节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-09-20
难易度:High
关键字:affluent, pedestrian, hail from, motto, social psychologist
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And you're joining us for a lesson today called The Speed of Cities.
Well, every city has a different speed or a different pace of life.
I wonder about your city, where you are from.
Is the pace of life in your city fast or is it kind of slow?
Carolyn, where you're from, is the pace of life fast or slow?
Well, I'm from West Virginia.
It is more rural.
It's out in the country... countryside, and it's pretty slow paced.
We don't do things too too quickly.
People walk fairly slow.
And we just kind of go along with our lives.
All right, just kind of go along; it's a very comfortable pace.
Well, where I grew up in (Chinese), it was OK.
It wasn't too fast; it also wasn't too slow, but certainly slower than where I
live now in Taipei.
The... the pace of life or the speed of this city is quite a bit faster.
Well, what about where you are living?
Is the pace of life in your city fast or slow?
We're going to be learning about this and how the speed of life can affect your
life wherever you live.
Let's get started with our lesson for today.
The Speed of Cities.
A city's pace of life reveals a lot about its size, success and culture.
Are you a fast or slow walker?
Is your city or town wealthy or poor?
Believe it or not, research suggests walking speed and a city's prosperity may
be related!
Citizens of bigger, affluent cities tend to walk faster, while residents of
poorer cities tend to take things a little slower.
Why is that?
A social psychologist named Robert Levine wanted to know, so he went out into
the streets to get answers.
A worldwide experiment.
With help from all over the world, Levine conducted an experiment.
What's the average speed of a pedestrian over a distance of 18.29 meters?
(Music).
Well, that is some interesting information and an interesting experiment that he
will be working on.
Well, going back to the beginning of our article, we see:
A city's pace of life reveals a lot about its size, success and culture.
Now the name of the article is The Speed of Cities.
But here we're talking about a city's pace of life.
Mmhm, the pace of life - so how fast people are within that city and doing
something.
And it reveals something about the city's size, success and culture.
So if something reveals something about your city, that means it tells you
something.
You can observe the pace of life and learn something about the size, success and
culture of where you are.
That's right.
But we do want to take a look at those words - speed and pace - with Steve and
Ken in the Information Cloud.
The title of our article today is The Speed of Cities.
But if you look below the title, you'll notice the word "pace." The deck of the
article says:
A city's pace of life reveals a lot about its size, success and culture.
So you may be wondering, are the words "speed" and "pace" synonymous?
Are they interchangeable?
Hmm... Well, why don't we talk about this as it relates to a car?
Would you say your new car has a very good pace or a very good speed?
I would choose "speed" because a car is a mechanical object.
If we're talking about an animate object like a man, a dog or a horse, "pace"
would be more appropriate.
That's right.
A man or an animal might walk or run at a fast pace.
But your car or motorcycle travels at a certain speed.
Also, the word "pace" is usually used in expressions like the pace of life or
work at a slow pace.
It's more related to human activities.
Right.
OK. Let's get more technical.
If you're a runner, you can focus on either your pace or your speed.
Your pace is the time it takes to cover a certain distance such as four minutes.
But your speed is indicated by the ratio kilometers per hour.
So if I run at a speed of 10 kilometers an hour, I would be running at a pace of
six minutes per kilometer.
Well, that sounds like a good workout.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
That was a great explanation.
Now you know the difference between speed and pace.
Well, the first sentence here in our lesson is: Are you a fast or slow walker?
We have some questions here.
Are you a fast or slow walker?
Is your city or town wealthy or poor?
I wonder how these are related.
Well, believe it or not, research suggests walking speed and a city's prosperity
may be related.
So how fast you walk might also be related to how wealthy or poor a city is.
That's right.
We see that word "prosperity." It... that means how successful a city is or how
well it is doing - the prosperity.
Maybe you think of economy or money when you think of prosperity.
Well, citizens of bigger, affluent cities tend to walk faster, while residents
of poorer cities tend to do things a little slower.
Actually it says here they tend to "take" things a little slower.
But it kind of means the same thing as doing something slower.
That is some interesting information.
Now at the beginning of this sentence, we saw a word from our Word Bank, the
word affluent.
Now if a place or city is affluent, then it... a lot of the people living there
have a lot of money.
And many times I think of a neighborhood as being affluent.
Or to go to an affluent community to live means that you and your neighbors all
have a lot of money.
All right.
So that is the adjective form of this word, an affluent city or affluent people
or an affluent neighborhood.
But it could also be a noun, A-F-F-L-U-E-N-C-E.
You talk about the affluence of a certain area or the affluence of a city.
So we're talking about citizens of bigger, affluent cities tend to walk faster,
while residents of poorer cities take things a little slower.
Let's take a look at what Liz has to share with us in the Grammar Gym.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym, friends.
My name is Liz.
We see this statement in today's article: ... while residents of poorer cities
tend to take things a little slower.
Our Grammar Tip focus today is on the phrase: to take things.
In today's sentence, "to take things" does not mean to use hands and reach out
to hold things.
Instead, "to take things" means to handle or respond to situations.
So the writer is saying that residents of poorer cities tend to do things and
respond to situations in a slower way.
OK. Let's have a look at some example sentences.
If Edward doesn't like to plan ahead but would rather just handle things one at
a time as they happen, we can say:
Edward likes to take things one at a time.
Or let's say Sam doesn't do a good job whenever he's hungry and tired, so we can
say:
Sam doesn't take things too well whenever he's hungry and tired.
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.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Thanks, Liz.
Well, now it's time to continue taking a look at our lesson.
Why is that?
It continues asking about, why do people in more affluent cities walk faster and
people in poor areas walk slower?
Why is that, Gabe?
Well, we read on.
A social psychologist named Robert Levine wanted to know, so he went out into
the streets to get answers.
So he didn't just stay in his office trying to do research.
He went into the streets to try to get some of these answers.
And he's a social psychologist, so he studies the way that people live and
interact with each other and the world.
Well, it sounds like a very interesting job to have.
And we have another section here titled "A worldwide experiment," so.
He's going to do a worldwide experiment.
With help from all over the world, Levine conducted an experiment.
That's right.
He conducted this.
That's the word we use when we're talking about experiments.
Do you like to conduct experiments?
You're trying to figure out an answer to something, and so you conduct an
experiment.
Well, what's the average speed of a pedestrian over a distance of 18.29 meters?
That's the question that he has.
What's the average speed here?
And of course, the key word is "pedestrian." Carolyn, what's a pedestrian?
Well, a pedestrian is a person who is walking.
And usually we refer to pedestrians when they are going around cars, so.
It's important for pedestrians to use the crosswalk when they are crossing the
street.
And they should wait for the light to turn green for them to walk safely across.
That's right.
So pedestrians have a responsibility.
But drivers also have a responsibility.
If you ever take your driver's test in the United States or you're trying to get
her driver's license, they will tell you pedestrians have the right of way.
That means if you ever come across a pedestrian, you're to let the pedestrian go
across first before you drive on.
Pedestrians have the right of way.
So he wanted to know the average speed of pedestrians walking a distance of
18.29 meters.
Now that's kind of an odd distance.
Probably originally it was in feet.
And that is 60 feet.
Well, right now it is time for us to learn something with Michelle in the
Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.