こんにちはエリーです。さて今週のエリーとデイビットの旬の英会話は 「 アメリカ中間選挙 」。　デイビットさんの教える 「 選挙の英語 」 をすぐに使えば、あなたの外国人からの評判は ウナギノボリ になりますよ。　さて早速ですが、トランプ大統領は選挙期間中、選挙の勝敗を占っていたそうですが、何占いだったと思いますか?

 

トランプ占い !　 ( 笑 ) 　( A Trump-uranai (in Japanese) sounds like a Card-reading Fortune-teller in English!  “Cartomancy” is when a Psychic or Clairvoyant person uses card reading for fortune telling.)

 

はい、正解でした (笑) 。冗談は終わりにして、今週は中間選挙の結果トランプ大統領の弾劾がどうなるのか? という事を、数字の表現を合わせて言えるようにしましょう。

　　
それから日本の衆議院選挙の特徴も、外国人に教えられるようにしましょう。それではデイビットさん、今回の選挙結果はどうでしたか?

 

In the House of Representatives, as of November 9 Democrats edged out Republicans by a narrow 12% margin of 224 seats to 198 for Republicans for an absolute majority of 6 seats with 13 still undecided.
In the Senate,  Democrats won more than double the number of seats than Republicans, so far 23 for democrats over 9 for republicans from among 35 (thirty five) seats up for election, but not enough to take the majority from the republicans who are guaranteed at least 51 seats out of 100.

 

それではトランプ大統領は弾劾裁判で罷免されてしまうのですか?

 

As a result of these midterm elections, the Democrat-led House of Representatives can now initiate impeachment proceedings and possibly impeach the president.
But this is just the first step of (statement of charges) or indictment.

 

そうですか。　ところで今回の選挙結果について、デイビットさんはどう思いますか?

 

The US system has the amazing feature that due to gerrymandering
(which is drawing voting districts to gain votes by dividing up voters unfairly)
the minority of voters still maintains power in the Senate.

 

次に在日外国人に、日本の衆議院選挙について教えてあげてください。

 

There is no dissolution or disbanding in the middle of the fixed 2 year
term of office in the American House of Representatives.
But in the Japanese House of Representatives there can be dissolution in the middle of the term of office!

 

実際に、任期途中で解散したこともあるんですか?

 

 

In the past 70 years, there were 24 dissolutions of the Japanese House of Representatives in the middle of the term of office.
Moreover, in two different years there were two House of Representatives elections in the same year!
It seems like a huge waste of tax money, because each election is said to cost about 70 billion yen which is around 615 million dollars!”
But the US system is so complicated, nobody knows how much really the state governments spend to hold elections.
And it is guessed that in 2018 over 5 Billion dollars (570 billion yen) of private political money was spent.

 

はい、ありがとうございます。　日本の衆議院選挙の話でした。　今週は選挙の話を通じて、数字がいくつも出てきました。　日本人は英語の数字に弱いというけど、特に英会話の中で数字が出てくると頭が真っ白になっちゃいますよね。　どうぞ上の例で、英語の数字に慣れてください。