词汇大师-- Think 'Uh Huh' and 'Unh Unh' Sound Alike?

　　AA: I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: we talk with English teacher Nina Weinstein about some expressions in spoken American English that you might not find in a dictionary.
RS: But if you are a good listener, you'll hear them. They give people time to think while helping¹ connect one thought to the next.

　　NINA WEINSTEIN: "One of the useful links, I think, is the expression 'let's see,' which means 'let me think.' Often my students will use a kind of word like that from their own language. And so they'll be speaking Japanese or Spanish or whatever with their linking word and THEN they'll continue the rest of the sentence in English. And so I give them 'let's see' as a way to bridge their thoughts and also give them time to think."
AA: "'Let's see' also has a meaning in itself, though, too, doesn't it? Where, for example, you're not sure which way you've decided² on something so you'll say 'OK, let's see' -- let's see what happens. 'Let's see.'"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "I think you're right. I think it could indicate that you're not sure of the answer. It has a lot of meanings. And a lot of these have dual³ meanings, like the simple expression 'uh huh.' Uh huh can mean that we're listening to what the person is saying, so this is a way of keeping them talking. It can also mean yes, or it can be pronounced 'um hmm.'"
RS: "What about no?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "'Unh unh.' And my students often have a problem distinguishing between uh huh and unh unh."
AA: "Give us an example of how to use them correctly."
NINA WEINSTEIN: "'Do you want to go to the movie?' 'Uh huh.' Do you think that the movie will start after nine?' 'Unh unh.'"
RS: "You say your students have trouble distinguishing between the two?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Right."
RS: "Now, do you reinforce them with facial expressions or shaking your head, or nodding your head [yes] or shaking your head no?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "I talk about the beat. If you listen to 'uh huh,' the accent is on the second syllable⁴. If you listen to 'unh unh,' it's equal. So 'unh unh' is more staccato. And I tap my hand on the desk to kind of reinforce this. And then I usually asked them if they sing karaoke or something like that, so they get the idea of the beat. But I don't sing for them!"
AA: "Unh unh."
RS: "So you give them a couple of examples and they're tapping out on their desk whether it's yes or no?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Exactly."
RS: "I want to go back to unh unh, uh huh and a third one, 'uh oh.'"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Uh oh."
RS: "They sound very similar. We have three here and if you could go over them again for us, I think that would be very useful because they sound so similar, but they're used in such different contexts."
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Well, I think if we look at the rest of the sentence or listen to the rest of the sentence, that gives us a big clue. If someone asks a question and the answer is uh huh, then it has to be either yes or no, so that pretty much narrows it. If there's a situation -- for instance, if a person spills some coffee or something like that, and the person says 'uh oh,' I think there's a kind of feeling that the situation gives us that something bad has happened, and uh oh means 'oh no,' there's a problem, something bad has happened, there's trouble or something like that. So often the situation will give us the idea."
AA: "It's a synonym⁵ for 'oops,' right?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "It can be oops. We also say 'whoops⁶.'"
AA: "What about a word like 'hey'?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "Hey is actually a conversational⁷ strategy and it's used to draw attention to what you're talking about: 'Hey, did you see the movie on Channel 3 last week?' So I can delete the hey and still have a good sentence, but hey adds a kind of attention focus to the sentence."
RS: "What would you suggest to do to teach these things? Is it just to listen a lot?"
NINA WEINSTEIN: "I think that often what I read in the literature is a kind of lumping together of all of these strategies. But just in what we've spoken about today, you can see that they're very complicated, or they can have multi-purposes, each one. So I think that we need to give students systematic⁸ practice in hearing them and in distinguishing when the differences can be confusing, such as uh huh/unh unh."
AA: Nina Weinstein is an English teacher in Southern California and author of the book "Whaddaya Say? Guided Practice in Relaxed Speech." She's put together a list of conversational strategies including the ones we talked about today, which we'll post on our Web site, voanews.com/wordmaster.
RS: And that's Wordmaster for this week. Our e-mail address is [email protected]. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.
MUSIC: "Uh Huh Oh Yeh"/Paul Weller

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

4 syllable   

n.音节；vt.分音节

参考例句：

• You put too much emphasis on the last syllable.你把最后一个音节读得太重。
• The stress on the last syllable is light.最后一个音节是轻音节。

5 synonym   

n.同义词，换喻词

参考例句：

• Zhuge Liang is a synonym for wisdom in folklore.诸葛亮在民间传说中成了智慧的代名词。
• The term 'industrial democracy' is often used as a synonym for worker participation. “工业民主”这个词常被用作“工人参与”的同义词。

6 whoops   

int.呼喊声

参考例句：

• Whoops! Careful, you almost spilt coffee everywhere. 哎哟！小心点，你差点把咖啡洒得到处都是。
• We were awakened by the whoops of the sick baby. 生病婴儿的喘息声把我们弄醒了。

7 conversational   

adj.对话的，会话的

参考例句：

• The article is written in a conversational style.该文是以对话的形式写成的。
• She values herself on her conversational powers.她常夸耀自己的能言善辩。

8 systematic   

adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的

参考例句：

• The way he works isn't very systematic.他的工作不是很有条理。
• The teacher made a systematic work of teaching.这个教师进行系统的教学工作。