(446) Word/ Gap

(446) Word/ Gap 
穴埋め問題をgap-fill　exerciseと言うようだ。日本語のギャップは貧富の間とか、理論と実際との間にギャップがあるいった意味で使われていることが多いと思う。だから、「隙間」とか、「空白」といった意味で、確かに辞書に載っているが、この意味で使われている英文を見ると、少し、正直戸惑う。

The word I chose to talk about is “Gap”.When I looked it up in the Oxford learner’s dictionary, its first meaning is ‘a space between two things or in the middle of something, especially because there is a part missing’. This definition sounds new to me. So it took a few moments for me to get the meaning of the phrase “gap-fill exercise” .

Pic. Gap fill exercise

Another example is in a story of the ugly duckling;

The duckling found a little cottage. It was very old and the door was falling off. This left a gap

just big enough for the duckling to creep inside out of the cold.

Pic. Gap for the duckling



In Japanese there is a word ‘gyappu’ as a loan word from English word ‘gap’. Its meaning is the same as another meaning of gap. The second meaning of ‘gap’ is;
a difference that separates people, or their opinions, situation, etc.

the gap between rich and poor

the gap between theory and practice  

I can easily follow these usages, but I was a little bit surprised to see the picture of gap in a picture dictionary.

Pic. Gap between teeth
英語絵辞典に載っているgapのこの写真にはショックを受けるとともに、なるほど、これがgapの意味かと納得させられる。
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