a tu lengua materna. マーク:だから、母国語についても同じことが言えるはずで、他の言語を学ぶことは母国語の助けになるはずです。 Mark: Yani, obviously, bu durum kendi ana dilin için de geçerli olmalı ve başka bir dil öğrenmek ana diline yardımcı olmalı.

Steve:    That's right…like picking up the garbage next door. スティーブ:そうだね...隣のゴミを拾うようなものだ。 Steve: Doğru... yan komşunun çöpünü almak gibi. So I thought that was interesting, so, of course, I handed him a LingQ card. それで、これは面白いと思って、もちろんLingQカードを渡した。 Bu yüzden bunun ilginç olduğunu düşündüm, tabii ki, ona bir LingQ kartı verdim.

Mark:    Of course you did.

Steve:    So…  But it was interesting. スティーブ:それで......でも面白かったよ。 So you have the two, I guess, extremes. つまり、両極端なんだ。 On the one hand you have the $2-$300…  Oh, of course he asked me what I thought of Rosetta Stone. そういえば、ロゼッタストーンをどう思うかと聞かれた。

Mark:    Which, I guess, recently Rosetta Stone offered to send you a sample. マーク:そういえば最近、ロゼッタストーンからサンプルを送るという申し出がありましたね。

Steve:    Well, that's right. Because I published sort of a critique of Rosetta Stone on my blog, which I entitled “Seven Reasons Why I Would Not Use Rosetta Stone.”

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Although I pointed out that I have not personally used it, but you've used it. スティーブ:私は個人的には使ったことがないと指摘したが、あなたは使ったことがある。 Mark:    Yeah.

Steve:    I've heard from you and I read a number of reviews on the Internet, many of which…they were all positive. スティーブ:私はあなたから話を聞いたし、インターネットで多くのレビューを読んだが、その多くは...すべて肯定的だった。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Most of them were written by people who are in some way connected with Rosetta Stone. スティーブ:そのほとんどは、ロゼッタストーンと何らかの関係がある人たちが書いたものだ。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And that doesn't surprise me, Rosetta Stone are tremendous marketers. ||||||||||los mercadólogos スティーブ:ロゼッタストーンはすごいマーケティング担当者だから驚かないよ。 If you go to Google and put “learn…” any language, “Azerbaijani”, I don't care, “Finnish”, Rosetta Stone will come up top. Googleで "learn... "と入力すれば、どんな言語でも、"アゼルバイジャン語 "でも "フィンランド語 "でも、ロゼッタストーンが一番上に出てくる。 Mark:    I mean everybody has heard of them, more and more. マーク:つまり、誰もが彼らのことを耳にしたことがある。 Like when I used Rosetta Stone -- that was maybe seven-eight years ago -- it was nowhere near the household name that it's become. ||||||||||||||||||evdeki|||| ||||||||||||||||||nombre conocido|||| 私がロゼッタストーンを使ったのは7、8年前のことだが、今ほど有名にはなっていなかった。 Rosetta Stone kullandığım zaman gibi -- bu belki yedi-sekiz yıl önceydi -- artık olduğu kadar tanınan bir isim değildi. People didn't know about it. みんな知らなかったんだ。 İnsanlar bunun hakkında bir şey bilmiyordu. It was kind of new, here's this thing Rosetta Stone. ロゼッタ・ストーンというのは、ちょっと新しかった。 Yeni bir şey gibiydi, işte bu Rosetta Stone. But now everybody I talk to, even people who aren't necessarily interested in language learning, when I mention what I do, “Oh, yeah, are you kind of like Rosetta Stone?”  They've heard of it. でも今では、語学学習に必ずしも興味がない人でも、私がやっていることを話すと、"ああ、そう、ロゼッタストーンみたいなもの?"と言ってくれる。と聞いてくれる。 “What's that software, Rosetta Stone? "ロゼッタストーン "って何? “O yazılım ne, Rosetta Stone mı? Yeah, that's it.” Evet, o.” Steve:    And, of course, I mean I think this is good. Steve: Ve tabii ki, bunun iyi olduğunu düşünüyorum. I don't want to knock Rosetta Stone because what it is, it's good, it promotes the idea that you can learn on your own. ||||||||||||||teşvik ediyor||||||||| ロゼッタストーンを非難するつもりはない。 And you have to learn on your own and you don't have to go to school, so all of this is good and makes people think of learning languages, it's already good. 自分で勉強しなければならないし、学校に行く必要もない。 Mark:    Plus, recently, they had their IPO (Initial Public Offering) on the stock market, which just raises awareness… |||||||ilk|Halka Açık|teklifi||||||||farkındalığı マーク:それに最近、彼らは株式市場でIPO(新規株式公開)を果たした。

