节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-10-31
难易度:Low
关键字:comedy, pause, spear, cheer, Maryland Renaissance Festival, joust,
opponent
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today as we continue talking about Fall Festivals
in Maryland.
Yesterday we already learned about how Pauline took her family and they went to
pick some apples and vegetables and other things like that.
Well, today we're going to be learning about festivals that take place in
Maryland.
I'm sure you've been to many festivals.
I wonder, what makes a good festival?
Or what's important to include if there is a festival?
What do you think, Carolyn?
Well, I think there are a lot of things that should be included in a festival.
Let's see, there should be good food, lots of good food.
There should also be music.
It's nice to have performances at festivals, some sort of entertainment.
And... games! Games are a fun thing to have at a festival.
I agree with you there, Carolyn.
Actually, I think food, for me, that... that's the best thing about any kind of
festival.
But of course, there are so many things that you could see at festivals.
And we're going to learn about a special festival right away here: the Maryland
Renaissance Festival.
Let's get started.
(Music).
Fall Festivals in Maryland.
The wonderful Maryland Renaissance Festival takes place every weekend in the
fall.
Workers and actors dress like people from the Middle Ages and welcome all
visitors.
Comedies, talk shows, children's plays and stage dramas are performed throughout
the day.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a big production as well.
In addition, magic shows, sword fights and more attract audiences in every
corner of the "village." You can spot the king and queen greeting people or
pausing for photos.
Several sports and games are demonstrated in the arena.
(Music).
All right.
Let's go back to the beginning to learn about this wonderful festival.
The wonderful Maryland Renaissance Festival takes place every weekend in the
fall.
That's not just one weekend or two weekends, every weekend in the fall.
And it's the Renaissance Festival.
What is the Renaissance?
Well, that's the period of time between the 14th and 16th centuries.
Actually, it's a transition between medieval and our modern times.
Wow! So this is a very special festival, a very special time period.
And they are celebrating this in Maryland, the Maryland Renaissance Festival,
every weekend this fall.
Workers and actors dress like people from the Middle Ages and welcome all
visitors.
Well, this sounds very fun if people are wearing dresses and costumes to make
them look like they're from the Middle Ages.
I know.
I would enjoy going to this festival just to see everyone dressing up like this.
We continue learning about it here:
Comedies, talk shows, children's plays and stage dramas are performed throughout
the day.
So it's a lot of different kinds of performances here.
Let's talk about one of these kinds of performances - a comedy.
Carolyn, comedies always make me laugh.
Well, comedies are very funny because that is what they are supposed to do.
They're supposed to make you laugh.
And a comedy is any funny play, TV show or movie - they could all be called
comedies.
That's right. So you could see a stage comedy.
That's a play at a theater.
Or of course, you could watch one on your TV at home.
Now the opposite, or maybe another kind of theater or play that you could see is
a drama.
That's a little more serious.
But I guess two main types of plays are comedies and dramas.
Another popular type is a tragedy.
And usually when we talk about comedies, we refer to tragedy as it's opposite.
That's right, T-R-A-G-E-D-Y.
Is it a comedy or tragedy?
Well, we're going to read about a comedy here next written by William
Shakespeare.
He wrote many comedies and tragedies.
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a big production as well.
What do you think about A Midsummer Night's Dream?
Have you ever read this or seen this performed?
I did read it in high school.
And it's kind of difficult to understand why it's funny because Shakespeare has
a very unique writing style, and it's not always easy to understand his jokes.
But this is a comedy.
And Steve and Ken have something they want to tell us in the Information Cloud
about this author, Shakespeare.
Our lesson today mentions a play without mentioning the playwright - who wrote
it.
There's no need because we already know who wrote it - William Shakespeare.
And Shakespeare is a name that needs no introduction.
He's the greatest English writer ever.
Four hundred years after his death, we're still reading his poetry, staging his
plays and making movies based on his works.
Shakespeare's contribution to the English language was massive.
He introduced over 1,700 new vocabulary words into English, many of which we
still use today.
From A Midsummer Night's Dream, for example, came the words flowery, rival and
mimic.
And then there are the many words and phrases and common expressions that
Shakespeare coined.
From the same drama came the now familiar words and phrases: pale-faced, swift
as a shadow and fancy-free.
Shakespeare was also good at taking an existing word and creating a new form of
it.
An example which also comes from A Midsummer Night's Dream is the word moonbeam.
OK. Shakespeare had a tremendous vocabulary.
He used almost 18,000 different words in his writings, a tenth of which had
never been used before.
Now imagine, if every tenth word you used was an original word!
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
Shakespeare certainly did contribute a lot to the English language.
Continuing on here:
In addition, magic shows, sword fights and more attract audiences in every
corner of the "village." OK.
So you can go and see performances like plays and maybe some tragedies and
different kinds of drama.
Or you can see people kind of fighting, in a playful way.
That's right.
And they're all in this "village." So it's not a real town or real village.
But it's part of this festival setup.
Now we saw a phrase there: in every corner of.
That means in all parts, right, Gabe?
It's not that the village is a square.
That's right, so every corner.
Sometimes a corner is hard to reach into, right?
If something is in the corner, it might be difficult to grasp.
But we're talking about things from every corner of the village.
That means even those things you can find here.
So you might use this phrase in other ways.
You could talk about people from every corner of the world.
That means all over the world, every corner of the world.
That means that they are everywhere.
So here, in every corner of the village, you can find these types of
performances.
That means that they are all over the village, not just in one single place.
Now continuing:
You can spot the king and queen greeting people or pausing for photos.
And there's another word from the Word Bank, the word pause.
Now if you pause, that means that you stop but only for a short time, right,
Gabe?
Yes... there!
That... that was a nice pause, Gabe.
You waited for a moment, and then you answered.
And actually, it is good to pause before you say something to make sure that you
really want to say it.
That's right. OK.
So maybe you want to pause to think for a little while before you continue
speaking about something.
Or maybe you want to pause in the middle of your speech to... to thank certain
people.
So you can use "pause" in different ways.
Actually, there is a pause button on your remote control.
If you're watching a DVD or something, you could just pause it, go to the
bathroom and come back and press play.
That's right.
Well, several sports and games are demonstrated in the arena.
So you can watch games, sports in the arena in the village.
Right now it's time for us to learn something with Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.