Good afternoon, I hope that you are all doing well and are keeping healthy at this time. I hope you’ve been able to enjoy the small series of blogs on parts of speech over the past few weeks. Today though let’s change things up and talk about how you can change the subject you are talking about within a conversation or are writing an email. Being able to do so is perfectly normal and in most cases is not disrespectful, rather it helps to keep people communicating and from not ending a conversation too abruptly. A conversation that ends too abruptly might even make both people feel somewhat uncomfortable. For example, in the following model conversation look at how quickly the conversation ends and just how odd it seems.
こんにちは、皆さまはお元気ですか？この数週間、品詞についてのプログはいかがでしたか？今日は少しトピックを変えて、会話またはメールの途中で話題を変える時にどのようなフレーズを使うかをみていきたいと思います。普段やるもので、とくに失礼ではないことです。逆に、会話がスムーズに続けるためによくみられます。使わずに急に話題を変えてしまうと、相手もちょっと変な感じがするでしょう。例えば、例の会話を見てみましょう。急に話題を変えると違和感がありますね。
Jeff: “Hey Susan, how was your day?” Susan: “Hi Jeff, it was fairly difficult, but I’m going out to dinner this evening with my coworkers.” Jeff: “Where will you be going?” Susan: “We will be going the new Italian place near the office. By the way, have you ever been there?” Jeff: “Not yet.” Susan: “I see, well I have to go. “
Let’s expand on this a bit more. もう少し加えてみよう。
Jeff: “Hey Susan, how was your day?” Susan: “Hey Jeff, it was fairly difficult, but I’m going out to dinner this evening with my coworkers.” Jeff: “Where will you be going?” Susan: “We will be going the new Italian place near the office. By the way, have you ever been there?” Jeff: “Not yet, I’d like to try their meat filled ravioli though. Oh, did you hear about the chef, he studied in France and Italy and has worked as a sous chef at in three different places and has quite a reputation.” Susan: “I didn’t know that, now I’m really looking forward to the meal, perhaps I’ll get some ravioli as well. Have a good evening and see you tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about it.” Jeff: “See you then.”
When Jeff explains what it is that he wants to try and discusses what he know about the chef, we see that he’s wanting to continue the conversation and share something that he’s been made aware of. Susan, as a result, responds well and even suggests that she might have the dish that Jeff is wanting to try and is willing is wanting to tell Jeff about it.
ジェフが食べてみたいメニューアイテムを話したり、コックさんについて話したら、スーザンさんと会話をしたい、続けたい気持ちがはっきりとわかります。それに答えて、スーザンも同じメニューアイデムも試してみようと思い、ジェフにそれを伝えることができます。
In our second example, let's say you are writing a work related email and you’ve been answering a series of questions and you want to let the other person know about something else. The following is an example of an email that’s being written from one colleague to another.
２つめの例では、Eメールの場合をみてみましょう。同僚とチャットしてて、いくつかの質問を答えた後、他の話題について話したい時。次の例では、ある人が同僚にメールをしている内容です。 "…in the end I really like your idea for tracking changes in our inventory using that software. I’ll run it by the Robert in the IT department and get back to you when I get an answer. Changing subjects though, I heard that you’ve been promoted, congratulations! I really…" In this short example we see that the person is responding to colleague’s idea of using some new program to help better track what it is that they have on hand then quickly addressing new information. In this case once again this is acceptable most often, though you have to be aware of your work environment and how open you can be.
最初は会社のソフトウェアについて話していますが、途中で違う話題に変えました。仕事場の環境などによりますが、このような会話はよく聞かれます。
That's all for today. Next time, let's continue with this subject matter for a little longer. I'll be giving you a list of words and phrases you can use along with a series of situations which you can use them in. Have a good day!
今日は終わります！次回は今日の続きをしたいです。様々な状況とそれぞれの中で使えるフレーズなどを教えます。では、良い一日を！
