节目资讯
刊物:娱乐时尚
日期:2009-01-21
难易度:Medium
关键字:shortage, genius, villain, empathize, spunky, ENTE
(Music).
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
My name is Steve. And I’m so happy that you’ve joined us today.
We are talking about anime.
We’re in the third day of this month’s Entertainment article:
Amazing Anime.
And entertaining it is.
From its humble origins in Japan almost one hundred years ago to its current
worldwide popularity,
examples of anime and its close cousin ”manga” seem to be everywhere.
Now one reason people love anime is because of the exciting characters that fill
the stories.
And that’s where today’s lesson picks up.
Before we go to the reading, though, let’s look at two important words.
The first word is shortage as in:
There was a shortage of food after the typhoon swept through the country.
The next word is genius.
This is a good word to know.
The scientist who developed the theory was considered a genius by others in his
field.
All right.
Now it’s time for the reading.
We’re on page thirty-three on line one.
Amazing Anime.
The characters.
No story is complete without interesting characters,
and anime and manga have no shortage of these.
Many anime heroes are students,
usually fourteen to nineteen years old.
If the anime or manga focuses more on action, then duty or honor motivates the
heroes.
Rushing into a situation, the heroes are very brave, if not always very bright.
Other anime and manga heroes depend on their brains.
Frequently proud and determined, they fit the stereotype of a genius.
Hello, friends.
I’m Chip.
And I’m Rachel.
And I’m Esther. And we’re talking about Amazing Anime.
We’ve been talking about anime,
this type of animated cartoons from Japan.
And today we’ll be talking about the characters in anime stories.
Well, I’m so glad we’re going to talk about the characters because I think this
is very interesting.
This is what makes anime unique.
It’s what makes it so appealing to many people because they love these animated
characters.
And as our author says:
No story is complete without interesting characters.
That is definitely true.
Quite true.
This...
The movies and television shows that I... that are my favorite, that I think are
most interesting, tend to have um, very unique characters,
or sometimes complicated characters.
Right.
And sometimes it’s also people you feel like you could relate to or people you’d
want to be good friends with.
So we’ll talk a little bit about some of these characters.
But we should also stop at this word:
shortage.
Our author says:
Anime and manga have no shortage of good characters,
good and interesting characters.
Esther, what is...
There’s a problem if you have a shortage of something, isn’t there?
That’s right.
So if you have a shortage, it means you don’t have enough of something.
For example, if you have a shortage of food, it means you don’t have enough
food.
Or if there is a shortage of water, then you don’t have enough water to drink.
So in manga and in anime, there is no shortage of good characters.
No shortage of good characters or very interesting and unique characters.
Well, moving on,
we see that many anime heroes are students.
And how old are these students, Chip?
Well, usually fourteen to nineteen years old.
So kind of high school and college age.
So they’re... they’re... they’re usually very young heroes.
Yes, very young heroes.
Maybe that’s why a lot of teenagers really enjoy anime because their heroes are
about the same age.
And we also see that if the anime is an action anime, like an animated cartoon
with a lot of action,
well, then the anime um, heroes focus more on duty or we could say, or honor.
That’s what motivates these characters.
That’s right.
So duty is the feeling that you owe something to someone.
For example, if you have duty or show duty towards your country,
then you feel like you owe something to your country.
Or sometimes anime characters are also motivated by honor,
the feeling of wanting to be respected.
Right.
And wanting to help others.
They feel like they want to do their job.
They want to do their duty.
And I think maybe a lot of teenagers also feel like they wish they could do
something really big to help other people.
So a lot of these animated characters will rush into a situation, won’t they?
That’s right.
They’ll rush into probably a dangerous situation because they are very brave.
They... they have a lot of courage,
even if they’re maybe not very bright.
Now Chip, what do you mean by that if they’re not very bright?
Well, it doesn’t mean bright like a light.
We’re using bright there as a way of saying not very smart.
OK.
But I think that’s what makes these characters a bit appealing, right?
Because they’re not always the... the brightest character.
But they’re brave and they want to do the right thing.
And I think a lot of us maybe feel the same way.
Maybe we don’t always make the right decision.
But maybe our heart is in the right place and we’re trying our best.
That’s right.
So sometimes they will do things because of duty and honor.
But other times these manga heroes are motivated by what they think is right.
And instead of just taking action, they need to use their brains.
They depend on their brain.
Right.
Definitely some of these characters are very, very smart.
And that’s what we’re going to talk about next.
These characters depend on their brains.
So just like in any movie, there are different kinds of characters.
Some are very smart.
Maybe some aren’t too bright.
But that’s what makes them unique.
That’s what gives us a variety of characters.
And we see also here that frequently proud and determined, they fit the
stereotype of a genius.
Now Chip, tell us what a genius is.
Well, a genius is usually a very smart person.
Not just smart because they’ve worked to gain a lot of knowledge,
but naturally smart, uh, much more naturally smart than the majority of people.
Exactly.
And I think right now we need to go to Grammar on the Go to learn more about
this sentence.
Hi, there, friends.
It’s time for Grammar on the Go.
My name is Liz Archer.
And I’m so excited about being here in Tokyo, Japan.
I love anime.
And it’s exciting to be in the land when anime came from.
But before I go running off to explore Tokyo, here’s today’s grammar tip.
Let’s take a look at the sentence first.
Frequently proud and determined, they fit the stereotype of a genius.
Now we could say:
They that are frequently proud and determined fit the stereotype of a genius.
However, that sounds too wordy.
To get straight to the point for the readers, the sentence got simplified.
Attentions first given to the character traits of being proud and determined,
follow by the reason why these heroes fit the stereotype of a genius.
This type of a sentence pattern is very useful in writing,
especially if you’re trying to create a certain impression regarding the subject
of your sentence.
You start out with the description of the subject followed by the main sentence.
And if necessary, begin the description with an adverb as in the case with
today’s sentence.
Frequently proud and determined.
OK.
How about some other examples?
Constantly stressed out and tired, Scott was not an easy person to work with.
Or:
Always needing care and attention, these horses are expensive pets for Sheldon.
Want more example sentences?
Then check out today’s article in your Studio Classroom magazine.
You’ll find more example sentences there in the Grammar Tip section.
That’s it for now.
This is Liz Archer with Grammar on the Go signing off from Tokyo.
Thanks, Liz.
That was very useful.
Well, now let’s watch a skit.
You know, Anime, no story is complete without interesting characters.
That’s right.
There are lots of anime characters.
Tell me about some of them.
Many are students.
They are heroes motivated by duty and honor.
They must be very brave.
Yes. But not always very bright.
Uh, but some are.
Some are geniuses.
So your friends are like spunky teenagers who are fighting for justice.
Yes.
Justice and pizza.
That’s good.
Everybody loves a hero and pizza.
Yeah.
But some heroes turn out to be villains instead.
Oh. These characters sound very complex.
That’s right You can empathize with the heroes and the villains.
And you never know how the story will end until it ends.
Hmm.
That makes a good story.
And a good story is universal.
Yes.
That’s why I, anime, have captured the imagination of the world.
Well anime, I am so happy to meet you.
Nice to meet you too.
So will you be my boyfriend? Uh... oh... uh... We should talk about that. Yeah.