英语角-圆桌会议 RoundTable0425 - 校园欺凌视频曝光

 Topic1 School BullyingRecently, a bullying¹ video clip goes viral on the internet. Let's have a listen first. (clip)In the video, a middle schoolboy is beaten up by at least 4 students. The bullies² also put instant noodle bowl and water bucket on the victim's head and pour coke at him. The boy never fights back. He just cries, but the bullies don't stop.

Is this outrageous³?

Topic2 Rent a mountain to study peach blossomChinese parents are famous for their passion and devotion to their children's education. Recently a Sichuan mother rented a mountain after she found out that her daughter did not know how to write a composition about peach blossoms because she never observed a real one.

The mountain has over 20 Mu which is more than 13,300 square meters. The annual rent for each Mu is about 10,000 yuan.

What happened?

Topic3 Pregnant Women Over-protected in ChinaIn China, when women get pregnant, they would be heavily protected right away.

Recently, there are two news stories about pregnancy⁴ and wifi. One is that a husband goes door to door, asking the neighbors to shut down their wifi because of his pregnant wife. The other is an elder man directly destroys the internet switchboard in his building and threatens the neighbors not to make any loud sound after 8 pm, since his daughter-in-law is pregnant.

Is this really necessary?

Topic4 Is Being a Full-Time⁵ Mother Lamentable⁶?

In Chinese mega cities, more young mothers are going back home to become full time housewives because increasing cost of hiring household helpers. Economist⁷ Andy Xie predicts as more families are ready to have second child, more female workers will go back home. Some people believe it's lamentable for a woman to be a full time mother.

Is becoming a housewife that bad for women?

Topic5 Research-10 strange things on TaobaoChina's Taobao is one of the world's largest e-commerce websites, a combination of eBay and Amazon, only bigger. Its 500 million registered users trade almost 50,000 items of merchandise every minute on average.

With more than 800 million items listed, you can find almost anything offered for sale on the website.

The BBC lists the top 10 unusual items up for sale on the Taobao Marketplace at the moment.

What are these 10 items that the BBC deems "strange"?

1 bullying   

v.恐吓，威逼( bully的现在分词 )；豪；跋扈

参考例句：

• Many cases of bullying go unreported . 很多恐吓案件都没有人告发。
• All cases of bullying will be severely dealt with. 所有以大欺小的情况都将受到严肃处理。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 bullies   

n.欺凌弱小者, 开球 vt.恐吓, 威胁, 欺负

参考例句：

• Standing up to bullies takes plenty of backbone. 勇敢地对付暴徒需有大无畏精神。
• Bullies can make your life hell. 恃强欺弱者能让你的日子像活地狱。

3 outrageous   

adj.无理的，令人不能容忍的

参考例句：

• Her outrageous behaviour at the party offended everyone.她在聚会上的无礼行为触怒了每一个人。
• Charges for local telephone calls are particularly outrageous.本地电话资费贵得出奇。

4 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

5 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

6 lamentable   

adj.令人惋惜的，悔恨的

参考例句：

• This lamentable state of affairs lasted until 1947.这一令人遗憾的事态一直持续至1947年。
• His practice of inebriation was lamentable.他的酗酒常闹得别人束手无策。

7 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。