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日本の中学校に通いはじめて半年ほど経った中学２年の夏休みに児童英語研究所の暗唱発表会と、中学２年春休みに児童英語研究所としちだ・教育研究所の合同講演会で、英語のスピーチ（約2分くらいの短い自作エッセイ）をさせていただきました。

本来、スピーチといいますと、文章を練りにねって考え、暗記して発表するのでしょうが、時間が無くて、15〜20分ほどの短い時間で書き上げた文章をしかも暗記していない状態での発表でした(^^ゞ

以下のような自作エッセイです。

One time when I was in 6th grade, our class read a book called, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”, which is the first book in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series. Since the school I used to go to was an International school, we read the book in English. After we all finished reading it, we went to a movie theater on a field trip, to watch the movie of it.

Since I liked the book so much, I wanted to read it in Japanese, too. I told my parents about this, and my dad bought the Japanese version for me. I started reading it, opening the book whenever I had time. Although it took me a long time to read it, I was still able to finish it. But, I wasn’t very happy when I finished the book. To tell the truth, I liked the English version better than the Japanese one.

In the English one, there was a lot of humor, and although “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” was written about 70 years ago, the writing style was fresh and easy to read. But in the Japanese one, although there were some jokes, I couldn’t laugh as much as I did when I was reading the English version. Also, the writing style was old-fashioned, and there were many “hiragana’s” which made it hard for me to read.

I also read in a magazine that a girl read “Pippi Longstockings”, both in English and in Japanese, but liked the Japanese version better. I learned from these facts that by the way you translate and by the words you use, the story can change. In my case, I found it can be funny or boring; fresh or old-fashioned. I may not become a translator when I grow up, but I hope that people who do will do their best to make stories as interesting as the original.

もし、よろしかったら、そのスピーチの様子もご覧ください。
英語スピーチ（YouTubeサイト）