节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-02-23
难易度:Low
关键字:minimum, knitting, go downhill, responsibility, confession, priority
Hey, everyone, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
I'm Carolyn.
And I'm Nathanael.
And you are joining us for our second day of Jo's story: Packing in Practice.
Yes, she learned the hard way not to pack too many things.
Well, this just makes me think.
I mean, everyone has a process to packing.
What kinds of things do you like to pack first?
Carolyn, what do you pack first when you're packing?
Well, I try to think what is the largest thing I'm going to take with me, and I
put that in first so that all of the smaller things can be placed around it.
OK. That's great.
What about you, Nathanael?
What do you like to pack first?
I usually think first about what is what I need the most.
So I usually pack clothes first.
Of course, there are different kinds of clothes, but I usually pack that first.
All right.
This is great, you guys.
I'm writing these things down because I also need to have better... packing
habits.
Um, so pack the heavy things and the things that I need.
Excellent! I have lots to learn from my friends and, of course, from Jo.
Let's continue learning about her story: Packing in Practice.
Packing in Practice.
Confession time: I pack a lot of stuff when I travel.
My goal is to take the minimum, but that rarely works out.
Something in my mind cries, "Jo! You will need more jeans and shirts!
Bring all the DVDs and books you own in case you get bored!
Pack some knitting needles because you like to knit sometimes!
Better pack a chess set so you can play with the new friends you make!" The
packing goes downhill from there.
Well, it sounds like Jo is having an interesting time packing, and she starts
off with:
Confession time: I pack a lot of stuff when I travel.
And the very first word of the sentence "confession" is a More Information word
in our article.
And if you confess something, it means that you tell the truth.
So she feels like there is something that she needs to tell you.
And it's "she packs too much." Nathanael, how did she continue in this article?
Well, the next sentence is:
My goal is to take the minimum, but that rarely works out.
And first here we have a Word Bank word called minimum.
Here "minimum" is a noun, but it can also be an adjective.
And it means the least amount.
How could we use this word, Gabe?
Well, I usually think about maybe a worker or an employee who gets the minimum
wage.
That's the lowest amount that that company or the country should give an
employee.
The minimum wage, W-A-G-E, the amount that they get paid.
Um, but I also think about maybe like a minimum charge.
If you want to get into certain restaurants or show, then there might be a
minimum charge.
That's the least amount that you need to pay if you want to go in.
That's right.
And a lot of times when I think of minimum, I also think of the word: maximum.
And "maximum" means the greatest or the most of something.
Minimum, we say it was the least or smallest amount.
And many times you might think of the maximum speed limit.
It's the fastest that you are allowed to drive on the road, and you should not
go faster than the maximum.
That's right.
Minimum and maximum are opposites.
And maximum is another great word to know.
Well, there's another phrase we want to look at here at the end of this
sentence: works out or to work out.
It rarely works out.
"It doesn't turn out well" is what we're talking about here.
How would we use that phrase, Gabe?
Well, you could say something like: I was dating someone but it didn't work out.
So it's something I wanted to do but it didn't succeed in the end.
It didn't work out.
Sometimes the phrase "work out" can mean succeed in something.
How would you use that phrase, Carolyn?
Well, you might say that your plans didn't work out, or that everything worked
out in the end.
It was all OK.
Everything worked out.
Yeah. Those are great examples of that phrase.
Let's move on in the article.
The next sentence is:
Something in my mind cries: Jo, you will need more jeans and shirts!
Have you... either of you ever felt this way when you're packing that you need
more clothes, more of something?
Well actually, yeah.
Maybe I'll pack something and then realize that I... I do need some more of
these things.
I have to keep using the same pair of pants over and over again.
What about you, Carolyn?
A lot of times when I'm packing, I'll think: Oh, but what if... what if I have
to go to a place that has this kind of weather?
I should probably pack a little bit more and then a little bit more.
And I end up packing too much sometimes.
These are all things that we need, but sometimes we want to take things that are
just fun.
Let's look at the next sentence.
Bring all the DVDs and books you own in case you get bored.
We'd like to take something that we can use for the spare time that we have.
And that takes up space in our packing as well.
What else did she pack, Gabe?
Well, she also said: Pack some knitting needles because you like to knit
sometimes.
So she has this hobby knitting that we want to talk about from the Word Bank.
It is the word "knitting." Do you like to knit?
You're kind of using two long things are called "needles" that kind of look like
long chopsticks, actually.
And you use those to create something like a sweater or a blanket.
You can knit something.
Carolyn, do you like knitting, or have you ever knitted something?
Well, my knitting is not very good.
I can't really knit very much, but my roommates in college were very good at
knitting.
And they could knit small dolls and little figures of animals.
It was quite impressive.
It is pretty impressive when you meet someone who can knit or maybe if they knit
something for you.
Well, what is the last thing that Jo says here? She says:
Better pack a chess set so you can play with the new friends you make.
Nathanael, that seems kind of ridiculous to me.
Yeah. A chess set is something very big to be packing in a suitcase.
I guess if you're going to spend a few months in a place, you want something to
do in the stuff that you pack.
But a chess set? I don't know, that seems like something big.
Mmhm. It seems really big.
But you know what, this makes me think of actually now everyone has iPads and
Androids and things like that.
You can do so many things just on your little tablet that you couldn't do
before.
Maybe you had to pack a chess set before, but now you can just take your... your
tablet and use that to play games.
Well, let's continue learning something with Liz in the Grammar Gym.
Hello, friends.
My name is Liz.
And thanks for joining me here at the Grammar Gym.
We read in today's article:
Better pack a chess set so you can play with the new friends you make.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Our focus today is on the word at the beginning of the sentence: better.
It's a sure and informal way of saying: you had better.
Now we normally use "we had better" when we want to seriously encourage someone
to do something.
But when we're in an informal situation, we can just shorten it to "better." And
in the case of today's sentence,
the writer is talking to herself, telling herself to pack a chess set.
OK, let's look at some examples.
Better bring an umbrella because it might rain!
Or: Better have some extra cash in case you want to buy something at a
convenience store.
And friends, if you'd like to see some more example sentences, you can check out
today's Grammar Tip section for more examples.
This is Liz from the Grammar Gym.
I'll see you next time.
Better listen to Liz.
She knows what she's talking about.
Well, the last part of this reading says: The packing goes downhill from there.
Now you know that if you're walking to the top of a hill, you could say you're
walking uphill.
And if you're going to the bottom of a hill, you're walking downhill.
So what does this mean, the packing was going downhill from there?
Carolyn, please explain this.
Well, it doesn't mean that her packing was going down a hill.
She was not packing on a hill.
It means that she was not succeeding in packing things that she should be
packing.
She was packing too much.
You might say:
I was trying to start a new diet, but I had a cookie and then a piece of cake,
and then a box of chocolates, and it just went downhill from there.
It went downhill from there.
Or earlier I was talking about dating somebody.
I had a conversation and I started to share my true feelings about the girl, and
the conversation went downhill from there.
She got anxious and awkward and nervous.
It went downhill from there.
Of course, things can go downhill, but sometimes they do get better.
You could say I was traveling and my trip was going downhill; but then on my
second flight there was an empty seat next to me.
I had a little extra room.
So things weren't so bad anymore.
Things weren't going downhill anymore.
Well, now it is time to see Michelle in the Language Lab for something that she
wants to teach us today.
Hi, everyone. I'm Michelle.