柔嘉维则@life.oracle.eng: english

(ZT)Li Yuchun Loved for Being Herself

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 13:30:27 GMT

By Susan Jakes

Chinese showbiz rarely produces icons. Sure, there are the dozen or so movie actors who can carry a film, and the odd rocker who fills a stadium. But seldom does a face on China's small screen really stand out. Even singing, the national pastime and TV staple, seems reserved for an interchangeable lineup of warbling coquettes, husky crooners and jolly fellows in brass stars and epaulets belting out odes to red flags.

中国的影像工业造星乏术。尽管有若干影星占据银幕，也有少数摇滚歌手可以炒热体育场，但却鲜有电视银屏上的面孔能够真正出位。即便是在国家娱乐活动及电视晚会的歌唱环节中，也总是看见一些换汤不换药的风尘女子、沙哑的男低音和貌似愉悦的跟班，在军衔和铜制五星的簇拥下高歌红旗颂。

Which helps explain how a 21-year-old Sichuanese music student named Li Yuchun has become one of the most popular figures in China. In August, Li won a televised American Idol-like singing contest produced by Hunan province's Entertainment Channel and bearing its own inimitable name: "Mongolian Cow Sour Yogurt Super Girl's Voice." (Its sponsor makes yogurt.) The show drew the largest audiences in the history of Chinese television. As the competition narrowed, the media covered it like a war or the O.J. Simpson trial. By the time the finale aired, some 400 million people were tuning in.

而这也正解释了为什么一个名叫李宇春的21岁四川女生会成为中国最受欢迎的流行偶像。8月，李宇春在湖南卫视那档类似“美国偶像”的歌唱比赛中盛出，并赢得了她独一无二的称号：“蒙牛酸酸乳超级女声”(电视节目的赞助商是做酸酸乳的)。这个节目吸引到了中国电视史上最大的观众群。当比赛日趋白热化，媒体就像面对一场战争或是辛普森案那样对比赛进行了报道。在总决选中，约4亿人收看了电视直播。

The Li Yuchun phenomenon, however, goes far beyond her voice, which even the most ardent fans admit is pretty weak: her vocal range drifts between Cher territory and that place your little brother's voice went the summer before seventh grade. As a dancer, she's not much better. Hei Nan, one of the event's judges, told the Guangzhou Daily that Li was "the worst of the top six in terms of singing skills," but noted that she garnered the most audience votes.

被李宇春的狂热歌迷们追捧的歌声经不起推敲——那只是种漂移在雪儿(Cher)和你还没上初中的小弟弟之间的音色。而作为一名舞者，她也强不到哪里去。超女评委黑楠在接受《广州日报》采访时说：“她是六强中唱功最差的”，但是请注意，她依然赢得了最多的观众选票。

What Li did possess was attitude, originality and a proud androgyny that defied Chinese norms. During the tryouts—in which 150,000 contestants were winnowed to 15—Li wore loose jeans and a black button-down shirt, with no make-up and the haircut (and body) of David Bowie during his Space Oddity phase. She auditioned with In My Heart There's Only You, Never Her, an oldie made famous by Taiwan's Liu Wenzheng—a man. In the main competition she sang other songs written for male performers and called herself "a tomboy." For an audience reared on the bubble-gum, lip-gloss standards of Chinese girl pop, Li's disregard for the rule book produced an unfamiliar knee-weakening. Her fans wept openly and frantically shrieked when Li took the stage. The show ruffled feathers among Beijing's commissars. By the final episode, Li and her two remaining rivals had switched their repertoire to patriotic folk songs.

