节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-03-14
难易度:Medium
关键字:empire, condemn, banquet, sentence, Purim, Persian Empire, gallows
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
Our lesson is called Saved by the Queen.
God Save the Queen...
No... Saved by the Queen, Gabe.
Oh! Right, Saved by the Queen.
Well, what queen saved who?
Good question.
We'll have to get into our lesson to find out.
Open your magazine and let's get started.
Saved by the Queen.
The Jewish people celebrate Queen Esther's bravery every year.
What makes a great story?
Drama, power, romance and conflict can all be elements.
And the story is even better when it's true.
The Jewish festival of Purim celebrates just such a story.
Around 470 B.C., King Xerxes ruled the Persian Empire.
Esther, a Jew, was his queen, and Esther's cousin Mordecai served as a
government official.
A selfish man named Haman was second in command.
He became very angry at Mordecai for refusing to bow down to him.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
Thank you so much, Michelle.
Well, now you know the answer to my questions earlier.
The Jews were saved by Queen Esther.
A long long time ago, they were saved by the Queen.
Well, before we get into the text of our lesson, let's look more at the title.
Saved by the Queen sounds very similar to another famous phrase: saved by the
bell.
You're right.
If you remember, "saved by the bell" is an expression people use to talk about
being saved by something at the last minute.
When could you use this phrase?
Maybe someone you really don't want to talk to is coming your way to talk to
you, at the last minute, someone calls you on your phone.
You pick it up and walk away while talking on the phone.
You were saved by the bell.
Nice.
Well, in this story we will see how something bad was going to happen to the
Jewish people and how their Queen Esther saved them.
And we read here that the Jewish people celebrate Queen Esther's bravery every
year.
As we will read, she was very brave.
She had courage.
Courage is another word for bravery.
So the Jewish people celebrate around this time every year because it was about
this time of the year when Queen Esther saved them.
Well, the first sentence we read here is: What makes a great story?
There are some important elements.
Drama, power, romance and conflict are listed here.
These are all things that make a great story.
Well, let's look at that question a little more closely.
We can replace the word "story" with other words.
For example, you could ask:
What makes a great man?
What makes a great woman?
What makes a great teacher?
What makes a great actor?
What are your answers to those questions?
What makes a great man?
I think someone who admits his mistakes makes a great man.
Someone who is willing to stand up for what is right even when it's difficult,
those are elements of great men.
Hmm. What makes a great leader?
Someone who surrounds himself with wise people, someone who isn't afraid of
making big decisions, these are things that contribute to making leaders great.
So what makes a good story?
Well, if you've ever taken a creative writing class or if you like to read good
stories,
you know that drama, power, romance and conflict are all great elements to have
in a story.
And we read the story is even better when it's true.
Yes, the story of Esther is true.
We'll learn a little bit about it today and tomorrow.
But this is a story that can be read very easily.
All you need is a Bible.
Or the Internet.
You can look up the Book of Esther in the Bible or just find it on the Internet.
It shouldn't take too long to read.
And since it has all the elements for a great story, you won't be able to put it
down.
That's what some people say about great books.
If I'm reading a really good book, I might finish it very quickly and tell
others I wasn't able to put it down.
There's another term for stories that are interesting or exciting like that, two
words: page turner.
If a book is a page turner, the idea is that you keep turning the pages because
you can't wait to see what happens next.
You are so interested in the story that you don't stop reading.
Hmm. So what book is a page turner to you?
Maybe something written by your favorite author.
Well, many people have a hard time reading the Bible.
But when they get to stories like Esther, they finish them quickly because those
stories are page turners.
And the story of Esther is a true one.
We read here the story is even better when it's true.
And the Jews have a festival that celebrates just such a story.
Right, they celebrate Purim.
Keep that word in mind.
It's not an English word, but it's significant to the theme behind the story of
Esther.
But let's first look at that phrase: just such a story.
You could replace the word "story" with other words here, too.
For example, we were looking for a strong, young, energetic boy to play the role
in the drama, and Georgie is just such a boy.
That's right.
It means he fits the description.
Or you were talking about preparing a delicious bacon and cheese hamburger for
me when I was hungry.
Well, I'm in the mood for just such a meal now.
So Gabe wants just that, a delicious bacon and cheese hamburger.
But back to the lesson, Purim celebrates just such a great dramatic true story
as Esther.
And we come to the date next.
Around 470 B.C., King Xerxes ruled the Persian Empire.
Now that area is not called the Persian Empire today.
It is the country of Iran, and some people call Iran Persia.
And our story takes place a long time ago, in 470 B.C.
Wait. What do those letters stand for, B.C.?
Oh, Before Christ.
Jesus Christ was a very significant person in history, so significant, in fact,
that time literally revolved around Him.
We base our dates around Him.
Now what do you call the years after Christ?
A.D., which stands for the Latin, Anno Domini, which is Latin for in the year of
our Lord.
Again, the Lord here is referring to Jesus Christ.
But if you're talking about a date since Jesus, you put the number after the
letters.
Right. So 470 years before Christ is written 470 B.C.
470 years after Christ is written A.D. 470.
Now if you look at a lot of modern writing, you may see the letters C.E. or
B.C.E.
Don't let that confuse you.
C.E. stands for Common Era and refers to the same time as A.D.
Before Common Era, Or B.C.E., means the same thing as B.C.
So in our lesson we're learning about the traditional way of dating B.C.
Now we're introduced to a character, his name is Hamand... He was... Haman was
the second in command.
And that means he was really high up, only the king had more power than him.
Well, we have more to learn about Haman later.
We will find out that he was hanged on a gallows.
Let's learn more about the word "hanged" with Steve and Ken.
Hi, friends.
Did you know that the word "hang" actually has two past tense forms? Hanged and
hung.
And why is that?
Well, it's due to the different meanings of hang.
When we use "hang" in the sense of putting to death by hanging, the past and
should be hanged, as in: Saddam Hussein was hanged in Baghdad.
In all other senses of the word, "hung" is the preferred past tense form.
I hung the picture on the wall.
But as with a lot of grammar rules, this is not something that's very clear cut.
You may hear native English speakers say so-and-so was hung by the king.
But the standard English word is "hanged" when you're talking about killing
people by dangling them from a rope.
OK. What about the slang expression "to hang out"?
What should be the past tense of this?
Well, is anyone killed when they hang out with someone?
No! So we should use hung.
We hung out at the mall yesterday.