【Skill 3】Understand whether a balance increased or decreased from expressions such as 額 (amount) and 増加 (increase)
Understand whether a balance increased or decreased from the following expressions.
■ 黒字額 (amount of the surplus)
■ 赤字幅 (scope of the deficit)
■ 増加 (increase)
■ 拡大 (expand)
■ 減少 (decrease)
■ 縮小 (shrink)
黒字 (surplus) or 赤字 (deficit) appears before 額 (amount) and 幅 (scope). How the balance increased or decreased appears after 額が (amount + [subject marker]) or 幅が (scope + [subject marker]). The following sentence begins with 経常収支は (current account balance + [topic marker]) and 増加 (increase) appears after 黒字額が (amount of the surplus + [subject marker]), which shows that the amount of the current account balance increased.
■ 経常収支は、黒字額が増加した (The amount of the current account balance increased)
連続 (in a row) may appear after 増加 (increase) or 減少 (decrease). This shows that the increase or decrease continued for 2 years or more. The number of years for which it continued appears before 連続 (in a row). In the following sentence, 2年 (2 years) appears before 連続 (in a row), which appears before 増加 (increase), which shows that the increase in the scope of the surplus continued for 2 years.
■ 第一次所得収支は、2年連続で黒字幅が増加した (The surplus of the primary income balance increased for 2 years in a row)