实际上，李宇春现象早已超越了她的歌声。李宇春所拥有的，是态度、创意和颠覆了中国传统审美的中性风格。在那个从15万人中选出15人的预赛阶段，李宇春身着宽松的牛仔裤与黑色带扣衬衫，素面朝天并带着大卫·鲍伊(David Bowie)在演唱《太空星尘(Space Oddity，1969年发行，译者注)》时的发型和体型登台亮相，演唱了台湾男歌星刘文正的著名老歌《我的心里只有你没有她》。海选过后，李宇春又演唱了许多为男歌手创作的歌曲并说自己“像男生”。对教条的不屑一顾引来超乎意料的反响，每当李宇春登台亮相，她的“粉丝”们总会泪洒现场或是惊声尖叫。这档节目惹恼了北京的高层。在总决选中，李宇春和她的两位竞争对手不得不将原先安排好的曲目换成民歌。

Li's victory was unusual in other ways: like American Idol, but unlike China itself, "Super Girl's Voice" is run democratically. Eight million SMS votes flooded in on the night of the finale. For a few weeks after, the mainland press debated the relevance of this format. "Only something that smashes social norms could elicit such a response," Yu Guoming, a media expert at People's University, told the Beijing News. "After all, in China the opportunities to use votes to choose are relatively few." An editorial in the China Daily wondered: "How come an imitation of a democratic system ends up selecting the singer who has the least ability to carry a tune?" As Li prepares for a nationwide tour with the other finalists, her handlers are loath to discuss the political dimensions of the program or of Li's triumph. Hunan Entertainment Channel refused TIME's requests to interview or photograph Li. According to one of her many agents, they were worried the story would portray Li as more than just an entertainer. But she is more: Li represents unabashed individuality, and that's why she's a national icon.

李宇春的胜利在很多其他方面都显得与众不同：类似“美国偶像”——而非中国现状——“超级女声”以一个民主的方式运作。800万短信投票划过决赛当晚的夜空。此后数周，大陆媒体围绕着这种节目模式展开了争论。“只有打破常态的东西才会引起如此大的反响，”人民大学新闻学院教授喻国明在接受《新京报》采访时说，“但毕竟中国能够实际的完全用投票的方式进行选择，机会是比较少的。”《China Daily》的社论(《Svengalis scramble to decipher Super Girls' secret》，8月27日，作者周黎明，译者注)发问：“为什么一个模拟民主的比赛机制却选出了唱功最差的歌手呢？”当李宇春准备和其他“超级女声”展开全国巡演的时候，她的经纪人并不愿意在政治层面上谈论这档电视节目和李宇春的胜出。湖南卫视拒绝了《时代》周刊的采访，也不允许对李宇春进行拍照。经纪公司非常担心这篇报道会给李宇春扣上艺人以外的帽子。但是，李宇春确实拥有更多含义：她代表了张扬的个性，这就是她成为全国偶像的原因。

—With reporting by Nicole Qu/Beijing Susan Jakes

Love Your Life

Fri, 22 Sep 2006 06:33:07 GMT

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man's abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town's poor seem to me often to live the most independent lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it often happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means. which should be more disreputable. Cultivate poverty like a garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends, Turn the old, return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.

Henry David Thoreau

世界上最美丽的英文

Fri, 15 Sep 2006 04:35:59 GMT

All That Is Beautiful－－Poems and Passages of Life

闭上眼睛，细数你生命中最美丽的瞬间……
     在寒冷的日子里接到远方朋友暖暖的问候；
          读到一篇优美的诗歌，馨香绕怀久久不忘；
               看到白浪银沙和地平线，第一次来到海边；
                    小雨点与莫扎特的音符一起跳跃在深院中；
                          走在街上，偶然的一景触动了深藏的希望；
                               还有，流星雨划过天际的弧线；
                                    还有，夜场电影唤醒的灵感；
                                                 ……
这是你的人生，它和四季一样有扬有落，然而当中的美从不逊色。
                                    翻开这本书，它也成为了你的一个瞬间；
                     阅读的快乐，学习的快乐，生之快乐。

Thing do not change; we change.Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts.
万物不变，是我们在变。你的衣服可以卖掉，但要保留你的思想。 Henry David Thoreau

To see a world in a grain of sand,
          And a heaven in a wild flower,
                    Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
                              And eternity in an hour. －－William Blake

