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自分が読んで興味深く感じた英文記事を中心に取り上げる予定です
Posted at 2014.09.21 Category : Businessweek
今週のBusiness WeekはTim Cook’s AppleとAppleのカバーストーリーでした。iPhoneのことなどほとんど触れず、Apple Watchを中心に現在のAppleの内情を知ることができます。「iPhoneはネタ切れ」とドヤ顔で書いていた記事が話題になっていますが、そんな事はAppleが百も承知で、Apple Watchを開発していたことが分かります。R&Dも増額し、新しい人材も入れて新しい方向性を模索しているようです。 興味深かったのはTeam Timという表で、昨年と今年に入った主な技術者などが載っていました。Tag HeuerやYves Saint Laurentなどの時計やファッション業界の人材やNike+FuelBandやメディカル、バイオセンサーの専門家を雇っているのですね。 Apple
Tim Cook Interview: The iPhone 6, the Apple Watch, and Remaking a Company's CultureBy Brad Stone and Adam Satariano September 18, 2014 ソニーがあんなになっているのを見ると、ジョブズがいない中、しっかりと利益を出しているところはすごいと思います。そんな手腕を評価してTim Cook’s Appleと特集をくんだのかもしれません。縦割りではなく、会社を一つにまとめる手腕を評価しています。 Cook’s professional background is in managing supply chains, not changing the character of sprawling, complicated, ego-filled organizations. Yet three years later, veteran Apple executives repeatedly and emphatically say they want the new boss to get credit for pulling off one of the more improbable high wire acts in business history. “I feel damn proud to be working as a part of Tim’s team,” says Eddy Cue, senior vice president for Internet software and services. “If he gets a little bit of recognition from the outside world, that is great. He deserves a lot more than he is going to get.”
多様な人材を雇っていてもApple Watchの開発の中心はJonathan Iveだったようです。フランス人のアンテーィク時計専門家Dominique Fléchonなども交えて、時計の歴史から学んでいくのはリベラルアーツもおろそかにしないAppleらしいですね。 With an Apple Watch wrapped around his hand brass-knuckle style, Ive reveals that the project was conceived in his lab three years ago, shortly after Jobs’s death and before “wearables” became a buzzword in Silicon Valley. “It’s probably one of the most difficult projects I have ever worked on,” he says. There are numerous reasons for this—the complexity of the engineering, the need for new physical interactions between the watch and the human body—but the one most pertinent to Ive is that the Apple Watch is the first Apple product that looks more like the past than the future. The company invited a series of watch historians to Cupertino to speak, including French author Dominique Fléchon, an expert in antique timepieces. Fléchon says only that the “discussion included the philosophy of instruments for measuring time” and notes that the Apple Watch may not be as timeless as some classic Swiss watches: “The evolution of the technologies will render very quickly the Apple Watch obsolete,” he says.
Ive, 47, immersed himself in horological history. Clocks first popped up on top of towers in the center of towns and over time were gradually miniaturized, appearing on belt buckles, as neck pendants, and inside trouser pockets. They eventually migrated to the wrist, first as a way for ship captains to tell time while keeping their hands firmly locked on the wheel. “What was interesting is that it took centuries to find the wrist and then it didn’t go anywhere else,” Ive says. “I would argue the wrist is the right place for the technology.”
Tim CookはJobs’s logical, icy sidekickでスタートレックのthe Spock to his Kirkみたいに思われているが、そんなことはないとこの記事ではCookを好意的に取り上げています。SpockとKirkという例えがいきなり使われているところを見るとスタートレックってやはりメジャーなものなんですね。 A decade ago, when he first became a public figure, Cook, now 53, was often caricatured as Jobs’s logical, icy sidekick—the Spock to his Kirk. In person, Cook defies those expectations. He bounds toward Apple employees, posing for on-campus selfies and answering every question regardless of the holes it eats into his schedule. He can also be quite emotional about a range of subjects close to his heart, from Auburn University football to social justice. It’s easy to project this unfailing politeness onto Apple and deduce that the CEO’s demeanor has trickled down to the corporate ethos. But this gives Cook too little credit.
