[00:06.69]ON READIGN
[00:08.72]On the subject of reading,
[00:11.08]Francis Bacon, who lived at about the same time as Shakespeare,
[00:15.44]wrote these words: “Some books are to be tasted,
[00:19.88]others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested”.
[00:24.71]This good advice shows how it is possible to read different types of books in different ways.
[00:31.19]For example, you might pick up a travel book and read a few pages before going to sleep.
[00:37.43]It is enough to dip into it and read bits here and there.
[00:41.69]In a word, this is “tasting”.
[00:45.17]Some stories are for “swallowing”.
[00:48.22]Imagine that you have found a good story,
[00:51.17]and what is even more important, the time to enjoy it.
[00:55.22]You might be on holiday, or on a long train journey.
[00:59.90]If it is a good book, you might say, “It’s so good that I can’t put it down.”
[01:05.46]But not all stories belong to this class.
[01:08.94]Reviewers sometimes describe books as “hard-to-put down” or “hard-to pick-up-again”.
[01:15.42]Other books are for reading slowly and carefully.
[01:18.76]If it is a book on a subject that you interested in,
[01:22.60]you will want to “chew and digest it”.
[01:25.16]That doest not mean reading it too slowly.
[01:28.22]When you pick up a book for the first time,
[01:30.85]check that it is not too difficult
[01:33.20]Do not start a book unless you can see from the first few pages that it is one that you can easily read and understand.
[01:41.75]Next, if it is not a story,
[01:45.22]get an idea of the organization of the book.
[01:48.46]Read the back cover and the introduction.
[01:51.62]Look at the pictures and the short texts below them.
[01:54.99]Turn to the front of the book and look at the contents.
[01:59.04]This way you can decide whether the book is likely to interest you, and if so,and if so,
[02:04.60]then you can decide which parts of the book will the most useful and interesting.
[02:09.65]Here are some more reading tips.
[02:13.20]First, read a chapter quickly to get a general idea.
[02:17.12]Then, if you wish, you can read it once again more slowly,
[02:22.16]using a dictionary when necessary.
[02:24.90]Second, do not stop every time you come to a word or a phrase you do not know.
[02:30.78]Quite often you will find the unknown word appears again,
[02:35.14]perhaps several times,
[02:37.10]and by the end of the chapter you will have guessed its meaning.
[02:40.76]That is how we learn the meaning of words in our own language.
[02:44.83]Imagine that you come across this sentence in a book:
[02:48.57]“The house was beginning to get cold,
[02:51.02]so Daisy pulled her red, woolen cardigan out of her bag and put it on.”
[02:56.48]If you do not know the word “cardigan”,
[02:59.96]you can guess from the situation that it is made of wool and is put on the keep warm,
[03:03.61]and is therefore likely to be an article to clothing.
[03:09.54]By making guesses about the information and organization of a text,
[03:12.47]you will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the whole article as well as new words.
[03:20.41]For example, if the title of the article you are going to read is “The Generation Gap”,
[03:27.18]you can start by thinking what you already know about the topic.
[03:31.33]You probably know that the generation gap refers to differences in opinions,
[03:37.57]thinking, and lifestyles between people of different generations.
[03:42.51]You can guess that the article will describe some common differences and perhaps explain why they exist and what problems there might be.If your guess is correct,
[03:44.55]If your guess is correct,
[03:46.19]the article will probably have paragraphs that compare and contrast the thinking of two or more different groups of people.
[04:03.25]There will probably that compare and contrast discuss causes and effects.
[04:07.90]Since you know from your writing class that most articles have three main parts-an introduction,
[04:14.46]a body and a conclusion-you can guess what each part will talk about
[04:19.63]In the case, the introduction will probably define the generation gap,
[04:24.88]provide some background information, and point out some of the important questions.
[04:36.43]In the conclusion, the writer will probably summarise the situation and try to answer some of the questions mentioned in the introduction.
[04:45.26]With a bit of practice,
[04:47.71]you can become quite good at predicting the content and organization of an article.
[04:52.55]You may also learn to predict what words will be used and what questions will be answered.
[04:58.11]The more guesses you make, the better you will understand the reading.
[05:02.79]If your guess is right,
[05:05.24]you will of course understand the article and it will be easy to remember the main ideas –because you already knew them.
[05:13.89]It doesn’t matter if your guesses are wrong.
[05:16.16]They will still help you to understand and remember the ideas better.
[05:20.91]When you read the article and come across something you didn’t know or expect,
[05:27.16]you will pay more attention to it.
[05:29.22]Finally, since you have prepared well,
[05:32.88]you can spend more time on the difficult and confusing parts.
[05:37.42]Without this preparation, you would have to deal with everything at once.
[05:42.70]Finally, decide what to read.
[05:46.25]Start by making a list of all the types of books you enjoy reading in Chinese.
[05:52.10]If you hate science stories,
[05:54.53]you are unlikely to enjoy reading them in English.
[05:57.90]If you enjoy reading short stories in Chinese,
[06:01.56]look for collections of English ones.
[06:03.91]Are there any hobbies of sports you particularly like?
[06:08.25]If so, look for books, articles or magazines about them.
[06:13.58]You can enlarge your knowledge and learn some English at the same time |