[00:04.60]Lesson 9 1 Dialogue
[00:10.66]Yang Mei is now studying in the States.
[00:15.41]She meets her new teacher,Sara,for the first time.
[00:20.45]SAra is an American.They are talking before the term starts.
[00:27.32]SARA: So you are Yang Mei.Nice to meet you.
[00:31.87]Yang MEI: How do you do ?I'm sorry.I know only a little English.
[00:38.74]I have some difficulty in pronouncing some of the words in English.
[00:44.80]SARA: No,you're doing fine. Yang Mei: Thank you.
[00:49.84]SARA: And when do you take your next exams? Yang MEI: In June.
[00:55.41]SARA: I see.What do you want to do next fall?
[01:00.16]Yang MEI: Pardon?Would you please say that again more slowly?
[01:05.72]SARA: What do you want to do next fall?
[01:09.59]Yang MEI: Next what? I'm sorry I don't quite follow you.
[01:15.44]SARA: What do you want to do next September? Do you have any plans?
[01:22.89]Yang MEI: I'd like to study medicine and become a doctor.
[01:27.64]SARA: Right.Nice meeting you,Yang Mei.bye.
[01:33.20]Yang MEI: Goodbye.
[01:40.75]Lesson 10 Reading
[01:44.88]Read the passage quickly and find out some American English words and expressions.
[01:52.85]AMERICAN ENGLISH(1)
[01:57.11]Many students want to know about the differences between American English and British English.
[02:04.55]Written English is more or less the same in both Britain and America,
[02:10.61]though there are some spelling differences.
[02:14.69]For example,the words colour,centre and travelled
[02:21.14]are spelt color,center,and traveled in American English.
[02:27.91] The differences in the spoken language are greater.
[02:33.47]For example,Americans say dance,and in southern England the say danse[da:ns].
[02:43.32]In America they pronounce not [nat];in southern England they say not[].
[02:51.26]However,most of the time,people from the two countries
[02:56.59]do not have any difficulty in understanding each other.
[03:01.63] How did these differences come about?
[03:05.78]There is no quick answer to this question.
[03:10.15]When people from England travelled to other countries,
[03:15.11]they took the English language with them.
[03:19.47]At first,the language stayed the same as the language used in Britain,
[03:26.00]but slowly the language began to change from one part of the world to another.
[03:32.77] Sometimes,the English spoken in America or Canada or Australia changed;
[03:40.21]but sometimes the language spoken in these places stayed the same,
[03:46.38]while the language in England changed.
[03:50.64]For example,300 years ago,the English talked about "fall".
[03:58.00]Today,most British people talk about "autumn".
[04:03.57]But Americans still talk about "fall"
[04:07.93]just as people do in some parts of western England.
[04:13.49]In the same way Americans use the expression "I guess" (meaning "I think")
[04:20.47]just as the British did 300 years ago.
[04:25.43]A great many words and expressions have come into the language from American English,
[04:32.20]For example:movie,gas,store,mail,radio,right away (at once),
[04:42.25]way of life,and so on.
[04:51.50]Lesson 11
[04:54.77]1 Reading AMERICAN ENGLISH(2)
[05:01.30]American English has changed over the centuries,too.
[05:06.02]There are several reasons for this.
[05:09.66]One of the reasons is that people travelled to America
[05:14.62]from all the European coutries and from other parts of the world,too.
[05:20.47]They started to use English,
[05:24.13]but they also brought in some words from their own languages.
[05:29.17]For example,the word "cent" in American money is from old French.
[05:36.43]One of the states in the USA is called "Florida";
[05:41.29]in Spanish this means the "land of flowers".
[05:45.84]There are a great many American Indian words,for example "to howl"means"to cry".
[05:53.38]And "cookbook" is a German word. |