Question of the Day #388

"Establishing the building blocks of high-quality, early childhood education"
From the headline of this article at The Hill.

上記の文で、building blocksの意味は？
In the sentence above, what does "building blocks" mean?

答えは、コメントに書いてください。
Write your answer in the Comments.

明日、ここに答えを書きます。
I will add the answer and other remarks here tomorrow.

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解答

意味：
英辞郎には、building blocksだけの訳はないが、例文を見れば、下記のような訳になることがわかります。


構成単位、構成要素

なぜこのような訳になるかというと、building blocksのもともとの意味は、「積み木」やレゴのような子供用の工作ブロックのことを言うからです。

上記問題の見出しでは、当然「積み木」ではないので「構成要素」でいいと思いますが、さらに意訳して「骨格」でもいいと思います。

Answer

According to The Idioms:

1. something that is a basic element (of the subject)
2. could literally be pointing at blocks that are used to build
3. kid’s toy house bricks

Examples

• The building blocks of success, in my view, come from perseverance and hard work.
• The building blocks for my children’s future will be hope and faith.
• The building blocks for this hospital will be the talent and ability of the doctors here.
• Formed by the aggregation of one simple repeating trapezoidal volume at two scales, seating, landscape elements, and building blocks combine to create an all-encompassing, changeable scape of play and ‘zoidal’ discovery. — Lauren Ro, Curbed, "13 exciting designs for playground of the future," 10 May 2018
• The second layer then uses these as building blocks to detect slightly more complex shapes. — Timothy B. Lee, Ars Technica, "How computers got shockingly good at recognizing images," 18 Dec. 2018