シャドーイング練習: Why can’t prices just stay the same? - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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107 文
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1
Inflation is causing stress.
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Bad news about prices in the grocery store.
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Historically high inflation.
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In 2022, much of the world experienced a period of uncommonly high inflation, with the US, UK and Eurozone all peaking at around 10%,
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meaning that prices on average were a full 10% higher than one year before.
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Though that's probably not a surprise to anyone watching this.
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It's thankfully now closer to the normal range, if still a bit high.
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But infuriatingly, since this chart just shows a rate of change, that doesn't mean that prices are down, just that they've stopped climbing as fast.
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And that really sucks.
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Consumers are stressed, businesses are suffering and governments are scrambling.
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But at the same time, if you were to, I don't know, find yourself reading and watching a ton of inflation related content, you'll also keep hearing this.
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A little inflation is a good thing.
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A little inflation is a good thing.
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A little inflation now would be a good thing.
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Everybody wants a little inflation.
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Why?
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If rising prices hurt seemingly everyone, why can't they just stay the same?
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Why can't inflation be zero?
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The first reason inflation can't stay at zero is because governments and their central banks don't want it to.
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Lots of countries actively pursue what is called an inflation target.
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In the US right now, it's about 2%.
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That's the number that's used by most central banks across the world.
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But the truth of it is, that's a pretty arbitrary number.
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The goal is what economists consider a virtuous cycle.
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Here's what that looks like.
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In times when prices are generally rising, people tend to expect them to rise further.
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And that actually encourages people to spend money now on big, durable purchases like cars or appliances, in order to avoid having to pay more for the same thing later.
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And the stuff we need to buy no matter what, goods like food or clothing, gets more expensive too, which requires us to spend more.
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Either way, companies make more money.
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Which means more people have jobs and more of their own money to spend.
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And that means more demand and therefore higher prices.
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So the cycle continues.
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But this bit of the cycle is crucial to its virtue.
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It's okay if prices rise so long as wages rise too.
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still be able to afford the same goods if your wages keep pace with inflation.
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Emphasis on the if.
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In the U.S., for two years, wage growth lagged behind inflation.
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That trend has reversed starting in mid-2023.
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Wages, especially at the bottom, have kept up with inflation.
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In fact, in many cases, surpassed inflation.
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And that is a good thing.
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That also we have to remember, wages in this country are rock bottom and have been for way, way too long, right?
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So wage growth rising, good?
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Are wages high enough?
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No.
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And a disruption at any point in this loop can lead
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to the kind of high inflation we've experienced over the past few years,
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when supply chain interruptions created product shortages and some companies artificially drove up prices to increase their profits, which along with some other causes,
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effectively turned this virtuous cycle into a vicious one.
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With Digital Credit Union, you'll get a world of financial possibilities, starting with their award-winning primary savings account and a zero-fee checking account
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that could help you get your paycheck up to two days early.
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Like all credit unions, DCU is a not-for-profit, which says its primary focus is to serve their members, unlike banks, which primarily serve their shareholders.
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From community give-back initiatives to innovative products and services, their mission adheres to these three principles.
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People come first, do the right thing, and make a difference.
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DCU does not influence the editorial process of our videos, but they do help make videos like this possible.
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The government does have tools to combat rising inflation.
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They usually shift things here by raising interest rates, which makes all borrowing, including credit cards and bank loans, more expensive.
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When the cost of borrowing goes up, it becomes more expensive to make investments, to hire people, and that eventually slows the economy down.
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what the U.S.
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Federal Reserve did in 2022, which did help bring inflation closer to that 2% target,
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while placing an even higher financial strain on families who may need to borrow just to make ends meet.
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When the Fed uses interest rates to bring down inflation, what they're doing is tamping down that demand, right?
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They're telling people, you can't have a job.
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Like, let's put you out of work so that demand slows, that, you know, price growth slows.
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The Fed raises interest rates to slow down spending across the economy, partly by signaling to markets that they're taking the problem seriously, which creates an expectation that inflation will fall.
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But we also have to talk about what happens when prices fall instead of rise.
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That's called deflation.
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And falling prices honestly sounds pretty good.
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But they can also introduce another kind of cycle.
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A deflationary spiral.
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When prices fall, consumers may hold off on making big purchases, hoping for even lower prices in the future.
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And the stuff we need costs less.
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So we just spend less in general.
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If people are spending less, companies make less.
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They start to cut costs.
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And ultimately they lay off employees.
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Unemployed people spend less, and even the people who are employed might choose to save more to stave off financial loss.
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So prices go down even further as demand goes down.
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So ultimately all of that adds up to slower economic growth as a whole.
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Which is really hard to fix because governments don't have the same ability to respond to deflation as they do to inflation.
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Look at this chart again.
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The last time inflation dipped below 2% in spring of 2020, the US brought interest rates all the way down to 0.05%.
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And after bottoming out for a bit, that seemed to work.
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Inflation inched back up.
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But if inflation hadn't come back up, the government would have had limited options.
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Their rates were already getting almost out zero.
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And then things could get dicey.
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Historically, periods of true deflation are pretty rare.
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But when they do happen, it seems that fixing them requires a pretty serious shock to the economy.
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The Great Depression was in part a deflationary spiral, solved only by the outbreak of World War II when the government supercharged spending and employment.
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And Japan is finally emerging from decades of chronic deflation.
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But that's thanks, in no small part, to the high inflation that most of the world battled over the last few years.
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You don't want to rely on those kinds of things.
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If inflation goes below zero, it is hard to fix.
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The cost of deflation is really high and that's something that we want to avoid.
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This is where inflation targets come in.
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Let's look at this chart again.
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These lines are pretty shaky because there are a lot of really complicated factors that affect inflation.
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The macro economy is made up of the decisions of millions of people, of millions of businesses.
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The way those decisions interact, I mean, try thinking about how to map everything out and it's just, it's mind blowing, right?
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Inflation will always fluctuate, even if it's just a little.
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And this is the last big reason why they don't want inflation to be 0%.
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If inflation sits here, that basic shakiness is constantly at risk of dropping down into the deflation zone, triggering the bad cycle.
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And the way to prevent that is to have it sit just a little bit higher. So...
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A little inflation is usually a good thing.
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Yeah.
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That's annoying.

