节目资讯
刊物:生活知识家
日期:2009-07-20
难易度:High
关键字:operative, sputter, poky, catch, broadband, dial-u
(Music).
Friends, welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
Thanks for taking time out of your busy day to study English with us.
Well, let’s admit it.
Many of us have grown pretty dependent on the World Wide Web.
We communicate, look up information, do business and have fun all on the
Internet.
For most of us, surfing the Internet is pretty smooth and fast.
But for others, having a fast Internet connection is not an option.
The title of this month’s TECHNOLOGY article is The Final Mile.
And it refers to the problem of delivering broadband Internet connections to
people who live in the countryside.
Let’s glance at the Word Bank right now,
where we find our first key word of the Day:
operative.
The operative factor to her successful diet was exercise.
Next is the verb:
sputter,
as in:
The old car sputtered to life when Jordan turned the key.
Now please open your magazines to page forty-one and follow as we begin reading
on line one.
The Final Mile.
Bringing broadband to the backcountry.
Sometimes we have to turn around and look behind us in order to see how far
we’ve come.
For me, it happened on a recent visit to a friend who lives on a farm some
thirty minutes from town.
I wanted to show him a video on YouTube that I liked,
so we tried watching it over his dial-up Internet connection.
The operative word here is ”tried”.
The video skipped and hiccupped.
It stutterd and sputtered.
It.
Was.
Agonizing.
Most of us are accustomed to a broadband Internet connection to the point of
taking it for granted.
Hi, everyone.
I’m Esther.
And I’m Rachel.
Thanks for joining us for our TECHNOLOGY article.
We’re talking about The Final Mile today.
And the deck reads that that means bringing broadband to the backcountry.
Now we’ll give you an idea of what the backcountry is in a bit.
But I could kind of say I grew up in the backcountry.
That means you’re out in the country, out... uh, not in a big city.
I was quite far away from a big city actually how I grew up.
So I understand that sometimes it takes a long time to get technology, new
technology into the countryside.
And we’ll be talking about how to bring broadband.
And here we mean broadband Internet connection or very, very fast Internet
connection to the backcountry,
or to places where... not very many people living in the countryside.
Now a lot of us use the Internet daily.
Some of us spend hours a day on the Internet.
So we are very used to having... a very high speed connection.
But not everybody has high speed Internet.
So we’re going to learn about that.
But first as we get into our article, our author gives us something to reflect
on.
And we can reflect on this throughout our lesson.
He says:
Sometimes we have to turn around and look behind us in order to see how far
we’ve come.
So when it comes to technology and using the Internet,
sometimes we forget that even fifteen, twenty years ago people didn’t even use
the Internet.
No. I was... uh, I went to high school and I didn’t get to use the Internet.
So sometimes I forget about how far technology has come and how many advances
have been made in just the last ten or twenty years.
Well, for our author, this really is true for him because he gives us a story
here about a recent visit to a friend who lives on a farm.
And this farm is some thirty miles, er, thirty minutes from town.
That word ”some” there just means approximately thirty minutes from town.
And Esther, what were these two guys trying to do?
Well, our author, teacher Vance, who taught on our program before, maybe you
know him.
He wanted to show his friend a video on YouTube.
Now YouTube is very popular.
It’s a free website where you can upload, you can put on, you can also watch
videos online for free.
And we know that Vance loves technology.
He loves YouTube.
So he was trying to show his friend a YouTube video that we enjoys.
And they tried watching it over the friend’s dial-up Internet connection.
Now let’s stop for a minute on that phrase:
dial-up.
Dial-up is an Internet connection where a telephone number needs to be dialed.
But let me break it down a little bit easier.
Dial-up just means slow Internet connection.
And that’s what my parents had for so many years.
It took a long time to get connected to the Internet.
And when he... they were watching this YouTube Internet through dial-up
connection, it was extremely... extremely slow.
So Vance writes:
The operate... operative word here is ”tried”.
It means here the word operative means the most important word or the correct
word to use is they ”tried”.
But did that work?
No, it didn’t work.
We read that the video skipped and hiccupped.
And it was probably just so frustrating.
In fact, we read that it stuttered and sputtered.
These are some very fun words to learn, friends.
And you can just picture these two guys trying to watch the video,
and the video is stopping and starting and not working and you’re having to wait
for it.
And... and it’s just so inconvenient.
It’s agonizing.
Painful.
Agonizing.
So when they were watching this video on YouTube, it stuttered and sputtered.
Now sputtered is one of our vocabulary words.
And think of something kind of popping and then slowing down.
Like a car engine, when it is dying, it sputters.
Yeah, right before your car engine dies, you will hear a lot of sputtering and
then nothing will happen.
And I think the point that Vance is trying to make is that they were trying to
watch this video and they couldn’t.
And it was very agonizing.
It was very frustrating.
Well, he goes on to say that most of us are accustomed to a broadband Internet
connection to the point of taking it for granted.
So Esther, I think most of the time we don’t even think about the fact that we
have high speed Internet.
We just take it for granted.
And when we don’t have it, then we get really upset.
Right.
Let’s have Liz explain this sentence further.
So let’s go to Grammar on the Go.
And then we’ll visit the Chat Room and take a break.
Hello, friends.
How are you?
My name is Liz.
And it’s time for Grammar on the Go.
We’ve been talking about bring broadband to the backcountry in today’s article.
And talk about being in the remote area,
I’m standing in the middle of the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona, United
States.
Now I’m not dressed Navajo, but that’s OK.
Well, this place here is so big, so vast and so far from the nearest town or
city.
Anyways, here’s the grammar tip sentence for today.
Most of us are accustomed to a broadband Internet connection to the point of
taking it for granted.
Notice the phrase:
to the point of.
It just means ”to the level of” or ”to the degree of”.
Going back to today’s sentence:
Most of us are accustomed to a broadband Internet connection.
The question is:
How much are we accustomed to a broadband Internet connection?
The answer:
... to the point of taking it for granted.
Use this phrase ”to the point of” when you want to talk about the extent or
degree of an action or situation.
For example:
The travelers were tired to the point of collapsing.
Or:
Sandra was mad to the point of not being able to say anything at all.
Now friends, if you have your Studio Classroom magazine with you, you’ll find
more example sentences in today’s grammar tip section.
That’s all the time we have for today.
Thanks for joining.
This is Liz with Grammar on the Go signing off in Arizona.
Goodbye.
Now I wonder if I could even get any cell phone connection here.
Hmm.
Welcome to the Chat Room.
We’re happy to have Vickie here today for a chat.
Hi, Vickie.
Welcome back.
Thanks, Ken.
Hi, everyone.
It’s great to be with you today.
So Ken, what is our topic for today?
Well, at the top of our lesson, it says:
Bringing broadband to the backcountry.
What exactly is the backcountry?
Is it the wilderness?
Well, backcountry is very similar to wilderness,
but the two aren’t necessarily equivalent.
Wilderness implies more the condition,
whereas backcountry implies more the position.
Hmm...
What exactly do you mean?
Well, backcountry is an actual place or location where only few people live and
where there’s little development.
But when we use the term ”wilderness,” we’re implying that it’s pristine and
untouched.
Oh, so not every backcountry is wilderness.
That’s right.
But wilderness can exist in the backcountry.
I see.
(Chinese).
OK.
What about the outback?
Does that mean the same thing as backcountry?
Well, the outback is used mainly when we’re talking about Australia,
and it refers to the remote rural regions outside the main urban areas.
I see.
(Chinese).
OK. It’s time for a break, everyone.
Don’t go away.
Studio Classroom will be right back.