YouTube / iTunes / Spotify / Radio Public / Pocket Casts / Google Podcasts / Breaker / Overcast
Listen to ArtisanEnglish.jp posts & lesson intros here.
Phrase: Like shooting fish in a barrel
Living in Japan is relatively easy.
I could go as far as to say it is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.
Yes, even if you cannot speak Japanese, it is easy to live here.
There are some caveats, though.
Before I get into them, I should fill you in on the meaning of today’s idiom.
Shooting fish in a barrel is used to say that something is very easy.
Yes, I can hear you ask why anyone would want to shoot fish in a barrel.
All I can say is that the expression is American, and Americans will shoot at anything if they get bored and have enough ammunition.
They shoot at stop signs and tin cans, so why not fish in a barrel?
Well, really, before refrigeration, dried fish were stored in barrels.
If you shot a barrel of fish, you were guaranteed to hit at least one fish.
Americans and guns, you understand.
Living in Japan is very easy as long as you are confident in your self-identity and can function in a society where everything is different.
If you can adjust to that, settling in here is like shooting fish in a barrel.
Japan is safe and highly convenient, even in the deepest darkest corners of the countryside.
Almost no one here has a gun, so nobody shoots at stop signs, tin cans, or fish in a barrel.
When bad guys do bad stuff, the police catch them 99% of the time.
Staying here is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel, as long as you say hello to little kids, smile at old ladies, and never shoot anything.
Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test
This post is understandable by someone with at least a 7th-grade education (age 12).
On the Flesch-Kincaid reading-ease test, this post scores 74.
The easier a passage is to read, the higher the score on a scale of 0 – 100.