生活英语读写 (3).pdf

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1、 1/26 Unit Texts 1 Learning Text 1a:Successful English Learner Text 1b:Our Crazy Language 2 University Text 2a:Cambridge the University Town Text 2b:Oxford 3 Cultural Differences Text 3a:Space Text 3b:Getting along verbally and nonverbally 4 Cities Text 4a:New York City Text 4b:London 5 Education Te

2、xt 5a:Youre in.Now pay up Text 5b:Companionship of Books 6 Manner Text 6a:How to Raise Polite Kids in a Rude World Text 6b:American Table Manners 7 Personal Communication Text 7a:Thanksgiving Text 7b:Why I want a wife 8 Purpose of Living Text 8a:Dreams Text 8b:How to live beautifully?Text 1a.2 Text

3、1b.4 Text 2a.5 Text 2b.6 Text 3a.7 Text 3b.9 Text 4a.10 Text 4b.11 Text 5a.13 Text 5b.15 Text 6a.17 Text 6b.19 Text 7a.21 Text 7b.23 Text 8a.25 Text 8b.26 2/26 Text 1a Text A:Successful English Learner By Tomasz P.Szynalski I started learning English when I was 6 years old.For 8 years I learned Engl

4、ish the way everybody does by going to English classes.It was awfully ineffective.I did everything that the teachers told me to do:the homework assignments,everything.But I didnt get any results.At least,no impressive results.I mean,I was always one of the best students in class.Still,reading Englis

5、h texts took me a long time,I made lots of mistakes when writing,my pronunciation was bad,and I could only speak English very slowly.Eight years of sacrifices,and these were the results.In 1993,I got into the best high school in my city.It had a special program with a lot of English classes.I owe a

6、lot to the people I met there,both students and teachers.My first two years in high school were very important for my English.My English teacher gave a lot of good advice,especially on pronunciation and vocabulary.My good friends were all fantastic English learners.I didnt want to be worse than them

7、,so I studied harder,and my English improved.Following the advice from my English teacher and the example of my friends,I made some good decisions during my first year in high school.I learned English phonetics,started using English-English dictionaries,listening to recordings and English-language T

8、V,and talking to native speakers every chance I got.The result:I improved my pronunciation,I was no longer afraid to speak English,and I could understand spoken English quite well,too.During the summer vacation of 1994 I started reading books in English,mostly novels.I would learn a lot of new words

9、 from these books,but I had terrible problems memorizing them.I had to look up the same word many times,which was quite annoying.I realized I needed a way to remember all this vocabulary.In February 1995,I started my collection of English words.It was a breakthrough for me.I would come back from sch

10、ool,and then spend an hour or two adding words from the books that I read to my collection and repeating some of the words every day.After two years,my collection had 3,000 English words.With all the reading,my vocabulary,which used to be my weakness,became my strength.In late 1995,I got on the Inte

11、rnet,and soon started to write more and more e-mail in English.It was excellent writing practice something I had lacked before.Around 1997,a friend of mine and I decided to use English to communicate.(We still do.)Another good decision,which improved my ability to speak English.Today,I think I use E

12、nglish more than my first language.Certainly there is no big difference between using my first language and using English.Over 90%of my e-mail is written in English.Most of my reading(websites and books)is in English,too.Speaking is no problem.I can go to any English-speaking country and communicate

13、 easily.Actually,during my trips to England and America I was taken for a native speaker a few times.It felt great!I am addicted to English.I love the language,and I love using it.I like writing 3/26 English sentences,speaking English to native speakers,reading books and the Web,watching American mo

14、vies,and so on.I like the intellectual challenge of using a foreign language.When I learn something new about English,I feel Im getting better and more powerful.4/26 Text 1b Our Crazy Language English is the most widely-used language in the history of our planet.One in every seven human beings can s

15、peak it.More than half of the worlds books and three-quarters of international mail are in English.Of all language,English has the largest vocabularyperhaps as many as two million wordsand one of the noblest bodies of the literature.Nevertheless,lets face it:English is a crazy language.There is no e

