节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-04-02
难易度:Low
关键字:identity, at bat, defeat, pastime, nervous breakdown
(Music).
Hello, everyone.
And welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And thank you for joining us today for our lesson about baseball.
It is "more than a game" as you will see in our title.
We're going to be talking about this for the next couple of days.
Well, have you ever played baseball?
Do you enjoy baseball?
Do you know how to play baseball?
Do you know the rules?
Carolyn, what do you think about baseball?
Well, I really like baseball.
I don't watch it very much on TV, but I used to play it when I was younger
because my dad was a coach for one of the teams.
So I was on my dad's team, and it was a lot of fun.
Did you ever play baseball, Gabe?
You know, Carolyn, I never played baseball.
When I was younger, I played another sport like it called softball.
Have you ever played softball?
I haven't played softball.
Can you tell me about that a little bit?
Yeah. The ball's a little bigger than a baseball.
And it's pitched a little differently, a little slower.
I think it's probably a little easier to play than baseball.
It's a fun game.
Baseball can also be called fastball, F-A-S-T-B-A-L-L.
And today and for the next couple of days, we're going to learn how it is more
than just a game.
Let's get started with our first reading of the day.
(Music).
More Than a Game.
Life is like baseball.
Baseball and the U.S. have a long history together.
The sport is so popular that it's even called America's Favorite Pastime.
Baseball is an endless source of entertainment for the American public.
But the love of the game goes deeper than that.
Baseball is so much a part of America's identity that many find lessons on the
diamond.
Well, there are a lot of things that we can learn about life from baseball.
And we see at the very beginning, "Life is like baseball." So life is kind of
like the game of baseball.
And we see that baseball and the U.S. have a long history together.
So baseball is not something that is very new in the United States.
It has been there for a long time.
Do you know anything about this game, Gabe?
Well, I know quite a bit about this game baseball even though I've never played
it before.
But it's true; the U.S. and baseball have a long history together.
You could also use the idiom: they go hand in hand.
These things go hand in hand, the U.S. and baseball.
We're going to be learning a little bit about baseball but not really about the
rules, more about lessons you can learn from this game baseball.
That's right.
And we see in our article that this sport is so popular that it's even called
America's Favorite Pastime.
So this game is really important in the United States and in U.S. history if
it's called America's Favorite Pastime.
And this is an interesting word here, this word "pastime." What does that mean,
Gabe?
Well, "pastime," an easy way to remember what this word means is it's how you
pass the time, what you do with your time.
So you might think of a hobby as being a pastime, something that you do or that
you enjoy doing.
So baseball is America's Favorite Pastime.
Carolyn, what other pastimes can you think of?
Well, you might have a pastime where you enjoy watching sports instead of
playing them.
A lot of Americans enjoy watching baseball even if they don't play it.
So that could be your pastime since you haven't played, Gabe.
It's true.
Actually a lot of people enjoy watching American football during the football
season.
It's another one of America's Favorite Pastimes.
Something I enjoy doing is playing drums.
It's one of my favorite pastimes.
What about you?
How do you enjoy passing your time?
What do you like to do?
You can call that a pastime.
That's right.
Well, continuing in our article we see that baseball is an endless source of
entertainment for the American public.
So it sounds like the United States gets a lot of entertainment out of this
game.
That's right.
People are always interested in baseball.
That's why it's an endless source of entertainment.
It's entertainment that does not end.
And I think Liz is going to share a little more about this in the Grammar Gym.
Let's go there now.
Hello, friends.
I hope you're doing well today.
Thanks for joining me here at the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
Now in today's article we see this sentence:
Baseball is an endless source of entertainment for the American public.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus today is on the phrase: endless source of.
It's a fun and exaggerated way of saying "constantly creating," so.
Today's sentence just means that baseball is always providing entertainment for
the American public.
And let's have some examples.
Paula's poor spending habits became an endless source of headaches for her
family.
Or: This new computer program claims to offer an endless source of educational
games that can be used in the classroom.
Now if you'd like to see some more example sentences, please take a look at
today's Grammar Tip section in your Studio Classroom magazine.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
See you next time.
Continuing in our article we see: But the love of the game goes deeper than
that.
So talking about being an endless source of entertainment, it is much more than
that.
It goes deeper than that.
Can you explain this phrase a little bit, Gabe?
Yeah. Maybe you think something is a way on the surface or it appears to be just
one way.
Baseball is just a game.
That's what many people may think.
But it goes deeper than that.
There... there are things that you can learn from baseball.
So it's not just a game.
It goes deeper than that.
That's right.
And in the article we see that baseball is so much a part of America's identity
that many find lessons on the diamond.
So it is so much a part of America's identity.
This is an interesting phrase here: so much a part of something.
If something is so much a part of it, then it is very important.
It's a really important part.
You might say that street food is so much a part of the culture that there are
entire areas that just have food carts.
It's very, very popular.
Sure.
Or you might think that American Black history is so much a part of jazz music.
You can't separate it.
Jazz music came from a lot of history there.
You might also say... or I would say that coffee was so much a part of my dad's
diet that he could not do without it.
He got headaches if he didn't drink coffee; so much a part of something.
And of course, we see here:
Baseball is so much a part of America's identity that many find lessons on the
diamond.
That's right.
And that's another great word there, the word "identity." If you have an
identity, that is who you are,
the way you identify or know yourself, the way you portray yourself to other
people.
So America's identity has a lot to do with baseball.
That's right. It does.
And there are other ways you can use that word "identity." Here we're talking
about America's identity, how people recognize America.
You might also think about hot dogs and hamburgers or apple pie when you think
about America's identity.
Or maybe your personal identity.
You could also call that your ID.
If someone is asking for your identity, they might be asking for your ID, or
identification.
That's right.
Another good word "identification," comes from the word "identity." Well,
the end of that sentence we see "find lessons on the diamond." And when I think
of a diamond,
I think of a shape, a square... a square shape but it's kind of turned on at
side.
Or I think of a stone.
But here a diamond is referring to the baseball field.
Right, Gabe?
That's right.
We're not talking about a precious jewel or just a shape.
The diamond is the baseball field.
So when you're talking about sports and saying "let's go to the diamond and play
ball," you're talking about going to a baseball field to play baseball.
That's right.
Well, I think we have some more to learn from Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.