节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-11-16
难易度:Medium
关键字:follow in someone's footsteps, substantial, invest, communication, vocal
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're continuing to learn about the actress Mae Whitman.
Already yesterday we learned about how she kind of followed in her parents'
footsteps.
She did the same thing that her parents were doing by working on film or in the
theater.
She became an actress.
Well, today we're going to continue learning a little bit about this idea -
doing what her parents are doing.
Now I wonder about you and your parents.
What did they do?
What is their career?
What is their job?
Does that sound interesting to you?
Do you want to do the same thing?
Would you like to do the same thing your parents are doing, Carolyn?
Well, not really.
I enjoy traveling and learning languages and meeting new people.
And my parents, let's see.
My dad works in the post office, so he does get to meet a lot of interesting
people.
And then my mom works for a doctor, so she has a lot of responsibilities.
That's good.
But I like to travel, so...
I see.
Yeah. No.
Ha, ha, that...
Those jobs are not for you.
Right.
Well, for me, my parents, well, they work in the church.
My dad is a pastor and he loves telling people about God's good news.
I like to do that, too.
But I don't know if I want to be a pastor, or at least work in that way.
Well, friends, what about you?
Would you like to follow in your parents' footsteps and do what they are doing?
This is kind of what Mae Whitman is doing.
Let's learn a little bit more about this now.
(Music).
Mae Whitman.
Voice Actor.
Following in her mother's footsteps, Whitman also acts with her voice alone.
She also started this at a young age, but her best voice roles came later.
In her teens she provided the voice for Katara in the popular cartoon Avatar:
The Last Airbender.
And she is the first person to ever voice classic Disney character Tinker Bell.
Current Actor.
Now 25, Whitman continues to pursue both screen and vocal performances.
Though she is in some films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, she is much
more established on TV.
(Music). We will learn more about her TV career in a little bit.
But first let's learn about Mae Whitman as a voice actor.
We read:
Following in her mother's footsteps, Whitman also acts with her voice alone.
So this is not on screen in a movie but just the sound of her voice.
That's right.
OK, and we read here that she is following in her mother's footsteps.
What does that mean?
This is a good phrase to know.
When you follow in someone's footsteps, it's kind of the idea that they've
already created a path by what they've done in life,
and you're just following behind them, doing the same thing.
That's right.
So if you follow in someone's footsteps, then you do the same thing or something
very similar to what they did before you.
And a lot of people do follow in their parents' footsteps.
That's true.
Well, what about you?
Do you follow in your parents' footsteps?
Or here's another question:
In whose footsteps do you follow?
If it's not your parents, do you follow in anyone else's footsteps?
Maybe someone that you admire, someone that you have admiration for.
Well, that is a good question.
Now continuing learning about Mae Whitman and her voice acting:
She also started this at a young age, but her best voice roles came later.
So if you remember before, her acting career started when she was three after
she made a rather rude comment to a director.
But she got a lot of parts as daughters in many different movies, including an
alien invasion movie.
And here she also started her voice acting career at a young age.
That's right.
But her best roles came later.
We read here:
In her teens she provided the voice for Katara in the popular cartoon Avatar:
The Last Airbender.
Well, I haven't seen Avatar: The last Airbender.
But have you seen this, Carolyn?
I have seen it and it is wonderful.
Yeah.
And I didn't realize that she was the voice of Katara.
She does a very good job.
OK. Well, that sounds like I should watch this cartoon.
So we see she is a talented voice actor.
And we continue reading here:
And she is the first person to ever voice classic Disney character Tinker Bell.
OK. Who is Tinker Bell?
Well, you probably know the story of Peter Pan.
Tinker Bell is his little fairy friend.
Yes, she is.
And if you're familiar with Peter Pam, you also know that Tinker Bell doesn't
talk until now.
And Mae Whitman was the first person to ever give Tinker Bell a voice.
That's right.
She gave her a voice.
Or as we can see here in our lesson, voice is a verb.
She voiced this classic character Tinker Bell.
All right.
Now we're talking about her as a little bit older.
Current Actor.
Now 25, Whitman continues to pursue both screen and vocal performances.
That's an interesting way to start the sentence, talking about her age first.
That's right.
Well, we've moved from her being a child actor to a voice actor and now to her
current acting career.
So she started her acting career in movies at a very young age as well as her
voice career.
And now she is 25.
So things are beginning to change for her.
And so she is pursuing screen and vocal performances.
What's a screen performance?
Well, movies, TV shows, that kind of thing - anything you might see on your
television screen.
And a vocal performance.
Well, actually, vocal has to do with the voice, so she might be working on her
singing voice.
Maybe she will be a good singer, or maybe she is continuing to perfect her
talent with voice acting.
Yes. I think it is referring to her voice acting, these vocal performances.
But vocal performance can also refer to singing.
Now we continue reading.
Though she is in some films like The Perks of Being a Wallflower, she is much
more established on TV.
So she's been in a few movies, a few films, but her fame right now is in TV
series.
All right. She's more established on TV.
That's where people know her more.
They see her in these TV shows.
Well, The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
Carolyn, is that a movie that you saw?
I have seen that movie, Gabe, and it's actually based on a book.
But the movie is pretty good, and she does a very good job with the character in
that movie.
That's right.
Well, a lot of movies, of course, are based on books or other stories.
And so she did a great job, and of course she's doing a good job in TV shows as
well.
We're going to learn about some of those TV shows, some of her characters that
she plays on TV.
But first let's take a look at what Michelle has to share in the Language Lab.