シャドーイング練習: How to Start a Business - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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Many of us want to start our own businesses.
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Public space is filled with reports of new ventures.
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But the reporting on entrepreneurship is heavily skewed in one particular direction:
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towards people who've started new kinds of businesses ; pioneers who've pushed the boundaries of commerce by creating a wholly new offering,
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usually through the help of some form of innovative piece of technology.
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The new entrepreneurs might, for example, have invented an app for measuring and controlling the humidity of clothes closets,
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or they might have come up with a tiny sensor that can detect hunger in domestic animals, or they've built a social platform to connect people planning a trip to Italy.
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This emphasis on novelty can leave us feeling that the chief
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and correct way to become an entrepreneur is invariably going to be through radical, technologically based innovation.
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We may therefore, as we contemplate an entrepreneurial future, ask ourselves, with increasing panic,
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what entirely unthought of idea we might ourselves come up with to propel us forwards.
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In our frenzy, the answers we arrive at may start to lean towards the implausible, the trite or the naive.
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But there is another path.
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Most of the economy is made up of businesses doing stuff that people have always been doing, or have been doing for a very long time.
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Making daily bread, or shirts, or trousers, teaching languages, or giving travellers a bed for the night, raising animals, or fixing teeth.
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In other words, most businesses operate in areas that economists call 'mature', sectors where it's rather hard to come in and make a surprising fortune.
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But that doesn't mean these sectors should be ignored.
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Far from it.
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There are a plethora of hugely meaningful possibilities hiding for us
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in plain sight on account of one perhaps surprising fact about the economy.
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A majority of businesses don't love what they do.
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we might make a basic distinction between two kinds of businesses: pragmatic businesses, and businesses of love.
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Pragmatic businesses are everywhere.
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They almost define for us what we think business is in its essence.
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They know how to make their product or service with a sound degree of competence.
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But there is a practical, unidealistic edge to the way they go about things.
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There isn't anything very powerful drawing them to their particular offering.
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They might easily have been doing something else.
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They don't care about the long term.
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The business is only a vehicle for an underlying financial purpose.
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One eye is always focused on how to sell up.
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didn't have to work, they almost certainly wouldn't.
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Such pragmatic businesses may do fine or even very well for a long time.
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But the motivations are easy enough to spot.
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A discerning eye can tell something crucial within minutes of walking through the door.
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This is not being done with or full love.
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pragmatic businesses dominate the economy.
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One might say that over 85 % of businesses fall into this category.
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But there are parts of the economy, and they are heavily in the minority, where things are being done rather differently.
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Businesses of love produce many varied things, but there are some underlying principles holding them together.
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Here, love means: a total commitment to excellence of a given product
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or service a desire to reinvest almost all profit into guaranteeing this excellence.
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a focus on the long term, because the business is, for its owners, the meaning of life.
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There is no interest in selling the firm right now or perhaps ever.
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The dearest wish might be to give it to someone you love, like your child.
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Love means you almost do it for free and don't only because you need to live.
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You need to pay your employees and you want the business to be able to last into the long term.
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The product or service is what you love and you love it inordinately.
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Businesses of love are the sort where the owner has scoured the world for the best kind of flour
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and wakes up excitedly at dawn to check on the progress of each of the loaves.
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Or the aircraft factory, where the workers think of every play in their building almost like a relative they will always care for.
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Or the stationery shop, where notebooks and paper are viewed as objects of beauty rather than utility.
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Or the travel agency that won't rest until it knows its clients have enjoyed their trips rather than just paid for them.
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Or the sandwich store that views a fine avocado and chicken roll as one of the authentic joys in a tricky life.
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Businesses run for love are not always successful in the standard financial sense of the term.
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Some might just be returning a little over 3 % a year.
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But for these enterprises, money is only ever a means to a greater, more purposeful end.
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There are huge opportunities to hand for any would -be entrepreneurs, because most of the economy is in the hands of people who don't love what they're doing.
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Most law firms, dentist offices, hotels and bakeries aren't in it for love.
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They may be efficient and canny, but they are ultimately just waiting to sell up.
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We don't need to be very original to succeed.
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We don't need to have invented anything very new.
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We just need to make sense of our lives and make an honest living along the way,
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to offer the world something we love a little more intensely than most people do.
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Thank you for commenting, liking and subscribing.
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Our book, A Job to Love, is a practical guide to finding fulfilling work.
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To find out more, follow the link on your screen now.

ビジネスを始めるときの考え方:一般的な誤解と別の道

YouTubeで英語学習をする際、「How to Start a Business」のようなビデオは実用的な内容だけでなく、自然な英語表現を学ぶのにも最適です。多くの人がビジネスを始める際、「革新的なアイデアがなければ成功できない」と思いがちですが、ビデオではその誤解を解き、「愛を込めたビジネス」の重要性を説いています。このようなリアルなシナリオは、英語スピーキング練習にも最適で、日常的なビジネス談義や意見交換で使える表現がたくさん含まれています。

実用的なフレーズとコロケーション

  • push the boundaries of commerce:商業の限界を押し広げる
  • wholly new offering:全く新しい商品・サービス
  • mature sectors:成熟した分野
  • reinvest profit:利益を再投資する
  • scour the world for:世界中を探し求める

これらのフレーズは、ビジネス関連の会話だけでなく、創造性や長期的な計画について話す際にも使えます。例文を作りながら覚えると、より自然に使えるようになります。

あなたのシャドーイング チャレンジ

shadow speech(シャドースピーチ)は英語の発音を良くするための効果的な方法です。このビデオの中で「But there is another path.」から「the progress of each of the loaves.」までの部分を選び、以下のように練習してみてください。
1. ビデオを1文ずつ再生し、すぐにその後に続いて同じように話します。
2. 発音やイントネーション、リズムに注意し、できるだけ似ているように努めます。
3. 5回繰り返した後、自分で録音して元のビデオと比較してみましょう。
この練習を続けると、自然なスピーキング力がつくだけでなく、リスニング力も向上します。

YouTubeで英語学習をする際は、単に内容を理解するだけでなく、表現や発音を真似ることで、より実践的なスキルが身につきます。ぜひ今日からシャドーイングを始めて、英語スピーキングのレベルを上げてみてください。

この動画の文法

話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。

文型動画での表現
現在完了進行形 have/has been + -ing — 以前に始まり今も続いている動作have always been doing · have been doing
受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てるis filled · is made · should be ignored
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係しているwho've started · have invented · they've built

シャドーイングとは?英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング(Shadowing)は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的:ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影(shadow)」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

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