Author: Peter-Wang-Mobile-2026

Notes：
Kindle　キンドル(2007年11月米国アマゾン社が発売した携帯型電子書籍端末);
ubiquitous　至る所[あちこち]にある，おなじみの;
gadget　ガジェット(小型の電子機器);
publishing houses　出版社;
through the back door　こっそりと;
keep one’s eyes peeled.　睨みをきかしておく，用心を怠らないようにしてお;
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I know it’s early, but ask me what I want for Christmas. Okay, it’s a Kindle. I am not sure that you have heard of it as I have not even seen one out in the streets of Japan yet. Instead I see the ubiquitous iPhone – everywhere!
As gadgets go the Kindle is reasonably cheap (25,000JPY; $279;) yet even so it seems not to have caught on. This may be due to the fact that there are as many as 50 publishing houses in Japan as opposed to just 6 in the US. The Kindle however may come in through the back door via the iPhone and iPod Touch as Amazon has also developed applications allowing users of the iPhone to access Kindle books via these tools. Keep your eyes peeled. (by Prof. Simon Smith)
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Notes:
federal (政府・国家が)連邦政府の
claim to　～すると主張する
census　国勢調査
Tagalog　タガログ語
Vietnamese　ベトナム語
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Last time I told you that South Africa has 11 official languages, but did you know that on the federal level, the United States doesn’t have any official languages even though 96% of the population claims to speak it “well” or “very well”? Once every 10 years, we take a census in the US. In the year 2000, 215 million people over the age of five said their only language at home was English. The next most popular language was Spanish, with 28 million people. Chinese languages, French, German, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and Italian were next; each had over 1 million speakers. I guess that’s why they call the US a salad bowl. (by Prof. Carmella Lieske)
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