每日课程 17 - 7 JULY 2008

American English Rhythm 美国英语的节拍

A: Hello, Harry. Where are you off to?

B: I'm going home to study my English lesson.

A: English lesson?

B: Yes. I'm trying to learn a little more. I don't always understand what people say, and they don't always understand me.

A: What're you learning about?

B: Well. For instance, some words in a sentence. The time between two of these stressed words is always about the same, no matter how many words there are. This is what makes English sound jerky. First you go very fast, and then perhaps you slow up.

A: Hmmmm. I never noticed that. Give me an example.

B: Sure, Here's a sentence we memorized for class. “You told me last night not to let you argue me out of getting you up on time.”It takes just as long to say“not to let you argue me out of getting you up on time”as it does to say“you told me last night”

Notes

Accented-stressed

Jerky 不规则地跳动

A：你好，哈里，你到哪儿去？

B：我回家去温习英语课。

A：英语课？

B：是的，我想尽量多学一点。我总是听不懂人家讲的话，别人也听不懂我讲的话。

A：我在学习什么呢？

B：嗯，例如，在一句话中的有些词是加重语气的，读音较重。不论一句中有多少加重的词，其中两个词间隔的时间总是几乎一样的。这就使英语的音调显得不平稳。开始你说得很快，后来可能慢下来。

A：哦，我倒从来没有注意到这点。给我举个例子。

B：可以。这儿有一句我们在上课时应记住的话：“You told me last night not to let you argue me out of getting you up on time.”在说“not to let you argue me out of getting you up on time”这段话的时间就和说“you told me last night”这句话一样长。

每日课程 16 - 6 JULY 2008

Easy and Difficult 易学的和难学的语言

A: People always say that Chinese and English are very hard to learn. Sometimes I wish I were learning French or Japanese. Maybe they'd be easier.

B: Maybe, but maybe not too. It all depends on what language you already speak.

A: Why should that be? What diffrence does it make?

B: Well, languages are more or less equally difficult. Most of the things one language says must be said by every language in some way.

A: You mean I could learn Chinese easily?

B: No, because your native language is Spanish. But Italian might be easy. It has a lot of words that are similar to words in Spanish. Even the sound systems are more similar than that of Chinese is to Spanish. How difficult a language is to learn depends mostly on how much it resembles your own language.

Notes
Sound system-the total arrangement of the vocal units of a language
Resembles-is like

A：人们常说汉语和英语是很难学的。有的时候我想要是我学法语或日语就好了。也许这两种语言容易些。
B：可能，不过也可能不太容易。这要看你原来是说什么语言的。
A：为什么呢？这有什么关系？
B：哦，语言大体上都是同样地难学。一种语言中所说的绝大部分东西，在别的语言中差不多都有。
A：你的意思是说我学汉语会很容易？
B：不，因为你的母语是西班牙语。所以意大利语可能容易些。它有很多词同西班牙语相似。连它的语音体系也比汉语更接近西班牙语。一种语言是否难学，主要看它在多大程度上同自己的语言相近。

每日课程 15 - 5 JULY 2008

Learning a language 学习一种语言

A: To speak a language, one must know its grammar almost completely, not just its vocabulary or its sounds, not even sets of rules for constructing sentences. But one can't learn a language by studying only its grammar. If you do this, you may learn only the grammar and not the language. Instead, by memorizing how to use them, one can learn both the grammar of the language and the language.

Notes

Instead-rather

A great many-a great deal

A：为了能说一种语言，一个人不仅要掌握词汇和发音，以及一系列造句的规则，还应对语法做到差不多融汇贯通。但是仅仅学习语法，还不能掌握 一种语法。如果只做到这点，那你学会的可能只是语法，而不是语言。相反，记住大量句子并学会使用这些句子，就能既学会语法，又学会语言。

每日课程 14 - 4 JULY 2008

Speak up 大声说话

A: I thought I was speaking English fairly well. Now I'm not so sure.

B: What did you say?

A: I said I thought I spoke pretty good English, but people keep asking me to repeat what I've said, so maybe I'm not doing so well after all.

B: There's nothing wrong with your English. It's just that no one can hear what you're saying.

A: Is that what's wrong? But I think it's impolite to talk loudly.

B: You don't have to shout, but you do have to make yourself heard. Maybe Americans talk louder than other people. If so, you'll just have to speak louder,too.

Notes

Fairly well 挺不错

Is that what's wrong? 这就是问题所在吗？

Make yourself heard 让别人听得见你说的话

A：我本以为自己的英语说得不错。现在我又不那么有把握了。

B：你说什么？

A：我说我以为自己英语说得不错，但人们老是要我重复我说过的话。或许我说的并不那么好。

B：你的英语没有问题。只是没有人听得见你在说什么。

A：毛病就在这里吗？可是我觉得大声说话是不礼貌的。

B：你不一定要大声喊叫，但你应该让别人听得见你的话。也许美国人说话声音比别的人要响。如果这样，你说话声音也大一些就是了。

每日课程 13 - 3 JULY 2008

More Two-word Verbs 又一些成语动词

A: I hadn't finished telling you about two-word verbs, Bob.

B: Do I have to hear more? I'm not sure I can follow it.

A: Sure you can. This part is the most interesting.

