跟读练习: Is it possible for people in Asia to adopt a 4-day working week? - 通过视频学习英语口语

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Rush hour in Tokyo.
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For many of the 8 million workers in Japan's capital, it's time to go home.
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For others, it's a trip to the bar.
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And then there are those who aren't rushing to get anywhere.
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As they're still at work, putting in much more than your standard eight-hour day.
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Japan and many other Asian countries have been struggling to curb a culture of overwork,
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work for long hours and self-sacrifice are the norm despite the personal cost for employees
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kuroshi crisis as employees in japan are working themselves to death
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in south korea people work a lot that's pretty much an
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understatement the rejection of hustle culture has been happening all around
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the world including china now many governments across asia are reconsidering the negative effects of an always-on work culture.
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But can the region embrace a healthier work-life balance?
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Or is the pressure to put in long hours too much?
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It goes by many names.
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Hustle Culture, Gap Gill, 996.
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They all describe an unsustainable work culture, driven by demand to work long hours, often for little to no extra pay.
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In China, 996 refers to a work schedule from 9 a.m to 9 p.m., six days a week.
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And while few want to pull such long hours, many feel they have no choice.
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Surveys show that people across Asia work longer hours than anywhere else in the world.
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The five-day, 40-hour working week introduced in 1926 has been the standard in global workplaces.
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Now, some European countries and Australia support a six-hour workday.
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In North America, the average work week is nearly 38 hours, according to a report by the International Labour Organization.
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People in South Asia and East Asia work about 49 hours per week, the longest in the world.
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In Asian countries, the norm is that you work 70 hours a day, and in Europe, you work a little bit harder than your peers.
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That's the ideal worker.
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So you have to work with the given cultural norm.
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And over here, probably, it's harder to make a change when you already have more severe overworking problems.
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The results can be deadly.
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In Japan, working oneself to death is known as karoshi.
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The term describes what happens to people who die from diseases brought on by long working hours.
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Official figures for 2023 reported 54 deaths from overwork-induced health problems, such as strokes and heart attacks.
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It has prompted the Japanese government to enact laws to ensure workers get enough rest.
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In Japan, there's a lot of involuntary homework.
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I have to stay at my office because my boss is still here,
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my colleagues are here, and I feel a significant pressure from my workplace and from my clients,
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etc. And this could lead to involuntary overwork, which is really bad for your well-being.
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It is not just Japan.
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Countries throughout Asia have reported tragic instances of employees being worked to death.
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In countries like China and Japan, where there are strong manufacturing industries, overwork can be difficult to avoid.
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Asia has become the world's factory.
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Four of the world's top six manufacturing nations are in the region.
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Because of the international division of labor,
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it's particularly harder for us because the world's productivity is actually tricky.
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The European countries, the workers there,
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they have so-called more productive because they occupy the more creative industries.
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In the global value chain, they can actually pay more share than Asian countries.
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So it's harder for us to adapt to the more flexible work schedules.
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For decades, industrial manufacturing has been seen as the key driver of a nation's economic ascendance.
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It's what drove so-called economic miracles in Japan, South Korean, mainland China.
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High-tech manufacturing transformed Taiwan from an exporter of t-shirts into the most vital semiconductor hub on earth.
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But as many of these economies grew, they embraced a work culture that would seem excessively demanding elsewhere in the world.
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This is what I call the input-driven culture.
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If you think about output equals productivity times input, there's two ways you can do this, right?
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To increase output, you can try to be more productive, or you can try to increase your input.
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And I think the post-war economic miracle in Japan has been on the input side.
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It's definitely been on the input side.
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So basically, in order to achieve results, you work like hell.
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Work long hours until you get the results that you need.
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And if you're not getting the results, you're not trying hard enough.
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Kiroshi also refers to work-related suicide cases.
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Some 82% of Japanese workers in 2022 reported experiencing strong anxiety,
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worry, or stress related to their work or professional lives, according to a paper published by the country's Health and Labour Ministry.
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The situation has worsened in recent years.
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Nearly 3,000 people died from overwork-related suicides in 2022, up from 1,935 from the previous year.
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Experts say many suffered from mental stress in the workplace.
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The most important thing is to harass people.
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Like, bullying, or hate harassment.
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IJIME, IJIME, IJIME, IJIME, IJIME,
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IJIME, IJIME, IJIME, IJIME, Some governments are trying to address the problem.
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Singapore gave workers the right to request four-day work weeks in December 2024.
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is set to introduce four-day workweek in April 2025.
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Some experts say the move is a step in the right direction.
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I'm sure there are a lot of private sector companies that are saying, well, we'll see what happens.
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You know, Tokyo government's gonna start it.
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Let's see if it's going to be successful or not, and maybe we will consider doing this in our workplace as well.
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We can learn from our predecessors.
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The Japanese government took steps to prevent karoshi and other health disorders related to overwork in 2014.
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Four years later, officials introduced laws to limit the longest overtime hours
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and ensure workers have enough rest time between when work ends and starts again.
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But experts say the measures can only help reduce the physical harm from long working hours.
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業務上と認められる件数は徐々に減ってきてはいるんです。
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もしかしたらそういういろんな効果が若干僅かながら出てきているのかなという気がします。 One of the things that we have been working with,
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and we have been working with the health environment, and we have been working with the staff,
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and the staff are still increasing, and the staff, and the staff are still increasing.
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Now, the problem is that the increased mental illness is a problem.
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I'm looking at the reasons and the background.
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The government first floated the idea of a shorter working week in 2021 with support from lawmakers.
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But the concept has been slow to catch on.
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Only about 8% of companies in Japan allow employees to have three or more days off per week,
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week while seven percent give their workers the legally mandated one day off according to japan's ministry of health labor
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and welfare even among companies
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that allow employees to work four days a week experts say
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only a few employees have taken up the offer japan is a collectivist society
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and we you know individual even to this day what were the reasons
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that uh people end up working long hours is that they're very, very conscious of the people around them, right?
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So if I'm ready to go home at five, but my boss is working or my colleagues are still working,
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I feel bad about leaving.
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And so I will stay because I don't want to disrupt the harmony of the workplace or something, right?
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And it's also hierarchical in the sense that this might affect my performance review, my boss might not think well of me,
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etc. So yeah, those workplace cultures could get in the way of this.
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In some countries like China, change is coming from the bottom up.
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Chinese workers are not allowed to form independent unions.
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Instead, the government and controls the old China Federation of Trade Unions, which is often ineffective at protecting workers.
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Workers can only adjust their mental status by being lazy, refusing overtime and hiding in the toilets.
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They call it touching fish, meaning one should take advantage of a crisis to chase personal gain.
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Now, workers are getting increasingly dissatisfied, probably in the coming few years,
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we may witness some change.
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As I mentioned, even at least you can withdraw, you can leave this industry to another industry to avoid the most overworked industry.
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So if you want to argue that the problem may not change so easily, that's because the structural forces do not change easily.
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The government are reluctant to take more actions.
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We still have very weak collective power on the labor side.
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With the younger generation pushing back against the overwork culture, Asian countries are slowly catching on.
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In recent years, annual working hours in Japan dropped by 11.6 percent from 2000 to 2022,
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according to the Japan-based Recruit Works Institute.
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The decline was most pronounced among men in their 20s who
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worked on average of 46.4 hours per week in 2000 but only 38.1 hours in 2023.
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Yes, I think there is a generational divide and it also depends on your life cycle.
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So one good sign that we're starting to see is that the uptake of parental leave among men are increasing.
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So the younger generation men have a strong desire to spend time with their families,
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much more so than the older generations.
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But experts caution it may be too early to tell if the change truly represents a permanent shift in work culture attitude.
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Experts say governments need to introduce tougher regulations and enforce the law more effectively.
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As the world watches Tokyo take steps towards a healthier work-life balance and Asia's demographic crisis deepens,
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will other countries in the region follow suit?
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you

