词汇大师(Wordmaster)--Lida Baker: Modals

Broadcast on "Coast to Coast": June 20, 2002
Re-broadcast on VOA News Now: June 23, 2002

AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster, meet the modals!

RS: Modals are words like can, could, will, would, may, might, and must. The list goes on. And they can be tricky¹ to learn.

AA: We get more of an introduction from English teacher Lida Baker² in Los Angeles.

BAKER: The modals have descended³ from verbs but they don't have the same characteristics. For example, modals never take an 's' ending. So a verb, for example, you say 'I go,' 'you go,' 'he goes.' But with modals it would be 'I would,' 'you would,' 'he would.' There's no difference."

RS: "Why are they so difficult to learn?"

BAKER: "One of the reasons is that almost every modal can be used in more than one way. As an example, the modal 'can' can have the meaning of ability, like 'I can swim.' But it can also have kind of a predictive meaning, where you can something like 'it can rain later today.'"

AA: "Now what about the word 'must.' Talk a little bit about 'must.'"

BAKER: "'Must' is a very interesting word. We don't use 'must' a whole lot in the U-S. It's used a lot more in Britain. But we do use the quasi-modal 'have to' a lot in the United States, and we pronounce it as 'hafta,' as if it were one word. 'Must' and 'have to' have the same meaning. They have this meaning of obligation, like 'I can't go to the movies with you tonight because I have to do my homework.' Now something that's interesting about the words 'must' and 'have to' is, what's the opposite? Is it 'must not'?"

AA: "Sure, 'you must not go."

BAKER: "Aha -- wrong!"

AA: "Oh."

BAKER: "In fact, the opposite of 'must' isn't 'must not.' The opposite of must is 'don't have to,' because what we're talking about here is the sense of obligation. 'Must' and 'have to' mean you have to do something because you're obliged. What we're looking for is something that has the meaning of no obligation, and the way we do that in English is to say 'don't have to.' 'You don't have to do you homework now, you can do it later.' And by the way 'mustn鈥檛 is almost never said in U-S English."

AA: "It's British."

BAKER: "It's very British."

AA: "Now here's an example, you walk into a room, you want to sit down, you want to ask the other person for permission, just to be courteous⁴. What should you say?" Do you say 'may I' -- "

BAKER: "'May I sit down.'"

AA: "'May I sit down.'"

RS: "Or 'can I sit down.'"

BAKER: "Now, depending on the circumstances, you see. Because another function of modals is to express degrees of formality. So if you're in a bar, and it's noisy and it's very casual, you might say 'can I sit here.' You'll use 'can.' If you want to make it a little bit more formal, a little more polite, 'could I please sit here?' If you're in an elegant restaurant or something like that, or if you're speaking to someone who clearly is -- I don't want to say above you in status, that's a very un-American way of thinking."

AA: "Someone in authority."

BAKER" But someone who has more authority than you or is older than you, you might use 'may' because it's more formal, it's more polite, 'may I please sit here?'" So we use modals to express degrees of formality."

RS: "So simply by listening and perhaps jotting⁵ down what you hear, or questioning when someone says something you don't understand that has a modal in it, and keeping a list of those in the context, might help you."

BAKER: "That's one technique. Another technique is an eavesdropping⁶ technique where when you hear people talking, you kind of in your mind repeat what they've just said. So if you hear someone in a restaurant say 'could I please have some more coffee,' you sort of repeat that to yourself, 'could I please have some more coffee, could I please have some more coffee."

AA: Lida Baker teaches at the American Language Center at the University of California at Los Angeles. She also writes textbooks for English learners, available through the McGraw-Hill Publishing Company.

RS: However, Lida Baker cannot reply to messages personally. So send your questions to VOA Wordmaster, Washington DC 20237 USA, or。。。。。。。。。。。。And, you can find our programs on the Web at voanews.com/wordmaster. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.

MUSIC: "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better"/Ethel Merman and Bruce Yarnell [Song from the play "Annie Get Your Gun"]

 

1 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

2 baker   

n.面包师

参考例句：

• The baker bakes his bread in the bakery.面包师在面包房内烤面包。
• The baker frosted the cake with a mixture of sugar and whites of eggs.面包师在蛋糕上撒了一层白糖和蛋清的混合料。

3 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

4 courteous   

adj.彬彬有礼的，客气的

参考例句：

• Although she often disagreed with me,she was always courteous.尽管她常常和我意见不一，但她总是很谦恭有礼。
• He was a kind and courteous man.他为人友善，而且彬彬有礼。

5 jotting   

n.简短的笔记，略记v.匆忙记下( jot的现在分词 )；草草记下，匆匆记下

参考例句：

• All the time I was talking he was jotting down. 每次我在讲话时，他就会记录下来。 来自互联网
• The student considers jotting down the number of the businessman's American Express card. 这论理学生打算快迅速地记录下来下这位商贾的美国运通卡的金额。 来自互联网

6 eavesdropping   

n. 偷听

参考例句：

• We caught him eavesdropping outside the window. 我们撞见他正在窗外偷听。
• Suddenly the kids,who had been eavesdropping,flew into the room. 突然间，一直在偷听的孩子们飞进屋来。