現在はJeff Williams がCookの右腕となっているそうです。いろいろな面でCookと似ていることから、uncanny Cook cloneとライターは描き、In the new Apple, he’s Tim Cook’s Tim Cook.と結論づけています。Tim Cook’s Tim Cookという表現は構文とか文法とかの話ではないですね。Tim Cookが指揮する新しいAppleでジョブズ体制のときのTim Cookの役割を果たしているという意味でしょう。多読をしていない人はこういうのがピンとこなかったりします。 By last summer, with Apple’s stock down by as much as 40 percent from a record high because of concerns about the lack of new products, Cook was ready to accelerate the project. (The stock, now at around $100, has recovered all that ground and then some.) Apple insiders say that while an executive named Dan Riccio, who leads hardware engineering, would have been the obvious choice to take over the Watch program, Cook assigned it to Jeff Williams, 51, senior vice president for operations. Williams is Cook’s go-to guy—he vets possible acquisitions, coordinates with Foxconn Technology (2354:TT) and other manufacturers, and oversees the logistics needed to get millions of devices from Asian factories to stores around the world. He’s an uncanny Cook clone: tall, soft-spoken, and an avid fitness buff with an inexhaustible memory for operational details. Both men have MBAs from Duke University and spent early parts of their careers at IBM (IBM). In the new Apple, he’s Tim Cook’s Tim Cook.
新しい人材に触れている部分は以下です。ここでdiversityが使われていますが、diversity of viewsで視点や考えなどの多様性のようです。 Apple is also more willing to seek another kind of outside help. Over the last few months, the company’s gone on a hiring spree, vacuuming up accomplished tastemakers such as Patrick Pruniaux, the chief salesman at watchmaker Tag Heuer; Paul Deneve, the former CEO of couture house Yves Saint Laurent; and Angela Ahrendts, Burberry’s (BRBY:LN) former chief executive, who joined Apple to run its stores.
The recruitment spree isn’t only about finding people who know how to sell watches at extravagant markups, but also about adding a diversity of views inside the company. Cook “is very focused on finding a very wide range of people,” says Susan Wagner, founding partner and director of asset-management firm BlackRock (BLK), Apple’s largest shareholder, who joined the company’s board earlier this summer. “It’s not automatically the way you think about diversity. It’s about bringing in experience, skill set, and perspective.”
先日取り上げたdiversityのレポートについては、Appleの課題として触れていました。 In August, Apple released its internal diversity report. Its employment numbers were lopsided toward white and Asian men. “There was a view we shouldn’t” release the report, Cook says. “I didn’t agree. … It clearly says we’re not a perfect company, and we have work to do. And that’s fine.” The company continues to struggle with conditions at its factories in China, with an internal audit this year documenting use of underage laborers and abuse of migrant workers.
提灯記事と批判するのはたやすいですが、Apple Watchに向けた現在の体制を知るにはとてもよい記事だと思います。最後に紹介されていたOneRepulicの曲もよかったです（笑） For now Cook is just trying to capitalize on the attention and enjoy the moment he worked the past three years for. Backstage at the Flint Center before the Sept. 9 event, he could be found with his white earbuds on, psyching himself up by listening to the OneRepublic song I Lived on his iPhone. “Hope when you take that jump, you don’t fear the fall … / Hope when the crowd screams out, they’re screaming your name.”
Posted at 2014.08.28 Category : Businessweek
ブルームバーグのサイトにQuicktakeというものがあるのを知りました。Quicktake（早分かり）というタイトル通り、一つのトピックを以下の3つに分けてコンパクトにまとめてくれています。 The Situation The Background The Argument アメリカでの視点からトピックを選んでいますが、英検1級や国連英検対策として知識の整理にはもってこいだと思いました。Wikipediaは詳しすぎることがありますからね（苦笑） モンサントなどを取り上げたこともあり、Organic Foodのトピックを見てみます。そうそうTOEICもOrganicは好きですね（笑） Organic FoodPremium Prices and Uncertain Benefits By Leslie Patton | Updated Aug. 20, 2014 The Situation、The Background、The Argumentの最初の部分を引用します。Organic foodはまだ食品市場の４パーセントしか占めていないそうですが、確実に増加しているそうです。振り返ってみると化学肥料って20世紀の出来事なんですね。 The Situation
About three-quarters of grocers in the U.S. sell organic food, including specialty markets, like Sprouts, and mass-market retailers, like Wal-Mart and Target. While that’s only 4 percent of total food sales, demand in the U.S. and Europe is growing.
The Background
Until the invention of pesticides, all agriculture was organic. Poison gas research in World War I led to bug-killing nerve gases, including sarin and DDT, which was so effective at killing malaria-carrying mosquitoes it won its inventor a Nobel Prize. After Rachel Carson’s book “Silent Spring” documented the dangers of DDT, the chemical was banned for use as a pesticide in the U.S. in 1972. In the 1970s, the first industrial-scale animal farms in the U.S. began popping up, first for egg production, later for pigs and cattle. Yields increased, but so did worries: These animals are often treated with antibiotics and consumption of the meat has led to more drug-resistant infections in humans.
