Author: Peter-Wang-Mobile-2026

Notes
pigeon　ハト;
dropping 糞;
falconer タカ匠;

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A famous travel magazine picked JR Kanazawa as one of the world’s most beautiful train stations. It has a wooden gate shaped like Japanese drums and a glass and steel dome. Like many other stations, however, it had a problem with pigeons. The gray birds left white droppings everywhere. Now a falconer comes twice a week with a hawk. It flies around and scares away the pigeons. International visitors enjoy taking pictures of the hawk, and they stop to ask the falconer what he is doing. I’m sure his English is getting better! (by Prof. Douglas Jarrell)
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I had a chance to listen to a lecture given by a Japanese scholar who speaks English well. I heard her say a word, but I couldn’t understand it. Then I realized that she had said the word “data.” I knew the word, but I didn’t understand her because she pronounced it differently. I found out that this word has three different pronunciations. I only knew one, so I was happy to learn something new. At the same time, I started to wonder if we need to know all three pronunciations when we learn English as an international language. What do you think? (written by a reader, edited by Prof. Douglas Jarrell)
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