VOA慢速英语20060217b

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - Figure Skating: Now It Is Little Sister Emily's Turn on Olympic IceBy Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Friday, February 17, 2006

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HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English. I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We hear some Grammy award winning music 鈥?nswer a question about the government's space agency 鈥?nd report about some Winter Olympic athletes.

Olympic Athletes

HOST: The Winter Olympic Games are being played in Turin, Italy until February twenty-sixth. About two thousand six hundred athletes from more than eighty countries are taking part. More than two hundred American athletes are competing in the Winter Games. Barbara Klein tells us about three of them.

BARBARA KLEIN: American figure skater Emily Hughes will be competing in her first Winter Olympic Games. But she almost missed the Olympics completely. Emily Hughes finished third at the United States National Figure Skating Championship last month. The three top women skaters at that competition usually represent the United States at the Olympics.


Emily Hughes warms up for her first practice in Turin on Friday; the women's figure skating competition begins Tuesday

But figure skating champion Michelle Kwan was injured and did not compete in the United States nationals. She asked the United States Olympic Committee to permit her to compete in Turin. The officials agreed. But last Sunday, Michelle Kwan withdrew from the Games because of another injury. So Emily Hughes will get her chance at the Winter Olympics.

Emily Hughes is seventeen years old. Her older sister Sarah won the figure skating competition at the Winter Olympics four years ago in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Another American athlete at the Winter Games is World Cup ski champion Bode² Miller³. He won two second place silver medals at the last Winter Games four years ago.

The media have called Bode Miller a rebel. Last month, he said on a television show that he competed in a ski race after drinking too much alcohol the night before. Miller does not travel or stay with the other members of the United States ski team. He travels and lives in his own motor home.

Some experts have called him the best and most exciting ski racer in the world. But so far he has disappointed his fans by failing to win a medal in two ski events this week. He competes again next week.

A third American athlete at the Olympics has an unusual nickname⁴: the Flying Tomato. He is nineteen-year-old Shaun White. His nickname is the result of having long red hair and being able to fly on a board over the snow. On Sunday, he won the first place gold medal in the men's halfpipe snowboarding event.

Shaun White had already won the Superpipe competition at the Winter X Games last month. He told reporters in Turin that that X Games was great but winning at the Olympics was special because it involves the whole world.

NASA

HOST: Our VOA listener question this week comes from Nairobi, Kenya. Ezekiel Owino asks about the United States government agency known as NASA.




NASA is the National Aeronautics⁵ and Space Administration. It has many jobs involving flight. NASA's aeronautics teams work to improve aircraft travel. But it is best known as the agency that plans, supervises⁶ and organizes the exploration of space. Thousands of scientists, engineers and others work for NASA at ten major centers throughout the country. These include the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Lyndon Johnson Space Center in Texas and the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. NASA headquarters are in Washington, D.C.

NASA began in nineteen fifty-eight. Its first big program was Project Mercury⁷. That was an effort to learn if humans could survive in space. Next came Project Gemini, which used spacecraft big enough for only two astronauts. Later, Project Apollo aimed to explore the moon. The fight of Apollo Eleven put the first humans on the moon in nineteen sixty-nine.

Since the nineteen eighties, NASA has flown space shuttles. Astronauts from the United States and other nations have used these to do research and to build the International Space Station. NASA also has launched a number of important scientific spacecraft such as Pioneer, Voyager and Cassini. They have explored the planets and other areas of the solar system. NASA has sent several spacecraft to investigate the planet Mars⁸. And the Hubble Space Telescope has helped scientists discover much new information about the universe.

NASA says its jobs are to explore, discover and seek to understand. It says its goal is to answer these questions. What is out there in space? How do we get there? What will we find? And what can we learn that will make life better here on Earth?

Grammy Winners

The National Academy of Recording⁹ Arts and Sciences presented its yearly Grammy Awards last Wednesday, February eighth. Faith Lapidus tells us about the awards and plays some of the winning songs.

FAITH LAPIDUS: The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences was organized by recording artists, songwriters and technicians. Its highest award recognizes excellent recordings¹⁰ and the people who make them. The award is called the Grammy.

The Grammy is a small a statue that is shaped like the early record player called a gramophone¹¹. The word Grammy is a short way of saying gramophone.

Members of the Academy vote to choose the best recordings of the year. The Irish rock band U2 won the Grammy for writing the best song of the year. The song also won the award for best performance by a rock vocal¹² duo or group. It is called Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own.


Bono, the lead singer of U2, accepts the Grammy for album of the year

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U2 also won three other Grammies this year. It won best rock album and album of the year for How To Dismantle¹³ An Atomic Bomb. And it won best rock song for City of Blinding Lights.

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The Grammy award for record of the year went to the group Green Day. We leave you now with Green Day's award winning song, Boulevard of Broken Dreams.

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1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 bode   

v.预示

参考例句：

• These figures do not bode well for the company's future.这些数字显示出公司的前景不妙。
• His careful habits bode well for his future.他那认真的习惯预示著他会有好的前途。

3 miller   

n.磨坊主

参考例句：

• Every miller draws water to his own mill.磨坊主都往自己磨里注水。
• The skilful miller killed millions of lions with his ski.技术娴熟的磨坊主用雪橇杀死了上百万头狮子。

4 nickname   

n.绰号，昵称；v.给...取绰号，叫错名字

参考例句：

• She called me by my nickname.她叫我的外号。
• Why do you fasten such a nickname on her?你为什么给她取这样一个绰号？

5 aeronautics   

n.航空术，航空学

参考例句：

• National Aeronautics and Space undertakings have made great progress.国家的航空航天事业有了很大的发展。
• He devoted every spare moment to aeronautics.他把他所有多余的时间用在航空学上。

6 supervises   

v.监督，管理( supervise的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The group leader supervises a dozen workers. 组长管十二个工人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He makes the wines and supervises the vineyards. 他酿酒并管理葡萄园。 来自辞典例句

7 mercury   

n.汞，水银，水银柱

参考例句：

• The liquid we can see in thermometers is mercury.我们看到的温度计里的液体是水银。
• Mercury has a much greater density than water.水银的密度比水大得多。

8 Mars   

n.火星，战争

参考例句：

• As of now we don't know much about Mars.目前我们对火星还知之甚少。
• He contended that there must be life on Mars.他坚信火星上面一定有生物。

9 recording   

n.录音，记录

参考例句：

• How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？
• I want to play you a recording of the rehearsal.我想给你放一下彩排的录像。

10 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

11 gramophone   

n.留声机，唱机

参考例句：

• The telephone and the gramophone were contemporary.电话和留声机是同一时代的产物。
• Gramophone records warp in very hot weather.天气太热时，唱片会弯翘。

12 vocal   

adj.直言不讳的；嗓音的；n.[pl.]声乐节目

参考例句：

• The tongue is a vocal organ.舌头是一个发音器官。
• Public opinion at last became vocal.终于舆论哗然。

13 dismantle   

vt.拆开，拆卸；废除，取消

参考例句：

• He asked for immediate help from the United States to dismantle the warheads.他请求美国立即提供援助，拆除这批弹头。
• The mower firmly refused to mow,so I decided to dismantle it.修完后割草机还是纹丝不动，于是，我决定把它拆开。