节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-09-02
难易度:Low
关键字:delight, childhood, tragedy, guardian, pass away
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
It's our first lesson here this September, and it's a good one.
It's called The Tale of Tolkien.
Tale. Well, a tale is a kind of story.
And Tolkien.
Who is Tolkien?
Well, you might know him by the name J.R.R. Tolkien.
And he wrote some very popular, very famous books: The Lord of the Rings,
(that's in three parts,) and the Hobbit.
Now these books have also been made into movies.
Maybe you have seen these movies.
They're... they're very long.
Each of them are very long movies.
And I think they're wonderful movies.
Carolyn, have you read these books or seen these movies?
Well, I've read The Hobbit.
I didn't read The Lord of the Rings, but those books are on my list-to-read.
But I did watch all of the movies that have come out so far - the three Lord of
the Rings movies and the first Hobbit movie that only tells part of the story.
That's right.
It only tells the first part of the story Now The Hobbit, of course, is only in
one book.
But The Lord of the Rings was in three books.
I enjoyed them all.
Actually, I'm thinking about reading them again.
But I also think that this lesson is very important.
It's also very interesting.
It talks about Tolkien's background.
Let's get started with The Tale of Tolkien.
(Music).
The Tale of Tolkien.
Learn the story behind the stories of Middle Earth.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings delight book and movie lovers alike.
These great stories sprang from the mind of one man - J.R.R. Tolkien.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892.
He spent much of his childhood in the beautiful English countryside.
He enjoyed studying and learning languages from a young age.
And his mother taught him the strong Christian faith that he believed his whole
life.
(Music).
It sounds like J.R.R. Tolkien had a very nice childhood growing up in the
English countryside.
But before we discuss that any further, let's go back to the beginning.
And we see right with our title:
Learn the story behind the stories of Middle Earth.
And that's a very interesting way to phrase this.
"Learn the story behind the story." Let's look at that phrase.
Gabe, what does that mean, "the story behind something"?
Well, of course you might know these stories of Middle Earth.
And Middle Earth is the place that J.R.R. Tolkien created for The Hobbit and for
The Lord of the Rings characters.
But "the story behind these stories." That means we're figuring out or finding
out how these stories were created and the life of the author.
Of course he has a great imagination, so he thought of these stories.
We're going to learn about him.
That's right.
So we will learn his story, not the stories he wrote.
And we begin with a couple of the books that he did write.
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings delight book and movie lovers alike.
And it's true, I do feel a lot of delight from reading and watching these
movies.
Well, I found these books great, too.
They delighted me.
And I think they delight many people.
Let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank: delight, or to delight
someone.
If you are delighted, if something delights you, that means it makes you happy,
it pleases you.
And I think many people are delighted when they win an award.
If you get recognized for something great that you've done, you might feel
delighted, you're so happy.
I hope that you are delighted to be studying English with us today here on
Studio Classroom because I know I am delighted to be here.
Well, I am also delighted to be teaching as well.
And I think something else that delights me is when I hear from someone that I
haven't heard from in a long time.
Or maybe when I receive a letter in the mail - that delights me.
Well, what delights you?
Here we're talking about how the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings delight book
and movie lovers alike.
So it doesn't delight books, it doesn't delight movies.
It delights the lovers of these books and movies.
And we can find out that all kinds of people love these movies and books.
It is true.
They are very popular.
And these great stories sprang from the mind of one man - J.R.R. Tolkien.
Well, that brings us to a great phrase in the sentence that Liz would like to
tell us about in the Grammar Gym.
Hello, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
In our article today, we find this sentence:
These great stories sprang from the mind of one man - J.R.R. Tolkien.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Notice the word "sprang." It comes from the word "spring," which means to
appear.
So today's sentence just means these great stories all appeared from the mind of
one man - J.R.R. Tolkien.
Of course the writer could have said these stories came from the mind of one man
- J.R.R. Tolkien.
But to say "came" just doesn't sound as active.
To make the sentence livelier, the writer uses "sprang" instead.
Here are some examples.
Mandy sprang through the doorway to show us her new outfit.
Or: The pond was nice and quiet, but all of a sudden some ducks sprang out of
nowhere and the whole place became noisy.
If you'd like to see some more example sentences, they're available in today's
Grammar Tip section in your magazine.
That's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Bye.
Thank you, Liz.
Well, of course all of these stories sprang from the mind of the imagination of
J.R.R. Tolkien.
What's his full name?
Well, we see it right here in the next part.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in 1892.
Wow. That was quite some time ago.
And that is his full name - John Ronald Reuel Tolkien.
That's right.
So he actually has two middle names.
That is very interesting since most people in the West have one middle name, and
a lot of people in Asia have no middle name.
That's true, so quite a unique name here as well.
And we continue.
He spent much of his childhood in the beautiful English countryside.
Well, I would love to travel there someday.
But first, let's take a look at this word from our Word Bank.
It is "childhood." Carolyn, what is your childhood?
Well, your childhood is the time you spend growing up as a child.
OK.
So what are some things that you do during childhood?
I spent much of my childhood going to my grandparents' farm and playing with the
baby animals.
You did?
Oh, yes.
Wow! That is quite a different childhood from mine.
I grew up kind of in the city.
I would play games with my neighbors and my... my brother and my sisters.
That's what I did in my childhood, and I loved it.
What about your childhood?
Talk about your childhood.
Describe it in English.
That would be great practice.
It would be great practice.
And we learn that Tolkien spent his childhood growing up in the English
countryside, a very beautiful place to raise children.
And we learn that he enjoyed studying and learning languages from a young age.
Gabe, when did you start learning Chinese?
Well, from a young age, from when I was a little kid in my childhood, I started
learning Chinese.
And I've been continuing to learn.
I'm always learning new things every day.
And I think that's important when you're learning a language is that you try to
improve every day.
Friends, you are doing a great job learning English.
That's right.
And we learn a little bit more about Tolkien.
And his mother taught him the strong Christian faith that he believed his whole
life.
So he was able to grow up in the countryside, he loved languages, and his mother
taught him his strong Christian faith.
So he believed in God and salvation through Jesus Christ.
That's right.
Actually, I do, and Carolyn does as well.
Many people at Studio Classroom have a strong Christian faith.
Well, Tolkien did.
And his mother... well, he has his mother to thank for that.
Right now it's time for us to continue learning with Michelle in the Language
Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.