节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-03-13
难易度:High
关键字:gender, resign, start from scratch, on edge, minor, fall by the wayside
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
And we're glad that you could join us for today.
We're getting started with a lesson called Difficulties in German.
And our author Jo Wuertz has had some interesting experiences learning the
German language.
Well, it's not always easy to learn a new language.
Carolyn, of course you speak English, but I know that you've also learned
Chinese.
Do you have any experiences about how difficult it might be to learn this
language?
Well, it is very challenging.
And there was one time I wanted to buy a pair of shoes, but instead of saying
the Chinese word for "shoes," I said the Chinese word for "eggplant".
Wait. How does that go?
So what's the Chinese word for "shoe"?
What's the Chinese word for "eggplant"?
Uh, the "shoe" is (Chinese).
And the "eggplant" is (Chinese).
And so the sound is very similar.
And I got them confused when I was trying to buy this pair of shoes.
And it was a little embarrassing.
Well, that does make for a good story.
I think those kinds of things happen a lot if you are learning a new language.
Nathanael, has anything like that happened to you?
Well, yes. There was one time that I meant to say "chest hair" (Chinese), and I
ended up saying "panda" (Chinese).
And people were very confused.
Well, I think it is time that we get to the first part of today's reading.
(Music).
Difficulties in German.
My successes - and failures - at studying German abroad.
I will be the first to admit that my German skills are quite poor.
As a university student I decided to minor in German.
For some reason, I really liked the language, but I was not particularly good at
learning it.
The grammar and word order confused me.
Prepositions made no sense.
All the nouns had genders, and I rarely remembered which noun was which.
My only talent was spelling - I got an A+ on every vocabulary test I took.
After two years of studies, I resigned myself to communicating in broken German,
and signed up to study in Germany to complete my degree.
It was the hardest semester I would ever have.
(Music).
Well, I always enjoy reading Jo's stories.
At the very beginning here we see this tagline.
It says: My successes - and failures - at studying German abroad.
And something I do appreciate about Jo is that she says everything.
She's not just talking about the good things.
She also talks about the negative things.
She's very honest.
She talks about her successes and her failures at learning this new and somewhat
difficult language.
Well, the first sentence here begins with "I will be the first to admit that my
German skills are quite poor." And before we can continue,
we're going to enjoy some time with Liz in the Grammar Gym.
Hi there, friends.
Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
Here's our Grammar Tip sentence.
I will be the first to admit that my German skills are quite poor.
Notice the phrase: to be the first to admit.
Basically, it means the writer is willing to say that her German is not very
good.
We use this expression "to be the first to + a verb" when someone is admitting
that they're responsible for something that is not so good.
Now usually when we're describing ourselves, we don't like to talk about our
poor qualities.
But sometimes there are situations where we'll be willing to say that we're not
very good in something.
For example: Although Tom comes from a family of accountants, he'll be the first
to admit his math is very poor.
Or: Dr. Nelson is a long-time expert in this field, but he'll be the first to
admit he has no idea how we should handle this case.
Now if you want to see some more example sentences, you'll find them in today's
Grammar Tip section in your magazine.
And that's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
I'll see you next time.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, Liz, for being the first to explain that sentence to us.
As we continue: As a university student I decided to minor in German.
All right.
We see a word there in that sentence, "minor." Nathanael, can you tell us about
this word, to minor in something?
You've probably heard that you major in something in college.
Well, of course you can also minor in something else.
I personally had a minor in Media, though my major is in Bible.
It's different.
OK. Carolyn, did you minor in anything while you were staying at university?
Well, I thought about having an Honors minor, and I was able to complete it.
And my sister has a Physics minor.
So she was already taking a lot of math classes, and Physics fit in very well
with her major.
So she decided to have a minor as well.
Well, I did not minor in anything.
I got a major in Communications, and I studied Theater.
But we see that Jo minored in German.
She decided to minor in German.
We don't know what her major was, but that's not important for this lesson.
Nathanael, how do we continue this story?
The next sentence says:
For some reason, I really liked the language, but I was not particularly good at
learning it.