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このレッスンの語彙とスピーキングのポイント

このB2レベルのスピーキングレッスンは、動画「Why can’t prices just stay the same?」を教材にしています。 繰り返し出てくる語は次のとおりです:inflation, price, wage, deflation, cycle。 この動画には、シャドーイング用の文が107文、単語が1296語あります。 音声の長さは7:23です。 話す速さは1分あたり約176語で、日常会話に近い自然なペースです。 単語の84%は英語の頻出3,000語に含まれます。残りは練習の前に確認しておきましょう。

この動画の重要語彙

動画の中で特に難しい単語15語を、発音と意味つきで紹介します。

単語発音意味
inflation 名詞/ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/インフレ, インフレーション
deflation 名詞/dɪˈfleɪʃən/デフレーション, 通貨収縮
virtuous 形容詞/ˈvɝt͡ʃuəs/徳の高い
spiral 名詞/ˈspaɪɹəl/渦巻, 渦巻線
historically 副詞/hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/歴史的
appliance 名詞/əˈplaɪ.əns/器械, 機器
interruption 名詞/ˌɪntəˈɹʌpʃən/中断, 邪魔
macroeconomics 名詞/ˌmæk.ɹoʊˌiː.kəˈnɒ.mɪks/マクロ経済学
surpass 動詞/sɚˈpæs/超える, 勝る
adhere 動詞/ædˈhɪə/くっ付く, 付く
shareholder 名詞/ˈʃɛəˌhəʊl.də(ɹ)/株主
lag 動詞/læɡ/立ち遅れる
durable 形容詞/ˈdʊɹəbəl/固い, 強い
vicious 形容詞/ˈvɪʃəs/狂暴, 危険
arbitrary 形容詞/ˈɑː.bɪ.tɹə.ɹi/恣意的な

動画に出てくる句動詞

単語意味
go down 動詞降りる, 降下する
give back 動詞返す
go up 動詞上がる, 登る
lay off 動詞解雇する
slow down 動詞遅らせる

繰り返し練習したい文

動画に出てくる短く完結した文です。日常会話でそのまま使えます。

  • Why can't inflation be zero?
  • They're telling people, you can't have a job.
  • Let's look at this chart again.

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
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係しているthey've stopped · has reversed · have kept
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are stressed · is called · are employed
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加えるrates, which makes · people who are

注意したい発音

話し手はdon't, can't, they'reなど、短縮形や弱形を18回使っています。聞こえたとおりの短い形で発音しましょう。

  • 「sh」と「zh」の音: inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/, deflation /dɪˈfleɪʃən/, deflationary /dəˈfleɪ.ʃənˌɛɹ.i/, interruption /ˌɪntəˈɹʌpʃən/, shareholder /ˈʃɛəˌhəʊl.də(ɹ)/
  • 長い単語(アクセントの位置に注意): deflationary /dəˈfleɪ.ʃənˌɛɹ.i/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/, interruption /ˌɪntəˈɹʌpʃən/, macroeconomics /ˌmæk.ɹoʊˌiː.kəˈnɒ.mɪks/, arbitrary /ˈɑː.bɪ.tɹə.ɹi/

日本語話者が苦手な音:

  • /r/ と /l/ の区別 — /l/ は舌先を歯茎につけ、/r/ はどこにもつけない: deflationary /dəˈfleɪ.ʃənˌɛɹ.i/, spiral /ˈspaɪɹəl/, historically /hɪˈstɔɹɪkli/, scramble /ˈskɹæmbl̩/, shareholder /ˈʃɛəˌhəʊl.də(ɹ)/
  • /v/ — /b/ にならないように、上の歯を下唇に当てる: virtuous /ˈvɝt͡ʃuəs/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, virtue /ˈvɝt͡ʃu/, innovative /ˈɪn.əˌveɪtɪv/
  • /f/ — 「フ」ではなく、上の歯と下唇で出す: inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/, deflation /dɪˈfleɪʃən/, deflationary /dəˈfleɪ.ʃənˌɛɹ.i/, fluctuate /ˈflʌkt͡ʃu.eɪt/, fixing /ˈfɪksɪŋ/

この動画での練習方法

  1. まず声を出さずに動画を最後まで聞き、知らない単語をメモします。
  2. まず0.75倍速で一文ずつシャドーイングし、慣れてきたら通常の速度に戻します。
  3. 自分の声を録音して元の音声と比べます。inflation, deflation, virtuousなどの単語に特に注意しましょう。

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 →