Steve:    It raises awareness. Steve: Aumenta la consapevolezza. スティーブ:意識を高める。

Mark:    …as people hear about it. マーク:......人々がそれを耳にするように。

Steve:    Right.

Mark:    Just in terms of PR value, that, of course, adds to… マーク:PRの価値という点では、もちろん......。

Steve:    …adds to the buzz. ||||rumor o emoción ...aumenta l'entusiasmo. スティーブ:......話題性が増した。

Mark:    …the buzz about Rosetta Stone. ||heyecan||| マーク:......ロゼッタストーンの話題。

Steve:    But, from what I read, you know, they sort of pointed out that you have the sort of multiple choice things where you're picking. スティーブ:でも、僕が読んだ限りでは、複数の選択肢から選んでいくようなやり方はどうかと指摘されていたよ。 Steve: Ama, okuduklarıma göre, biliyorsun, bir tür çoktan seçmeli şeyler var, seçim yapıyorsun. You know after going through it once, you know, is this a bird? |||||||||is(1)||| 一度経験すれば、これは鳥なのか? Biliyorsun, bir kez üzerinden geçtikten sonra, bu bir kuş mu? You know you hear a word and you have to choose whether it's a bird, a car, a tree or an airplane or something. ある言葉を聞いて、それが鳥なのか、車なのか、木なのか、飛行機なのか、何かを選ばなければならない。 Biliyorsun, bir kelime duyuyorsun ve bunun bir kuş, bir araba, bir ağaç veya bir uçak mı olduğunu seçmek zorundasın. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And since this is very easy one argument by one of the supporters of Rosetta Stone was that this makes it, you know, gratifying, you know? |||||||||||||supporters|||||||||||satisfying|| ||||||||||||||||||||||||tatmin edici|değil mi| スティーブ:そして、ロゼッタストーンを支持する人の一人は、これはとても簡単なことだから、これはありがたいことだ、と言っていました。 Steve: Ve bu çok kolay bir şey olduğu için, Rosetta Stone'un destekçilerinden birinin argümanı, bunun, biliyorsunuz, tatmin edici hale getirmesi, değil mi?

Mark:    Right. Mark: Doğru.

Steve:    You know you can immediately see what happened, so you're gratified right away. |||||||||||memnun|| |||||||||||satisfecho|| スティーブ:何が起きたかすぐにわかるから、すぐに満足できるんだ。 Steve: Biliyorsunuz, hemen ne olduğunu görebiliyorsunuz, bu yüzden hemen tatmin oluyorsunuz. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Whereas, if you're learning a language you often have the impression that you're not making any progress, was one point. |||||||||||izlenim||||||||| スティーブ:一方、言語を学んでいると、進歩がないという印象を持つことがよくある。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But most of the people who commented on my blog just found it boring. スティーブ:でも、僕のブログにコメントしてくれた人たちのほとんどは、つまらないと思っただけなんだ。 Steve: Ama blogumda yorum yapan çoğu insan bunu sadece sıkıcı buldu. And my objection and I put it on my blog is that it's not communicating, it's playing little games. ||itirazım|||||||||||||||| ||objeción|||||||||||||||| 私のブログにも書いたが、それはコミュニケーションではなく、小さなゲームをしているのだ。 Ve itirazım ve bunu bloguma koymam da iletişim kurmaması, küçük oyunlar oynaması. And most of my activity is listening to my iPod. そして、私の活動のほとんどはiPodを聴くことだ。 Ve en çok yaptığım aktivite iPod'umda müzik dinlemek.

