F.B.B. Ep.1 ヨシとの出会い・運がいいと感じた時

ESL level: Intermediate

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I wake up in the morning got nothing to do… So here’s a little bonus for you! (Free Bird bonus x3, yeah♫)

Good morning and welcome to the first Free Bird bonus... bonus... bonus.... I wanna give a special thanks - super special thanks to Hitsuji-san Who has gone back in time and kept track of all the listener questions that we’ve had to gogoエイブ会話 for the four years that we’ve been doing the program, so you can go on to 55 English and there’s a list. So I thought hmm, maybe I’ll just go back and review the list and record record my thoughts and extras about the listener questions. Sometimes it might seem like I’m answering the question for the first time because it’s been so long, so maybe I don’t even remember what I said the first time!

Anyway I thought that would be a good way to start the free bird bonus.. bonus.. bonus... All right so let’s go back in time, back in time... Many many years ago, back in the year 2016 back to episode number one... 無し. there were no listener questions for episode 1,2,3.... all the way until episode 21. wow, wow... it took us 21 episodes to get a listener question. How did we ever survive? I don’t know. But we survived! And we’re still going strong.

Anyway, anyway, let’s see episode 21... I’ll try reading the questions in Japanese so try not to laugh at my terrible pronunciation, let’s see here... episode 21 お二人はどういういきさつで出会い、このPodcastを始めることになったんですか？ OK, well first of all... how did we meet, Yoshi and I, I think we said many times, we met in a nightclub. Not partying we were working actually. when I came to Japan working in a nightclub was my first job. I was only 19 years old, I got the job anyway. It was a great way to learn Japanese because I had to speak Japanese every day because other people didn’t speak English.

There were a few people who spoke English in that job, Yoshi was one of them there was a Swedish guy, and there was a Korean guy as well spoke English and a Turkish guy who spoke English, but other than that ... the other staff did not speak English, so, I had to learn quickly I think it helped me a lot - being in a situation where I was forced. And working in that job with Yoshi asked me to help him proofread something for his first kind of “English project” so essentially he he asked me to look at the English, and fix it to make it more natural or fix any mistakes.. so yeah, I helped him out with that and that was the first thing that we did together. And then it’s... このPodcastを始めることになったんですか？

OK so, the story is: I was drinking in my friends bar, and the bar has a big front window. So inside of the bar you can easily see the sidewalk and the street. And we were in there having a good time eating and drinking it’s a place, a restaurant called Zaytoon Palestinian food, and after a few drinks I see a guy walking by the window, and I thought, wait a minute! I know that guy, that’s Yoshi! I hadn’t seen Yoshi for probably at least one year at that time. So I ran out of bar , “Yoshi! Come on Yoshi! .....what are you doing?”

He said “I’m just walking home from work”, he was wearing a suit. “Come in Yoshi baby come on” - that was before Yoshi baby actually. I just said come on Yoshi come on inside let’s have a drink let’s hang out. And he came in, at first he said .... I persuaded him to join us. He came in, and we had some drinks and got talking and everyone had a good time, and that was when I told Yoshi about podcasts because I had already been a big fan of Podcasts for a few years, and I recommended some podcasts for Yoshi - maybe I was recommending it so he could maintain his English and also just because they’re interesting programs.

Anyway, you know, we got talking after that, and we were like “hey, why don’t we make a podcast? There aren’t very many podcasts in Japan…”, now there’s much more but back ... this is the end of 2015. In that time there wasn’t that many, so we decided to just start it up and that’s how it began. We met one time in a restaurant, like a izakaya, just to talk about what we’re gonna do, what the podcast will be - that’s when we decided to make it half English and half Japanese and we talked about many things. Maybe you know if you’ve listened from the beginning. Our program was very different in the beginning. very short. And more focused on teaching words,and then having a conversation.

So yeah, we talked about different ways - how we’re going to do it, and we made a deal with each other that we’ll try it for one year and see where it goes... and the rest is history. that’s an expression to use when you want to finish the story you’re telling... "and the rest is history".

Another question that came episode 21 was 自分で「運がいいな」と感じたのはどんな時ですか？ so guess the question is: tell me about a time when you felt lucky! generally I don’t believe in luck I think you have to make your own luck. you got to go out there and make opportunities, and if you try that enough eventually you’ll get “lucky” but it’s not really “lucky” if you make many opportunities. then it’s kind of natural. anyway, a time where I felt lucky ... about a year ago my best friend visited Japan he came from Vancouver and visited Japan and we went to a famous tourist site in Osaka- old area, “shinsekai area” The New World! ...it’s funny because it actually is quite an old neighborhood but it’s called the New World. anyway there is a small tower there it’s called 通天閣 I believe it’s called.. and it’s a tourist destination, so you know you go up the tower and you when you come down you have to walk through the gift shop area - of course it’s a “tourist trap” you know? They try to get your money at the end.. and there was a game where there’s just one button, and you press the button to start, and a timer starts. and the goal of this game is to: hit the button, and exactly 11.11 seconds later, hit the button again. so the goal is to get as close as you can to 11.11. which is extremely hard, almost impossible because it’s down to 1/100th of a second, right? I thought, “I’ll give it a try”, I hit the button... and then wap! I got it! 11.11! I couldn’t believe it! I felt so cool. I didn’t know what to do! I thought maybe a siren would go off ........ maybe someone would come out with $1 million or ... music would start playing ...... but nothing happened, my friend and I Gave each other a high five. I looked around like “guys.. does something happen now?” But no, you just are “lucky” I guess... There were a few people who saw and they were like, “oh, sugoi!” But thats it. Still, the feeling I had in that moment was very, very, “lucky”.Alright, so, this was the first “Free Bird Bonus....” thank you for joining me, and I’ll see you tomorrow, with my hot cup of morning.... coffee.

英会話 リスニング / シャドーイング 中級 レベル