B: Okay. Go ahead.

A: Well, here are sentences with two-word verbs with objects:

I can't get over

I can't get it over

I can't get over it

I can't get him over it

They all mean different things

B: Can you explain how they're different?

A: Each part or both parts of the two-word verb can have an object. The verb may have different meanings with different objects, or different arrangements of object. Is that clear? You look confused.

B: I'm not confused, I was just thinking.

Notes

Follow-understand

Get over 越过(如篱笆)

Get it over 解释，讲清楚

Get over it 从(惊吓、疾病)恢复过来

Get him over it 使他忘却(遗憾、悲伤)

A：鲍勃，关于成语动词，我还没有对你讲完。

B：我还需要听你讲吗？我不知道是否能理解。

A：你当然能理解。这一部分是最有意思的。

B：好，说吧。

A：嗯，下列这些句子里的成语动词有宾语：

I can't get over

I can't get it over

I can't get over it

I can't get him over it

这些句子的意思都不相同。

B：你能否解释一下怎么不同？

A：成语动词的每个部分或两个部分可以有一个宾语。动词加上不同的宾语或宾语的不同组合，就可以有不同的含意。清楚了吗？你好像弄糊涂了。

B：我没有糊涂。我只是在思考。

每日课程 12 - 2 JULY 2008

Two-word Verbs 成语动词

A: Hi, Mary, how are you doing?

B: Fine. What happended to you yesterday? I didn't see you in class.

A: Oh, I overslept as usual. What went on anyway?

B: We heard about two-word verbs.

A: What's a two-word verb?

B: Things like drop in, go over, get out, fill up. Listen to these two sentences: citation will run in the third race tomorrow; Mr.Lee will run in to see you tomorrow. Can you tell which run in is the two-word verb?

Notes

How are you doing? 同how are you? (美国人见面时常用的问候语)

What happened to you yesterday? 昨天你出了什么事？

What went on? 发生了什么事？

Citation 一匹赛马的名字

Run in 顺便来访

A：喂，玛丽，你好吗?

B：很好。昨天你出了什么事？我在课堂上没有见到你。

A：啊，像往常一样睡过头了，难道有什么事？

B：我们学了一些成语动词。

A：什么成语动词？

B：像drop in, go over, get out, fill up这些词。听听下面这两句话：Citation will run in the third race tomorrow; Mr.Lee will run in to see you tomorrow. 这两句中都有run in，你能说出哪一个是成语动词吗？

英语文化陷阱 3

Wearing two hats
　　同事朋友聚会，少不了相互介绍。先生在向我介绍他的同事 Larry 时，说他可是个大忙人: “He is wearing two hats.” 我说，你开什么玩笑，他根本就没戴帽子。 Larry 一直以笑作答，倒是先生察言观色，知道我不懂，便帮我找台阶下。原来，先生是指Larry在医院某一部门担任要职，除此之外，还有自己的生意，就是说 Larry 身兼两职，而不是真的戴了两顶帽子。 (摘自《世界日报》)

每日课程 11- 1 JULY 2008

Spelling 拼音

A: You know, Ralph, since I started speaking English all the time my pronunciation's getting better and even the grammar's beginning to make some sense. But I don't think I'll ever be able to spell.
B: You're not alone there. I have trouble with spelling too. When I was in grade school, I learned which words were the most frequently misspelled, but I never did learn how to spell them.
A: Since it's so difficult, why is it so important to learn how to spell properly?
B: Because if you spell satisfactorily, you're considered educated. If you don't, you're not.

Notes
Make sense - to become understandable
Grade school (美国的)小学

A：拉尔夫，你知道，自从我开始所有时间都讲英语以来，我的发音有了进步，而且语法也开始理顺了。不过我不认为我能把字拼出来。
B：不是你一个人如此。我在拼音方面也有困难。当我上小学的时候，我知道哪些词是经常拼错的，但我没有学会如何拼这些词。
A：既然这么难，为什么学会准确拼音又如此重要呢？
B：因为如果你能准确无误地拼音，人家就会把你看作受到教育的人。否则，在别人眼里你是个缺乏教育的人。

每日课程 10 - 30 JUN 2008

Learning Vocabulary 学习词汇

A: I don't understand why we have to memorize conversations. We need more vocabulary, not pronunciation.
B: Don't you think memorizing conversations is a part of learning vocabulary? Every time we memorize a conversation, we're memorizing a whole series of contexts. Each context tells us one way a word can be used, I know from my own language that I can't always use words by simply looking them up in a dictionary and then putting them into sentences. Some words have many meanings. We have to know which meanings go where.

Notes
Context (文章或讲话中的)前后文(根据前后文的逻辑可以确定某一个具有多种解释的词或短语的含义)
Which meanings go where 哪一种解释讲得通

A：我弄不懂为什么我们一定要记住会话。我们需要的是词汇，而不是发音。
B：你不认为记住会话是学习词汇的一个组成部分吗？每当我们记住一句会话，我们就记住了全部的上下文。而这上下文可以供我们了解一个单词的一种用 法。我从自己的语言中意识到，光靠查词典然后把这些词汇拼成句子，并不意味着会正确使用这些词。有些意识有很多解释。我们必须弄清楚在哪种情况下适用哪一 种解释。