Mark:    Right. Mark: Doğru.

Steve:    If I'm in my car, if I'm wandering through a bookstore, if I'm mowing the lawn, whatever I'm doing I gain all this dead time. ||||||||||||||cutting grass||||||||||| ||||||||||||||biçme||||||||||boş| ||||||||||||||cortando el césped||césped cortado||||||||| スティーブ:車に乗っているとき、本屋をぶらぶらしているとき、芝刈りをしているとき、何をしているときでもデッドタイムが発生するんだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    If I had to sit chained to a computer playing these games I wouldn't do it. ||||||chained|||||||||| ||||||encadenado|||||||||| Steve: Si tuviera que sentarme encadenado a un ordenador a jugar a estos juegos, no lo haría. スティーブ:もし僕がコンピューターに縛りつけられてゲームをしなければならないとしたら、そんなことはしないね。 Mark:    Yeah.

I mean I don't know if it even qualifies as games; although, when I did it, yeah, it's kind of neat at first and you click all the…it's very easy. ||||||||nitelendirir||||||||||||şirin|||||||||| というか、ゲームと言えるのかどうかすらわからない。でも、やってみると、最初はちょっと面白いし、全部クリックする......すごく簡単なんだ。 Like I sit down and I can just kind of go through it and I hardly ever get any… Mi siedo e riesco a scorrerlo e non mi capita quasi mai di... 座って、ただひたすら......。

Steve:    You did it for Japanese when you were living in Japan. スティーブ:日本に住んでいたとき、日本人のためにやっていましたよね。

Mark:    I did it for Japanese when I was living in Japan. マーク:日本に住んでいたとき、日本人のためにやっていたんだ。 I'd hardly get any wrong. ほとんど間違えないよ。 Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ten minutes later I've done three units. |bell|||||||||||| Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, diez minutos después he hecho tres unidades. チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン、チーン。 Okay.

But how long are you going to sit there doing that? でも、いつまで座っているつもり?

Steve:    Right.

Mark:    And the worst part about it is, even if you do sit there and do it and you know it inside and out, at the end of it all you're still not very far. |||||||||||oturursan||||||||||||||||||||||| マーク:そして最悪なのは、たとえそこに座ってやっていて、それを知り尽くしていたとしても、最後にはまだあまり遠くに行っていないということなんだ。 Mark: Ve bunun en kötü yanı şu ki, orada oturup bunu yapsan bile ve her yönüyle bunu bilsen bile, sonunda hâlâ pek de uzak değilsin. Steve:    No. Steve: Hayır.

Mark:    You're still not capable of communicating. マーク:まだコミュニケーション能力がないんだね。 Mark: Hâlâ iletişim kurma kapasiten yok. And I think I had two levels of it before I gave up and I would have been far better off getting into real content, listening to stuff, reading stuff and expanding my vocabulary. そして、あきらめる前に2つのレベルを持っていたと思う。本物のコンテンツに触れ、いろいろなものを聴き、いろいろなものを読み、語彙を増やしたほうがはるかによかった。