一沙一世界，一花一天堂，双手握无限，刹那是永恒

搞笑的外教

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 08:53:15 GMT

外教很有趣也很有心，他喜欢用非常形象并且夸张的肢体动作，他教我们英语的同时也跟我们学中文，难的中文用拼音写，简单的中文从下到上写，“S”也是从下到上写的。我们都很惊讶并且大笑。

还有一个外教中文更好一点。上课的时候他说，你们杭州人，上海人啊，不会念“h”，吃饭，是chi fan 不是ci fan，天目山路，是tian mu shan lu，不是tian mu san lu，你们应该多念念绕口令：四是四，十是十，四十是四十，十四是十四。把我们乐翻了。但是这个绕口令对我来说太难了。

The foreign teacher is very funny and diligent. He acts out visually and exaggeratedly. When he teaches us English he also learns Chinese from us. He writes difficult Chinese using Pinyin and writes easy one but from the bottom up. He also writes "S" from the bottom up. We are all in surprise and laughing.

Another goreign teacher's Chinese is better. In class he said," you, people in Hangzhou or in Shanghai, can't say "h". Chi fan is not ci fan but chi fan, and tian mu shan lu is not tian mu san lu but tian mu shan lu. So you should practice the tongue twister, si shi si, shi shi shi, si shi shi si shi, shi si shi shi si. We all enjoyed ourselves. But for me the tongue twister is too difficult to say.

open mouth

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 08:50:18 GMT

昨天我去了浙大阳光咨询且试听了英语课。做测试的老外说我，词汇4级，听力3级，口语2级（抱歉我英语还是不行，只能写中文），他说只要我拥有confidence，在感觉comfortable的时候，open mouth，一切都会OK。

于是我决定去那里报名&上课，定在后天。我选择浙大，是因为我想，只有学校的氛围才能让我静下心来，只有在学校才能够找回过去的信心，只有在学校才能够游刃有余神采飞扬。并且，这里的老师会鼓励我，我喜欢鼓励。

教室的墙上有一句话，courage is a ladder on which all the other virtues mount. 勇敢正是我现在缺少的，我连open mouth的勇气都没有。

希望&感谢大家关注我，我愿意和大家一起见证这个过程，也许这也是给自己压力和督促的一个方式。

糟糕的开始

Sat, 26 Aug 2006 15:53:43 GMT

今天下了friends，根本听不懂，看着中文字幕偶尔能听懂几个单词。放弃，转而听新概念英语2，这个稍好，但听不懂的也比听得懂的多。

我应该用英语写这些话，不过对我来说实在太难。我表现出了一个英语初学者的典型症状：不能杜绝电视，不能静下心来，不能聚精会神，一不用心就听不懂，没听几句话就犯困，睡着无数次。

糟糕的开始也是开始，并且总算是开始。继续努力，自己鼓励一下。

舍不得孩子套不到狼

Fri, 25 Aug 2006 15:20:34 GMT

我有8年没有学过英语了，它终于成了我学习工作生活中的绊脚石。所以决心学英语，参加英语培训，所谓舍不得孩子套不到狼。它给我的感觉，像天堑，我已经不记得oracle入门前是多么苦恼了，而现在的确苦恼每天缠绕我，对结果的期望越来越强烈。它给我的感觉，又似乎不过一线之差即能入门。我站在门外，真想进去就能进去？

是的。有很多的朋友会鼓励我。今天蛋白粉跟我说，from now on, i will only use english to talk with you. Motivation is always helpful. Remember, foreign fool speaks english too.

谢谢，我要坚持一个月。

新概念英语

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 08:36:16 GMT

http://www.ywhc.net/article/class_76.asp

10 days

(ZT)For English Learners，here is the help!

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 02:15:49 GMT

i like to share my understanding with you about learning english. no matter which skill you want to emphasize, there is only one way to achieve that. this is what i call to know and to practice.

1. to know what?

