美国校园口语1-10

8. Learning English 学英语

A: Ralph, do me a favor, will you?
B: That all depends on what it is.
A: This is the proble, I'm still having trouble with my English. The instructor suggests that I ask an American to help me by telling me how he says the things I say which just aren't English. I wanted you to be the American.
B: What good'll it do? You never speak English unless you absolutely have to. I'll help you if you promise to speak noting but English all the time.
A: All right. Maybe I'll do that. It's the only way I'll be able to learn English fast enough, I guess.

Notes
What good'll it do? - it will be useless
Unless you absolutely have to… 除了你非…不可
Make a bargain with sb. 同…约定

A：拉尔夫，帮我一个忙，好吗？
B：这要看帮什么忙。
A：我有个困难。我的英语仍然遇到麻烦。老师建议我请一位美国人帮助，要他告诉我，我说的那些根本不像英语的话应当怎样说。我想要你做这个美国人。
B：这有什么用？你除了非说不可的时候，你从来不说英语。好吧！我跟你达成一个协议：如果你保证在任何时候除了英语外什么也不说，我就帮助你。
A：好吧，也许我能办得到。我想这是我能迅速学会英语的唯一方法。

9. Learning Vocabulary 学习词汇

A: I don't understand why we have to memorize conversations. We need more vocabulary, not pronunciation.
B: Don't you think memorizing conversations is a part of learning vocabulary? Every time we memorize a conversation, we're memorizing a whole series of contexts. Each context tells us one way a word can be used, I know from my own language that I can't always use words by simply looking them up in a dictionary and then putting them into sentences. Some words have many meanings. We have to know which meanings go where.

Notes
Context (文章或讲话中的)前后文(根据前后文的逻辑可以确定某一个具有多种解释的词或短语的含义)
Which meanings go where 哪一种解释讲得通

A：我弄不懂为什么我们一定要记住会话。我们需要的是词汇，而不是发音。
B：你不认为记住会话是学习词汇的一个组成部分吗？每当我们记住一句会话，我们就记住了全部的上下文。而这上下文可以供我们了解一个单词的一种用法。我从自己的语言中意识到，光靠查词典然后把这些词汇拼成句子，并不意味着会正确使用这些词。有些意识有很多解释。我们必须弄清楚在哪种情况下适用哪一种解释。


10.Spelling 拼音

A: You know, Ralph, since I started speaking English all the time my pronunciation's getting better and even the grammar's beginning to make some sense. But I don't think I'll ever be able to spell.
B: You're not alone there. I have trouble with spelling too. When I was in grade school, I learned which words were the most frequently misspelled, but I never did learn how to spell them.
A: Since it's so difficult, why is it so important to learn how to spell properly?
B: Because if you spell satisfactorily, you're considered educated. If you don't, you're not.

Notes
Make sense - to become understandable
Grade school (美国的)小学

A：拉尔夫，你知道，自从我开始所有时间都讲英语以来，我的发音有了进步，而且语法也开始理顺了。不过我不认为我能把字拼出来。
B：不是你一个人如此。我在拼音方面也有困难。当我上小学的时候，我知道哪些词是经常拼错的，但我没有学会如何拼这些词。
A：既然这么难，为什么学会准确拼音又如此重要呢？
B：因为如果你能准确无误地拼音，人家就会把你看作受到教育的人。否则，在别人眼里你是个缺乏教育的人。