The Argument
Proponents say that organic produce has more nutrients, including antioxidants and vitamins that may prevent or delay cell damage, than conventionally grown fruits and vegetables.
統計なども紹介しながら説明してくれているので分かりやすいです。
Posted at 2014.06.15 Category : Businessweek
順番が逆になりましたが、先ほどの国際会議は以下のAP通信の記事で知りました。今週のTIMEは楽天の三木谷さんが紹介されています。英語で日本関連の記事を読むといろいろと表現の上でも勉強になります。 Endangered delicacy: Japan eel on species red listBy By Elaine Kurtenbach June 13, 2014 TOKYO (AP) — The Japanese eel, a popular summertime delicacy that has become prohibitively expensive due to overfishing, has been put on the international conservation "red list" in a move that may speed up Japan's push for industrial farming of the species.
Japan's agriculture minister urged that efforts to boost the eel population be stepped up after the International Union for Conservation of Nature this week designated the Japanese eel as "endangered," or facing a very high risk of extinction.
Other species of eel are also facing various levels of threat due to habitat damage and overfishing.
この記事ではJapanese eel, a popular summertime delicacyとdelicacyという言葉でニホンウナギを説明していますね。 （ロングマン） delicacy
something good to eat that is expensive or rare:
Snails are considered a delicacy in France.
（オックスフォード） delicacy
[countable] a type of food considered to be very special in a particular place
synonym speciality
local delicacies
Dr. Jaffrey handed us a plate of dates: traditionally the delicacy with which to break the Ramadan fast.
Red Listを発表したIUCNの団体でもtraditional delicacy in Japanとニホンウナギを紹介していました。 IUCN Red List raises more red flags for threatened species12 June 2014 Almost 80% of temperate slipper orchids and over 90% of lemurs are threatened with extinction, according to the latest update of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. The newly assessed Japanese Eel has been listed as Endangered, while the Brazilian Three-banded Armadillo – the mascot of the 2014 FIFA World Cup – remains Vulnerable as its population continues to decline.
The IUCN Red List, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this year, now includes 73,686 assessed species, of which 22,103 are threatened with extinction.
“Over the last fifty years, The IUCN Red List has guided conservation work – very little positive action happens without the Red List as a starting point," says IUCN Director General Julia Marton-Lefèvre. “This is no small achievement but so much more needs to be done. We need to continue to expand our knowledge about the world’s species to better understand the challenges we face, set global conservation priorities and mobilise concrete action to halt the biodiversity crisis.”
ニホンウナギの説明は以下の部分です。 The Japanese Eel (Anguilla japonica) – a traditional delicacy in Japan and the country’s most expensive food fish – has been listed as Endangered due to loss of habitat, overfishing, barriers to migration, pollution and changes to oceanic currents. East Asia is a hub for farming, trade and consumption of this species and its decline has meant that trade in other eel species, such as the Shortfin Japanese Eel (Anguilla japonica). Photo: Yuichi KanoEel (A. bicolor) has increased.
