シャドーイング練習: MATILDA - Roald Dahl (Chapter 1) - READ ALOUD - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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The reader of books.
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It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers.
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Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
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Some parents go further.
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They become so blinded by the adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
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Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this.
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It's the way of the world.
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It is only when the parents begin telling us about the billions of their own revolting offspring that we start shouting,
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bring us a basin, we're going to be sick.
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School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents,
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but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end of term reports.
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If I were a teacher, I would cook up some real scorches for the children of dotting parents.
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Your son Maximilian, I would write, is a total washout.
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I hope you have a family business you can push him into
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when he leaves school because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else.
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Or, if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, it is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing organs in the sides of their abdomen.
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Your daughter Vanessa, judging by what she's learnt this term has no hearing organs at all.
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I might even delve deeper into natural history
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and say the periodical cicada spends six years as a grub underground
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and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air.
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Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school
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and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.
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A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg,
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but unlike the iceberg she has absolutely nothing below the surface.
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I think I might enjoy writing end of term reports for the stinkers in my class, but enough of that, we have to get on.
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Occasionally, one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children, and these of course are far worse than the dotting ones.
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Mr and Mrs Wormwood were two such parents.
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They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda
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and the parents looked upon Matilda in particular nothing more than a scab.
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A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes
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when you can pick it off and flick it away.
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Mr and Mrs Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away, preferably into the next county or even further than that.
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It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions,
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but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary, and by that I mean sensitive and brilliant.
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Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant.
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Her mind was so nimble and she was so quick to learn
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that her ability should have been obvious even to the most half-witted of parents.
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But Mr and Mrs Wormwood were both so gormless and
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so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter.
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To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg.
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Matilda's brother Michael was a perfectly normal boy, but the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop.
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By the age of one and a half, her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups.
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The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.
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By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house.
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At the age of four, she could read fast and well and she naturally began hankering after books.
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The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking, belonging to her mother.
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And when she had read this from cover to cover and had learned all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting.
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Daddy, she said, do you think you could buy me a book?
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A book, he said.
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What do you want a flaming book for?
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To read, Daddy.
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What's wrong with the telly for heaven's sake?
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We've got a lovely telly with a 12-inch screen and now you've come asking for a book.
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You're getting spoiled, my girl.
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Nearly every weekday afternoon, Matilda was left alone in the house.
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Her brother, five years older than her, went to school.
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Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away.
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Mrs Wormwood was hooked on bingo and played at five afternoons a week.
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On the afternoon of the day, when her father refused to buy her book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village.
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When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs Phelps.
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She asked if she might sit a while and read a book.
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Mrs Phelps, slightly taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome.
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Where are the children's books, please?
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Matilda asked.
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They're over there on the lower shelves, Mrs Phelps told her.
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Would you like me to help you find nice one with lots of pictures in it?
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No thank you, Matilda said, I'm sure I can manage.
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From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library.
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The walk took only 10 minutes and this allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cosy corner, devouring one book after another.
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When she had read every single book, when she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering around in search of something else.
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Mrs Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from her desk and went over to her.
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Can I help you, Matilda? she asked.
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I'm wondering what to read next, Matilda said.
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I've finished all the children's books.
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You mean you've looked at the pictures?
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Yes, but I've read the books as well.
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Mrs Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height and Matilda looked right back up at her.
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I thought some were very poor, Matilda said, but others were lovely.
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I liked the secret garden best of all.
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It was full of mystery.
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The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall.
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Mrs Phelps was stunned.
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Exactly how old are you, Matilda? she asked.
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Four years and three months, Matilda said.
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Mrs Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it.
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What sort of a book would you like to read next, she asked.
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Matilda said, I would like a really good one that grown-ups read, a famous one.
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I don't know any names.
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Mrs Phelps looked along the shelves taking her time.
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She didn't quite know what to bring out.
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How, she asked herself, does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl?
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Her first thought was to pick a young teenager's romance of the kind that is written for 15-year-old schoolgirls,
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but for some reason she found herself instinctively walking past that particular shelf.
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Try this, she said at last.
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It's very famous and very good.
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If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier.
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Great expectations, Matilda read, by Charles Dickens.
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I'd love to try that.
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I must be mad, Mrs Phelps told herself, but to Matilda she said, of course you may try it.
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Over the next few afternoons Mrs Phelps could hardly take her
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eyes from the small girl sitting for hour after hour in
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the big armchair at the far end of the room with a book on her lap.
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It was necessary to rest her on her lap
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because it was too heavy for her to hold up which meant she had to sit leaning forward in order to read.
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And a strange sight it was this tiny dark-haired person sitting there with her feet nowhere near touching the floor
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totally absorbed in the wonderful adventures of Pip and old Miss Havsham and her cobwebbed house
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and by the spell of magic that Dickens the great storyteller had woven with his words.
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The only movement from the reader was lifting off the hand every now and then to turn over a page
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and Mrs Phelps always felt sad when the time came for her to cross the floor and say
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It's ten to five, Matilda.
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During the first week of Matilda's visits, Mrs Phelps had said to her, Does your mother walk you down here every day and then take you home?
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My mother goes to Aylesbury every afternoon to play bingo, Matilda had said.
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She doesn't know that I come here.
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But that's surely not right, Mrs Phelps said.
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I think you'd better ask her.
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I'd rather not, Matilda said.
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She doesn't encourage reading books, nor does my father.
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But what do they expect you to do every afternoon in an empty house?
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Just mooch around and watch the telly.
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I see.
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She doesn't really care what I do, Matilda said a little sadly.
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Mrs Feltz was concerned about the child's safety on the walk
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through a fairly busy village high street and the crossing of the road, but she decided not to interfere.
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Within a week, Matilda had finished Great Expectations, which in that edition contained 411 pages.
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I loved it, she said to Mrs Phelps.
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Has Mr Dickens written any others?
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A great number, said the astounded Mrs Phelps.
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Shall I choose you another?
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Over the next six months, under Mrs Phelps' watchful and compassionate eye, Matilda read the following books.
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Nicholas Sniggleby by Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens,
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Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
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Tess of the Dubervilles by Thomas Hardy Gone to Earth by Mary Webb Kim by Rudyard Kipling The Invisible Man by H.G.
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Wells
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The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
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The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck The Good Companions by J.B.
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Priestley Brighton Rock by Graham Green Animal Farm by George Orwell It was a formidable list, and by now Mrs Phelps was filled with wonder and excitement,
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but it was probably a good thing that she did not allow herself to be completely carried away by it all.
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Almost anyone else witnessing the achievements of this small child would have been tempted to make a great fuss
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and shout the news all over the village and beyond.
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But not so Mrs Phelps.
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She was someone who minded her own business, and had long since discovered it was seldom worth while to interfere with other people's children.
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Mr Hemingway says a lot of things I don't understand, Matilda said to her, especially about men and women, but I loved it all the same.
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The way he tells it, I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all.
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A fine writer will always make you feel that, Mrs Phelps said, and don't worry about the bits you can't understand.
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Sit back and allow the words to wash around you like music.
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I will, I will.
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Did you know, Mrs Phelps said, that public libraries like this allow you to borrow books and take them home?
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I didn't know that, Matilda said.
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Could I do it?
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Of course, Mrs Phillips said.
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When you have chosen the book you want, bring it to me so I can make a note of it and it's yours for two weeks.
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You can take more than one if you wish.
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From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books
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and return the old ones.
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Her own small bedroom now became her reading room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her.
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She was not quite tall enough to reach things around the kitchen
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but she kept a small box in their outhouse
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which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted.
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Mostly it was hot chocolate she made warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove before mixing it.
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Occasionally she made bovril or ovaltine.
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It was pleasant to take a hot drink up to her room
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and have it beside her as she sat in the silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons.
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The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.
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She went on olden day sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, she went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway and to India with Rudyard Kipling.
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She travelled all over the world while sitting in her room in an English village.

