Celebrity File Japan by Lint


英文		重要語句
■ Who is Japan's most famous table tennis player? Would you believe this player's not even the top-ranked player in her own country? Ranked number seven in Japan (and now ranked 57 in the world) Ai Fukuhara, better know as Ai-chan, is a table tennis dynamo. She made the Japanese national table-tennis team at age eleven making her the youngest-ever to accomplish that feat. At 13, she made the quarterfinals at the Japanese national table-tennis championships. This past May in Paris she also made another quarterfinal appearance but at the more prestigious World Championships. In doing that she became the first Japanese player to make it that far in 14 years.		prodigy 天才；神童 dynamo　エネルギッシュな人 quarterfinal　準々決勝 prestigious　一流の make it　やり遂げる；到達する
■■ Already famous well before that via media reports on her prowess from the age of three, she has been called "Tiger Woods" of table tennis because of her early prowess. She is also Japan's first women's pro table tennis player. She even has a PlayStation 2 video game, Ikuze! Onsen Takkyu!, modeled on her game where she takes on various opponents in fully animated action. Check out the write-up in English of that product at: http://www.ncsx.com/ncs010101/table_tennis.htm.		prowess　優れた能力 model on ...　…を見本にして作る take on ...　 …に挑戦する write-up　記事
■■■ The fame and fortune are understandable, but how did this phenom get so good at such as young age? Practice, practice, practice is the simple answer! She practices an astounding four to five hours a weekday and eight hours a day on her weekends. How this Aomori-based 14-year-old youngster fits in her schoolwork is amazing, but she somehow does it.		phenom　天才 astounding　驚くべき fit in ...　 …になじむ
■■■■ She is also believed to be the only elementary schoolkid to beat an adult player. This she first did in 1999 at the Japan Table Tennis Championships beating two players in the senior (17 and over) draw. She also made the semifinals in the junior (under-17) division at that same tournament. With victories in tournaments over senior players, she seems a dead certainty to be at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.		beat　…に勝つ draw　勝ち抜き戦；トーナメント semifinal　準決勝 dead certainty　必然のこと
■■■■■ It's not just her victories that make her so popular, it's those tears in defeat. Japanese, despite being a pretty emotionless lot in public, love it when others show emotion especially their sports heroes. Ai-chan though claims those days are pretty much over where she cried after any defeat to those older opponents. Now she is able to even take command at press conferences where once her manager was the only one speaking on her behalf. She still says she has a good cry every so often but only once a month and at home away from the bright lights of the TV cameras.		defeat　敗北；負け emotionless　感情に動かされない lot　人の集団 take command　指揮を執る；操る on one's behalf　…のために every so often　時々 bright lights　（照明の）強い光

－written by Brian Maitland

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