节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-09-12
难易度:Low
关键字:brilliant, meadow, canoe, delightful, majestic, lay out
(Music).
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And you're joining us for our lesson called Beautiful Banff and Lake Louise.
Well, I have some friends who have been to these places.
And they say that it is gorgeous there, that I must visit.
And of course our author Ruth Devlin has also been to visit beautiful Banff and
Lake Louise.
These are outdoor places and nature.
And of course you can have adventures in these kinds of places.
There are many things to see.
Carolyn, do you enjoy outdoor adventures?
I do enjoy going on outdoor adventures.
I like hiking and exploring different areas and going to parks.
And I went on a small adventure trying to find the perfect picnic spot.
And it was a lot of fun.
And we found a beautiful shady area to have lunch.
Well, I notice you have some flowers as well.
Is that from when you went on a picnic?
Well, no. The picnic was a while ago.
But these flowers are quite lovely.
Yes.
Well, I also enjoy outdoor adventures.
I love rock climbing.
And so if there are places with large rocks, I love to climb on those rocks and
see how high I can get.
Of course it can be exciting.
Well, we're going to be learning about beautiful Banff and Lake Louise and some
of the different things you can experience there.
Let's get started.
(Music).
Beautiful Banff and Lake Louise.
Enjoy some of the finest nature has to offer in Banff National Park.
What can be more beautiful than brilliant blue water or snowy mountains?
If that's your idea of beauty, put Banff, Alberta, at the top of your travel
list.
Banff and beautiful Lake Louise lie in the majestic Canadian Rockies in Banff
National Park.
The park, Canada's oldest, offers 6,641 square kilometers of wild land to
explore.
Within the park, you'll find not only mountains but meadows, lakes, hot springs,
waterfalls and wild animals.
(Music).
With so many things to see, this sounds like a really wonderful place to visit,
a little something for everyone.
Well, let's go back to the beginning.
Here we see a little section: Enjoy some of the finest nature has to offer in
Banff National Park.
And there's a really great phrase right there: some of the finest.
Let's take a look at that.
It means that it's some of the best among the best.
That's right.
Of course nature has a lot to offer anywhere in the world.
But nature also has some really fine things to offer at Lake Banff... or at
Banff and Lake Louise.
And of course you can enjoy some of the finest there.
You can use that phrase in other ways to talk about other things.
Enjoy some of the finest food or some of the finest steak at this restaurant.
That's right.
You also might say this city has some of the finest art.
Maybe you can go to Europe and travel around, and they will have many fine
things to see because so much history has taken place there.
That's right.
So enjoy some of the finest that nature has to offer in Banff National Park.
And it's true, many people love to go to this national park.
There are more than four million visitors that go every year.
So it's a very popular place.
It is a very popular place.
Now let us get started with our article.
What can be more beautiful than brilliant blue water or snowy mountains?
And oh, that is a great question - What could be more beautiful than brilliant
blue water?
Let's take a look at that word from our Word Bank.
If something is brilliant, it is bright and clear and beautiful.
A lot of times I think of people having brilliant colored eyes, brilliant green
or brilliant blue eyes.
Well, Carolyn, speaking of this word "brilliant," I think that you're wearing a
very brilliant shirt today.
It's not a dark shirt that Carolyn is wearing.
This orange is very nice on you.
It's a brilliant color.
Oh, well.
Thank you very much, Gabe.
Yes, it is a very brilliantly colored shirt.
It is brilliant.
Well, this water here is brilliant.
So it is blue, it is clear.
And it is just beautiful, not cloudy or dark.
Now this is a question.
And I think that Steve and Ken have something they'd like to tell us about that
in the Information Cloud.
In ancient times, rhetoric was an art form to be studied and practiced.
It was communicating for the purpose of persuading others to identify with your
interests.
Now today our author asks a question not because she is looking for an answer.
She asks it rather to persuade us to identify with her interests.
This kind of question is called a rhetorical question.
As figures of speech, rhetorical questions are asked to make a point,
create emphasis and subtly challenge an audience's assumptions while arousing
their curiosity.
And when you make an audience curious, you are more likely to hold their
interest and, hopefully, persuade them to see things as you do.
So how can you know whether a question is rhetorical or not?
Years ago, it was pretty easy.
People used a rhetorical punctuation mark which looked like a backwards question
mark.
Unfortunately, people stopped using those in the 17th century.
Today the simplest way to know is if the author or speaker gives you a real
opportunity to respond to the question.
If not, the question is probably rhetorical.
So everybody, what are you waiting for?
Go out and ask someone a rhetorical question.
(Chinese).
Thank you, gentlemen.
Well, who better to tell us about rhetorical questions than Steve and Ken?
Let's continue with our article.
If that's your idea of beauty, put Banff, Alberta, at the top of your list.
So if your idea of beauty is this brilliant blue lake, then put Banff in
Alberta, Canada, at the top of your travel list.
And that is a great idea.
And we see an interesting phrase at the beginning of this sentence that Liz
wants to tell us about in the Grammar Gym.
Hi there, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
In our article today the writer mentions:
If that's your idea of beauty, put Banff, Alberta, at the top of your travel
list.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
And today we're looking at the phrase: one's idea of [something].
It just means one's view or opinion of what something is all about.
So today's sentence just means: If that is your opinion of what natural beauty
is all about, then put Banff, Alberta, at the top of your travel list.
This phrase "one's idea of something" is often used to talk about personal
opinions.
For example:
Being out on a beach in the sun was Stanley's idea of fun; unfortunately, it
rained the whole time while he was there.
Or: Going to a baseball game is not Lola's idea of a perfect weekend; she
prefers staying indoors.
If you have a copy of this month's magazine with you, be sure to check out
today's Grammar Tip section for more examples.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thank you, Liz.
So of course you must put Banff at the top of your travel list.
And I have heard it is a beautiful place.
I do want to travel there one day.
Well, we continue with our lesson.
Banff and beautiful Lake Louise lie in the majestic Canadian Rockies in Banff
National Park.
All right.
So we see that this place can be described as majestic.
We're talking about the Canadian Rockies and the Rocky Mountains.
You can also call them the Rockies.
That's a long chain or range of mountains that goes from Canada all the way down
through the United States.
So here we're talking about the Canadian part of these mountains - the Canadian
Rockies.
That's right, because this national park is in Canada.
And we continue on.
The park, Canada's oldest, offers 6,641 square kilometers of wild land to
explore.
That is quite a big park.
That sounds great.
It sounds like a great outdoor adventure.
Lots of things to do, lots of places to explore and of course, lots of beautiful
sights to see.
Well, within the park you'll find not only mountains but meadows, lakes, hot
springs, waterfalls and wild animals and probably a lot more.
But let's take a look at one of these words from our Word Bank.
It is the word "meadow." When I think of a meadow, I think of a big grassy area
outside.
It's... it's not hills or mountains.
It's mostly flat, but it's something that maybe goes on for a while.
You can walk through a meadow, run through a meadow.
What do you like to do in meadows, Carolyn?
Well, actually those flowers I had earlier could be found in a meadow, a large
grassy field where wild flowers grow.
And you can also probably see a lot of these great wild animals in the meadow
because they would be out there eating the grass or the flowers.
Well, these things sound interesting.
Of course meadows can be found here at Banff National Park, and lakes, hot
springs, waterfalls, wild animals.
I would love to see it all.
Right now it's time for us to take a break.
But first, we're going to learn something with Michelle in the Language Lab.
And then we have a lot more to learn about Banff later on.