16、gg in eggplant,neither pine nor apple in pineapple and no harm in a hamburger.Sweetmeats are candy,while sweetbreads,which arent sweet,are meat.We take English for granted.But when we explore its paradoxes,we find that quicksand can work slowly,boxing rings are square,public bathrooms have no baths

17、in them.And why is it that a writer writes,but fingers dont fing,grocers dont groce,and hammers dont ham?If the plural of tooth is teeth,shouldnt the plural of booth be beeth?One goose,two geeseso one,moose,two meese?If the teacher taught,why isnt it true that the preacher praught?If a horsehair mat

18、 is made from the hair of horses and a camel-hair coat from the hair of camels,from what is mohair coat made?If a vegetarian eats vegetables,what does a humanitarian eat?In what other language do people drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?Ship by truck and cargo by ship?Have noses that run and

19、 feet that smell?How can a smile chance and a fat chance be the same,while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?How can overlook and oversee be opposites,while quite a lot and quite a few are like?How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell the next?You must be shocked at a langua

20、ge in which your house can burn up as it burns down,in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which your alarm clock goes off by going on.English was invented by people,not computers,and it reflects the creativity of the human race(which,of course,isnt really a race at all).That is why,wh

21、en stars are out they are visible,but when the lights are out they are invisible.And why,when I wind up this essay I end it.5/26 Text 2a Cambridge the University Town When we say that Cambridge is a university town we do not mean just that it is a town with a university in it.Some other cities also

22、have universities in them,but we do not call them university towns.A university town is one where there is no clear separation between the university buildings and the rest of the city.The university is not just one part of the town;it is all over the town.The heart of Cambridge has its shops,pubs,m

23、arketplace and so on,but most of it is university colleges,faculties,libraries,clubs and other places for university staff and students.Students fill the shops,cafs,museums,banks and churches,making these as well part of the university.The town was there first.Two Roman roads crossed there,and there

24、 are signs of buildings before Roman times.Later Cambridge became a center of learning,and the authority of the head of the university,chancellor,was recognized by the King in 1226.At that time many of the students were very young(about fifteen),and many of the teachers were not more than twenty-one

25、.At first they found lodgings where they could,but many students were too poor to afford lodgings.Colleges were opened so that students could live cheaply.This was the beginning of the college system which has continued at Cambridge up to the present day.The colleges were built with money from kings

26、,queens,religious houses or other sources.Today there are over thirty colleges.The newest are University College,founded in 1965,and Clare Hall,founded in 1966.Very few students can now live in college for the whole of their course;the numbers are too great.Many of them live in lodgings at first and

27、 move into college for their final year.But every student is a member of his college from the beginning.He must eat a number of meals in the college hall each week.His social and sports life centers on the college,although he will also join various university societies and clubs.To make this clearer

28、,take the imaginary case of John Holt.He is an undergraduate at Queens College.His rooms are not far from his tutors rooms.He has dinner in the fine old college hall four times a week.He plays cricket for Queens and hopes to be chosen to play for the university this year.His other favorite sport is

29、rugby,and he is a member of the university club.He is“reading”history,and goes once a week to Emmanuel College to see his supervisor to discuss his work and his lectures.He belongs to several university societies the Union,the Historical Society,the Conservation Society,a photographic club,and so on

30、 and to a number of college societies.With about 10,000 undergraduates like John Holt and over 4,000 postgraduates,the city is a busy place in“full term”.Undergraduates are not allowed to keep cars in Cambridge,so nearly all of them use bicycles.Dont try to drive through Cambridge during the five mi

31、nutes between lectures.On Mondays,John Holt has a lecture in one college ending at 9:55 and another in a different college at 10.His bicycle must get him there through a boiling sea of other bicycles hurrying in all directions.If you are in Cambridge at five minutes to the hour any morning of full t

32、erm,you know that you are in a university town.Stop in some safe place and wait.6/26 Text 2b Oxford What is so special about Oxford and Cambridge,the two oldest universities in England?Why do so many students want to study there?Both of these university towns are very beautiful.They have some of the

