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温めボタン
ロイさんは日曜日にご飯をたくさん炊いて、一回分ずつラップに包んで冷凍しました。月曜日の夜、一つ温めようと思って電子レンジの前に立ちましたが、ボタンは漢字ばかりで読めません。「冷凍」と同じ字があるボタンを押してみましたが、五分たっても、ご飯のまん中は冷たいままでした。
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On Sunday, Roy cooked a big pot of rice, wrapped it in cling film one portion at a time and put it in the freezer. On Monday evening he wanted to heat up a portion, but when he stood in front of the microwave, the buttons were all kanji and he couldn’t read them. He tried the button that shared a character with 「冷凍」, the word for “frozen”, but five minutes later the middle of the rice was still cold.
ロイさんは、一階に住んでいる大家さんに聞きに行きました。大家さんは部屋まで来て、教えてくれました。「これは『解凍』。冷凍庫から出した肉や魚を、料理の前にやわらかくするボタンよ。ご飯はこっちの『温め』。このボタンを押すと、温かくなるわ」。そして、ロイさんが忘れないように、小さいテープに「あたため」と書いて、ボタンの横に貼ってくれました。
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Roy went to ask his landlady, who lives on the ground floor. She came up to his flat and showed him. “This one is ‘Defrost’. It’s for softening meat or fish from the freezer before you cook it. For rice you want this one, ‘Reheat’. Press this button and it warms up.” Then, so that Roy wouldn’t forget, she wrote 「あたため」 on a little strip of tape and stuck it next to the button for him.
もう一度「温め」を押すと、ご飯から湯気が出てきました。ロイさんはお礼を言って、温かいご飯を食べました。その夜、ほかのボタンの漢字も一つずつ辞書で調べて、今度は自分でテープに読み方を書きました。
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He pressed “Reheat” again, and steam began to rise from the rice. Roy thanked her and sat down to his hot rice. That night he looked up the kanji on the other buttons one by one in his dictionary, and this time he wrote the readings on the tape himself.
Three expressions
雨の日、友達が駅まで車で送ってくれました。
On a rainy day, my friend gave me a lift to the station.
「〜てくれる」: someone else does something for you. It follows the te form and carries a note of thanks; the person doing it takes 「が」. For something you do for others, use 「〜てあげる」. In the story, 「ボタンの横に貼ってくれました」 means “(the landlady) stuck it next to the button for him”.
この道をまっすぐ行くと、右に郵便局があります。
Go straight along this road and you’ll see the post office on the right.
「〜と」: “do … and …”, “when you …, …”. It follows the dictionary form: do the first thing and the second always follows. It is common in instructions and directions. The second half can’t be a request or a plan. In the story, 「このボタンを押すと、温かくなるわ」 means “press this button and it warms up”.
朝寝坊しないように、目覚まし時計を二つかけました。
I set two alarm clocks so that I wouldn’t oversleep.
「〜ように」: “so that (you can) …”, “so as not to …”. Before it usually comes a nai form or a potential form, something you can’t make happen just by deciding to; after it comes what you do for that purpose. In the story, 「ロイさんが忘れないように」 means “so that Roy wouldn’t forget”.
One small thing to do
Tip
Look at the buttons on your microwave and find 「温め」; if there is a 「解凍」, learn that one too. If your microwave isn’t in Japanese, use this story to work out which of its buttons would be which.