节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-03-21
难易度:Medium
关键字:transportation, engineering, canal, concrete, underneath, span, optical
illusion


























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Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
And it's an amazing day.
It's a great day to talk about Amazing Bridges.
That's right.
Over the next couple of days, we will be learning about some amazing bridges
around the world.
Well, this just makes me think.
I mean, you've seen many different kinds of bridges, I'm sure.
What bridge comes to your mind when you think about a bridge?
Nathanael, what bridge comes to your mind?
Well, I do think of a few, but one of them is a very famous bridge called the
Brooklyn Bridge.
The south part of New York City has the Brooklyn Bridge.
And I've walked on it twice.
And I always think it's very interesting to walk across it.
What about you, Carolyn?
Do you think of any bridges?
Well, the first bridge I think of is the one that I can see from the kitchen
window in my house in West Virginia.
But there's also a very famous bridge in West Virginia called the New River
Gorge Bridge.
And it's very, very tall and very, very long because it spans the tops of two
mountains.
That's so cool.
There are many different kinds of bridges.
I think of a bridge that I jumped off of.
Obviously it's not a very high bridge, but I jumped off into a river below.
That was quite fun.
Well, we're going to learn about different bridges today.
So open your magazine and let's get started with the first reading.
(Music).
Amazing Bridges.
Bringing cultures and people closer together.
Bridges come in many shapes and sizes, from simple spans to architectural
wonders.
People admire their beauty.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Tower Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge draw
countless tourists each year.
Bridges are an important part of our transportation system, too.
Imagine trying to get to work or school without any bridges!
Amazing design.
While all bridges rely on careful engineering, some attract attention because of
their interesting examples of design.
The Magdeburg Water Bridge in Germany is a wonderful example and looks a lot
like an optical illusion.
It certainly sounds like there are a lot of very interesting bridges out there
that we can learn about.
And in today's article we see that bridges bring cultures and people closer
together.
And the first sentence in our article says: Bridges come in many shapes and
sizes, from simple spans to architectural wonders.
And a span is just something that goes from one point to another point.
So earlier I said that the bridge in West Virginia spans two mountaintops.
It goes from one point to the other.
Continuing on in the article we see that people admire their beauty.
And what are some of these bridges that people admire, Nathanael?
The next sentence has many examples.
The Sydney Harbour Bridge, Tower Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge draw
countless tourists each year.
"Countless" is like saying you can't count them because there are so many - so
many tourists each year.
That's right.
And we continue on with: Bridges are an important part of our transportation
system, too.
And in this sentence we see a key word, "transportation." And bridges are a very
important part of our transportation system.
What is transportation, Gabe?
Well, transportation is how you get around.
So do you take a bus?
Maybe you take a taxi, the subway.
These are all different forms of transportation.
When we talk about forms of transportation, we think about those things.
A bridge is not a form of transportation, but you definitely need bridges to get
from one place to another in some areas.
This helps with transportation.
That's right.
So many times a bus will have to cross over a river.
If you were taking public transportation on a bus, then you might need a bridge
to get to the other side of the river.
How else would you use this word, Nathanael?
Well, I was thinking that while I was in the United States, my main form or main
kind of transportation was by car.
But now that I'm in Taipei, I mostly use public transportation to get around,
mostly the subway, sometimes buses.
Yes. So there's a great public transportation system here.
And it's important to have bridges in our transportation system to get from one
point to the next.
Now continuing in the article: Imagine trying to get to work or school without
any bridges.
Is that possible for you?
How many bridges do you cross on your way to school or on your way to work?
I don't cross any bridges.
Do you, Gabe?
I don't cross any bridges, either.
I actually live pretty close by to where I work.
Um, but I do like this sentence right here.
It says imagine something without something else.
Imagine trying to get to work or school without any bridges.
I mean, you could use that sentence in different ways.
Imagine driving without hands.
Of course that's pretty dangerous.
Don't do it.
You could say imagine the world without mountains.
Well, that would be pretty boring.
Nathanael, how else might you use that phrase, "imagine something without
something else"?
Well, imagine school without class!
