节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-06-10
难易度:Medium
关键字:feast, literature, elaborate, leisurely, baked goods, Victorian
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And do you know what time it is?
Well, it's picnic time!
That's right.
If you look in your magazine, the name of today's lesson is called Picnic Time.
Well, have you ever been on a picnic?
They can be quite enjoyable.
Carolyn, have you ever been on a picnic?
I have been on many picnics.
And perhaps one of the most memorable picnics was one that I went on last year.
Last July I went back to the United States for a few weeks,
and I got to go on a really great picnic during the Fourth of July celebrations
and celebrate that holiday with my family.
Well, Fourth of July can be the perfect time to have a picnic because you can go
with your family, and you could see many other people as well.
Picnics can be a great time to get together with friends outside.
And of course, you take a meal as well and just enjoy nature outside.
Well, it's picnic time, and it is time to get started with the first reading of
today's lesson.
Let's do that now.
Picnic Time!
Celebrate summer by eating outside.
Instead of eating at the same old restaurant this weekend, why not go on a
picnic?
If you've never been on one, or if it's been a while, you can discover how good
food tastes outdoors.
Picnics throughout history.
Many believe the first planned outdoor meals took place during medieval times in
Europe.
The well-organized feasts usually included cold meats and fancy baked goods for
wealthy guests of hunting parties.
(Music).
Well, picnics are a great way to spend some time outside. And at the very
beginning we see:
Celebrate summer by eating outside.
And we are going to see just how much fun it can be to eat our food outside.
We see: Instead of eating at the same old restaurant this weekend, why not on on
a picnic?
What do you think, Gabe?
Why not go on a picnic?
Well, yeah, that's an interesting question.
We call this a rhetorical question.
It's a question where the answer really is, well, of course, you should go on a
picnic.
And at the beginning of this sentence we see the phrase: instead of eating at
the same old restaurant this weekend.
The same old restaurant.
Carolyn, does this mean that the restaurant is many years old?
No. This phrase means that it's a place that you go to pretty often or it's
something that doesn't really change.
It's the same every time you're there.
So you might say: Oh, well, how's your hometown doing?
Since I don't live there anymore, I might say: Oh, how's my hometown?
Oh, it's the same old town.
Nothing changed.
Nothing has changed.
It's the same old town.
Or maybe someone might see me after a long time and tell someone else:
Ah, he's the same old Gabe. He hasn't changed at all.
Or maybe you are going to a restaurant, you can tell your friend:
You're just ordering the same old thing.
Why don't you try something new?
And why don't you go on a picnic?
This is a good suggestion.
It is a good suggestion.
And continuing:
If you've never been on one, or if it's been a while, you can discover how good
food tastes outdoors.
And it is a very different experience from eating in a restaurant.
That's right.
It can be very different to go on a picnic.
Of course food tastes different when you're outside if it's not restaurant food.
Often you make it yourself, or someone else that you know makes it for you.
And you can take it and enjoy a picnic.
Now we see this word "on," if you've never been on one.
Usually we use the word "picnic" with the word "on." You go on a picnic
somewhere.
That's right.
And you can discover how good food tastes outdoors.
Well, we've got another section here titled: Picnics throughout history.
So picnics are not something that is new; it's been around for a while.
We see that many believe the first planned outdoor meals took place during
medieval times in Europe.
That's right.
So many people think that these have been around for a long time.
Medieval times in Europe, that was many centuries ago.
And we learn more about this.
The well-organized feasts usually included cold meats and fancy baked goods for
wealthy guests of hunting parties.
Well, that's a big sentence.
We have a lot to talk about there.
And the first thing, of course, is to talk about that Word Bank word: feast.
Now a feast is a meal that you have.
But Carolyn, is it usually a small, ordinary meal?
No. when I think of a feast, I think of a huge meal with many different kinds of
food and a lot of people,
not just something small with three or four or five people but maybe 10 or 20
people.
That's right.
It's usually a big meal.
I might think about a Christmas feast or a Thanksgiving feast, the feast you
have at Chinese New Year,
or a wedding feast - something that you eat with lots of people.
And these were well-organized.
Well, it's a little bit different now.
It doesn't really have to be well-organized to be a picnic now.
You could just do something simple.
But these were well-organized feasts, which needed a lot of planning.
And we see that they usually included cold meats - so not hot food, you're
heating outside - and fancy baked goods.
And a baked good is usually a desert, something sweet that you eat, probably
cake or cookies or muffins, something delicious - baked goods.
And who were these things for, Gabe?
Well, they were for wealthy guests of hunting parties.
So of course if you're a wealthy guest of something, then you're rich, you have
a lot of money, you were invited to join something.
And so people were invited to join these picnics.
They were wealthy guests of hunting parties.
Carolyn, what's a hunting party?
I mean, is that kind of a fun celebration where you bring balloons, and you
dress up, and you have a theme?
What's going on here?
Not... not quite, Gabe.
Uh, this is not that kind of party.
Here a "party" means a group of people.
And this group of people were people who wanted to go hunting.
So wealthy people would invite their friends, and they would all go hunting
together.
And that would be a hunting party.
Interesting.
OK. So you see this word "party" is used a little bit differently than the way
we usually think about it.
Another way you could use this word like this is when you're at a restaurant.
You made a reservation.
And then someone would say: Oh. Are you Harbor, party of five?
Yes, a party of five. That means you're a group of five people going to eat at
that restaurant.
That's right.
Well, now it's time for us to learn something with Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.