现代大学英语听力2Unit-9

Task 1

1) Man: I had the girls running in circles when I was in college.

Woman: I never knew you were the campus hero.

Man: I wasn't. I was the women's track coach.

2) Instructor: Mr. Jenkins, why are you late?

Student: I guess because the class started before I got here.

3) Woman: Doctor, you have to come immediately—my baby swallowed some camera film! Doctor: Just calm yourself, nothing will develop.

4) Customer: Waiter, this water is cloudy.

Waiter: The water's okay, madam. It's just that the glass is a little dirty.

5) Woman: The bride wears white on her wedding day as a symbol of happiness, for this is the most joyous day in her entire life.

Man: Why does the groom wear black?

Task 2

Catherine: I think firstly I find the French language, very melodic to listen to. It's very easy on the ear, and it almost sounds poetic. No matter what kind of mood the individual is in, who's talking, or what they're talking about, there seems to be a rhythm to the language. And it's rounded; there are no sharp, jagged edges to the language, so it's very pleasing to the ear.

Chris: I think the accent I really like is the Dane speaking English. They sound awful when they speak Danish, but when they speak English there's a beautiful, low, sensitive, very soft quality about it.

Donald: I like the way they bring their French pronunciation into English. They can't pronounce "h"s and they can't pronounce "th" properly. And I think that actually sounds very nice. Also I like the rhythm they bring French rhythms into English—nice, steady rhythms and I like that too. It's just it, it... whenever I hear a French person speaking English it sounds more gentle and more lyrical. Lesley: I think the most attractive foreign accents for me are Mediterranean accents because they, if you like, import their own culture into the English accent and give it a lot of life that sometimes, that kind of—the gestures and everything that the English people don't have, so you get a beautiful mixture of the serious Northern European and the Southern European together.

Susan: I like the Swedish accent because it, it makes me smile and the way it's spoken is so sing-songy that you can't help but smile when other people actually speak it. And it always makes you want to try and put the accent on yourself.

Task 3

The spelling and meaning of words are very interesting. But what's more interesting is the history of a word, or where it came from. Let's examine some of the words and see how they got into our language.

LUNCH Lunch perhaps comes from an old Spanish word lonje, a slab of ham. We may also get our word from a form of lump, maybe a lump of bread, but whether lunch comes from ham or bread, it meant a hunk of something to eat.