节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-03-22
难易度:Medium
关键字:obstacle, illustrate, graceful, prominently, octagonal, pavilion
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
An I'm Nathanael.
And you are joining us for day two of our lesson - Amazing Bridges.
And hey, bridges!
That makes me think of a song that I used to sing when I was a kid: London
Bridge is falling down.
Do you guys want to play?
I haven't played that in years.
Well, I... I know that game, but I don't know if we really have enough people.
Of course, we do.
We can get people from the studio.
Hey, is anybody out there who wants to play?
Oh, wow.
Excellent! Here we go.
London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.
Hey.
That's not a lady.
Oh, yeah. That's not a lady.
We should do this again.
OK, one more time.
We'll try.
Try again.
London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.
London Bridge is falling down, my fair lady.
That's the one we want.
I was right.
Thank you. Thank you all.
Thank you.
All our guest stars.
Great job, you guys.
Well, that was... that was a lot of fun.
I... I miss playing these games about bridges.
And maybe we should start learning some more about bridges.
Yeah. We do have a lot more to learn.
Let's do that right now.
Open your magazine.
We'll get started with the first reading for today.
(Music).
Amazing Bridges.
Different roles.
Bridges do many things in addition to spanning obstacles.
The Khaju Bridge in Esfahan, Iran, illustrates some of the roles bridges play.
Built around 1650, the bridge's graceful arches have provided people with a
shady meeting place for hundreds of years.
In the middle of the bridge sits an octagonal pavilion with an art gallery.
It also acts as a dam.
By blocking the flow of the Zayandeh River, the bridge provides water for
gardens on its upstream side.
Steps along its downstream side provide locals with a place for doing laundry.
We know that there are many kinds of bridges that do different things, so we
could say that bridges have different roles.
And the first sentence of this section says:
Bridges do many things in addition to spanning obstacles.
Now we talked about this word "spanning," to cross over from one point to
another.
But this word "obstacles" is new, and it's a key word for today that we want to
talk about.
Obstacle.
How would you describe an obstacle, Carolyn?
Well, an obstacle could be something that is in the way.
And a bridge usually tries to get past an obstacle.
Maybe a river that's difficult to cross, you build a bridge over it.
It's no longer an obstacle, and it is no longer in your way.
But obstacle can have many meanings, right, Gabe?
Well, that's right.
I think it could be anything in your way of something that you want to do.
So you could talk about the obstacles that you face in life.
What is your goal?
What obstacles are in the way?
In studying acting, I had to think about the obstacles in the way of my
character.
My character had a goal.
What obstacles are in his way?
He has to get through those obstacles.
How else could you use that word, Nathanael?
Well, sometimes you might actually use obstacles to put something in the way of
something to stop something from happening, like road obstacles.
If you see a road obstacle, you know that maybe that's an area that's being
repaired.
So they could be positive or negative in that way.
Now we have another bridge that we're going to talk about.
Can you read the next sentence, please, Gabe?
Yes. We see that Kahju Bridge in Esfahan, Iran, illustrates some of the roles
bridges play.
So this illustrates, or this kind of helps to demonstrate the different roles
that bridges play.
Let's take a look at that Word Bank word.
It is: illustrate.
Now if you illustrate something, usually I think of maybe someone who has
illustrated a book.
That means they've animated it.
They've drawn pictures inside to help tell the story.
But I think it could be used in other ways, right, Carolyn?
That's right.
Well, here it just means that it shows it is an example of how bridges can be
used.
And you could have maybe a story but without pictures that illustrates the
importance of something.
So if there is a moral to the story, then the story illustrates the importance
of honesty, that moral.
How else might you use this word, Nathanael?
I think we often wear clothes that illustrate our personality.
What we wear can tell you a little bit about what kind of person we are.
OK. Now we learn a little bit more about this bridge in the next sentence.
It says: Built around 1650, the bridge's graceful arches have provided people
with a shady meeting place for hundreds of years.
So this is an old bridge.
But there's an important word here as well.
Graceful.
We want to look at this key word also: graceful.
Graceful, I think of as being something that moves very well, but it looks very
beautiful.
What other ways can you describe this word?
Or what is something that is graceful, Gabe?
Well, yeah, something that does not look awkward, it flows smoothly, something
is graceful.
I think of a graceful dancer.
Some of them look great while they're dancing on stage.
I also use it in a slightly different way to talk about the way that you speak.
You want to be graceful with your words.
That means you make other people feel good or feel comfortable with the things
that you say.
You have graceful words, not mean words.
That's right.
And I often think of ballet as being a very graceful form of dance.
Well, if we continue on with the article we see that in the middle of the bridge
sits an octagonal pavilion with an art gallery.
So that's something very unique.
There aren't usually art galleries in the middle of bridges.
How does it continue, Nathanael?
Well, it also acts as a dam, which is just another role that this bridge, the
Kahju Bridge in Iran, plays.
As you see, it has many different roles just though it's one bridge.
OK. What's the next sentence, Gabe?
Well, we continue.
By blocking the flow of the Zayandeh River, the bridge provides water for
gardens on its upstream side.
And steps along its downstream side provide locals with a place for doing
laundry.
So how does this look, Carolyn?
What are we talking about here?
Well, it sounds like if you are on the bridge and you look upstream, you're
looking where the water is coming from.
Then there's water for gardens.
But if you look downstream away from the bridge and where the water is flowing
to, there are places for people to do their laundry.
So you have gardens on one side, and people washing their clothes on the other
side of this bridge, with an art gallery in the middle of it.
So it's a very unusual bridge.
That's right.
It's unusual.
It seems like quite a sight, not just the bridge, but also everything that's
going on around it.
Well, we do have more to learn with Steve and Ken in the Information Cloud, and
then we will join Michelle.
Hi, friends.
There are lots of "up - down" word pairs in English.
Surprisingly, the majority of them, like upload and download, have no relation
to location.
So today let's talk about a few that do.
Hopefully "upstairs" and "downstairs" don't require any explanation.
But this one might: uptown and downtown.
Uptown could mean the northern part of a city, but it could also mean a city's
upscale residential area, regardless of the location.
Likewise, downtown could mean the southern part of a city or simply the historic
or central business district.
OK. Our next "up - down" word pair comes from sports that are played on a field
like football and rugby: upfield and downfield.
Simply stated, upfield and downfield are opposite ends of a field.
But which word to use would depend on 1. where your team is on the field, and 2.
whether your team is at that moment playing defense or offense.
OK. We should also mention upwind and downwind.
Upwind means into or against the wind,
while downwind means in the same direction that the wind is blowing, an
important distinction for hunters, bikers and sailors.
(Chinese).
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.