ジェイソン先生から見た日本その①『The rainy season』

2024.07.24

　※こちらはLittle Red English School 校長兼講師ジェイソンによる、英語学習のため記事です。2007年から日本に住んでいるジェイソンの目から見た日本、ニュージーランド（英語圏、西洋文化圏）との相違点、共通点などを記載しています。

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Hello everybody and welcome to the Little Red English School blog section of our website. My name is Jason Oleary, and I’m going to write a series of blogs to help you all learn a little, hopefully be entertained a little, and encourage you to want to express your thoughts and feelings in English a little, too.

 

 

The rainy season

 

　New Zealand doesn’t have a rainy season like Japan does. But it does rain more than usual between the months of May and August. Because of this, I didn’t know what to expect when I first learnt about Japan’s rainy season.  I came to realize that for a few weeks of the year I should plan some indoor activities on my days off work. For example, making artwork, listening to music, watching movies and You Tube videos, and playing video games.  Also, it made me appreciate my car a lot more because before I had a car I had to cycle everywhere in the rain. This made things like grocery shopping difficult, so I had to postpone some activities. I remember having to wash my clothes, put them in a plastic bag, and then cycle to the nearest laundromat to dry them.

　There are many different types of rain depending on the weather conditions. Rain/water can drop, spray, sprinkle, drizzle, fall, shower, pour, bucket down, piss, and precipitate. Some common phrases are-

“It’s raining lightly. There’s a heavy downpour outside. It’s bucketing down. There’s a slight drizzle. Don’t get caught in a shower. Try to dodge the raindrops”.

　There is an idiom “It’s raining cats and dogs”, which means it’s raining heavily. It may have come from a poem a British writer, Jonathan Swift, wrote about heavy rain that flooded the streets and the dead cats and dogs that were left behind after the water receded.

　People either love or hate the rain. Some people sing and dance in the rain whereas others seem almost allergic to it like a pet cat who will do anything to get out of having a bath. Either way, the rainy season is coming to an end and the summer heat will be the next thing for us to love or hate. So, take care outside by slipping on a shirt, slopping on some sunscreen, and slapping on a sunhat.

 

 

Photo by Afnizar Nur Ghifari on Unsplash