Steve:    Well, exactly. And that's where…  Somebody else on my blog asked me if I knew about the Birkenbihl Method. そこで......私のブログの誰かが、ビルケンビール・メソッドについて知っているかと尋ねてきた。 And I had never heard of it, but I looked it up on the Web and I came to the site. Non ne avevo mai sentito parlare, ma ho cercato sul web e sono arrivato al sito. 聞いたことがなかったんだけど、ウェブで調べてサイトにたどり着いたんだ。 And there's a lady in Germany who has developed this system which, in many ways, is very similar to what we're doing. ドイツには、私たちがやっていることと多くの点で非常によく似たシステムを開発した女性がいる。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    She introduced some elements that are kind of complicated and I think unnecessarily confusing, complicated, things that people, in my mind, are not likely to continue doing. |||||||||||||unnecessarily|||||||||||||| |||||||||||||gereksiz yere|||||||||||||| スティーブ:彼女は、不必要に混乱させるような複雑な要素をいくつか導入した。 Steve: Bazı karmaşık ve gereksiz yere kafa karıştırıcı, karmaşık unsurlar tanıttı, insanların benim aklımda, muhtemelen yapmayı sürdürmeyecekleri şeyler.

Mark:    Exactly. Mark: Tam olarak. That's the thing I thought when I saw that. それを見たとき、そう思ったんだ。 Gördüğümde düşündüğüm şey bu. Steve:    But the principle is, yes, don't learn words in isolation, don't worry too much about grammar -- there Rosetta Stone also agrees -- and a lot of emphasis on listening. ||||||||||yalnızlıkta|||||||||||||||||| スティーブ:でも原則としては、単語を単体で覚えないこと、文法を気にしすぎないこと、ロゼッタストーンもそう言っています。 But she separates listening from reading and you have to listen to the word-for-word translation. ||separa|||||||||||||| しかし、彼女は聴くことと読むことを分けていて、一語一語訳を聴かなければならない。 It gets quite complicated. かなり複雑になる。

But, anyway, getting back to this fellow, I think that, yeah, what he's doing is he's going to try to train his brain; stimulate his brain, exercise his brain by learning another language. しかし、とにかく、この男の話に戻ると、私は、彼がやっていることは、脳を鍛えようとすること、脳を刺激すること、他の言語を学ぶことで脳を鍛えることだと思う。 I think that's a good thing and that's, in fact, how you learn. それはいいことだと思うし、実際、そうやって学んでいくものだ。 And so with Rosetta Stone the fact that you could learn the word for the color yellow and never forget it, it just is not going to happen. ロゼッタストーンを使えば、黄色という色の単語を覚えて、それを忘れることはない。

Mark:    No.

Steve:    You're going to forget it. スティーブ:忘れてしまうよ。 And only when you've seen yellow in many different situations are you going to remember it; otherwise…  I mean I'm quite good in Portuguese, but colors are difficult. そうでなければ......ポルトガル語は得意なんだけど、色は難しいんだ。 I'm quite good in Russian and Portuguese. ロシア語とポルトガル語はかなり得意だ。 I find colors difficult. 色は難しいと思う。 Was that green or yellow or red? あれは緑か黄色か赤か? I can't remember. 思い出せないんだ。 Mark:    Right. マーク:そうだね。

Steve:    Colors are hard. スティーブ:色は難しい。 Colors are hard, so are numbers. Los colores son difíciles, los números también. 色も数字も難しい。

Mark:    Numbers are hard, for sure. マーク:確かに数字は難しい。

Steve:    Numbers are very hard. スティーブ:数字はとても難しい。

Mark:    Numbers are very hard. マーク:数字はとても難しい。

Steve:    Very hard. I get a date in Russian; I haven't a clue what date they're talking about. 私はロシア語で日付を聞いた。 Mark:    When I get a date in French I have to start dissecting it now. ||||||||||||ayrıntılarına inmek|| マーク:フランス語でデートが決まったら、今すぐ解剖を始めなければならないんだ。 It takes me about three seconds after I've heard it before I'm, okay, that's what it was. 聞いてから3秒くらいで、そうか、そういうことだったのかと納得するんだ。 Steve:    It's surprising what's hard and what's easy. スティーブ:何が難しくて何が簡単なのか、驚くほどだよ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Things that you think would be easy to remember are often hard. スティーブ:簡単に覚えられそうなことでも、難しいことはよくある。 Things that you would think are hard maybe are easy to remember because they're hard. 難しいと思うようなことでも、難しいからこそ覚えやすいのかもしれない。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    We don't know how the brain is going to grab them. Anyway, so, hopefully, that person will get on our Website, so language learning as brain rehabilitation. |||||||||||||||rehabilitation とにかく、その人が私たちのウェブサイト、脳のリハビリテーションとしての言語学習にアクセスしてくれることを願っています。 Why not? なぜだ?

