My best teacher!

My class teacher from high school was an English teacher and we all loved him very much both then and now because he always tried harder than other teachers to understand us (He loved us too, although he never said that kind of thing because he didn’t want other students to feel bad. Still, we all knew that we were his favorites. We could feel it. lol).

Even though we graduated years ago, our class has a ^★reunion at least once a year -- not only some groups of students but “everyone” is invited, including the teacher, every time or we often call him ★to catch up when a few students get together.

This summer another student and I had a chance to see him. We talked a lot about what we had been doing and recalled tons of things from our school days. It is always heartwarming to have such a reunion.

At that time, I remembered one thing that he told me when I was a student learning English from him; “What you can’t explain exactly in Japanese, you won’t be able to say in English, so please remember to speak Japanese with accuracy all the time.”

I was not convinced about that at school, but now I believe he was quite right and how important it was.

This situation reminds me to talk ^★properly and consciously so that I can be better at English too, hopefully.

By the way, I am pleased to still be friends with my teacher and hope this friendship will ^★last forever and ever!

～～～これ知ってた？～～～

★reunion: 高校を卒業した今でも、この「クラス会、同窓会」は少なくとも一年に一回はするのですね！「結合」や「合体」を表すunionに「再び、さらに、新たに、・・・し直す」などの意味を表す接頭辞のre-がついたこのreunion、このようにre-がついた語は多くあります。チェックしてみて下さいね！

★to catch up: 主に｢追いつく｣の意味でつかわれるこのcatch up。このように使われるときは「近況（会っていなかった期間の今まで）について話す」という意味です。カジュアルな表現で、友達に｢会おう！｣「会って話そう！」と言いたい時”Let’s catch up!”と使ったりします。

★properly: 「適切に、きちんと、礼儀正しく」などを意味します。英語の上達のためには日本語でも何かを説明する時に適切に伝えられる能力が重要なのですね！

★last: 「最後の、この前の」という意味の形容詞ではおなじみですが、このように動詞で使うと「続く」という意味になります。先生との友情が永遠に続きますように！と願っているのですね！