Vocabulary Challenge 15: https://tw.voicetube.com/everyday/20190616
心智圖詞彙攻略: ericvocab.com
Script:
Hey?! What’s your favorite book?
That’s a hard question to answer and many of us want to say I don’t read…and believe it or not, I get this answer a lot when I ask this question on a test.
To be honest, in recent years, few people read even fewer books. I used to read a lot, about one book a week when I was in junior and senior high school. I read tons of martial arts fiction or wuxia novels in Chinese, and plenty of fantasy and science fiction novels, mostly because I had worked as a library assistant throughout my last year in JH and in high school. I also read a lot for school for my undergraduate and graduate studies, but to be honest, while I am an avid reader of news and biographies, I have been reading fewer and fewer novels due to limited time.
Back to my question. What would you say if someone asked you about your favorite book? Think about this and examine why people just do not read as much anymore. Perhaps there is just less demand from reading. However, we can still learn a lot from books and the thoughts of famous authors. Jane Austen is one of these authors.
回到我的問題，如果有人問你想讀什麼書，你會怎麼說？在當代的社會我們對閱讀的需求確實是減少了，但我們仍然可以從著名作家的思想中獲得啟發。珍·奧斯汀是這些作者之一。
She was acutely conscious of human failings and wanted, through her novels, to make people less selfish and more reasonable.
她非常清楚意識到人人們的缺點，並且希望透過她的小說，讓人活得更無私和通情達理。
So let’s say this sentence again.
She was acutely conscious of human failings and wanted, through her novels, to make people less selfish and more reasonable.
Faster
She was acutely conscious of human failings and wanted, through her novels, to make people less selfish and more reasonable.
OK, you know the drill. What are the possible thought groups「字組」?
She was acutely conscious of human failings (1)
and wanted,(2)
through her novels,(3)
to make people less selfish and more reasonable. (4)
It might seem strange to pause between 2 and 3 since these are such short phrases. The pauses are there to show that “through her novels” is additional information used to describe the entire clause.
How about intonation 語調?
She was acutely conscious of human failings (rise)
and wanted, (fall-rise)
through her novels,(fall->want to be clear and authoritative about something)
to make people less selfish and more reasonable. (fall)
What about the sentence stress? 句子的重音 You could say:
She was acutely conscious of human failings and wanted, through her novels, to make people less selfish and more reasonable.
So why stress the adjectives. We do stress other content words but the stress on these adverbs and adjectives let us hear the degree of intensity in which you express these thoughts.
就是這些英文詞彙已經被提過了，所以沒有放那麼多的重音
OK, it’s grammar time!!! 大家最愛的文法時間到了!!!
She was acutely conscious of human failings and wanted, through her novels, to make people less selfish and more reasonable.
Through her novels,
Prepositional phrases serve as an adverb in the sentence. In this case, it is explaining how she will make people less selfish and reasonable.
Adverb phrases typically answer the questions how, where, why or when something was done. That’s it for our grammar point.
副詞片語補充一個句 時間／地點／目的／方法／原因／條件／態度／結果
OK, let’s take a break!
When I think of Jane Austen’s writing, I often think of Eileen Change (張愛玲). Are their novels comparable? Their both famous female authors despite Jane Austen living in the late 18 and early 19th century and Eileen Chang living from 1920 to 1995.
They both write about love, living conditions and life experiences from a woman’s perspective. They do not view love and marriage from a single dimension, rather approach them using economic, social, and psychological perspectives. They explore the inner voice of women and examine their role as individuals struggling against traditions, economic concerns, and society as a whole. There are also many differences as Jane Austen’s novels can be viewed as pleasant while those of Eileen Chang is sorrowful, or the characters in Eileen’s novels being more rebellious.
Have you read works from either author? If not, what author do you like? I personally like the works of George Orwell. I enjoy reading his works on politics, culture, and the human spirit. His writing is concise and to the point yet impactful and containing many hidden political messages.
OK, let’s get back to English learning!
| Word | Form |
| 1. suited
right for someone or something 合適的，適宜的 suited to/for something 適合… 以她的資歷和經驗，她似乎非常適合這份工作。 |
(adj.)
|
| 2. magnify
to make something look larger than it is, especially by looking at it through a lens 放大，擴大 Although our skin looks smooth, when magnified it is full of bumps and holes. 我們的皮膚看上去很光滑，但放大後卻滿是坑坑窪窪。 to make a problem bigger or more important 加強，使（問題）更嚴重 The hot summer magnified water shortage problems in the region. 炎熱的夏日加深了地區缺水的的各種問題。 |
(v.) |
| 3. social status
a person’s standing or importance in relation to other people within a society. 社會地位 high/low social status A person’s social status should not be a barrier to achieving success. 一個人的社會地位不應成為取得成功的障礙 |
(n.) |
| 4. conscience
the part of you that judges how moral your own actions are and make you feel guilty about bad things that you have done or things you feel responsible for 良心；良知 a guilty conscience 問心有愧 a question/matter of conscience 事關良心 You didn’t do anything wrong – you should have a clear conscience (= not feel guilty). 你沒做錯甚麽——你應該覺得問心無愧。 |
(n.)
|
| 5. moral
relating to the standards of good or bad behavior, fairness, honesty, etc. that each person believes in, rather than to laws 道德的 moral obligation道義上的責任 moral judgment 道德上的批判 It’s her moral obligation to tell the police what she knows. 她把所知道的事告訴警方是道義上的責任。 It is not part of a novelist’s job to make a moral judgment. 小說家並不需要作道德上的批判。 behaving in ways considered by most people to be correct and honest 有道德的，品行端正的 The judge’s a very moral man. 這個法官是一個非常有道德的人。 Oh, stop being so moral! 哦，別這麼一本正經！ standards for good or bad character and behavior 道德；品行；道德規範 public/private morals 公共／個人道德 old-fashioned disapproving a person of loose morals (= whose character or sexual behavior is considered unacceptable) 放蕩的人 |
(adj.) |
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The theme song for this lesson is Céline Dion – A New Day Has Come
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