Mark:    Well, yeah. I mean they often recommend that for seniors, that they study languages to keep their brain active and young, so it should work for him. |||||||yaşlılar||||||||||||||||| シニア世代には、脳を活性化して若さを保つために語学を勉強することをよく勧める。

Steve:    By the way, on another subject, President Obama was in Russia and gave speeches to students and gave speeches to the business community or at least met with the business community and opposition parties and other nongovernmental organizations, as well as, of course, meeting with the President of Russia and the Prime Minster of Russia and so forth. |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||no gubernamentales||||||||||||||||||||| Steve: A proposito, su un altro tema, il Presidente Obama è stato in Russia e ha tenuto discorsi agli studenti e alla comunità imprenditoriale o almeno ha incontrato la comunità imprenditoriale e i partiti di opposizione e altre organizzazioni non governative, oltre, naturalmente, a incontrare il Presidente della Russia e il Primo Ministro della Russia e così via. スティーブ:ところで、別の話題ですが、オバマ大統領はロシアに滞在し、学生にスピーチをしたり、経済界にスピーチをしたり、少なくとも経済界や野党、その他の非政府組織と会いました。

And he stressed this idea that, you know, not all relationships have to be between the President and the President. ||enfatizó||||||||||||||||| そして彼は、すべての関係が大統領と大統領のものである必要はない、という考えを強調した。 That there are many things that people in society should get more involved. 社会の人々がもっと関わるべきことはたくさんある。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And I read an interesting book about democracy and the democratization of so many things, you know, which is, to some extent, what the Web is about and, to some extent, what we're doing in language learning. スティーブ:そして、民主主義や多くのものの民主化について書かれた興味深い本を読みました。 The power of the publisher, the newspaper publisher, the power of the book publisher, of the media empire, of the teacher, of the school, of all of these institutions is getting less. 出版社の力、新聞社の力、書籍出版社の力、メディア帝国の力、教師の力、学校の力、これらすべての機関の力が弱まっている。 Yayıncının gücü, gazete yayıncısının gücü, kitap yayıncısının gücü, medya imparatorluğunun gücü, öğretmenin gücü, okulun gücü, bu kurumların hepsinin gücü azalıyor.

Mark:    Right. Mark: Doğru.

Steve:    And, more and more, people can, you know, have a blog or have a podcast, set up a language class online or a language system online. Steve: E, sempre più spesso, le persone possono avere un blog o un podcast, creare un corso di lingua online o un sistema linguistico online. Steve: Ve giderek daha fazla, insanlar, biliyorsunuz, bir blog sahibi olabilir veya bir podcast yapabilir, çevrimiçi dil dersi açabilir veya çevrimiçi bir dil sistemi kurabilir. And, similarly, in our society there are probably more things that people can do on their own and get the government out of so much of this stuff. それと同じように、私たちの社会では、人々が自分たちでできることの方が多いだろうし、政府はこのようなことからもっと手を引くことができる。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    I mean we had a bit of a scandal here in Canada over the government providing $1.9 million to the Calgary Stampede, which is annual tourist event… |||||||||scandal||||||||||||Calgary event||||| |||||||||||||||||||||Stampede||||| スティーブ:つまり、ここカナダでは、毎年恒例の観光イベントであるカルガリー・スタンピードに政府が190万ドルを提供したことでちょっとしたスキャンダルになったわけだが......。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    …where people rope cattle and charge around and probably the cattle get badly done by, which happens to them all the time on a working ranch anyway. ||||livestock animals||||||||||||||||||||||| ||||sığır||şarj etmek|koşuşturuyor||||||||||||onlara|||||||çiftlikte| |||lazo|ganado bovino||||||||||||||||||||||rancho de trabajo| スティーブ:......人が牛をロープで繋いで突進し、おそらく牛はひどい目に遭う。 Стив: …где люди связывают скот и носятся вокруг, и, вероятно, скот плохо расправляется с ними, что в любом случае случается с ними все время на рабочем ранчо. Steve: …burası, insanların sığırları iplerle bağlayıp etrafta koşturduğu ve muhtemelen sığırların zarar gördüğü bir yer, ki bu her halükarda bir çalışma çiftliğinde her zaman başlarına gelen bir şeydir.

