Singles Day becomes major online buying holiday The date November 11th, or “11/11” has become more and more popular every year in China, after a group of single students decided in 1993 that the numbers 11-11 were a good excuse to start giving presents to themselves. This year, the online shop Alibaba sold more than 14 billion dollars of merchandise on Singles Day, shipping 700 million tons of parcels. Alibaba CEO Jack Ma said that he expected single people in China to increase their online purchases on the holiday by 50% every year for the next few years.

Parcels: 小包

Austria’s largest state 100% powered by renewables The state of Lower Austria has recently announced that after a 3,000,000,000$ investment, they are getting 63% of their electricity from hydroelectric power, 26% from wind energy, 9% from biomass, and 2% from solar power. A large part of the hydroelectric power comes from electricity generators on the Danube River.

renewables/renewable energy: 再生可能エネルギー
biomass: バイオマス

turn in early

Lindsey: Are you going to the party at the sports bar tonight?

Jeffrey: No, I’ve been working hard all week long, and I’m really exhausted. I think I’ll just turn in early, and maybe go out on Sunday.

Explanation: The phrase “turn in early” some means to go to bed, or go to sleep early. It is a common expression among family members and close friends.

exhausted: ばてる・疲れ切る
I’ll turn in: 床に入ろう

false negative

Patient: The tests at the previous clinic showed that I didn’t have any gastric infection. But I still feel awful.

Doctor Jabril: I’m afraid that your first test was a false negative. The tests at your old clinic appeared to show that you were healthy, but our tests now show that you have a very serious stomach virus. We need to start urgent treatment as soon as possible.

Explanation: The phrase “false negative” means that the tests did not properly detect the disease. A false negative is very dangerous because it gives the impression that treatment is not needed, even though the patient is actually carrying a disease.

Pareto Principle

Hello Brandon:

If you want to work at our call center, you have to know that roughly 80% of the customer complaints will come from 20% of our customers. This is a well-known situation called the Pareto Principle, which is also called the 80-20 rule. You also have to know that about 80% of the malfunctions will occur from 20% of our products.

Explanation: The “Pareto Principle” was named after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who developed a theory based on the observation that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

malfunctions: 誤動作・不具合