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
Well, today we're talking about The Speed of Cities.
How fast or slow do people walk in your city?
Believe it or not, a city's prosperity and the speed of walking could be
related.
Maybe you've noticed, people in bigger cities tend to walk faster, and people in
smaller cities or poorer cities might walk a little bit slower.
Some of these things are related.
A social psychologist Robert Levine wanted to find out exactly how, so he
conducted an experiment with this question:
What's the average speed of a pedestrian over a distance of 18.29 meters?
Well, we're going to figure out what the answer is in the next part of our
lesson for today.
(Music).
The Speed of Cities.
Volunteers in big cities in 31 countries timed pedestrians as they covered this
distance and submitted their results.
The fastest pedestrians lived in Ireland, crossing the distance in an average of
11.13 seconds.
The slowest walkers hailed from Brazil, where they got from point A to point B
at a more leisurely 16.76 seconds.
Levine found that these results were strongly related to economic success.
Residents of cities that struggled or were still developing moved at a slower
pace, and residents of wealthy cities moved faster.
The motto "Time is money" seems to be true!
(Music).
Well, this is a very interesting study.
So let's get right in and see how Robert Levine constructed his experiment.
We read: Volunteers in big cities in 31 countries timed pedestrians as they
covered this distance and submitted their results.
Well, it seems like a pretty straightforward study.
Yeah. That's right.
They timed pedestrians.
That means they probably had some kind of a stopwatch with them to see how fast
these pedestrians were walking.
So they timed them as they covered this distance.
And then they came up with some results for Robert Levine.
That's right.
And we see the fastest pedestrians lived in Ireland, crossing the distance in an
average of 11.13 seconds.
Well, this is kind of surprising to me.
I didn't realize people in Ireland walked that fast.
I didn't, either.
I had no idea.
I... Ireland is not the first country that comes to my mind when I think of
really wealthy countries or people that walk very fast.
But this is the result - Ireland!
OK. So they crossed this distance in an average 11.13 seconds.
But the slowest walkers hailed from Brazil, where they got from point A to point
B at a more leisurely 16.76 seconds.
Well, that doesn't seem like too big of a difference.
But I guess when you are crossing this distance of 18.29 meters, or about 60
feet, it is a little bit of a difference, those five seconds or so.
Well, in that sentence we see words from our Word Bank: hailed from.
Now these people hailed from Brazil.
If you hail from a place, then that's where you're from.
That's right.
That's another way to say where you're from.
You could say, "I hail from this city," or "I hail from this country." Usually I
don't hear that.
I don't hear people saying that.
I hear people say I come from this place.
Where are you from?
Where do you hail from?
You could use that both ways.
That's right.
So I hail from the United States.
And I hail from the state of West Virginia.
So someone in the United States might ask me where I hail from, and I would tell
them the state, not the country.
All right.
Well, we're talking about people that hailed from Brazil here.
And they are slower walkers than those in Ireland.
OK. They got from point A to point B at a very leisurely pace.
Let's take a look at this phrase: to get from point A to point B.
Carolyn, how could we use that phrase?
Well, a lot of times I go online and use online maps, like Google Maps, to see
how to get from point A to point B.
I want to start at one place - point A - and end at another place - point B.
But I don't know how to get there.
So I use an online map search.
All right.
So you could use it to talk about distance or going from one place to another.
You could also use it to talk about your goals.
Point A is where you are now; point B is your goal, where you want to be.
Maybe how much money you want to have, how much weight you want to lose.
How do you get from point A to point B?
So you can use that phrase to talk about different things.
That's right.
Well, going back to our study:
Levine found that these results were strongly related to economic success.
Very interesting.
Residents of... of cities that struggled or were still developing moved at a
slower pace, and residents of wealthy cities moved faster.
It's true.
And I shared with you that I was surprised that people in Ireland walked faster.
But the reality is Ireland is a very wealthy country.
It's a very wealthy place.
And so I guess it is related.
People there do walk faster.
That's right.
Now we see the motto "Time is money" seems to be true.
And we have another word from our Word Bank, the word: motto.
Now if you have a motto, then that this just a common phrase that you use to
express an idea.
That's right.
And many people live by mottos.
You could talk about someone's life motto.
What is your life motto?
What's something that you always remember, it helps you in your life?
For some people, it's the phrase "Never give up!" You won't give up on anything.
For me, it's "Seize the day." Don't let any opportunity go by.
I don't want to miss good opportunities.
I want to seize the day and take those opportunities.
What's another good life motto, Carolyn?
Well, there are a lot of them.
But one that I remember I learned in high school was: If you are 10 minutes
early, you are 5 minutes late.
Whoa. That's a good motto for those who need to be on time.
Let's continue learning about this other phrase here.
It's the phrase "Time is money." Do we have time to talk about this, Carolyn?
Not really, Gabe, because time is money, we must keep going on and learn
something with Michelle in the Language Lab.
OK. (Chinese).
And now let's get back to our teachers.
Well, today we've been talking about the relationship between fast walking in a
city and how affluent that city is in this study that Robert Levine conducted.
Now I wonder, how fast do you walk?
Are you a fast walker or a slow walker?
Gabe?
Am I a fast walker?
I think I am a fast walker, actually.
Unless I'm enjoying a conversation with somebody and I want to enjoy the
scenery, usually I'm a fast walker.
I like to get from point A to point B very quickly.
Actually, usually I'll just drive my scooter.
I don't even like walking.
Carolyn, what about you?
I think that I'm a very fast walker.
I don't like to waste time and get where I am going, so.
Well, what about you?
We will see you here next time on Studio Classroom.
See you then.