节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-01-02
难易度:Medium
关键字:construct, pier, concrete, tension, repair, flip-flop
(Music).
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And today we are continuing our lesson about a giant rubber duck - Big Art Makes
a Big Impression.
That's right.
Yesterday we talked about a giant rubber duck that has been traveling to
different cities around the world.
That's right.
The duck was the idea of Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman.
But Gabe, I have a very important question to ask.
Uh... well, what's your question?
Just how many ducks are there?
Huh? What do you mean?
Well, I thought there was only one, but it seems like the duck can be in
multiple cities at the same time.
Ah, that is a great question.
In fact, we're going to answer that in our lesson today.
Oh. Then we should be sure to open up our magazines to begin reading the second
day of the article to answer the question:
How many ducks are there?
And then we'll go to the Language Lab to learn some important words from today's
lesson with Michelle.
So let's get started.
Big Art makes a Big Impression.
How many ducks are there?
In reality, there's more than one Rubber Duck.
Hofman uses local teams to construct local versions of the duck because he
believes that makes repairs easier.
That's how Rubber Duck can appear in two cities at once.
Last fall one version was on a river in Pittsburgh while another one was docked
at a pier in Kaohsiung!
The Pittsburgh version was the standard 12 meters, but the Kaohsiung version
stands 18 meters tall.
(Music).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
Those are some very tall ducks.
Well, they sure are.
And we found out the answer to your question, Carolyn.
There is more than one duck.
Yes. The mystery has been solved.
In fact, we find out that in reality, local teams make a new duck for each city.
Whoa! You just used two really good phrases: in fact and in reality.
You are right.
"In fact" is a great way to introduce some information that might be surprising
or unexpected,
while "in reality" is used to say something that is true or real at this time -
what is actually happening rather than what someone thinks.
But a lot of the time, these words can be used in place of each other.
For example, in our sentence today you could say:
In reality, there is more than one Rubber Duck.
Or: In fact, there is more than one Rubber Duck.
The statement is true and might be surprising, so both phrases are fine.
However, sometimes using one phrase makes more sense than the other.
Such as in yesterday's lesson, we learned that Hofman was, in fact, the giant
child throwing his toys around the world.
In this case, saying "in reality" would be a bit strange because Hofman is not a
child, nor is he a giant.
But the information is surprising, so using "in fact" makes more sense.
And in today's lesson we learned that in reality, there is more than one duck.
It is built locally, so Rubber Duck can appear in two cities at once.
That's a really great phrase, too: to be in two places at once,
which means just what it sounds like: you have one object that is in two
different places at the same time.
And usually this phrase is used to express that a person is not able to do
something.
For example, one of your friends invites you to watch a movie, but another
friend invites you to go out to dinner.
The two events happen at the same time, so you might say, "I wish I could be in
two places at once," because you want to do both activities.
Great.
Well, this duck doesn't have to worry about that because each city it goes to
gets to actually build their own version of the duck under the artist's
direction.
And since each city gets their own duck, some ducks are larger than others.
In the article we read that the version in Pittsburgh in America was 12 meters
tall, but the duck in Kaohsiung was 18 meters tall.
That's right.
Most of the ducks are 12 meters, but some cities build them larger or smaller
depending on the size of the water areas.
Some ducks are made smaller to fit under bridges.
Carolyn, did you get to see the duck when it was in Taiwan?
Unfortunately, no.
But several of my friends went and took a lot of pictures.
Well, it's too bad you didn't get to see it.
It's pretty cool to see an 18-meter-tall duck floating in the water.
It would be quite a sight to see.
But we still have a lot to learn about Hofman and some of his other big works.
So let's continue our lesson afterthis.