节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-01-31
难易度:Medium
关键字:economic, bankrupt, compact, content, dice
(Music).
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
Thanks for joining us today.
My name is Steve.
And my name is Ryan.
Well, since its introduction in 1935, the board game of fortune, Monopoly, has
sold around the world and has been produced in 37 different languages.
Yeah. There is even a Braille edition for those who are visually impaired.
Now with the game being so successful, it has become a large part of today's
culture.
That's right.
Did you know there are three characters involved in the game of Monopoly?
Let's see if you can guess who they are.
OK. First, the character locked behind bars is named Jake the Jailbird.
The officer who arrested him is called Edgar Mallory.
And the character on the front of the box?
Well, he's Mr. Monopoly, of course.
OK, let's take a look at "Playing the game" on the top of page 52.
(Music).
The History of Monopoly.
Playing the game.
Monopoly is far from simple.
With its complex economic strategies and rules, it has confused players for
decades.
Games can last for several hours or even days.
The longest Monopoly game lasted 70 days!
Monopoly is played with a game board, tiny game pieces, mini houses and hotels,
dice and pretend money.
Players buy "real estate" on the board and try to bankrupt the other players,
thus creating a monopoly.
If the game can't be played long enough to eliminate all of the players, the one
with the most money wins.
(Music).
One, two, three...
Ha-ha! That's my hotel.
You owe me $6,000.
Oh, but that's all of my money.
Oh, man.
Yes!
Hi, friends.
My name is Kaylah.
And now I'm losing this game.
And my name is Ryan.
And I am very excited to be playing Monopoly.
Yesterday we talked about its humble beginnings, how it started in 1904 and was
invented by Elizabeth Magie.
So we learned about the history of the game, and now we're going to learn about
playing the game.
I need some tips because now I'm losing.
Well, Monopoly is far from simple.
Now let's go to Liz and she'll explain that phrase in Grammar on the Go.
Hello, friends.
I hope you're all doing well today.
My name is Liz, and it's time for Grammar on the Go.
Our article today is about the game Monopoly and how it ever got started.
Although it's become a very popular game worldwide, we read: Monopoly is far
from simple.
That's our Grammar Tip sentence.
Notice the phrase, "far from." Normally when we say something is far from,
we're talking about the distance between two places or things and how they're
not close to each other, like: The hotel is far from the train station.
But in today's sentence, "far from" has a different meaning.
We're not talking about distance.
Instead, it's a very creative way to say "definitely not." In other words,
the writer in today's article is saying: Monopoly is definitely not simple.
We use "far from" to mean "definitely not" when we want to emphasize a certain
quality or description.
For example, let's say you're working with another co-worker on a project and
half way through your work, your co-worker acts like everything is finished.
You can say: If you think our assignment is complete, you're wrong; our work is
far from over.
Or, if you're helping a charitable organization raise money and they still need
more supporters and donations, you can say:
The amount of money we've raised so far is still far from the goal that was set.
If you'd like to see some more example sentences, they are available 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.
Oh. No.
Ryan got sent to jail.
Well, we're talking about playing Monopoly.
Let's see why this is not as simple as we might think.
That's right. With its complex economic strategies and rules, it has confused
players for decades.
That's right, "complex economic ideas." Now what does that mean to be economic?
Well, "economic" is referring to money and buying and selling things in...
usually in a certain country.
OK, so this is about business, about buying and selling and being smart with
your money.
Monopoly is not a game of chance.
You have to use strategy.
Yes, this is a game of money.
It's a game of trade.
And you have to be smart in order to know how... what to decide since there are
so many complex decisions.
Now a lot of these complex decisions you might think are not good for children,
but they work really well.
I grew up playing this game, Ryan.
And I actually learned how to make change with money, to add and subtract money
correctly.
I learned it from Monopoly!
That's great!
Actually, yeah.
This is a wonderful game to teach you economics, to teach you how to use math,
how to use money and how to use those complex things in life.
This game is so complex.
The games can last for several hours or even days.
The longest Monopoly game I ever had going was two days with my older sister.
Wow! That actually does sound like a long time.
But that's nothing, Kaylah, compare to the world's longest Monopoly game, which
lasted 70 days.
Wow! That is a long game.
Monopoly is played with a game board, tiny game pieces and mini houses and
hotels, dice and pretend money.
Lots of pieces to this game.
Right. It is complex.
And that's what complex means: There are a lot of different pieces.
And you can see, if you look at a picture of a Monopoly game board on page 50,
just how many different parts there are to this game,
including things like money, hotels and dice.
And you do have to have dice to play this game.
Now "dice," we have some here in the studio.
But you can see dice all the time in a lot of different games.
They are small cubes that have six sides.
And on each side there is a dot or a couple of dots.
Each one has dots one through six.
So you roll them and you find out how many spaces you can move.
That's right. And you need to use those to play the game.
You use pretend money as well as things like hotels.
And all of that is designed to be used much like you would use in the real
economics.
That's right.
There's all kinds of fun pieces on a Monopoly board.
Players buy "real estate" on the board and try to bankrupt the other players,
thus creating a monopoly.
That's right.
You want to "bankrupt" the other players.
And that means you take away all of their money.
If someone is bankrupt, they have lost all of their money.
So if I try to bankrupt Ryan in our game, I'm trying to take all of his money
from him so I can have the monopoly - complete control.
But of course, this time I'm winning, Kaylah.
And if you are winning, then you get the monopoly.
Now if the game can't be played long enough to eliminate all of the players, the
one with the most money wins.
Sometimes this does happen.
The game can last a long time, and you just have to add up all of the worth of
your money and your property, what land you own off of the board.
So it teaches you a lot: economics, math and how to use money.
Well, join us as we continue learning Monopoly in a little bit.
But first, let's go to the Chat Room.
Hey, Bryan.
Hi, Ken.
Uh, Bryan, I have some money for you.
Money for me?
But Ken, you don't owe me any money.
But... this money belongs to you.
Oh, this kind of money... Monopoly money.
Yeah, Monopoly money.
Ken, I thought I collected all this money after our game.
Where did this money come from?
Well, I was trying to trick you by hiding some of my money during the game, and
then I forgot about it.
I'm sorry.
That's wonderful.
What? I thought you'd be mad.
Not at all.
I'm glad that you got into the competitive spirit of the game with me and my
friends.
I guess I did try to win, didn't I?
Well, I sure hope we can play again sometime.
We sure can.
You call the money Monopoly money.
Could I also call it fake money?
Sure you could, fake money.
You could also call it pretend money.
Pretend money?
I've never heard "pretend" used that way like an adjective? Is that common?
Yes, it is.
Using "pretend" to modify a noun means that object is not real, like the way
that pretend money isn't real and can't be used to buy things.
In other words, pretend objects are often things that kids use their
imaginations to play with.
So there are pretend cars and pretend houses?
You're right.
You can also switch the word pretend here with the word "play." So you might
talk about kids who drive their play cars and build their play houses.
I get it.
Too bad we can't use all of that play money to buy a real house.
I agree.