この動画は誰におすすめ?

英語のスピーキング力向上、特にIELTS スピーキング対策を目指す中級レベルの学習者にぴったりです。ロールド・ダールの風刺的な文体が楽しく、日常会話ではないが自然な語彙や表現が多く含まれています。shadowing practice(シャドーイング)に最適で、聴解と発音を同時に鍛えられます。

覚えておきたい単語とイディオム

  • washout:全くの失敗作、役に立たない人。文中では「全くの駄目な子」と訳されます。
  • glacial beauty:氷河のような美しさ。冷たくて遠い印象の美しさを表します。
  • seen and not heard:見られるだけで、話さないほうがいい。「小さな子は静かにしているべき」という古い考えを表します。
  • hankering after:熱望する、切に望む。本を求めるマチルダの心情を生き生きと表しています。

発音を上達させるコツ

この動画のナレーターは抑揚がはっきりしており、風刺的な箇所では語調が上がるのが特徴です。「stinkers」「gormless」などの単語は子音の発音が重要で、息を抜かずにはっきりと発音しましょう。shadow speakの練習では、ナレーターの発音に合わせて口の形やリズムを真似ることがポイントです。特に「It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers」のような長い文は、句読点で区切って息継ぎをする場所を覚えましょう。英語の発音を良くするには、繰り返しシャドーイングを行い、自分の発音とナレーターの発音の違いを聞き分けることが大切です。shadowing siteを利用して、録音して比較するのも効果的です。

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
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should be seen · was left · was hooked
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has spent · you've come · I've finished
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加えるsomeone who minded · people who lived
「might / may」による可能性 might/may + 動詞 — 起こりうるが確実ではないことmight write · might even delve · might sting

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。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →