[00:05.69]1 Look at the photos.Do you know who these comedians are?
[00:15.96]What makes them funny?
[00:19.30]2 Do you know other comedians who are funny in the same way?
[00:24.58]3 Have you seen any of these comedians or proprammes?
[00:39.44]READING
[00:44.41]LAUGHING MATTER
[00:47.65]Comedies are theatre plays that make people laugh.
[00:52.82]The writers of comedies often use different techniques
[00:58.15]to make their auiences laugh.
[01:01.91]Cross-dressing men or women often appear on the stage.
[01:07.66]Dustin Hoffman is famous for his role acting as a woman.
[01:13.22]Funny plays often have characters that are stereotypes of nationalities
[01:19.78]or people doing certain jobs.
[01:23.85]The actors make us laugh by making fun of somebody's way of dressing
[01:30.10]or telling an amusing story.
[01:34.46]Acting out stereotypes of people from different countries can be very funny.
[01:44.52]It sounds funny to hear foreigners speak with an accent.
[01:49.66]Word play is a way to create fun in comedies.
[01:54.63]Shakespeare's plays made people in the sixteenth century laugh loudly.
[02:00.97]But to us his plays are not very funny
[02:05.73]because the meaning of words in English is their mother tongue,
[02:15.18]often cannot understand his jokes.
[02:19.44]Clowns also make people laugh.
[02:23.10]They often act alone or as a pair and make a different kind of fun.
[02:29.66]Clowns often don;t use any words at all.
[02:34.10]It is their clothes,make-up and the way they walk that makes people laugh.
[02:41.04]Some people think clowns are only funny for children.
[02:46.30]Actually they can help people forget their problems,at least for a short moment.
[02:53.66]Another type of people whose job is to make people laugh are comedians.
[02:59.83]They often work alone or as a pair.
[03:04.06]Unlike clowns,comedians'clothes are usually not very strange.
[03:10.90]Although body language and their face are important in their shows,
[03:16.65]they do not use the make-up that clowns use.
[03:21.33]Comedians may act out a situation during their shows.
[03:26.97]We call that a sketch,but usually,their hows don't look like comedies.
[03:34.83]What comedians have in common with the players in a comedy
[03:40.00]is their way of playing with words.
[03:44.05]Comedians make people laugh,but also think about life.
[03:49.80]At one moment in a show,you can hear the audience laughing loudly.
[03:56.04]A few minutes later everybody is quiet,
[04:01.32]listening and thinking about the comedians'words.
[04:06.07]Typical for China is the crosstalk show,
[04:10.93]where a pair of comedians entertains the audience with word play.
[04:16.89]A crosstalk show has two speakers making many jokes and funny conversations.
[04:24.44]They may also dress up a little
[04:28.30]or act out small sketches in front of the laughing audience.
[04:33.87]Comedians of all times and many countries
[04:38.62]have a long tradition of this type of comedy.
[04:43.06]Dating back to the Qin Dynasty(221-207 BC),the traditional crosstalk shows,
[04:50.43]or xiangsheng shows,
[04:54.50]have made people all over China roar with laughter for centuries.
[05:00.85]Skilled artists make use of all the richness of the spoken language
[05:07.23]to create a rapid flow of fun.
[05:11.48]Their talk includes rhythm and rhyming words as well as tongue twisters,
[05:18.15]which often make the audience applaud.
[05:22.09]To appreciate the jokes of crosstalk artists,
[05:26.84]listeners have to know very well what the comedians are talking about.
[05:32.72]If you are not fluent in Chinese,you will not catch all of it.
[05:38.78]Perhaps that is the reason why few foreigners know about this Chinese art form.
[12:21.43]1 Then he began to talk to us about French.
[12:34.57]2 What surprised me most was to see some women
[12:39.85]kneeling on the ground at the end of the room.
[14:33.90]LANGUAGE STUDY
[14:50.96]1 bitterness
[15:02.61]She kept weeping in bitterness.
[15:11.36]You can hardly feel the bitterness about her failure
[15:17.52]in the experiment after so many blood-sweating days and nights.
[15:41.58]2 intention
[15:50.41]He came with every intention to stay on this new job,
[15:57.07]but now he's decided to leave.
[16:07.84]And the most puzzling thing is that he's been keeping all
[16:18.00]to himself his intention of finding an even better-paid job,
[16:24.48]never telling anyone,including his dear and near,
[16:30.12]what he's been turning over in his mind all these years.
[17:09.77]3 Westerners
[17:18.63]When we talk about Westerners,
[17:22.47]we usually refer to those who live in or come from the west part of the world.
[17:41.43]4 certainty
[17:50.79]We're all 100% sure that your horse will lose the race-that's a certainty,
[17:58.15]though I can't say with any certainty whose horse will win.
[18:22.03]Many of those whose horses are in the race can have no certainty of success.
[18:36.58]But some believe that Mr.Black's horse is a certainty,
[19:06.12]8 enriches
[19:28.88]Reading enriches the mind exactly in the same way fertilizer enriches soll.
[20:07.93]INTEGRATING SKILLS
[20:12.29]WE'VE ALREADY MET,HAVEN'T WE?
[20:16.42]The story of how I got my new job,
[20:20.99]and came to be on such good terms with my boss is a funny one.
[20:26.63]It happened like this.I was eyeling along a street on my way to the intervies.
[20:36.19]A yellow car passed me and suddenly cut in right in front of me,
[20:43.27]as there was another car coming in the other direction.
[20:48.42]I had to brake hard and I hit another cyelist.
[20:54.58]We both fell,but fortunately neither of us was hurt.
[21:00.54]I was extremely angry!
[21:04.61]I saw that a little further up the road the traffic lights had turned red.
[21:11.98]I cyeled as last as I could
[21:16.42]and saw that the driver in the yellow car was waiting at the red light.
[21:24.00]I was still so angry that I went up to tell him what I thought of him.
[21:31.76]I cycled in front of him,got off my bicycle
[21:38.10]and laid it down on the road in front of his car so that he couldn't drive off.
[21:45.68]Then I told him what a bad driver I thought he was.
[21:51.43]I told him that he had knocked two people off their bicycles
[21:57.98]and had nearly caused a bad accident.
[22:02.66]I told him that he was a danger to other people on the road.
[22:08.72]I went on shouting at him while everyone was looing at him.
[22:14.57]His face became red.
[22:18.20]When the light turned green,I said to him,"Don't be so stupid in the future.
[22:26.53]Drive carefully so that everyone can enjoy a long life."
[22:32.80]Then I picked up my bicycle and rode on.
[22:38.37]Fortunately,I was on time for the interview.
[22:43.72]It was an important job,and I wanted the job very much.
[22:49.97]I walked into the room where three people were waiting to interview me.
[22:56.52]There was a woman who was the boss of the office in which I wanted to work.
[23:03.29]There was a man with whom I would have to work together
[23:08.33]and finally the manager of the company-
[23:12.80]the driver of the yellow car!
[23:17.16]We looked at each other for a moment in great surprise and total silence.
[23:24.53]What should I do now?
[23:28.29]I decided to look on the whole matter as a great joke!
[23:34.06]I laughed and said,"Yes,we've already met,haven't we?
[23:40.72]I remember that the last time we met I did most of the talking,
[23:47.17]so perhaps I should let you do the talking this time."
[23:52.45]For a moment I saw him thinking.
[23:56.53]Then he realised that I was not going to say anything about his bad driving.
[24:03.68]The interiew went very well.
[24:07.52]I told the company about my work experience
[24:12.49]and answered their questions as well as I could.
[24:17.06]Two days later I received a letter offering me the job.
[24:23.22]I was pleased that the manager had decided not to be angry
[24:29.28]with me for having been so rude.
[24:32.84]Now I make jokes about it and say to everyone
[24:38.17]that I dare tell my manager exactly what I think of him |