May 5, 2014　=========
☆ compare　比べる
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My two boys are always fighting! It drives me crazy, ha ha. The reason they are fighting is usually because they are comparing themselves: “I’m bigger/faster/stronger…” or “I have more X than you.” Or “I have finished already. You’re slow!” And so on. I have never taught them to compare themselves to each other… and I assume that they don’t teach this at school! I hope not!
So, do you think it is human nature, a kind of innate behavior that we compare ourselves to others? I know that adults do it too, comparing our jobs, our salaries, our houses and so on to see if we are better or worse than someone else… but this just makes us unhappy, right? I just did a quick Google search on “stop comparing yourself to others” and I got “about” 87 million search results!!! Ha ha, I guess everyone does it but wants to know how to stop!
One good thing about taking English tests like TOEIC or TOEFL is that you can compare your results with a previous result in the same test. This way, you are finding out whether YOU are getting better or not, and there is no need to compare your score with other people’s scores – just compare your own scores, and find out where you have improved and where you still need to study more.
Bye,
Chris