Lesson 131 理解を表す動詞ー understand, grasp, comprehend, follow

2025年10月14日

Opening

Onishi
▶︎ Some say, I have too big of a heart, and I’m hard to comphrehend.

Roza
▶︎ Oh, you’re definitely hard to comphrehend. Akino Roza here.

David
▶︎ And I’m David Evans. Yeah, it is a little hard to follow.

Dialogue

① It’s taking a while to sink in.【 taking a while と sink in の意味 】
👉 taking a while – これは「しばらくかかる」という表現。
▶︎ sink in – これは、「その感動が心の中に沈み込んでいく」という感触ですね。
実感がわく、十分に理解する、というフレーズ。

② This thing is massive!【 massive の意味】
👉そして、massive – これは「巨大な」という形容詞です。

③ Just human power and ingenuity.【 ingenuity の意味】
👉 ingenuity – これは「創意工夫」という単語です。

④ It’s dufficult to grasp that concept.【 ここでの concept が意味するもの】
👉さあ、concept とい単語が出てきました。
ここでは、「人間が機械も電気もなし、人間の力と創意工夫だけで、こんな巨大なものを作った」
という、その出来事の流れ、これを concept と言っているんですね。

Pronunciation Polish

David
▶︎ All right, everyone. If you used to struggle with pronunciation, don’t worry.
Today we’ll practice and master it together.
Welcome to “Pronunciation Polish.”
Here’s today’s phrase.
・It’s hard to comprehend how big it is.
・It’s hard to comprehend how big it is.

Just a couple of qucik points to focus on today.
First, we have “hard” plus “to.”
The “d” sound gets very small, and we combine these two words.
hard to, hard to

Next up, the “d” sound at the end of “comphrehend” again, nice and small, almost disappears.
comprehend, comprehend

All right. And Last up, we have a three-word-set, “big it is,” one chunk. OK?
big it is, big it is
how big it is

All right.
Let’s try the full phrase.
・It’s hard to comprehend how big it is.
・It’s hard to comprehend how big it is.

All right.
Very nice.

Ending

Onishi
▶︎ You know, the word “struggle” is misunderstood sometimes, right?

David
▶︎ I agree, yeah.

Onishi
▶︎ It has such a negative image, right?

David
▶︎ Well, it’s really the feeling, better the sound like “んっ、あっ、うん”
while you’re trying, but the progress isn’t coming, and you’re pushing and pushing,
but nothing is moving. Yeah, it’s that kind of feeling.

Onishi
▶︎ Oh, yeah, Exactly.

Roza
▶︎ Yeah, it’s used to describe difficult situations and it doesn’t have the meaning of “がんばる.”
It’s like you’re drowning.