And then there was a large amount of money donated for the Gay Pride Parade in Toronto. ||||||||||||||Geçit Töreni|| そして、トロントのゲイ・プライド・パレードに多額の寄付があった。 Ve sonra, Toronto'daki Gay Pride Geçidi için büyük miktarda para bağışlandı. And, of course, since the government is a conservative government and somewhat conservative socially, there was a great human cry that the government spent money on promoting this Gay Pride Parade. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||Geçit Töreni E, naturalmente, dato che il governo è un governo conservatore e un po' conservatore dal punto di vista sociale, si è levato un grande grido umano per il fatto che il governo abbia speso soldi per promuovere questa parata del Gay Pride. そしてもちろん、政府は保守的な政府であり、社会的にもやや保守的であるため、このゲイ・プライド・パレードの推進に政府が金を使ったことに大きな悲鳴が上がった。 Ve elbette, hükümetin muhafazakâr bir hükümet olması ve sosyal olarak da kısmen muhafazakâr olması nedeniyle, hükümetin bu Gay Pride Geçidi'ni desteklemek için para harcadığına dair büyük bir insan tepkisi oldu. And, of course, those who were in favor of the Gay Pride Parade say that this is a great tourist attraction. そしてもちろん、ゲイ・プライド・パレードに賛成した人々は、これは素晴らしい観光アトラクションだと言う。 It's a great big party, all kinds of people come. 盛大なパーティーで、いろんな人が来る。 I mean I don't want to get into the issue of the Gay Pride Parade, but why is the government handing out $400,000 to the Gay Pride Parade, $1.9 million to the Calgary Stampede? Non voglio entrare nella questione della Gay Pride Parade, ma perché il governo sta dando 400.000 dollari alla Gay Pride Parade e 1,9 milioni di dollari al Calgary Stampede? つまり、ゲイ・プライド・パレードの問題には触れたくないが、なぜ政府はゲイ・プライド・パレードに40万ドル、カルガリー・スタンピードに190万ドルを支払うのか? You mean those events would not go on if the government didn't hand them money? 政府が金を渡さなければ、あのようなイベントは行われなかったということか? Mark:    I mean it's ridiculous. The government should not be in the business of giving money to anything like that. 政府はそのようなものに金を出すようなビジネスをすべきではない。

