October 21, 2016　    =========

☆  proud  誇りとする

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If you feel proud, you feel pleased about something good that you did or someone close to you did. For example, you can feel proud of your hard work at your job, or you can feel proud of your child’s effort at school. You can also feel proud to be a certain thing, such as a nationality. You might hear people in the USA say, “I’m proud to be American.” Of course, it’s perfectly fine for you to say you are proud to be Japanese, too!

Proud is usually used in a positive, complimentary way. For example, “She is a proud, hard-working woman.” In this situation we believe that it is OK for her to have a high opinion of herself and high self-respect.

However, if the person has a high opinion of themselves, and believe that they are actually better than other people, then we don’t use proud to describe them. Instead we use words with a negative nuance, such as: arrogant, conceited, and smug.

Bye,

Chris