33、 finest architecture in Britain.2 Some of their colleges,chapels and libraries are three,four and even five hundred years old,and are full of valuable books and precious paintings.Both towns have many lovely gardens,where the students can read and relax in the summer months.Oxford is the older unive

34、rsity of the two and the oldest of all the British universities.The first of its colleges,University College,was founded as early as 1249.Now there are about 40 colleges in the University.They are separate and partly independent.Most of them offer both undergraduate and graduate courses,while some c

35、olleges,such as Wolfson,take only graduates.With all their differences,the colleges are very similar.Almost all the colleges consider themselves to have a friendly,relaxed atmosphere that helps students quickly get to know one another.They act as homes for students when they are there.Today Oxford U

36、niversity has about 12,000 students,many of them from other countries.There were no women students at Oxford until 1878,when the first womens college,Lady Margaret Hall,opened.Now women study at most colleges.Oxford is,of course,famous for its first-class education as well as its beautiful buildings

37、.Some of the most intelligent men and women in the country live and work here.Oxford gives them what they need:a quiet atmosphere,friendly colleagues,and the four-hundred-year-old Bodleian Library,3 which has about five million books.It is not easy to get a place at Oxford University to study for a

38、degree.But outside the university there are many smaller private colleges A private college is one that does not receive its main financial support from the government.which offer less difficult courses and where it is easy to enroll.Most students in these private schools take business,secretarial o

39、r English language courses.7/26 Text 3a Space“We shape our buildings and they shape us.”By Winston Churchill When we travel abroad we are immediately impressed by the many ways buildings,homes,and cities are designed.The division and organization of space lend character and uniqueness to villages,to

40、wns,and cities.Yet,architectural differences may also cause confusion or discomfort for the traveler.In the following example,a group of Americans living in a country in South America reacted emotionally to the architectural differences they observed.The Latin house is often built around a patio tha

41、t is next to the sidewalk but hidden from outsiders behind a wall.It is not easy to describe the degree to which small architectural differences such as this affect outsiders.American.technicians living in Latin America used to complain that they felt“left out”of things,that they were“shut off”.Othe

42、rs kept wondering what was going on“behind those walls.”The separation of space inside homes may also vary from culture to culture.In most American homes the layout of rooms reveals the separateness and labeling of space according to functionbedroom,living room,dining room,playroom,and so on.This sy

43、stem is in sharp contrast to other cultures where one room in a house may serve several functions.In Japan,homes with sliding walls can change a large room into two small rooms so that a living room can also serve as a bedroom.When a home or a citys design is influenced by another culture,the“native

44、”architecture can be lost or disguised.For example,a French architect was asked to design Chandigarh,the capital city in Punjab,India.He decided to plan the city with centralized shopping centers which required public transportation and movement away from the village centers.Eventually the Indians s

45、topped meeting each other socially in their small neighborhoods.Apparently,the introduction of a non-Indian style of architecture affected some of the cultural and social patterns of those living in the city.Privacy and the Use of Space Architectural design influences how privacy is achieved as well

46、 as how social contact is made in public places.The concept of privacy is not unique to a particular culture but what it means is culturally determined.For example,.according to Donald Keene,author of“Living Japan,”there is no Japanese word for privacy.Yet one cannot say that concept of privacy does

47、 not exist among the Japanese but only that it is very different from the Western conception.Similarly,there is no word in the Russian language that means exactly the same as the English word“privacy”.People in the United States tend to achieve privacy by physically separating themselves from others

48、.The expression“good fences make good neighbors”indicates a preference for privacy from neighbors homes.If a family can afford it,each child has his or her own bedroom.When privacy is needed,family members may lock their 8/26 bedroom doors.When the American wants to be alone he goes into a room and

49、shuts the doorhe depends on architectural features for screening.The English,on the other hand,lacking rooms of their own since childhood,never developed the practice of using space as a refuge from others.In some cultures when individuals desire privacy,it is acceptable for them simply to withdraw

50、into themselves.That is,they do not need to remove themselves physically from a group in order to achieve privacy.Young American children learn the rule“knock before you enter”which teaches them to respect others privacy.Parents,too,often follow this rule prior to entering their childrens rooms.When