修改时间:2021-05-20 浏览次数:141 类型:同步测试
Foreign visitors to the UK might be disappointed when they learn that not everyone there speaks like Harry Potter and his friends. Usually, there's an assumption by many non-Brits that everyone in Britain speaks with what's known as a Received Pronunciation (RP, 标准发音) accent, also called "the Queen's English". However, while many people do talk this way, most Britons speak in their own regional accents.
Scouse, Glaswegian and Black Country—from Liverpool, Glasgow and the West Midlands—are just three of the countless non-RP accents that British people speak with. There are even differences in accents between towns and cities just 30 kilometres apart. What is even more disappointing is that not speaking in an RP accent may mean a British person is judged and even treated differently in their everyday life.
In a 2015 study by the University of South Wales, videos of people reading a passage in three different UK accents were shown to a second group of people. The group then rated how intelligent they thought the readers sounded. The lowest-rated accent was Brummie, native to people from Birmingham, a city whose accent is considered the working class.
However, there is no need to be disappointed though you are not speaking in an RP accent. In fact, doing the opposite may even give you strength.
Kong Seong-jae, 25, is an Internet celebrity from Seoul. After studying in the UK, he picked up several regional accents. He is now famous for his online videos, where he shows off the various accents he has learned. "British people usually get really excited when I use some of their local dialect words, and they become much friendlier. I think it makes a bit of bond between local people and foreigners to speak in their local accent," he said.
So if you're working on perfecting your British accent, try to speak like someone from Liverpool, Glasgow or Birmingham. You may not sound like Harry Potter, but you are likely to make more friends.
阅读下面短文,根据所给情节进行续写,使之构成一个完整的故事。
My mother always told me it was better to be smart than to be beautiful. "If you are smart, finally you will afford to be beautiful." All I needed were the brains, and someday, I would be a really beautiful lawyer.
My mother worked at a TV station and I would come along and watch the magic of filming TV shows. But all the same, I was learning.
When my father's business failed, I was able to continue to attend one of the best bilingual(双语的) schools in Mexico City thanks to the scholarship. Scholarships followed me into middle school and high school.
However, during my senior year in high school my family moved to my dad's country, the United States. For the first time in my life, I had optional(可选择的) classes. So I decided to take psychology classes. While I found the public school system to be a joke, I did find my psychology classes attractive. My mother, in her dreams for my life, did not see psychology as a good choice, but I was like her, strong-willed to the subject.
I married young, even before I had a degree under my belt. Worst of all, I married a kid who wanted to be a pastor(牧师). My mother loved Andy dearly but she would ask him occasionally, "When will you have a real job?" I did finish my degree and I became a social worker, but when I had my first child at age 24, I quit my job. Then at 26, another baby girl joined our family. Unfortunately, this baby girl had Down syndrome(唐氏综合征).
How would I be able to break the news to my mother? "It is better to be smart than to be beautiful." I knew what "smart" meant in the statement, and I doubted if my baby with an extra chromosome(染色体) would meet those expectations. My mum was coming to the hospital to meet her new grand-baby. I would tell her then. I needed time to gather my thoughts. I was afraid, afraid that she would see Nichole as one that would never be smart…or beautiful.
注意:
1)所续写短文的词数应为150左右;
2)至少使用5个短文中标有下划线的关键词语;
3)续写部分分为两段,每段的开头语已为你写好;
4)续写完成后,请用下划线标出你所使用的关键词语。
Paragraph 1:
My mother arrived at the hospital mid-morning, ready to meet her new granddaughter.
Paragraph 2:
Six years later, Nichole runs to mum whenever we see each other.
试题篮