节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-08-01
难易度:Low
关键字:ambitious, efficiently, line, extend, metro
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
My name is Steve.
Thanks for joining us today.
We're going to start our HISTORY feature this month by stepping back into 19th
century London, England.
At that time London was the hub of a world empire.
It was a magnet for medical, industrial and scientific innovations.
It was the place to go and the place to be for any person with any ambition.
Now as attractive as London was, it had some big problems that threatened its
future as a great metropolis.
And that's where our lesson comes in.
So let's open our Studio Classroom magazines to page 12 and learn how the subway
saved London.
The History of Subways.
Learn about some of the world's oldest underground transportation systems.
London.
In 1863 ambitious people from all over England were moving to London, Europe's
largest city.
They hoped to find opportunity and wealth there.
Instead they found crowds, dirt and disease.
Housing was hard to find, and garbage filled the streets.
People traveled by horse-drawn vehicles that moved only 8 kilometers per hour.
So London opened the world's first subway line, the Met, to help move all these
people more efficiently.
It was only six kilometers long, but it quickly attracted many passengers.
(Music).
Hello, and thank you so much for joining us here in the studio.
My name is Kaylah.
And my name is Ryan.
And we are glad you're joining us for this HISTORY article today.
We're talking about something that if you live in a major city, you've probably
used before.
That's right.
Now we currently live in Taipei, so I definitely use this.
But my hometown does not have one of these.
Does yours?
Uh, no, mine doesn't.
But let's talk about what we're actually learning about today.
We're learning The History of Subways.
That's right.
We're talking about the history of subways and why we have them.
Hmm. Subway sandwiches.
Um... no, Ryan, not Subway sandwiches.
We're talking about subways, like the trains.
Right, like the trains.
Now a subway train is actually a train that is usually underground; and it's a
smaller train inside of a city.
OK. Well, today we're learning about some of the world's oldest underground
transportation systems.
And that is what a subway is.
Well, let's take a look at our first one.
It happened to be built in London.
That's right.
In 1863 ambitious people from all over England were moving to London, which is
Europe's largest city at the time.
Now we described the people moving there as ambitious.
"Ambitious" means having a strong wish to be successful, powerful or rich.
Now Ryan, why would ambitious people be moving to London?
Well, of course we know it was Europe's largest city.
And these people wanted to go there because they hoped to find opportunity and
wealth there.
That's right.
They wanted the opportunity to make something of themselves, to earn money, to
be successful.
But instead they found crowds, dirt and disease.
That's right.
Now these people were moving here.
They wanted to find an opportunity to get wealth.
And of course, that's a chance to find that wealth.
But here, Kaylah, they found crowds, dirt and disease.
And that is our Grammar on the Go sentence.
So let's visit Liz.
Hi, friends.
Welcome to Grammar on the Go.
My name is Liz.
We're talking about the history of subways.
And the writer begins by describing how people in the past would travel to
London in search of new economic opportunities.
But: Instead they found crowds, dirt and disease.
Here the word "found" does not mean to see something that was missing.
Instead, "found" means to discover or experience.
So what the writer means is these people who had traveled to London did not find
economic opportunities to be readily available.
Instead, these people discovered they had to deal with crowds, dirt and disease.
We use "find," or "found" like this, when we want to talk about how someone
experiences something by accident.
For example:
The students thought their internship was going to be easy; instead they found
hardship and challenges that they've never encountered before.
Or: Sandy had thought that going to camp would be a waste of her time; instead
she found new friendships she will cherish for the rest of her life.
If you want 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 with Grammar on the Go signing off.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, Liz.
OK. So these ambitious people are moving to the city looking for an opportunity
to earn wealth,
but they just found crowds - large groups of people - and lots of dirt and lots
of disease, so they were very sick.
What else did they find?
Well, they know that if there is all these bad things - crowds, too many people
and all that dirt there,
well, then it's going to be difficult for them to find housing as well, and also
garbage filled the streets.
That's right.
Housing was hard to find.
Now housing refers to where they're going to live: the apartments or homes that
they would be able to find.
But there are so many people that it's difficult to find an available home.
Right. They all wanted to move there to find wealth, but they couldn't actually
find a place to live in.
There was no housing.
And also, there was so much garbage in the streets.
Things were dirty and there was disease.
That's right.
The garbage, the trash was just everywhere.
Well, at this time people were traveling by horse-drawn vehicles that moved only
8 kilometers per hour.
So getting around the city would have been kind of slow and difficult.
Yeah. Now Kaylah, a horse-drawn vehicle is actually talking about a vehicle that
is pulled by a horse.
And so there weren't very many motor vehicles, not many cars, mostly horse-drawn
vehicles.
So maybe carriages our carts.
So that was the main way to move around, so it was not very fast.
And with all of these people coming in, you can imagine that the streets would
be very full and hard to get around.
So London came up with a new option.
That's right.
They solve this problem by opening the world's first subway line called the Met
in order to help all these people.
That's right.
They wanted to help these people move around and to help them just be able to
get around more efficiently.
We have this word "efficiently" in our article.
That means to do something quickly, to be able to do it well and quickly.
Yeah, and very organized as well, friends.
Now it was only six kilometers long, this first subway line, but it quickly
attracted many passengers.
So it wasn't very long to begin with, but it attracted many passengers.
That means people were excited and ready to ride this new Met line.
I believe that they would be, Kaylah, especially if the streets were this
crowded and this dirty, they want to be able to travel much quicker.
That's right.
And the Met did provide that.
But that's not where London stopped.
They... this was such a success that they continued to build.
That's right.
And it would have to grow since it quickly attracted so many passengers.
People really wanted to get around quickly.
Now we'll be talking a little bit more about that in a second.
But what do we have to do first, Kaylah?
Well first, friends, we need to go visit Ken in the Chat Room.
Hi, Ken.
Hey, Bryan.
How's it going?
Not bad.
Hey, did someone give you a present?
No. This present isn't for me.
A friend of mine is moving to New York, and I'm going to give it to him at a
goodbye party after work today.
Oh, that's nice.
Why did your friend decide to immigrate to New York?
Well, he's moving because he found a good job there.
But he actually isn't immigrating.
What?
I thought to immigrate was to move to a new place.
Not exactly.
To immigrate is specifically to move from one country to another country.
If someone moves from one city to another city in the same country, that's just
called moving.
Oh. So I immigrated when I moved to the U.S.
But your friend is staying in the same country, so he isn't immigrating?
That's right. You got it.
Hey, I was wondering is "immigrate" spelled with an I or an E?
"Immigrate" is spelled with an I and two Ms.
But there's another word, emigrate, that is spelled with an E and one M.
They have very similar meanings.
Similar, but not exactly the same?
Right. To immigrate and to emigrate both mean to move from one country to
another.
But "emigrate" is used when discussing the country a person moved from while
"immigrate" is used when talking about the country they moved to.
For example, if a person moves from Italy to Canada, they have emigrated from
Italy; but they have immigrated to Canada.
I see.
So when I immigrated to America, I also emigrated from Taiwan.
That's right, Ken.
Well, thanks for the English lesson.
I hope you enjoy the goodbye party.
You bet.