英语访谈对话 335 Three Wishes

 　　OK, I'm going to talk about my one wish. I think everybody has one or two things they wish they could change about themselves and for me I really wish I could sing. Unfortunately I have a terrible voice. I cannot sing at all, and in Japan, this is very embarrassing¹ because Japanese people love to go to karaoke, and karaoke is when you go with a bunch of friends to a place, a karaoke bar, I guess, or center, and you get a small room and inside the room there are TV's and songs are on the TV's. You can choose what songs to watch and then one person sings the song and everyone listens and it's very popular in Japan and it's a lot of fun but it's really embarrassing because I can't sing and everybody always says, " No, no, no, you sing. Oh, no, it's OK. It's OK. Don't worry. Don't be embarrassed," but after I sing, my singing is so bad that everybody doesn't want me to sing anymore, so it's also really hard for me because I teach children and I love teaching² children andwhen you teach children you need to teach songs, and so I sing many, many songs with my students, for example, "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" or "Row-Row-Row your boat!" or many many songs, but I can't sing and so luckily the kids really don't care so usually it's alright that my voice is really bad but sometimes they tell me, they say, "Sensei, Sensei!" in Japanese, "You're singing is terrible!" so it's really embarrassing but I have to do it. Songs are very important for children when they're little. I think the reason I cannot sing is because unfortunately in my country we don't sing as children and I really would like this to change. It really bothers me. I've noticed in Thailand, in Japan, in other countries that I have taught, children sing in elementary school a lot and in the United States you don't do this and I think's it's terrible because you need to sing when you're little to train your voice so it can learn tones³ and so it can learn how to sing properly and because I never learned⁴ to sing when I was little it's almost impossible to learn how to sing when you're older, so yeah, I really wish I could sing but I just don't think that it's ever going to be a reality.

1 embarrassing   

adj.使人尴尬的，令人为难的v.（使）窘迫，（使）局促不安( embarrass的现在分词)

参考例句：

• His jokes didn't even raise a smile, which was embarrassing. 听了他讲的笑话，都没人笑一下，真是太尴尬了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• I was in the embarrassing position of having completely forgotten her name. 当时我完全忘记了她的名字，很是尴尬。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 teaching   

n.教学，执教，任教，讲授；(复数)教诲

参考例句：

• We all agree in adopting the new teaching method. 我们一致同意采取新的教学方法。
• He created a new system of teaching foreign languages.他创造了一种新的外语教学体系。

3 tones   

音( tone的名词复数 )； 色调； 腔调； 全音 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• his clipped military tones 他那短促的军人音调
• His name was always mentioned in almost reverential tones. 人们每次提起他的名字，语调中几乎总是充满了敬意。

4 learned   

adj.有学问的，博学的；learn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He went into a rage when he learned about it.他听到这事后勃然大怒。
• In this little village,he passed for a learned man.在这个小村子里，他被视为有学问的人。