节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-09-04
难易度:Low
关键字:complex, committed, resemble, inspire, sequel, honorary degree
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today with the third part of our lesson called The
Tale of Tolkien.
Of course we've already talked about a lot of Tolkien's history, about his
childhood in the beautiful English countryside.
And we also learned about some tragedies that happened when he was only a child.
Both of his parents had passed away by the time he was only 12 years old.
But we also started to learn about love, war and what he studied.
We learned that he fell in love with a girl named Edith Bratt, and they were
married by 1916.
What else did we learn about Tolkien here, Carolyn?
Well, we learned that he did fight in World War I.
And that was a very dangerous and dark trial in his life.
But after the war, he became a scholar.
He continued to teach literature, to study languages.
And he also wrote a story.
He began to write a book called The Hobbit while he was grading some test
papers.
So he has a very interesting life, a very interesting history.
And I am very interested in learning more about this story.
Well, let's do that right now.
We're going to continue learning about The Hobbit and of course a little bit
about Tolkien's legacy.
Let's do that now.
(Music).
The Tale of Tolkien.
The Hobbit enjoyed instant success, and the publishing company asked for a
sequel.
So Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, a longer, more complex tale.
Rayner Unwin, now an adult, helped publish The Lord of the Rings.
It was so long that it came out in three parts in 1954 and 1955.
Tolkien's Legacy.
Tolkien died 40 years ago this month.
He was a committed father to his four children.
He received an honorary degree from Oxford for his studies.
But his greatest legacy is his stories.
(Music).
Well, his stories are what people do remember him for.
So let's talk about them.
The Hobbit.
The Hobbit enjoyed instant success, and the publishing company asked for a
sequel.
So if you remember from yesterday, he gave his book, The Hobbit, to his friend
Stanley Unwin, a publisher.
And the book was published after Stanley's son Rayner told his father how much
he loved the book.
And of course it wasn't just his son that loved this book.
But this book The Hobbit enjoyed instant success.
Wait a minute. I thought only humans or animals could enjoy something.
But here a book enjoys something.
Well, you can kind of have fun with English like this.
This book, The Hobbit, enjoyed instant success.
OK. So people loved this book instantly.
Right. So right away everyone loved this book, and the publishing company asked
for a sequel.
They wanted a second book because people loved the first one so much.
So Tolkien wrote The Lord of the Rings, a longer, more complex tale.
And it certainly was much longer and more complex.
Well, let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank.
It is the word "complex." And I think of many things being put together or used
together.
Many things used together, that makes something complex.
Yes. So it is made up of many different parts.
It is not simple.
It's very complex.
Perhaps you have a complex computer program.
You're trying to program something or just trying to figure out how to use your
computer.
But it's very complex because there're so many things to try to remember.
Or maybe you're working on something, like a big project or working for an
event,
and there are so many different parts to this event, it is a very complex event.
It will take a lot of planning.
OK. So this story was a very complex tale.
That means there are a lot of relationships inside, lots of things affecting
other things. OK.
This is a complex tale.
And it, of course, was the sequel, something he wrote after The Hobbit.
That's right.
And we learn a little bit more about Rayner, who was the publisher's son, from
yesterday's lesson.
Rayner Unwin, now an adult, helped publish The Lord of the Rings.
So he was no longer a child when The Lord of the Rings was written.
He was now helping to publish the book.
And so you could say that his father's profession, his father's job, maybe
rubbed off on him.
Maybe he was also good at publishing, he knew something about that.
Maybe that describes you in some way.
Your parents are good at something, and then so you also know how to do it, know
how to help other people in that way.
That's right.
Well, we learned about this book The Lord of the Rings.
It was so long that it came out in three parts in 1954 and 1955.
And if you've read The Lord of the Rings, you know that there are three very
large books or three parts to this story.
It's true.
So we see this phrase here: it was so long that it came out in three parts.
OK. You could also use the word "publish." It was published in three different
parts.
And those were in 1954 and 1955.
Actually, there was a year between the books The Twin Towers and The Return of
the King - the second and third book - there was a year.
And so when the third book came out, people were wondering what happened to the
main character Frodo.
He was taken behind enemy lines.
People were wondering what happened to him.
When the third book came out, the newspapers read "Frodo lives!" People were so
excited to hear that Frodo was alive and OK.
Well, then those were very popular books at the time, and they continue to be.
Well, in the next section here we learn about Tolkien's Legacy.
Tolkien died 40 years ago this month.
Well, that was quite a while ago.
But it is the anniversary of his death.
And he was a committed father to his four children.
Well, let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank.
It's "committed." If you are committed to something, that means you give your
life to it.
That means you don't just kind of give half of your heart to something, you give
your whole heart to something.
A committed father or a committed mother is someone who is very committed to
their children.
They'll give their lives to their children.
That's right.
So they work very hard.
That is the focus of their life.
That's what they want to do.
And so he was very committed to his four children.
Maybe you are committed to something yourself.
You could be committed to another person or committed to your studies.
Are you committed to studying English?
You can practice every day.
That's a great question.
What are you committed to?
Well, we read here that Tolkien received an honorary degree from Oxford for his
studies.
So this is a degree that you give to someone just to honor them for something.
That's right.
But his greatest legacy is his stories, not this degree.
And we have more to learn with Michelle in the Language Lab.
Let's go there now.