日本の小話（A Japanese Joke）例文

Fred and Saburo are talking about humor.

Saburo：What do you think of Japanese humore,Fred?
Fred：I don't know much about it.
Saburo：Have you ever heard a Japanese joke?
Fred：No,I haven't
Saburo：I wish I could remember one.
Fred：I wish you could,too.Try.
Saburo：All right.Let me see. Ah,I remember one.
Fred：What is it?
Saburo:Well,a man was driving his car and went through a red light.
A police-man saw him and blew his whistle. THe car stopped.
The policeman walked over to the driver and said,"Didn't you see that red light?"
And the driver said, "Yes, I saw it." So the policeman said, "Well, why didn't you stop?"
ANd the driver said,"Because I didn't see you."

Note

1.What do you think of～
「～についてどう思う？」How do you think of ～とは言いません。
間違えやすいので注意しましょう。

2.joke
「冗談、こばなし」の意味

3.I wish I could～
「～ができたらいいのになぁ」現在の事実に反する願望を表す言い方です。
過去形のcould を使うことに注意。be動詞の場合は、人称のいかんにかかわらずwereを使いますが、口語ではwasも使われます

4.Try.
Try to remeber.の意味。tryは「やってみる、試す」の意味

5.Let me see.
「ええと」に相当する表現です。、少し考える時間や思い出す時間がほしい時に使われます。

6.went through
go through a red lightは「赤信号を無視する」の意味です

7.whistle
「警笛」

8.walked over to the driver
walk over to ～はwalk to～とほぼ同じですが、overが加わると2人の間にすこし距離があったという感じがはっきりします。

9.Because I didn't see you.
「赤信号が見えたけれでも、お巡りさんが見えなかったので止まらなかった」というのがこのjokeのオチになっています。

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