A. knowing reading is the first step if one wants to improve his/her english. the correct way to enhance our english 4 skills starts from reading. in this case, “READ RIGHT” is a very important goal.

for instances, when first time encountering a word, phrase, or sentence, try to spell and read them correctly. many people keep making mistakes on the same issue because they have their mind set from the beginning. and it is very hard to change later, such as wrong pronunciations, incorrect usages, etc... so when you learn a new word, try your best to spell it out loud and carefully pronounce it. If you are not sure about the pronunciation, go check or ask it.

B. when practicing reading skills, there are three groups of objects to approach:
a. the meaningful paragraphs: these are too large to be easily handled.
b. sentences:
c. and words: from our experience we all know reciting vocabularies alone is not going to help us. i have seen so many people reciting vocabularies and when it comes to time of using them, they know a little.

thus, knowing sentence level reading skill practice is the stage where we start from. for the past 27 years of teaching, i have developed a way to do this. and i call it "sentence structure analysis." this is not new to english learners. based on the sentence you have, try to break it down to different parts of speech, such as subject nouns, verbs, and object nouns, adjectives, adverbs. analyze about 10 sentences a day. by analyzing the sentence structure correctly, one can improve his/her reading skill within one month even s/he does not necessarily know the meaning of all words in a sentence. also through this practice, you learn the usages of words or phrases.

C. after this practice, then what?

during the time of practicing "READ RIGHT," one can also apply the usages and knowledge learnt from reading in writing. start to write simple sentences with subject + verb + object. write nothing more other than those three. complicated sentence writing will not necessarily bring you to high level of writing skill. write short but right is our emphasis.

Know that you can write right based on the skills and technologies learnt from read right.

D. then what?

a. do your best to turn on english programs from tv, radio, or any other device which will make you a simulated english environment. it is not necessary for you to understand all contents coming from that program at this stage. by doing this, you are getting your ears familiar with the wave and tone of english expressions. thus, english music is not as good as cartoons, news broadcastings, soap operas, etc. the only requirement is the correct english pronunciation for those you are listening. let it play as long as you can even if you are not paying attention to it.

b. the second stage of listening skill practice combines the skills of reading and listening by recording and playing what you are reading. if there are tapes or cds to go with the materials you are reading, play them before, while, and after you do all careful analysis on what you are reading. if there is no tape or cd, just read and record slowly your own. you can record from those with better pronunciations and those who are willing to help you. read slowly but clearly. Please play them even you are about to go to sleep. "let it play from time to time" is the key. continuing playing and listening to meaningful materials will be a way to help your skills of listening and speaking. remember, at this stage, you will do your best to understand all what you are listening.

2. to practice

there is no short cut in english skills improving. practice is the only way. but please practice correctly. otherwise, you are wasting your time and/or others. if you just keep talking nonsense and this will not help at all. there are only two inputs in these 4 skills, listening and reading. one has to have meaningful inputs in order for her/him to have meaningful outputs. remember, one has to read and listen to meaningful sentences then these will help her/his writing and speaking skills later.

to practice those i mentioned above takes very short time. do sentence structure analysis with simple and short sentences in the beginning. after doing a few times, your confidence will be built up. then go pick up any sentence or more from any magazine or article, even writings with non- understandable subjects, or those in weird fields with difficult vocabularies, and do the analysis accordingly.

once you get to know this very well, you can start write things according to the same principle. and add more and more words, phrases, or clauses to the sentences you are writing. then, your writing skill is improved.

remember: DON'T GIVE UP. find one or two friends to do this together. have fun. this practice costs you nothing. i see so many people complainning about the cost of those english teaching programs.

will you please stop saying my english is not good and do nothing to help. from what I said above, it takes less time but gain the highest benefit if you just do it. this is the way to reach the goal of improving your 4 skills in english. to know and to practice! again, try mine and through which, you gain the most in the shortest time. trust me, friends. all my students and student teachers who practice and/or teach this find it beneficial. many get high scores in toefl and other english tests within a very short time.

REMEMBER: the sequence is reading, writing, listening, then speaking. don't waste your time and money finding short cuts other than this. all materials are good as long as you use it right. these are my sincerest advices.