Business: English Skills
ビジネスチャンスを活かす英語力UPのために
こんにちは！メルマガ９月号を担当します、貝塚です。
残暑も日ごとに和らぎ、初秋の季節となりました。みなさま元気でお過ごしでしょうか？
今月は主に若い女性の間で爆発的な人気を見せているタピオカについての記事をピックアップしました。
Bubble tea isn’t a new arrival in the Tokyo drink landscape, but the beverage has recently enjoyed a popularity boom. Perhaps you’ve passed a long line of adolescents in front of a store, or your Instagram feed has been overwhelmed by chunky straws and tapioca-filled, vacuum-sealed cups. (1) The drink — which consists of flavored tea, often mixed with milk and sugar, with black tapioca balls at the bottom, waiting to be sucked up — originally comes from Taiwan, and has gained popularity internationally over the past few decades. Its arrival in Japan is a little less clear, though it seems the first real inroads bubble tea made in the country came at the start of the millennium.
But the beverage has never been a true trend here until now. While bubble tea has had its devotees over the past decade and a half, it only recently connected with Japanese teens, the arbiters of culinary cool across the archipelago. Perhaps owing to bubble tea’s photogenic properties, its colorful, layered toppings and add-ins easily visible in plastic cups, online outlets have referred to a nationwide “tapioca boom.” (2) You know it has spilled over into the mainstream when YouTubers and J-pop idols try to cash in on the trend. Although bubble tea comes in all kinds of flavors, customers tend to go for sweet options, with milk tea versions the most preferred. Sweetened versions have become so omnipresent that publications such as Joshi Spa have reported on how just how unhealthy the drink can be for you.
So maybe bubble tea isn’t something to sip on every single day, but its current popularity has resulted in an unprecedented variety of stores offering the drink in the city for the occasional indulgence.
By Patrick St. Michel “Tokyo’s Tapioca Boom: Where to find bubble tea in the capital”. The Japan Times, May 11th 2019
VOCABULARY
Bubble Tea タピオカティー、Beverage飲料、Adolescents青年期、Chunky分厚い、Devotees信者、Arbiters決定者、Culinary料理の、Archipelago群島、Photogenic写真写りが良い、Omnipresent偏在する、Unprecedented今までにない、Indulgence贅沢
解説と訳
(1) The drink — which consists of flavored tea, often mixed with milk and sugar, with black tapioca balls at the bottom, waiting to be sucked up — originally comes from Taiwan,
その飲料は元々台湾発祥である。フレーバーティーがベースでミルクと砂糖が混ざりあって、下にはタピオカが含まれている。
ここで注目して欲しいのは “sucked up”というフレーズです。
Sucked upは吸い上げるという意味で使われます。英語では「飲む」という会話的表現がたくさんあります。
例えば、ちびちび飲む時はSipと表現します。また、ゴクゴク飲む時はgulpと表現されます。
(2) You know it has spilled over into the mainstream when YouTubers and J-pop idols try to cash in on the trend.
タピオカがいかにブームになっているのはユーチューバーやアイドルが流行に乗っている事だと分かる。
Cash in on the trendは（利益を得るために）ブームに乗る という意味のフレーズです。
このcash in onは他の名詞にも使えます。例えば、cash in on booming marketsだと景気の良い市場から利益を得ると言う意味になります。
いかがでしたか。今回は飲食の際に使うフレーズなどをピックアップして解説してみました。「食べる」や「飲む」を英語で表現するときにeatやdrinkだけではなくシチュエーションによって違う単語も使ってみましょう。