“While the status of this species is of great concern, the assessment of the Japanese Eel and other eels is a hugely positive step,” says Dr Matthew Gollock, Chair of the IUCN Anguillid Specialist Sub-Group. “This information will allow us to prioritise conservation efforts for eel species and the freshwater ecosystem more broadly.”AP通信の記事に戻りますが、a tradition of eating roasted eel as tonic for the heatとあるだけでなく、ウナギを食べることは、花火を見ること、風鈴を聞くこと、メロンを食べることなどの夏の風物の一つなのだという説明がされている部分です。 Japan consumes more than two-thirds of all eel eaten, thanks partly to a tradition of eating roasted eel as tonic for the heat during the hottest days of summer. The delicacy is as much a custom of the season as watching fireworks, listening to wind chimes and eating watermelon.蒲焼きについてはそのままkabayakiとしてから説明していました。 In turn, prices for mature eels have soared, turning the traditional "kabayaki" roasted eel dish, with a tangy sauce on top, into a luxury rather than common household dining. A bowl of rice with a slice of roasted eel on top sells for $7-$10 at Tokyo's Tsukiji market. Small packages of roasted eel sold in supermarkets sell for $15 or more.NHKやJapan Newsでの英文記事を読みましたが、こういう説明は省かれていました。きっと日本人にとっては当たり前なので省かれるのでしょう。記事にする際には想定する読者によって伝えるべき内容を変える必要があることは忘れないようにしたいです。英語学習者が英語屋と馬鹿にされやすいのは、こういう所への配慮が足りず、英語発音がネイティブ並み！、国連英検特A級！と英語力を誇示するだけの人が多いからでしょう。そういう配慮こそがいわゆる「グローバル化」に求められているのではないでしょうか。
Posted at 2014.05.31 Category : Businessweek
グローバル化が進み英語の重要性が高まれば、その反動として自国の言葉を大事にするように唱える動きがでてくるのは自然の流れかもしれません。日本でも、カタカナ語を日本語に言い換えようとしたり、「日本語の美しさ」を訴えたりする試みがあったりします。 そういう動きは他の国でも同じようで、中国でも英語の流入を批判、中国語を大事にしようという動きがあるようです。４月の人民日報の社説で２回も取り上げられた他、大学入試で英語の配点が少なくなるといった計画があることを下記のブルームバーグビジネスウィークの記事で知りました。 China's War on English
By Dexter Roberts May 22, 2014 中国の英語事情の背景は以下の通りです。 China’s obsession with English dates to the establishment of foreign-language schools and translation centers—mainly for English—along China’s coast after the Opium Wars of the mid-19th century, says Yang Rui, director of the Comparative Education Research Center at the University of Hong Kong. And while Russian was the official second language during the 1950s, English again took primacy when Deng Xiaoping launched economic reforms in 1978 and China was eager for technology and investment from the West. (Yang learned English by secretly listening to banned Voice of America broadcasts during the Cultural Revolution, when speaking a foreign tongue could land you in jail.)
Urban children usually begin studying English in the third grade, and it is one of three core subjects throughout elementary and high school, along with math and Chinese. Regardless of what field one chooses, passing an English proficiency test is required to get into university and graduate school. Academics who want to be promoted to a full professorship have to pass English examinations. Language training schools including New Oriental and Global Yasi School have opened branches across the country to meet the demand. “English has become more important not only in schools but in society as well,” says Wang Xiaoyang, product director of the Higher Education Research Institute at Tsinghua University. “Now it looks like China’s English fever has reached a high point.”
しかし、政府としては安易な英語使用を批判し、大学入試でも英語の配点を下げる計画があるようです。 The integrity of the Chinese language is being damaged by English, argue editorials in the state press. That concern has sparked the latest calls for linguistic purity: Chinese media were told to start using a list of official Chinese translations for English abbreviations and acronyms including GDP, IQ, and AIDS that was released last September. Two more catalogs of required translations are to be released. “Mingling foreign words in Chinese has harmed the purity and health of the Chinese language,” warned the People’s Daily in April, criticizing the common usage of Wi-Fi, CEO, and MBA.
Over the last three decades, English has risen in importance in the crucial zhongkao and gaokao, the annual high school and college exams held in early June. English is given equal weight with math and Chinese. Now the Ministry of Education plans to reduce the points allotted to English from 150 to 100 in the college exam, while raising the points for Chinese.
公教育で英語の授業が少なくなると、個人で英語を学ぶ必要がでてきます。ビジネスやアカデミックでの英語の重要性は変わらないからです。そうなると、英語塾に通えるのは経済的余力のある人だけになり、新たな差別を生み出さないか心配しています。 The role of private English-language schools will expand if the public-school curriculum stresses English less. But high tuition fees could put these private schools out of reach for China’s poorer students, exacerbating an already severe gap in educational resources between urban and rural China. “If we are not careful with this English gaokao reform, then it may create new inequalities in the system,” says Xiong Bingqi, vice president at the 21st Century Education Research Institute, a Beijing nonprofit that focuses on equity in education.
人民日報の取り上げた内容についてはニューヨークタイムズの以下のブログ記事で詳しく取り上げていました。 An Alarm Over the Incursion of Foreign Words
By AMY QIN APRIL 29, 2014 9:37 PM 10 Comments 人民日報の社説4月11日人民日報の社説4月25日こういう側面だけを見ると「英語帝国主義」を眉間にしわを寄せて語りたくなりますが、見ることは見られることでもあるように、相互作用も起きています。中国語が英語に流入している現実もあるのです。 ようやくタイトルと絡めることができました。「出てこなければ、やられなかったのに」というZガンダムのセリフが中国のSNSで不作不死として流行し、これがNo zuo no dieという英語表現としてUrban Dictionaryの項目に入ったそうです。 中国のネット流行語が英語に訳されオンライン辞典に収録
2014年04月18日15:17 Chinese buzzwords popular on Urban Dictionary(Xinhua) 18:48, April 18, 2014 英語版ではZガンダムのくだりはカットされていますが、上海日報に載っていました。 Chinglish buzzwords gain ground online
By Qu Zhi | April 24, 2014, Thursday
Gu is among an increasing number of young people in China who like to use the new buzzword on social networks. This Chinglish origin phrase was included in the Urban Dictionary on January 15.
