Valentine's Day is one of the busiest times of yearーーエッセンスSet G11 Part 7（4月12-13日）フォローアップ その2

Hi Essence students! One of the Part 7 articles this week was about Valentine's Day. It was clearly out of season, unless you are already thinking about Valentine's Day next year. Our excuse is that this kind of thing happens on the real TOEIC, so we are preparing our students for it!

One thing that I didn't have time to emphasize in class is the very first sentence of the article:

Valentine's Day is one of the busiest times of year for chocolate boutiques.

This sentence actually contains an important grammar point. Now pay attention to this part of the sentence.

... one of the busiest times...

If you use the expression "one of," then it must be followed by a 複数名詞. Why? The reason is simple. If you say "one of," then you must be choosing from multiple items, so the 名詞 that follows must be in the plural (複数形). For example, the following expression is incorrect.

× ... one of the busiest time...

This very blog entry you are reading right now began with "One of the Part 7 articles." Here, again, the same rule is followed. This point is often tested on the TOEIC, so you should learn it.

Would you like 解説 in Japanese? Well, here's one. Morite2, the writer of that blog, "TOEIC満点＆アメリカ移住への道," is still a college student, but he is also teaching 15 classes a week, and I think this particular entry explains well how "one of" should be used, with interesting examples from the movie 『マトリックス [UMD]』.

By the way, are you interested in Valentine's Day in other cultures? If you would like to learn, I'd suggest starting with this Wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valentine%27s_day