时间:2019-03-01 作者:英语课 分类:听播客学英语


英语课

   Today’s podcast is about a woman called Beatrix Potter. She was born in London in 1866, and grew up there. But her family used to go to the Lake District in north-west England for holidays, and she came to love the Lake District and to know it well. As a girl, she enjoyed drawing pictures, particularly pictures of animals. Her drawings were very good. If she had been a man, perhaps she would have become a serious scientific artist – drawing pictures of plants and animals for scientific journals 1 and museums. But in England at the end of the 19th century, scientists were almost all men.


  So, instead of a career in science, Beatrix Potter wrote books for chidren, and illustrated 2 them herself. (“To illustrate” a book means to draw pictures or take photographs for it.) You probably know some of these books, because they have been translated into many other languages. The English names for some of them are:
  The Tale of Peter Rabbit
  The Tale of Tom Kitten
  The Tale of Mrs Tiggiwinkle.
  The pictures in these books show how carefully Beatrix Potter observed animals – what they look like, what they do, how they move. If real rabbits wore little blue jackets, they would look just like her pictures of Peter Rabbit. But she was not sentimental 3 about animals. People kill and eat animals. In the natural world, animals hunt and kill other animals. Farmers keep animals for food, not because they look pretty. So, in her books, Peter Rabbit’s father is put in a pie by Mrs McGregor. Mr Jeremy Fisher (a frog) is swallowed by a fish. Pigs are sent to market to be sold and slaughtered 4. Some people today do not like this side of Beatrix Potter’s stories. They say that children who read the stories will be frightened or upset. I think children prefer to be told the truth about the world.
  By the time she was in her 40s, Beatrix Potter was beginning to earn money from her books. She bought a farm in the Lake District, and then another and another. She worked hard as a farmer, and kept pigs and sheep. In fact she became an expert on Herdwick sheep – a special, very ugly breed 5 of sheep that is found in the Lake District and nowhere else. She cared passionately 6 about the Lake District and the need to preserve its natural beauty.
  When she died, in 1943, she left all her properties in the Lake District to the National Trust. The National Trust is an organisation 7 which tries to preserve special landscapes and buildings all over England and Wales. It owns a lot of land in the Lake District, and makes sure that the traditional character of the area is maintained 8. And that is how, thanks to Peter Rabbit, the Lake District is still a beautiful and unspoilt part of England.
  Incidentally 9, people tell me that schools in Japan use Beatrix Potter’s books to teach children English. Is this really true? Can my Japanese listeners please leave comments on the website, or send me an e-mail?

n.(某学科或专业的)杂志( journal的名词复数 );期刊;日志;(用于报纸名)…报
  • Which journals does the library subscribe to? 图书馆订有哪些报刊?
  • This short story was published by two journals of repute. 这篇短篇小说由两种著名的杂志刊出。 来自《简明英汉词典》
adj.多愁善感的,感伤的
  • She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人,她相信姻缘命中注定。
  • We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。
v.屠杀,杀戮,屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 )
  • The invading army slaughtered a lot of people. 侵略军杀了许多人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Hundreds of innocent civilians were cruelly slaughtered. 数百名无辜平民遭残杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.品种,种类;vi.繁殖,产仔;vt.养殖,产生
  • The parents are trying to breed their son a musician.这对父母尽力要把儿子培养成为音乐家。
  • This breed of horses is both tall and heavily grown.这种马既高且大。
ad.热烈地,激烈地
  • She could hate as passionately as she could love. 她能恨得咬牙切齿,也能爱得一往情深。
  • He was passionately addicted to pop music. 他酷爱流行音乐。
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休
  • The method of his organisation work is worth commending.他的组织工作的方法值得称道。
  • His application for membership of the organisation was rejected.他想要加入该组织的申请遭到了拒绝。
保持( maintain的过去式和过去分词 ); 保养; 坚持; 保卫
  • He maintained a professional demeanour throughout. 他始终保持着专业人才的风度。
  • Throughout his trial he maintained a dignified silence. 在整个审讯过程中,他始终沉默以保持尊严。
adv.附带地,顺便提及
  • Incidentally,I think you still owe me some money.顺便说一句,我想你还欠我一些钱。
  • Incidentally,here's a good piece of news.附带告诉你一个好消息。
学英语单词
agricultural emulsifier No.600
annual allowance
ash colour body
atomic resonance line
bathygadus garretti
cerellatron
cessationist
character display unit
character flaw
combining tee T
crune
decemvirates
decrescendoed
dial phones
dicriminalize
dictyostelids
disarthrosis
dome nut
dominant product
door widely open
drilling platforms
duck gizzard spiced
Eschau
family Liparidae
farysia olivacea
five-tire car
fore-slow
frame drum
genus sclerodermas
Google Alerts
grass-earth
Gross-Hehlen
gutter market
heading axis
heater cathode leakage
helicosporium nematosporum
Hiburi-shima
holder in due corse
instrumental roles
invoice outward
Inzegmir
iwconfig
Jack Pudding
keratolysis neonatorum
Lahmu
lay emphasis up on
liquid-gas distributor
liquor pericardii
locking ring mount
logarithmic unit
Lottigna
lubricating compounds
macrophthalmus serenei
Manari
monoeciously
nafi
native-americans
no bit
nonformalizable
nonprecise
oil supply line
open-cell foam
operating earning rate
over-riding
periblems
pit working line
point-focused electron gun
pointing control
prehepaticus
primary local membr-ance
production break
promulging
Put you in mind
restabilization
rub someone's nose in it
russian monetary units
scopulary organelle
secondin'
selection of stars
sketchball
slimline type
small and medium-sized enterprise
specification statement
stator ring
Suiko
sulphuricacid
supplementarity
tabular
tele-robotics
televisings
toplin
toxophilic
transitological
treble agent
trutch
twibit
uncorporated
USDAW
wassenburg
wicked problems
wild oat grasses
wing-handed