8.Mr Abe appears to be planning sweeping changes to put the welfare state on a firmer footing. “There will be an overall social-security reform, including health and medicine, pension and others,” he says. “We are trying to create a society and community where people can remain healthy and active...and find meaning in staying alive and living long.”

段落解析

这段的大意是讲安倍看上去在计划在社会福利方面有一些大动作以便使其基础更加稳固。这是根据他说的话推断的：“马上会有一个整体的社会安全的改革，包括健康、医疗、养老金和其他。....我们正试图创造一个人民可以保持健康和活力的社会和社区...让他们能找到活得长久的意义...”

词句精读（可以学习的实用表达）

1. appears to be

V-LINK 连系动词好像;似乎;看来 If you say that something appears to be the way you describe it, you are reporting what you believe or what you have been told, though you cannot be sure it is true.                                                      

V-LINK 连系动词 看起来；显得  If someone or something appears to have a particular quality or characteristic, they give the impression of having that quality or characteristic.

 from collins 双解

Synonyms  verb give the impression

这个词组可以学起来，保证使用率超高哦。不管是口语中还是写作中都可以使用。如果你说一个东西看起来像你形容的样子，就是表示你在表达你的主观看法，你认为你说的是对的，但是你并不完全确定百分之百正确。在这里是用在了形容政治立场上，也是比较常见的句型:

someone or something appear to be xxxxx

牛津搭配词典例句：

There appears to be increasing support for the leadership to take a more aggressive stance...好像有越来越多的人支持领导层采取更为强势的立场。

Under stress these people will appear to be superficial, over-eager and manipulative.这些人在压力下会显得浅薄无知、操之过急，而且爱摆布人。

在口语中，你也可以经常使用在八卦或者表达个人看法上面。比如你第一次见到Jasmine，感觉她看上去很傲慢耶，就可以说：

Jasmine appears to be very arrogant.

2. planning sweeping changes

ADJ-GRADED 能被表示程度的副词或介词词组修饰的形容词(变化)巨大的，重要的，有广泛影响的,深远的 Sweeping changes are large and very important or significant.

我刚开始就有点想当然了，把sweeping的意思认作了sweep的动词含义再延伸过来，以为是扫平的意思，但是其实不是。sweeping在这里做形容词，表示的是重要的改变，在政治经济领域会很常用到这个表达，可以在写作中使用到。

collins例句：

The new government has started to make sweeping changes in the economy...新政府已经着手在经济领域进行意义深远的改革。

3.  on a firmer footing

footing这个词理解起来比较tricky，属于那种你好像理解了又好像没理解的词汇类型。看上去简单，实际上的使用范围也很广，需要你有一些英式思维。foot指的是脚跟，加上ing变成名词footing，很容易让人联想到中文中的“站稳脚跟”，拓展一下就是表达基础和地位的意思。在这里，firmer footing的意思就是打一个牢固的基础。这个表达同样在政治经济领域很常见。比如：

A Supreme Court ruling against the university might put ethnic and racial diversity on college campuses on a firmer-footing for the long term.

同样我们还可以变化下这个表达就是一个俚语，用在口语中表达一个坚定的立场：on firm footing，意思是well supported。例句：

He believes that his argument is on firm ground/footing.

9.Yet in practice Mr Abe is being cautious. Even after the retirement age increases, it will still be lower than in many other rich countries. Moreover, the current system discourages those over 65 from working more than part-time since their pension is reduced if their income from it and their salary exceeds 460,000 yen ($4,039) a month. It is not clear whether this will change. The government has modified but not eliminated a tax quirk that discourages married women from earning more than a relatively lowly amount. By the same token, the share of medical expenses that patients must pay under the public health-care system falls as they get older, imposing a big burden on the state. There are various ways the government could reduce its health-care bill, including increasing premiums for the public insurance scheme, raising patients’ co-payments for treatments and excluding some expensive procedures from the scheme.

