『えいごで読む物語』シリーズでは、ランカル英会話に所属するメイトの日常や思い出をえいごでお届けします。

今回はアメリカ出身のGrewが、年内行事の中ででいちばん楽しみにしている夏休みについて紹介してくれました!

旅行、アウトドア、お家でまったり映画鑑賞… 過ごし方は十人十色。
あなたにぴったりなバケーションプランのご参考に:)

初心者の方は「インテンシブ・リーディング（精読）」の読み物として、こちらのシリーズを読んでみることをオススメします。
コラムになっているため、文章量が少なく、また単語・表現も日常的に使われるものが中心となっています。

そのため、じっくりと読むインテンシブ・リーディングで文章の組み立て方に注目してみてくださいね！
詳しくは下にまとめてみたのでチェックしてくださいね。

詳しい練習方法は以下を参考にしてくださいね♪

Intro

What’s your favorite time of year? For me, it’s gotta be summer. I’ve loved it since I was young. I hate the cold and love to be warm. It doesn’t hurt that I love swimming and I’m not bad at it. With the summer season coming into full swing here, I figure it’s time to talk about what goes on in the hottest time of year.

Now, I know most of us have full time jobs, which means we can’t enjoy the summer as much as we could as children. But, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do and that definitely doesn’t mean that people in the US just waste their summer time.

Especially the kids and the university students, who get two to three months off in the summer. I think In Japan it’s around four to six weeks.

Kids tend to make the most of this, or at least I did. This is mainly true because schools in America never give summer homework. It’s too much of a hassle as September is the start of the new school year so the students will likely have all new teachers.

What do they do?

So what do they do with all that free time? They play. If they’re on a sports team they’ll go to a camp at some point and do summer training, which is usually around two weeks.

If they’re really bad students, they’ll end up in summer school, which I think is six weeks. If they’re like me, they spend most of their time playing video games or hanging out with their friends and doing a week-long summer camp at some point.I’ve never been to a summer camp in Japan so I’m a little curious as to what is normal, but for me it was an activity camp. We would be camping somewhere and learn different skills, like archery, shooting, swimming, pottery, arts and crafts, leather working, blacksmithing, environmental science, astronomy, first aid, native american culture, horseback riding, hiking, many different water sports(depending on the camp) like sailing or canoeing.

The list goes on and on. Some camps specialized in western(cowboy) style skills while others were high adventure like hiking, rock climbing, backpacking, and survival skills. There are age restrictions on the more dangerous activities, but most of them could be joined once you turned 14.In all honesty these camps are probably why I love the outdoors even to this day. I hated going when I was a kid, but I am really happy my parents made me do it now.  Some camps are even held on a national level.

So you can meet kids or adults from all over the country. I went to a couple of these and they were massive events. One even had international groups of kids, so I was able to meet some kids from Europe and even a group from Japan.

But, that’s just for those under 18. Once you’re an adult in the US you’re on your own to find the fun in the summer. Most university students will spend the summer either working or hanging out with their friends.

Even if they don’t have a part time job it’s really common for Uni students to find summer work and make a little extra cash to spend on fun activities. I worked as a camp counselor in the summer for a couple of summers in university myself.

Beach & Parties!

The other thing for California residents was the beach and parties. If you’ve got any friends at all, there will be at least one BBQ. As the 4th of July is in the summer you can guarantee there will be some kind of event held in every town.

I usually spent a good deal of time with my friends hanging out at one of our houses playing games or going to the beach. I did go on a road trip one year to visit a friend who had moved away.

Let’s go on a road trip

If you’ve got the chance to drive yourself around the country you should give it a shot.  You make your own plans and visit all the places you want. Road trips are an awesome way to spend the summer and many uni students in the states take all their free time to do just that.

Now lastly, what does your average adult do in the summer? Pretty much the same thing that they do the rest of the year with the activities being more summer based.

Going to the pool or beach on the weekend, picnics or BBQs with family and friends, and more than likely a few movies. Summer time is the season for the big name movies to put out their blockbusters since everyone has just a little more free time.

A lot of families will take vacation trips in the summer. My family had a camping trailer so we would often spend about a week each summer on a family camping trip. It was nice cause we got to sleep in proper beds and still kind of experience living outside, haha. blockbusters since everyone has just a little more free time.

Conclusion

So, what are you going to do this summer? Will I see you at the beach? Are you going to go camping in one of the amazing places around Japan? Are you going on an overseas trip now that restrictions are starting to loosen up? Whatever it is, make sure you enjoy this wonderful season.

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今回はGrewが経験した夏休みの過ごし方をお届けしました。

日本とアメリカの文化の違いも教えてくれましたね。
次のバケーションはいつもと一味違ったアクティビティを楽しんでみてはいかがでしょうか？

LanCul英会話ではリーディングはもちろん、スピーキング、コミュニケーションにも役立つ学習動画を取り扱っており、教科書では学ぶことの出来ない、日常的でより実践的な多様な会話を学ぶことができます。
気になる方は下のプレビュー動画をチェックしてみてくださいね。

マインドフルネス＜プレビュー＞

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