节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-11-15
难易度:Medium
关键字:admiration, career, exposure, invasion, knucklehead, set, script
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're talking about Mae Whitman.
That's right.
Mae Whitman.
You know her, but you may not know her name.
Maybe you've seen her in some movies.
She is an actress.
Now speaking of actresses, who do you like to watch in movies?
Who's your favorite actor or actress?
Carolyn, do you have a favorite?
Well, actually, Gabe, it was really hard for me to think of a favorite actor or
actress because I don't really follow movie stars.
I just like to watch movies.
OK.
But if I had to choose one, I would probably say Sandra Bullock.
She was in Miss Congeniality.
And it's a really good movie, and she does a very great job with the character.
Yeah. Sandra Bullock is a sweetheart.
I like her, too.
I also really like Meryl Streep.
She's always been one of my favorite actresses.
I like Philip Seymour Hoffman, too.
And they were in a movie together called Doubt.
It was wonderful.
I love watching my favorite celebrities in movies.
Well, maybe you've heard of Mae Whitman.
Maybe not.
But we're going to learn all about her in this lesson.
Let's get started.
(Music).
Mae Whitman.
You know her, but you may not know her name.
"What are you, some kind of knucklehead?" Bored at Mom's acting test, a
3-year-old responded as such to a director's empty admiration of her dress.
With those words, the impressive career of actress Mae Whitman was born and
defined.
Child Actor.
With a voice-artist mother and a father who builds sets, it's no surprise
Whitman ended up in acting.
Such parents also knew to prepare her for adult exposure early on.
Hmm. They sound like wise parents.
Well, let's go back to the beginning of our lesson here, learning about Mae
Whitman.
And we see something written here:
You know her, but you may not know her name.
Carolyn, after learning this word "know," we know what the word "know" means.
But what does it really mean?
Well, that is an excellent question, Gabe.
And I think that Steve and Ken have some information waiting for us in the
Information Cloud about knowing someone.
Hello, friends.
Can you know someone without knowing their name?
Well, that would depend on what definition of "know" you're using.
If you know someone in the sense of recognizing that person, then sure, you can
know someone without knowing their name.
You may see Steve on the street one day and you might say, "Hey, I know that
face. What's his name?".
Well, whether or not you know my name, I hope you'll come up to me and say hi.
Now another definition of "know" is to be acquainted with.
If you've met someone, you know them.
Or you may not know your neighbor even though you see him every day.
And then there's the definition of having information about a person.
Steve, I'm looking for a plumber.
Do you know any plumber?
Hmm. Let me think.
I know of a good one that helped with my neighbor's renovation.
I can ask my neighbor.
So Steve doesn't know the plumber, but he knows of him.
He has heard of him from his neighbor.
So he knows of that person.
OK. Now let's change the preposition to "about." If I say I know about the
plumber,
then there's something about the plumber which I know, but the rest of the world
doesn't know.
Right.
It might be a secret.
Or maybe it's something that has happened to the plumber.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
It's great to know that you always have the information we need.
Well, continuing to learn about Mae Whitman, we see a quote at the beginning.
She says, "What are you, some kind of knucklehead?" Well, that's a very
interesting way to start this lesson.
That's right.
What are you, some kind of knucklehead?
Actually, that sounds a little bit like an insult.
It's kind of a mean thing to say, especially for a 3-year-old.
But it's also kind of cute.
And now a knucklehead, that's just kind of a fun way of saying someone is maybe
a little bit stupid.
They're not thinking clearly.
What are you, some kind of knucklehead?
Well, we... we find out when this was said and who said it.
We read:
Bored at Mom's acting test, a 3-year-old responded as such to a director's empty
admiration of her dress.
Well, there's a lot going on in that sentence.
So first let's look at that phrase: as such.
She responded as such.
Now, this just means: in that way.
That's the way that she responded.
That's right. Now how else might you use this phrase: as such?
Well, I could say, "You told me to write down my full name, so I wrote down my
name as such." I didn't just write Gabe.
I wrote Gabriel Harbour.
I wrote down my name as such.
Great.
So you might also say, "Oh, well, our teacher gave us this assignment, so I did
it as such." I did it the way the teacher told me to do it.
So you can use that phrase "as such" to describe something being done in a way
already stated.
That's right.
Well, we see here that Mae was kind of bored at her mom's acting test.
I'm not exactly sure the details of this acting test.
You might also call this a screen test.
They were trying to see maybe what she would be like in a movie she was trying
out for.
Anyway, we see another word here from our Word Bank.
She was talking about the director's empty admiration of her dress.
OK, admiration.
That's when you admire something.
That's right.
So you appreciate it; you enjoy the way it looks or acts.
So you might look at your hero in admiration.
Or maybe you admire a movie star, and you have admiration for that person.
OK.
So who do you have admiration for?
Who do you really admire in life?
Think about that.
Talk about it in English with somebody.
And of course, here we're talking about a director's empty admiration.
What does that mean, empty admiration, Carolyn?
Well, it means that he didn't really like her dress.
His words were empty.
So instead of saying, "Oh, I really like your dress. It's so beautiful," he
might have said, "Oh, yes, that's a very nice dress.".
That's right.
His words were kind of empty and meaningless.
Well, it's important to mean what you say in life.
Make sure your words are not empty like this person.
OK, so we're continuing here.
With those words...
Remember her words?
What are you, some kind of knucklehead?
With those words, the impressive career of actress Mae Whitman was born and
defined.
OK, the impressive career.
Let's look at that word from our Word Bank.
Now this is a little bit different from a job, right, Carolyn?
Yes.
So a job is the work that you do.
But a career is a job or a specific type of field that you work in for a long
time.
So you could be a teacher, and that is your career.
You want to teach for thirty years.
That's a career, not just a job.
All right.
And of course if you're in university, you're in high school, sometimes you
might have a career fair.
People from different companies come and they tell you what their company is
like.
Maybe you want to have that kind of career in the future.
OK. Well, let's continue learning here about actress Mae Whitman.
Child Actor.
With a voice-artist mother and a father who builds sets, it's no surprise
Whitman ended up in acting.
Both of her parents were involved with the theater or film in some way.
That's right.
So it's no surprise that she ended up also in acting.
We continue reading:
Such parents also knew to prepare her for adult exposure early on.
And there we see a word from our Word Bank:
exposure.
Now what does that mean, Gabe?
Well, in our lesson here, exposure is appearance in the public or in mass media.
OK. So when someone is becoming famous, a singer or an actor or actress, then
that is exposure in some way.
All right.
Well, we're talking about preparing her for adult exposure early on.
That means early on in life.
You could use that phrase in other ways.
You could say we needed to talk about something.
Well, we talked about the topic early on in lunch, not at the end of our lunch.
OK. Well, let's continue learning about Mae Whitman in a moment.
But first let's go see what Michelle has for us in the Language Lab.
(Music).
Hi, everyone.
I'm Michelle.