木村：彼の話は本当に面白いですね。
鈴木：本当にね。みんな身を乗り出して聞いていますよ。
Mi wo noridasu
Kimura: Kare no hanashi wa hontoo ni omoshiroi desu ne.
Suzuki: Hontoo ni ne. Minna mi wo noridashite kiite imasu yo.
Kimura: He is a realty interesting speaker, isn't he?
Suzuki: Yeah, everyone is totally absorbed.
Mi wo noridasu means to pay attention, to be absorbed, or wrapped up in something.
I have often been in situations where, Omoshiroi kooen ni omowazu mi wo noridashita (Before I knew it, I was totally absorbed in a fascinating lecture). In classes, too, Tanoshii jigyoo ni wa gakusei-tachi ga mi wo noridashite kiite iru (Students get totally wrapped up in enjoyable lessons).
I always feel that lectures, Chooshuu ga mi wo noridashite kiku yoo na kooen wo shinakutewa ikenai (Should try and give lectures that capture their audience's attention).
However, in Japan most lectures speak only for their own satisfaction, without caring whether their listeners are interested or not. Some people are so bad that you find members of their audience not just asleep in front of them, but actually snoring during their lectures. Hajime no uchi wa mi wo noridashite, hanashi wo kiite ita no daga, tochuu kara tsumaranaku narimashita (They were paying attention at the beginning, but somewhere along the way they lost interest).
Kyoo no teema wa hontoo ni omoshirokatta. Mi wo noridashite kiite iru hitotachi ga ookatta no wa, teema ga omoshiroi kara desu ne (Today's theme was interesting. The reason so many people were paying attention was that the subject was interesting).
Today is Christmas Eve, the eve of Christ's birth. Christ was born in a stable, but today I talk about test-tube babies.
In Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World," people are born in test-tubes, and their birthday is the day they come out of the test-tube.
Today, similar kinds of thing are already happening in the world we live in. By experimenting with DNA, scientists are learning how to create new seeds and to eliminate undesirable DNA from the genes of new-born babies.
When I asked the students to think about what will happen to human society in the future, Mi wo noridashite kiite kita (I really got their attention).
I really wonder myself what the answer to that question is. Of course,
only God knows the answer to that, though.