节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-08-01
难易度:Low
关键字:participate, breathe, gradually, proceed, burner
Today is the first day of our TRAVEL article, Hualien From a Hot Air Balloon.
So far our author Nathanael has told us about his trip with a few of his friends
to Hualien.
But they didn't go there for the famous spectacular Taroko Gorge.
They went for the county's first hot air balloon event.
They went to participate in this great event.
And we have much more to learn about it in the next part of our article.
Let's get started.
Hualien From a Hot Air Balloon.
Still, the balloons were laid out next to their baskets.
Fans were first used to fill the balloons until they looked like huge sofas.
After that, burners on the baskets breathed fire to fill up the balloons with
hot air.
As they took shape, the balloons rose gradually to a standing position.
Feeling no wind, we hoped that the red flag would soon be changed to a green
one.
Instead, a yellow flag was raised - proceed with care.
All right. Well, that's a good sign.
Yellow is better than red.
Well, let's go back to the beginning of this section.
Nathanael was talking about this barrier between the people and the sky - this
red flag that meant that maybe you couldn't fly in a hot air balloon that day.
But he continues:
Still, the balloons were laid out next to their baskets.
"Still," that means people were still planning or hoping to fly in a hot air
balloon.
That's right.
They were definitely hoping.
And the balloons were laid out next to their baskets.
Now the use of this word "laid" or "lay" or "lie" can be very confusing.
And I think Steve and Ken have something that they would like to tell us about
in the Information Cloud.
Hello, friends.
If you're feeling tired, and we hope you're not, maybe you should go lay down,
or is it lie down?
Good question, Ken.
A lot of people get "lie" and "lay" confused.
We need to remember, the verb "lay" is an action.
It describes the action of putting something somewhere.
The verb "lie," spelled L-I-E, describes being in a flat, horizontal position of
rest.
OK. Here's an example.
If you have a book in your hand, you can lay it down.
And then you can say it's lying on the table.
Another way to remember the difference is that "lay" always needs a direct
object.
You lay something down.
But you lie down.
Also remember that the present tense is "lay," but the past tense is "laid,"
L-A-I-D.
So I might say last night after I finished reading, I laid the book on the
table.
Laid, L-A-I-D.
So Ken, you didn't put the book down.
You just left it lying around?
Yes, I left it lying around.
If something is lying around, it's just sitting there and not put away.
A messy room would have many things lying around.
And a person can be lying around, too.
If I'm staying at home and doing nothing important, I'm just lying around.
I think that just might be my plan this weekend.
Not a bad idea.
(Chinese).
Thank you, gentlemen.
Well, we continue.
Fans were first used to fill the balloons until they looked like huge sofas.
OK. So these balloons are laid out next to their baskets.
Now they're using something - they're using big or giant fans to fill these
balloons up with air.
Which made them look like huge sofas.
So they aren't big, smooth balloons yet.
They're kind of lumpy and still laying on the ground.
We read: After that, burners on the baskets breathed fire to fill up the
balloons with hot air.
So after they were filled with just regular air from the fans, buners on the
baskets breathed fire to fill the balloons with hot air.
Gabe, this is a great, very descriptive and expressive sentence.
Well, there's a word at the beginning of this sentence: burner.
A hot air balloon needs a gas burner.
And of course the gas will produce fire.
And that will make the hot air balloon rise. OK.
So that's a gas burner.
Now on the baskets, and they breathed fire.
This is a very nice word to use for "breathing" fire or to make fire come out.
It breathes fire.
It's one of our key words from our Word Bank.
Usually we use it to talk about how we or animals will breathe... in and out.
But Carolyn, how is Nathanael using it here?
That's right.
Usually when I think of this word, I think of taking air into the body, and then
letting air out of the body.
But here it's talking about the burners, these gas burners breathing fire.
So fire is being released from the burner into the hot air balloon.
But it's not burning the balloon.
It is helping to fill the balloon with hot air that will let it rise up.
That's right. OK.
So heat rises, of course.
And you need hot air to make a hot air balloon rise.
Well, we continue.
As they took shape, the balloons rose gradually to a standing position.
So we're talking about the balloons taking shape here.
That means they're coming into their final shape, the shape that we all
recognize when we think about hot air balloons.
That's right.
And this was done gradually.
So let's look at that word from our Word Bank.
The word "gradually" just means to do something very slowly, a little bit at a
time.
And here the balloons filled up with air gradually.
So it wasn't right away the balloons were suddenly in the air.
You had to wait.
So a little bit of time for the balloons to fill up.
That's true.
I've been to Taitung before to watch the hot air balloons.
And they gradually fill up with air.
So not at one time, but over time, they gradually do this.
You could also use this word in... in another way.
His English improved gradually to the point where he could give a very good
speech in English.
And it does take time to learn a new language.
So I hope that your English is gradually improving, that it is getting better a
little bit at a time.
Don't be discouraged or upset if it takes a while for you to learn English.
It is not easy.
Continuing on in the article: Feeling no wind, we hoped that the red flag would
soon be changed to a green one.
So green often means go.
If you're driving a car, red means stop, and green means go.
So they want the flag to be changed to green so that they can get in a balloon.
That's right.
Of course Nathanael doesn't need to write here that green means go because
almost everyone around the world knows that red means stop, green means go.
And of course there's another color here - yellow.
It means be careful.
Drive slowly or speed up if you're at a stoplight and you need to get through.
We continue with our last sentence here.
Instead, a yellow flag was raised.
And if it's yellow, you need to proceed with care.
Let's look at that word from our Word Bank: to proceed.
When you proceed, that means you are going ahead with something.
That's right.
So you can go foward, you can continue to do something usually after you've had
to wait for a while.
OK, now you may proceed.
Maybe you are at the airport, and you're waiting in line to go through security.
You have to stop and wait at the waiting line, and then you can proceed to the
next counter.
All right.
So so far today Nathanael is with his friends, and they want to go in a hot air
balloon.
They saw a red flag.
It was a barrier between them.
And then they were hoping for a green flag.
Now what do they have, Carolyn?
They have a yellow flag, so they can proceed with care.
Well, right now I think it's... it's time for us to enjoy a video.
And then we'll join Michelle in the Language Lab.
(Music).
OK.
(Chinese).
And now let's get back to our teachers.
All right.
Well, I'm excited about learning more about Nathanael's story and to see if they
actually rose into the air or not.
But we'll learn more about that next time.
First, I do have a question for you.
If you're thinking about going into a hot air balloon, do you think you could do
it?
Are you afraid of heights?
What do you think about this?
Carolyn, could you do this?
Well, I'm not sure.
I am a little bit afraid of heights.
And it's not because I'm afraid of going up.
It's coming back down that worries me.
I'm a little bit afraid of falling like going up a ladder and then having to
come back down.
But being up high at the top of a building, that's fine.
That's OK, right?
Well, I would agree.
Sometimes I'm afraid of heights.
I guess it depends where I am and how close I am to the edge of something.
Well, thank you for joining us today.
And of course we hope to see you next time to learn more about Nathanael's
experience here on Studio Classroom.
Goodbye.
See you.