執筆者 Modern English | 2014年02月06日 | Trivia
The most iconic Valentine’s Day gift is a heart-shaped box of fancy chocolates. This tradition goes back to the 1840s. The pretty boxes could be used to store love letters or a lock of your lover’s hair. Richard Cadbury is thought to have invented this style of box....
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年02月05日 | Idioms
“I don’t know if I’m ready to play the violin in front of an audience!” “Don’t worry. You’ll knock their socks off!” Knocking someone’s socks off means to impress them by doing a great job. You can also say you “blew them away”. A surprisingly good performance is...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年02月04日 | Words
“Mom likes romance movies, but I always cover my eyes during the smooching scenes.” “Smooch” is another word for “kiss”. It’s sort of cute, but it doesn’t sound very romantic. It can be a verb, as above, or a noun, as in “Give him a great big smooch.”...
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年02月03日 | Pictures
Can you relate to the animals in this photograph? It must be very cold. But polar bears and arctic foxes are well adapted to cold weather. They probably don’t mind it very much....
執筆者 Modern English | 2014年02月01日 | Phrases
“Let’s get some rice balls at the convenience store. I really prefer hand-made, but these will do in a pinch.” A “pinch” is a difficult situation. We might do something in a pinch that we wouldn’t normally do. 「コンビニでおにぎりを買おう。本当は手作りが好きだけど、イザとなったらこれでもいい。」...