What reason would there be to go?
Or school without rules?
I think it would be a mess at a school without rules.
That's right.
Imagine the world without Studio Classroom.
It just wouldn't be the same.
Studio Classroom is amazing.
Right?
That is right.
And we're going to learn about something else that is amazing - the amazing
design of these bridges.
And continuing in the article it says:
While all bridges rely on careful engineering, some attract attention because of
their interesting examples of design.
Now Nathanael, you and I were kind of talking about this word "engineering"
earlier.
Can you explain a little bit more about this Word Bank word?
Well, it is a Word Bank word, so it's very important for today.
Engineering is kind of like taking science and math and using them in useful
ways, practical ways, uh,
maybe for something like building bridges but also for maybe uh, making
different kinds of structures as well like... like buildings or machines.
These are all different kinds of engineering.
That's right.
How else might you use this word, Gabe?
Well, I think that if you want to go to school to study engineering, MIT is a
good one for that.
There are some other famous schools around the world where you can go and study
engineering, or to become an engineer.
So there are different forms of that word as well.
If you're studying engineering, you want to become an engineer of some kind.
That's right.
Well, let's see if we can cross another little bridge and go see what Liz has
for us today in the Grammar Gym.
Hello, friends. Welcome to the Grammar Gym.
My name is Liz.
We see this sentence in today's article:
While all bridges rely on careful engineering, some attract attention because of
their interesting examples of design.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus is on the sentence pattern:
While all [situation A], some [situation B].
This is a very simple but useful sentence pattern.
And it's usually used in formal situations, especially in writing.
Here are some examples.
While all students have classes from Monday through Friday, some take special
classes on Saturdays.
Or: While all tourists visit the base of the waterfall, some take the extra time
to hike to the top of the waterfall.
And if you'd like to see some more example sentences, you'll find them in
today's Grammar Tip section in your Studio Classroom magazine.
That's it for today.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
I'll see you next time.
Bye-bye.
Thanks, Liz.
Well, continuing in our article we see that the Magdeburg Water Bridge in
Germany is a wonderful example and looks a lot like an optical illusion.
So this bridge in Germany is a great design, an amazing design and looks like an
optical illusion.
So "optical" means your eyes, something to do with your eyes.
So it is a trick of the eye, an illusion.
And Gabe, I think you have an optical illusion for us, don't you?
Well, yes. I have a pen here.
And if I move my pen in the right way, it looks like the panic is not straight
but it is rubber.
Let's see if it's going right now.
Does it look like my pen is rubber?
Yes.
This is a trick that I learned in the fourth grade, an optical illusion.
But Carolyn...
Let me... let me see that pen, Gabe.
I... I'm not sure if it's actually a rubber pen, maybe...
It's... it's not rubber.
It's straight.
Yeah. Don't break it!
Oh... sorry, sorry.
Um, no, it's a real pen. It's not made of rubber.
Thank you, Gabriel.
Yeah.
Thank you.
No problem. Thank you.
Yeah. OK.
Well um, I think that there is some more illusion information waiting for us in
the Information Cloud.
And then we will see Michelle in the Language Lab.
Hi, friends.
Let's talk about various sensory illusions today.
Illusions are distortions in our sensory perception.
They deceive and mislead us into thinking something is a certain way when, in
reality, it's not.
For most of us, vision is our most dominant sense.
So we're most familiar with optical illusions - that is illusions that deceive
our eyes.
The most well-known example is perhaps the mirage: seeing water in the middle of
a desert when, in reality, there is no water at all.
Right.
But there are other kinds of illusions, too, such as auditory illusions or
sounds that trick our ears.
One illusion is called the Shepherd tone.
During the audio test, sets of tones seem to be rising and falling in pitch, but
they're really not.
It's kind of like the audio version of a spinning barbershop pole.
Good example.
And finally there are tactile illusions.
One of the more famous is called the thermal grill.
It's made up of small alternating metal bars or tubes, half warm about 40
degrees and half cold, say, 20 degrees.
Both safe temperatures, but when you touch the grill, you feel as though your
hand is burning.
But don't worry, it's not.
It's just an illusion.
(Chinese).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.