段落解析

上一段讲的是安倍看上去想搞大动作改革，这一段接着说和看上去相反，安倍实际上却非常谨慎。这段具体描述了安倍实际上都做了哪些事情，而这些举措收效甚微。老龄化还是很严重，这些举措也很不合理，比如针对65岁老年人的税收和医疗花费等：即使退休年龄增长了，但是还是和其他富裕国家相比更低。现有的系统也很奇怪，65岁的老人如果想要全职工作的话他们的养老金会减少，所以他们只会选择做part-time。政府也并没有取消一个针对已婚女性的很奇怪的税收政策，不鼓励她们去赚钱。同样的奇怪的情况也发生在医疗上。随着年龄的增长，病人付钱享受公共医疗系统的金额却逐渐下降，这给国家带来了巨大的负担。而实际上政府有很多的方式来减少医疗支出，比如增加公共保险的保费啊，提高病人的 co-payments啊，去除一些昂贵的项目啊，然而政府却没有这么做。

词句精读

1. in practice

used to say what is actually done or what the actual effect or result of something is

看上去很简单却很实用，不管用在句首句中句尾，口语或写作中，都是一个实用的表达。给自己的词库里多增添一些可替换表达，去替换in reality或者actually。

Merriam-Webster‘s Advanced Learner's dictionary 例句：

  The software is designed to block pornographic Web sites, but in practice [=in reality], it blocks many other sites as well.

   In actual practice, people sometimes forget to take their medication.

口语中也可以直接用，频率很高。比如说这个工作实际咋做的呀，就可以说：

How would this work in practice?-Times, Sunday Times (2016)

So how will this work in practice?-Times, Sunday Times (2006)

2. a tax quirk

 A quirk is something unusual or interesting that happens by chance.

这句话老实说不太懂，查了很久。第一反应是一个专有名词，特指一种类型的税收。但是谷歌了老半天都没找到什么相关的，只在一些新闻标题上看到使用quirk这词。结合上下文，推断

The government has modified but not eliminated a tax quirk that discourages married women from earning more than a relatively lowly amount. 

政府正在修改但并没有取消这个奇怪的税收政策，这个政策不鼓励已婚女性赚取高于一个相对而言较低的数字的收入。只能推测是西方人爱用的小词了。欢迎小伙伴指教。

3. by the same token

  : for the same reason : in the same way

   — used to introduce a statement that says something more and often something different about the same situation referred to by a previous statement

这个表达可以学起来，用来丰富写作中的连接词组。有两层意思。

第一层是表示同样的意思：比如我不擅长数学，同样，我也很纠结与科学方程式。

 Similarly. In the same manner. I'm not good at math and, by the same token, I struggle with scientific equations.

第二层意思是在之前提到的相同的条件下会怎样：

Because of the same causes or the same reasons as what was previously stated. When crime increases, houseprices plummet by the same token.

这个结果很令人沮丧，但是同样的条件下，说不定会更坏呢。

  The result was disappointing, but by the same token, it could have been much worse.

在想表达一些复杂意思的时候，可以用到这个表达。

4. imposing a big burden

这个词组也很简单实用：impose a burden施加一个很大的影响。

impose ★★★★☆

VERB 动词强制实行;强加 If you impose something on people, you use your authority to force them to accept it. 

这个burden前面的big可以随意替换形容词。例句：

Achievement of the targets set in the framework legislation must not impose a burden on consumers and firms because of an exhorbitant increase in energy costs. 

Assure that the use of food additives does not lead to unacceptable risks for the consumer and at the same time does not impose unnecessary burden to the industry. 

背景补充

co-payments

co-payments  : an amount of money that a person with health insurance is required to pay at the time of each visit to a doctor or when purchasing medicine

这个是其他国家的一个特有政策。就是你已经有了健康保险，但是你每次去买药或者看医生的时候还是要付一部分费用，这个叫做copayment，也会简化成co-pay。