So she is taking on a challenge.
All right.
She wasn't good at learning it, it was a challenge.
And she continues: The grammar and word order confused me.
How might this have been confusing, Carolyn?
What was confusing to her?
Well, the grammar and word order in German is very different from English.
So she had to learn a new grammar system, and the words were in different
places.
All right.
And she continues by saying "Prepositions made no sense." She could not
understand them.
Well, I like that phrase - if something makes no sense or if something makes
sense.
How else could you use that phrase?
I might say "Oh, that makes sense" if I really understand it.
What is something that makes sense or doesn't make sense to you, Nathanael?
Well, it would make no sense to listen to really loud music when you're trying
to sleep.
It probably would not help you very much.
All right. I wouldn't understand that either.
Well, uh, prepositions were confusing for Jo.
She says they made no sense.
And she continues:
All the nouns had genders, and I rarely remembered which noun was which.
Let's take a look at a word from that sentence.
It is "gender." And there's a good word there from the Word Bank: gender.
This talks about male or female.
Humans, of course, are either male or female.
But some words in some languages can also either be male or female.
And of course, we also talk about gender roles.
That's something that many people argue about - what is right for women to do or
men to do, gender roles.
But the rest of the sentence as we see a phrase here that says "which was
which." She rarely remembered which noun was which.
Let's talk about that phrase.
Nathanael, what can you tell us about this sentence pattern?
Well, when you are learning a new language, sometimes it's hard to tell which
word is which.
Sometimes they just sound almost exactly the same.
We gave some examples earlier, uh, very similar sounding words.
That's right.
Which is which.
Oh, these shoes look the same.
Or my bag looks the same as yours, which is which?
Well, of course, there are different ways to tell which is which.
Carolyn, how does our article continue?
Well, it says:
My only talent was spelling.
I got an A+ on every vocabulary test I took.
So it sounds like she did pretty well on her vocabulary tests.
She got an A+.
And that's kind of a different grading system than what is used here in Asia.
Nathanael, can you tell us a little bit more?
Well, A+ is the best grade that you could probably get in the United States.
But here, of course, there... they use a percentage system.
One hundred percent would be the best grade that you could get.
OK. Let's move on to the Information Cloud.
From our lesson today, it does seem like one would have to have a talent for
German in order to learn the language.
Well, our writer does use the word "talent." She says her only talent was
spelling.
So let's talk about that.
A talent is a natural ability or skill.
Right.
Someone who is talented shows an exceptional natural ability to do something.
Another word we might use is "gifted".
Right.
Being gifted and being talented are pretty much the same thing.
But the word "gift" has the connotation that it's something God-given.
Someone might have a gift for making people laugh.
And that means he has a great sense of humor.
Now I've known a few gifted children; and I certainly know some gifted adults.
I have a friend who has a knack for learning languages.
She can speak six languages very well.
She's definitely gifted in language learning.
Wow! That's pretty amazing.
A knack, spelled K-N-A-C-K, is a special way of doing something.
If you have a knack for something, then you are not only good at it, but you
might have a unique way of doing it.
And then there's "genius," which refers to somebody with exceptional ability,
especially somebody whose intellectual or creative achievements gain wide
recognition.
And very few of us are geniuses.
(Chinese).
Thank you, gentlemen.
Well, we continue with Jo's story.
After two years of studies, I resigned myself to communicating in broken German,
and signed up to study in Germany to complete my degree.
All right.
Let's take a look at one key word right there.
It is the word "resign." When you resign yourself to do something, that kind of
means you... you gave up a little bit.
You went to another position that was a little more comfortable.
How could you use that word, Carolyn?
Well, when I think of the word "resign," I think of something that is
inevitable, which is a word we learned in a previous lesson this month.
And if you resign yourself to doing something, maybe you don't really want to do
it.
So like: I resigned myself to waiting in a really long line.
All right.
All right. You didn't want to do it, but you resigned to doing it.
Well, Jo continues:
It was the hardest semester I would ever have.
Friends, this is a great introduction to a wonderful story.
We have more after learning with Michelle and, of course, taking a break.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.