节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2014-01-24
难易度:Medium
关键字:beneficial, vital, consist, strengthen, nutrient
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Carolyn.
And um, Gabe, I think you forgot something.
I did?
Yes, you forgot your name.
No, I didn't. I'm Gabe.
I know, but you forgot to say "I'm Gabe" just now.
Oh! Uh... right. Let's try that again.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
I'm Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And I'm glad that you remembered to join us today for our lesson: Don't Forget
Your Vitamins.
Oh! I forgot to take my vitamins.
Well, at least you remembered your name.
Friends, open up your magazines and let's get started with Don't Forget Your
Vitamins.
Then we'll join Michelle in the Language Lab.
(Music).
Don't Forget Your Vitamins.
Is it really beneficial to take vitamin pills on a regular basis?
Christopher and Shelly are chatting as they leave the office after work.
I'm hungry!
Do you want to go to the burger place and get something to eat?
Sure. But I need to stop at the drugstore first.
I need some vitamins.
Why do you want to waste your money?
Vitamin pills don't really help you.
Chris, that's not true!
Actually more people should take them because they play a vital role in good
health.
How?
Many people don't eat healthy food and don't have a balanced diet.
So a vitamin pill can provide some of the missing nutrients.
I read, though, that it's better to get all your nutrients from food, not from
pills.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.
(Chinese).
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, let's go back to the very beginning here.
I think there's something very interesting about the title of today's lesson.
Don't Forget Your Vitamins?
Yes, yes, Carolyn.
Close your eyes for a moment and listen carefully.
OK.
Carolyn, don't forget your vitamins!
Now, who does that sound like?
It sounds like you, Gabe... with a girl's voice.
OK, OK, yes, it was me with a girl's voice, but I was trying to sound like a
mom.
Oh, I see. Yes, this does sound like something a mother would say.
Don't forget your vitamins!
Hey, did you notice who this lesson was written by?
Yeah, Ruth Devlin and Pam Osment. Why?
Ah... Two mothers!
Yeah. Well, it's good to know our lesson was written by people who care about
our health.
And the question they ask right away is: Is it really beneficial to take vitamin
pills on a regular basis?
Good question.
That's what Christopher and Shelly are chatting about.
Well, we have a lot of English points to cover today, and I think you will find
them very beneficial.
Beneficial is, of course, an important word.
If something is beneficial, it's good for you.
And there are benefits to taking vitamins.
You know what else is beneficial?
The next phrase in that sentence: on a regular basis.
If you do something on a regular basis, that means you do it regularly.
For example, let's say you go swimming at the gym every other day.
You have a regular schedule.
You go swimming on a regular basis.
Right. If you just go swimming whenever you feel like it, that's not doing it on
a regular basis.
But you can have fun with this sentence pattern.
You could do something on a daily basis or a weekly or monthly basis, too.
I go to church on a weekly basis, but I try to read my Bible on a daily basis.
Good. I exercise on a monthly basis and brush my teeth on a weekly basis.
Uh, Gabe, that's not good for you.
You should exercise more often than that, and you should definitely brush your
teeth more often than that.
Oh, uh... I was um, just giving example sentences.
Right... Um... Well, friends, what do you do on a regular basis?
Do you take vitamin pills on a regular basis?
Well, in Christopher's first line he says:
Do you want to go to the burger place and get something to eat?
It's interesting that he says "the burger place." Is that the name of the
restaurant?
And why is it not in capital letters, Carolyn?
Well, actually, no, it's not the name of the restaurant.
But it must be a popular restaurant for him to be buying burgers there and to be
calling it the burger place.
Sometimes, especially if there's only one of a certain kind of restaurant in the
neighborhood, you can talk about it like this.
You're right.
For example, there is a beef noodle soup restaurant close to where we work.
I could say let's go to the beef noodle soup place for lunch.
I don't need to say the name of the restaurant because everyone knows what I'm
talking about.
However, there are many pasta restaurants nearby.
If you said, "Let's go to the pasta place," I'd say, "Which one?".
That's right.
So Christopher wants to go to the burger place near their office.
But Shelly needs to stop at the drugstore first.
Whoa, Shelly does drugs ?! No way!
No, not the kind of drugs you're thinking of, Gabe.
A drugstore sells medicine and vitamins and things like that.
Ah, right. Well, I like Christopher's line here.
Why do you want to waste your money?
Now there are many things in life that you can waste, right, Carolyn?
That's right.
You could waste your money on something you don't really need.
Ah, man, I do that sometimes.
You could waste your time on things instead of doing important things.
Sometimes we waste energy doing things when we should be resting.
Some people even talk about wasting their education.
For example, if someone studies for many years to be a doctor but then they do
something completely different for a job,
someone might say they wasted their education.
There are so many things to waste in life.
Even life itself can be wasted if you make poor decisions.
So don't waste anything.
Well, Christopher thinks Shelly would be wasting her money on pills.
He says vitamin pills don't really help you.
Well, I don't know if that's true or not.
Neither does Shelly.
She says they play a vital role in good health.
That's a great phrase: to play a vital role in something.
That means an important part.
For example, God plays a vital role in my life's decisions.
Great. Or my boss played a vital role in my choice of university education.
Who plays a vital role in your life?
Vitamins play a vital role in good health.
It's important to take vitamins.
Hmm, I think it's time for us to take some time to visit the Information Cloud.
The guys are waiting for us there.
Let's not take any more of their time.
One of the most common mistakes I hear English learners make is eat medicine.
Friends, you should never say "eat medicine." The correct word to use is take.
You take medicine if you're sick.
It doesn't matter if the medicine is solid or liquid, you don't eat it, you
don't drink it, you take it because "take" has the connotation of use or
consume.
And you also take vitamins and supplements.
Now there is a place where you should say "eat," and that is with... soup.
That's right.
We eat our soup because we use a spoon to bring it into our mouths.
You don't drink with a spoon now, do you?
You eat with a spoon.
Sometimes I like to dip bread into the soup before I eat it.
In that case, I'm eating my soup with the bread.
However, if you're out camping and you have some soup in a cup or in a thermos
and you drink it, then you would be, of course, drinking your soup.