Steve:    Well, of course. Because then what happens is anybody that's got any kind of event, their major activity now becomes going after government money. というのも、そうなるとどんなイベントでも、彼らの主要な活動は政府からの資金を狙うことになるからだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    It completely distorts everything. |||distorts| スティーブ:すべてを完全に歪めてしまう。 It's the same, you know, as in language teaching. 語学教育と同じだよ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    We can't get any…  Any organization that's helping immigrants to learn English is never going to look at LingQ, because their main modus vivendi, their business model, is extracting more money from government. |||||||||||||||||||||||yaşam biçimi|yaşam biçimi|||||çıkarmak|||| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||extrayendo|||| スティーブ:移民の英語学習を支援する組織は、LingQを見向きもしないだろう。 Steve: We kunnen er geen krijgen... Elke organisatie die immigranten helpt Engels te leren, zal nooit naar LingQ kijken, omdat hun belangrijkste modus vivendi, hun bedrijfsmodel, meer geld van de overheid haalt. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And, certainly, I mean we hear in Russia where they are one of the more corrupt countries in the world according to some international…apparently they're ranked behind…  I don't know, I don't remember the country, but it wasn't high on the list of non…  I mean they're corrupt. Steve:確かに、ある国際的な調査によると、ロシアは世界で最も腐敗した国のひとつだと聞いている。 Стив: И, конечно же, я имею в виду, что мы слышим в России, что они являются одной из самых коррумпированных стран в мире по мнению некоторых международных… очевидно, они уступают… я не знаю, я не помню страну, но это не было первым в списке не… Я имею в виду, что они коррумпированы. And a big part of it is that the government's in everything. その大部分は、政府がすべてに介入しているということだ。 And the more government has got its fingers in different things the more you get these distortions. そして、政府がさまざまなことに指を突っ込めば突っ込むほど、こうした歪みが生じてくる。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    But this interesting book that I read by a fellow whose name I can't remember… he has a Muslim name, actually, and he writes for Newsweek. ||||||||||||||||||||||||||Newsweek スティーブ:でも、名前を思い出せないんだけど、『ニューズウィーク』誌に寄稿しているイスラム教徒の人の本を読んだんだ。 But he wrote a bestseller on democracy…you know I can't remember his name anymore…but he made the point that this excess of democracy, though, has caused some problems. ||||çok satan||||||||||||||||||aşırılık||||||| ||||best-seller||||||||||||||||||||||||| でも、彼は民主主義についてのベストセラーを書いていて......彼の名前はもう覚えていないんだけど......民主主義の行き過ぎが、いくつかの問題を引き起こしているという指摘をしていた。 And…here we are. His name is…I can't remember…Zachariah? 名前は...思い出せない...ザッカリア? Fareed Zachariah. ファリード・ザカリア And it has caused problems. そして、それが問題を引き起こした。 Like in California the people have had plebiscite after plebiscite saying you cannot spend more than this on this, you cannot have a deficit, you cannot do this, you can't spend…forty percent of the budget has to be spent on education. |||||||referandum||||||||||||||||açık|||||||||||||||||| |||||||plebiscito|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| カリフォルニア州のように、国民投票では、これ以上の予算は使えない、赤字は許されない、こんなことはできない、予算の40%は教育に使わなければならない、といった意見が相次いだ。 So with the result that their roads are falling apart, they're practically bankrupt… El resultado es que sus carreteras se caen a pedazos, están prácticamente en bancarrota... その結果、道路はボロボロになり、実質的な破産状態に陥っている......。 Так что в результате их дороги разваливаются, они практически банкроты… In other words, you get these popular movements where people have a single issue… 言い換えれば、このような大衆運動は、人々がひとつの問題意識を持って...

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    …that they're totally wrapped up about. スティーブ:...彼らは完全に包まれているんだ。 Стив: …что они полностью зациклены на этом. They have a plebiscite, they win, because a motivated minority of people will always win against the vast majority who are yawning on the issue and pretty soon you restrict what government can do. |||plebiscite||||||||||||||||||disinterested or apathetic|||||||||||| |||||||||azınlık||||||||||||||||||||sınırlarsın|||| |||plebiscito||||||||||||||||||bostezando sobre|||||||tú restringes||||| なぜなら、やる気のある少数派は、その問題であくせくしている大多数に必ず勝つからだ。

Mark:    But I guess the problem there is that it's not true democracy, because only a motivated portion of the people voted on the issue. マーク:しかし、真の民主主義ではないということが問題なのでしょう。 Steve:    This is true.

Mark:    If everybody voted on the issue then it presumably wouldn't have passed. マーク:もし全員がこの問題に投票していたら、おそらく可決されなかっただろうね。 Or, it may have, but the people would have had to deal with it. あるいは、そうなったかもしれないが、国民はそれに対処しなければならなかっただろう。 And then if you have that for one issue then you kind of have to have that for all issues. そして、1つの問題でそうであれば、すべての問題でそうでなければならない。 И затем, если у вас есть это для одной проблемы, то вам как бы нужно иметь это для всех проблем.

