Man first went into space on April 12, 1961, when Yuri Gagarin climbed aboard a spacecraft named Vostock 1 and was launched into space. Gagarin’s space flight lasted one hour and forty-eight minutes and made a single orbit around the Earth. After completing his flight, Gagarin returned to Earth, parachuting safely onto a farm in the south part of Russia. This flight gave birth to his famous words, “The Earth is blue.”

1. I think you can say “your life yet to come” but I don’t think you can say “your lifetime yet to come.” A lifetime represents the entire timeline of your existence, so it can’t be something in the future.
2. As we discussed in class, the wording of this segment is a bit tricky. It must be written so it doesn’t sound as though you are saying that while Gagarin was the first human to be sent into space in Vostok I, there were others who were sent into space in other spacecraft with different names.
3. I like the use of “reportedly” because, as I’m sure you discovered when researching this article, Gagarin did not actually say the famous comment “The Earth is blue” that is attributed to him.

1. While I can understand what you want to say, the phrase “live with something” is used differently. Usually, it is used to mean「覚悟の上で」.
2. As we discussed in class, there are fixed ways in which we write dates. If you want to use the “12th” sytle of notation, you should write “On the 12th of April 1961, a Soviet ….”
3. We discussed this sentence in class, too. If you read this sentence again, you will see that it sounds like you are implying that other animals have travelled in the Vostok 1 and Gagarin was the first human to travel in the Vostok.
4. Wrong preposition. You can’t really ride on a parachute. You can return to earth by parachute.

1. I think it is necessary to mention that the author is talking about the future of each person in the audience, so perhaps something like “I mean the future you will be living in.”
2. Check on the rules of writing dates. I don’t think you can use the “12th” style of writing dates when you use the month, date, and year.
3. As we discussed in class, the word order of this segment is important. If you don’t write this sentence carefully, the sentence may sound like you are saying other people in addition to Gagarin flew into space on other spacecraft.

I’m sure all of you have seen photographs of a blue Earth, floating against the backdrop of jet-black space. It is a truly beautiful sight. It is a miracle of beauty. This small planet, glittering like a blue jewel, is the Earth. It is the third planet from the Sun in our solar system and it is your home. It is where all of you were born and where you live your lives. So, your future is very closely tied to what happens to this planet in the future. Let’s think of the Earth as if it were the house in which you live. Perhaps one day in the future, it may become possible for you to move away. But, even it were possible for you to leave this planet, wouldn’t it be horrible if the reason you had to move was because you had made the Earth so dirty that it was unlivable, and you had to sneak away to find another home to live in? To make sure this doesn’t happen, all of you have a very important job to do; get to know as much as you can about this home we call Earth, give a lot of thought to how you live in it, and take good care of it.

1. The use of “star” to describe the Earth always bothers me. Although the Japanese lump planets and stars into the same category, English separates them. The Earth, Mars, Jupiter, etc., are all planets, while Antares, Sirius, etc., are stars.
2. I’m not particularly fond of using slangy versions of words in writing articles. I suppose this type of expression is appropriate when writing dialogs, but I generally try to stay away from using it.
3. This feels a little out of place here. There is a need to link this sentence with the sentence preceding it and the one following it. Because the idea is to think of the Earth as our house, this sentence needs to function as a transition element to bridge the previous ideas (of how beautiful and precious the Earth is) with the concept of equating the Earth with a house we live in.
4. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to mention the need to be rich enough to move. People move for a variety of reasons; not just because they are rich. The question here, if you wish to add this thought of being rich, is what kind of contribution does this thought make to the main idea of this paragraph.
5. I wonder if it would be possible to make this sentence a little less clumsy. I had to read it several times before I could see where to break up the sentence. The portion between the “you want” and “would be” was especially hard to follow. The idea expressed here is fine, and once I discovered how it should be broken up, I was able to read it smoothly. However, when reading it out loud, it took three breaths to read all of it.

1. Two points here: first, although the Earth is called a “star” in Japanese, it is categorized and always referred to as a planet in English; second, this sentence does not really make clear what the miracle is. Is the miracle the fact that the star is beautiful? Or that the Earth is floating in space? This probably should be made more clear.
2. The planet cannot evolve; living things (such as plants and animals) can evolve. Planets can change but they cannot evolve.
3. This is a bit off. The text is not merely saying this is a good idea. It is asking us to think of the Earth as if it were a house.
4. The direction of this sentence feels a bit different from the nuance of the Japanese. You may want to look at some of the other assignments to see how this sentence has been interpreted.

1. Does this sentence make clear what “which” refers to? The way the sentence reads now, it sounds like “which” could refer to either “space” or “the Earth.”
2. The transition in this part of the sentence doesn’t feel smooth. Perhaps it should be something like “You were born on this planet and it is where you live.”
3. This sounds a bit off because we don’t suppose (or imagine) that Earth is our home because it is our home. The idea in this part of the sentence is to metaphorically describe Earth as being like the house we live in.

“Mother Earth” globes have been created by the artist Arlo Manchester to give us many different views of the Earth. The globes, illuminated with many light bulbs, represent various conditions and situations on this planet. Art can be described as a way of seeing things. An artist can take things that you look at but normally don’t pay attention to in your daily lives or things that you’ve forgotten about, and show you how to see them in a fresh, new way. Arlo Manchester is showing you many different ways of seeing the Earth. He is showing you how to view the Earth from this way, that way, and every which way. While one view of Earth may give you a sense of hope, a different view may fill you with sadness. But you must not forget that each and every one of these views represents a current reality of the Earth. Joy, sadness, hope, and despair, all exist together under the same roof

1. It’s a bit confusing as to whether the word “which” is describing the globes or Arlo Manchester.
2. Is there a particular reason why this segment is in the future tense? The rest of the paragraph speaks in the present tense.
3. I think the use of “never mind” in this way is not correct. Perhaps “don’t pay attention to” or something similar conveys the thought better.
4. Is the use of “all” really necessary here?

1. You can say “do you know about something” but you cannot say “do you know + an object.” In this case, it is better to say “Have you ever heard of…” Usually, we use “do you know + person.”
2. As a general rule, once you have introduced a person by the full name, unless the person is a friend of yours (you personally know the person) and the article is a casual narrative, you should refer to the person by the last name.

1. Unfortunately, this is kind of a direct translation of the Japanese. If possible, try to find a different way of expressing this phrase or leave it out completely (it isn’t really a very important phrase).
2. Are you saying that we left behind the view? This segment doesn’t make clear what we left behind.
3. As a rule, in cases like this, where you don’t want to use the full name again, use the last name ? not the first name.
4. Ideally, this sentence would be perfect if these adjectives could be put in the same logical order: joy and sadness (not grief ? this is usually used to express sadness when someone dies), hope and despair.