It means “if you don’t do stupid things, they won’t come back and bite you in the ass. (But if you do, they most certainly will),” according to the dictionary.
No zuo no die was a line from the Japanese animation series “Gundam Z” and was coined by a user of Baidu Tieba, a popular online community platform.
その Urban Dictionaryのエントリーは以下です。
no zuo no die
This phrase is of Chinglish origin. Means if you don't do stupid things, they won't come back and bite you in the ass. (But if you do, they most certainly will.) Zuo /zwo/ is a Chinese character meaning 'act silly or daring (for attention)'
A: Some dude baked cookies shaped like iPhone, held it by the mouth when driving, tried to mess with traffic cops.
B: Did he pull it off?
A: Cop was pissed and ran his name through the system. Turns out he's got speed tickets unpaid!
B: No zuo no die.
by Evergreen712 January 15, 2014
Daily Motionにまさにその回がありました。5分20秒あたりからです。 Mobile Suit Z Gundam Episode 12 The Winds of... 投稿者 RaRa1990カミーユ「出てこなければ、やられなかったのに」 You wouldn’t have been killed if you hadn’t come out. 「抵抗すると無駄死にをするだけだって、なんでわからないんだ！」 If you try to retaliate, you’ll die pointlessly! Why can’t you understand that?! 動画では上記の英語字幕をあてていましたが、以下のような 英語表現を紹介しているブログもありました。 カミーユ「出て来なければ、やられなかったのに」
"You’d still be alive if you hadn’t come close to me."
「抵抗すると無駄死にをするだけだって、なんでわからないんだ！」
"I have to kill them if they insist on fighting!
Why don’t they understand that?"
日本のアニメのセリフが中国のネットコミュニティで使われ、それが英語のスラングとして紹介される。文化の雑種性を示す良い例ですよね。
Posted at 2014.03.15 Category : Businessweek
ソフトバンク孫社長が米国で熱弁、時代遅れの米ネットインフラに喝。T-Mobile買収の可能性By Hiromu Tsuda posted 2014年03月13日 00時58分 ソフトバンクの孫正義社長が、3月11日に米国ワシントンD.C.で講演を行いました。昨年、米3位の携帯電話事業者 Sprint の買収を完了し、日本有数のインターネットカンパニーから、世界のインターネットカンパニーへと歩を進めたソフトバンク。講演で孫社長は「ネットはここ米国で発明されたにもかかわらず遅れてきている」と熱弁をふるい、高速なモバイル通信の必要性を説きました。
訪米した際に著名なトーク番組チャーリーローズにも登場したようですね。 フルプログラムはこちら。 雑誌ビジネスウィークでもチャーリーローズのコーナーがありますが、最新号で孫さんが登場しています。iPhoneを独占契約した時のくだりです。 Charlie Rose Talks to SoftBank's Masayoshi SonBy Charlie Rose March 13, 2014 You persuaded Steve Jobs to let you be the first carrier to offer the iPhone in Japan. Did you call him up? Go see him?
That was two years before he introduced the iPhone. I called him up and went to see him. And I brought my little drawing of an iPod with mobile capability. Steve says, “Masa, don’t give me your s---ty drawing. I have my own.” He said, “You’re crazy. We haven’t talked to anybody, but you came to see me first. I’ll give it to you.” So I said, “Write it down and sign it for me.” He said, “No, Masa, I’m not going to sign for you, because you don’t even own a mobile carrier yet.” I spent $20 billion doing that.日本での手法と同じようなやり方で米国でもやっていこうとしているのでしょうか。 And you believe that’s because Verizon (VZ) and AT&T (T) dominate the market?
Yeah. They have more than a 75 percent share of the market and more than 80 percent of the corporate market. They make a ton of money, so they’re very comfortable with where they are. And I don’t blame them. If I were in their shoes, I would be happy. But because they’re in such a happy position, without real competition from a strong challenger, they can relax. Of total industry profit, they [take in] 90 percent. So here comes two little ones who are not able to fight, without enough scale, and I think the situation needs to change.
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