Steve:    Right.

Mark:    So, all of a sudden, okay, 40% is going to schools, now we have a problem where our roads are falling apart, should we take some of this money out of school and everybody has to vote again. マーク:では、突然ですが、40%を学校に回すとして、道路がボロボロになっている問題があります。 Presumably, people will say, yeah, that's a good idea, but if you have that publicized in isolation then I don't see how that would work. ||||||||||||||promoted|||||||||| ||||||||||||||duyurulursa||yalnızlıkta|||||||| おそらく、人々は、ああ、それはいい考えだと言うだろう。しかし、それを単独で公表した場合、それがどのように機能するかは分からない。 Steve:    Well, that's right. Mark:    You can't have a combination you have to open it up. |||sahip olmak||kombinasyon|||||| マーク:コンビネーションを持つことはできない。 Mark: Bir kombinasyonunuz olamaz, bunu açmanız gerekiyor. Steve:    That's true. Steve: Bu doğru. Mark:    Yeah. Mark: Evet.

I mean so it's really not an excess of democracy at all, it's just kind of a red herring thrown in there. ||||||||||||||||||distraction or misdirection||| ||||||||||||||||||saman altı yapmak||| |||||||||||||||||distracción engañosa|distracción engañosa||| No se trata de un exceso de democracia, sino de una especie de pista falsa. つまり、民主主義が過剰なわけではなく、ただそこに赤信号が投げ込まれたようなものなのだ。 Я имею в виду, что на самом деле это вовсе не избыток демократии, а просто отвлекающий маневр. Demek istediğim, bu aslında bir demokrasi fazlası değil, sadece oraya atılan bir dikkat dağıtıcı. Steve:    Right. Steve: Doğru.

And this book I read by Zachariah, he pointed out…which is an interesting book, by the way, it was a New York Times bestseller back in 2003. ちなみに、この本は2003年にニューヨーク・タイムズ紙のベストセラーになった。 Zachariah'ın okuduğum bu kitabında… ki bu ilginç bir kitap, bu arada 2003'te New York Times bestseller'ıydı. You know, we could have another session on it one day, but he points out that there were a lot of undemocratic governments that were, you know, monarchies, but where they had the rule of law… |||||||||||||||||||||not democratic||||||monarchies|||||||| |||||||||||||||||||||indemocráticos|||||||||||||| いつか別のセッションを開きたいところだが、彼は非民主的な政権がたくさんあったことを指摘している。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    …where they had a number of institutions. スティーブ:...そこにはいくつもの施設があった。

Mark:    Yeah.

Steve:    Freedom of speech, rule of law, but the king decided. スティーブ:言論の自由、法の支配、しかし王が決めたことだ。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    Anyway…

Mark:    So he's suggesting that democracy is a bad thing? マーク:つまり、彼は民主主義が悪いことだと言いたいんですね? Steve:    No.

He's just saying that it's not necessarily the first step. 彼は、それが必ずしも最初の一歩ではないと言っているだけだ。 Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And his biggest thing is land reform スティーブ:そして彼の最大の関心事は土地改革だ。

Mark:    Right.

Steve:    And that there are many countries where you can't go at them first with democracy if they don't have these other things in place. スティーブ:そして、民主主義を掲げても、それ以外のものが整っていなければ、まず手を出せない国もたくさんある。 Стив: И что есть много стран, где вы не можете первыми напасть на них с демократией, если у них нет этих других вещей. Mark:    Right.

Steve:    It's an interesting book. Mark:    We'll save it for another time. マーク:それはまた別の機会にしましょう。 Steve:    We'll save it. スティーブ:取っておこう。 We never run out of things to say. 言いたいことは尽きない。

Mark:    No.

Steve:    Look forward to your comments. スティーブ:コメントを楽しみにしているよ。 Thank you.

Mark:    Okay, bye-bye.

Steve:    Bye.