关于本课

在本课中，学习者将通过分析有关亚洲四天工作周的讨论，增强他们的英语理解能力与口语表达技巧。分析视频内容不仅可以帮助你掌握与工作文化相关的多样化话题，还能提高你的英语流利度。通过参与这些讨论，学习者可以练习他们的英语影子跟读技巧，在更真实的语境中提升口语能力。

关键词汇与短语

  • 过度工作 (Overwork) - 指工作时间过长，导致身体或心理健康问题。
  • 劳动文化 (Labor culture) - 指某一地区或国家对工作和工作的态度和习惯。
  • 加班 (Overtime) - 指在正常工作时间之外继续工作的时间。
  • 工作与生活平衡 (Work-life balance) - 指个人在工作和生活两者之间取得的平衡。
  • 苛刻的工作制度 (Harsh work schedule) - 指要求员工长时间工作的制度。
  • 自杀工作文化 (Hustle culture) - 一种追求高强度工作以实现成功的文化。
  • 健康危机 (Health crisis) - 由长期过度工作引发的健康问题。
  • 就业压力 (Job pressure) - 员工因工作期望和环境而感受到的压力。

练习建议

在进行英语口语练习时，运用 阴影跟读 (shadowspeak) 方法是非常有效的。建议您选择视频中的一小段进行练习，尤其是讨论工作与生活平衡部分。因为视频的语速较快，您可以重复播放短句，先听后说，再模仿发音和语调。这样可以提高您在 看YouTube学英语 的过程中，不仅提升听力，还可以增强口语表达能力。此外，要注意发音的清晰度和流畅度，尤其是在练习与 雅思口语练习 相关的高频使用的短语。进行多次反复的练习将有助于您更自信地与他人交流。

什么是跟读法？

跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。