节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-11-29
难易度:High
关键字:swap, royalty, shell out, unearth, barter, cowrie shell
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
Today we will be talking all about money.
Yes, something that we all need when we want to buy something, anyway.
We're going to be talking about the history of money, Money Down Through the
Ages.
All right.
Well, every country has a different currency.
The United States uses Dollars.
But do you know all of the different units of your country's currency and the
money?
For example, Carolyn, in the United States, we use Dollars, but that can be
broken down into other things, right?
That's right.
We have coins, and they represent cents.
So one cent is called a penny; five cents is called a nickel; ten cents is a
dime; 25 cents is a quarter.
Yes.
And we even have a half dollar, which is 50 cents, but it's not used very often
anymore.
That's right.
And of course we have $10 bills, $20 bills, $50 bills.
Well, what about the currency in your country?
What are all those different units called?
Of course we're going to be learning about the history of money, so let's get
started.
(Music).
Money Down Through the Ages.
Money has changed a lot over the centuries.
Money has been essential throughout history, but it hasn't always come in forms
we would recognize today.
Before money.
The earliest civilizations didn't use money.
Instead, they bartered, agreeing to swap everyday objects like food, clothing or
animals.
It sounds a little strange today.
How many chickens would you trade for a smartphone?
But bartering worked surprisingly well for some ancient cultures.
The Incas built a mighty empire without money.
All men were required to work on constructing roads, public buildings and
palaces.
The Inca royalty then provided these people with all they needed to survive -
food, clothing, tools, etc.
Well, that was fun.
We learned about the Incas today.
OK, let's go back to the top of today's lesson Money Down Through the Ages.
Money has changed a lot over the centuries.
OK. It's changed a lot over the centuries, over hundreds of years.
Or you can also say money has changed a lot through the centuries.
That's right, or "through the ages," as we see in our title.
Well, getting into our article:
Money has been essential throughout history, but it hasn't always come in forms
we would recognize today.
So money has not always looked like pieces of paper or small coins that we carry
around.
That's true.
It has many different forms.
Now this first section is called Before money.
And we read, "The earliest civilizations didn't use money." All right.
Well, there've been many civilizations throughout history.
It's hard to imagine a time that didn't use money, Carolyn.
It is difficult to imagine, but we read that the earliest civilizations didn't
use money.
Instead, they bartered, agreeing to swap everyday objects like food, clothing or
animals.
So if you barter, that means that you just trade things; you trade one thing for
another.
And we see a word there, swap, from our Word Bank.
And swap simply means to trade.
That's right.
You're swapping something for something else.
You're trading it with your friend and what they have.
How else could you use this word swap?
Well, maybe you were in a competition.
And you got a prize; your friend also got a prize.
He likes your prize, and you like his prize.
Well, you can just swap prizes.
Then you can have each other's things.
That's right.
Or you know, maybe you meet someone and you want to get their phone number.
You could say: Let's swap phone numbers.
So I'll give you my phone number, and you give me yours.
That's right.
Of course that doesn't mean you're switching phones with the other person but
you're just getting each other's phone numbers.
Now I like this idea of bartering because, actually, it implies a little bit
more of an importance on relationship.
If there's just a set price and you use money, the relationship doesn't really
matter.
But you can barter with people that you know.
It could become something that friends do.
That's right.
And you can barter for animals, food, clothing, many different kinds of objects.
We continue reading.
It sounds a little strange today.
How many chickens would you trade for a smartphone?
Gabe, if I gave you 10 chickens, would you give me your iPhone?
I'm sorry, Carolyn.
I think you need to buy your own iPhone with um... money.
This is a great question, though.
How many chickens would you trade for a smartphone?
Carolyn, I just... I don't know what to do with chickens.
And they would be kind of annoying in my living room, and I have two cats...
But Gabe, if we're doing the barter system, that means that if you want food,
like if you wanted to eat a chicken, you would need to trade for it.
Oh, you're right.
And you don't eat meat.
I guess I would find chickens more useful.
This is a great question. OK.
If you have some chickens, Carolyn, I'll consider trading my smartphone for your
chickens, 20 of them.
Twenty. OK. Well, I will get back to you on that.
But first, let us continue reading in our article.
But bartering worked surprisingly well for some ancient cultures.
So even though it sounds kind of strange, it worked surprisingly well.
And we read about a certain culture here.
The Incas built a mighty empire without money.
All right.
So even big empires and kingdoms were built without the use of money.
Well, empire, this makes me think of the Roman Empire.
That was another big empire in history.
And we learn how the Incan Empire was able to build such a great civilization
without money.
All men were required to work on constructing roads, public buildings and
palaces.
The Inca royalty then provided these people with all they needed to survive -
food, clothing, tools, etc.
All right.
So the Inca royalty would provide these people with everything they needed.
Let's look at that word royalty.
Royalty has to do with royal people, people living in palaces, kings, queens,
princes, princesses, dukes, the royalty.
That's right.
So now we don't really hear about the royalty too often unless of course you're
talking about Great Britain and the Queen and her son,
the Prince who recently got married and is having a baby.
But of course sometimes you might feel like royalty.
If someone treats you really well as a guest in their home, you could say: We
really felt like royalty living there, or staying there.
Well, we see another phrase here in this sentence: all they needed to survive.
All you need to do something, that's a good phrase to know.
You could use it like this: Sunscreen, sunglasses and a good book was all I
needed to enjoy the beach.
That's a great way to use that phrase.
You might also use it talking about work.
The company will provide all you need to complete the project.
Just give them a list.
And of course, Michelle has all we need to help understand this part of our
lesson today.
Let's go enjoy some time with her now.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.