木木山高

吴念真舞台剧《人间条件》放映暨作者座谈签书会
2012.06.28 吴念真舞台剧《人间条件》作者座谈签书会

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吴念真徐皓峰史航对谈 这些故事那些宗师

《这些人，那些事》是台湾知名创意人、电影人、广告人吴念真先生首度正式授权在大陆出版的作品。为配合本书的出版，译林出版社于8月下旬邀请吴念真前往广州、上海、南京、北京四地进行了巡回宣传，多场活动让读者和影迷近距离感受到了吴桑说故事的魅力。其中最精彩最值得回味的一场活动莫过于8月21日晚在上海影视文献图书馆举行的粉丝交流会。就让我们来重温一下那个美好的夜晚吧：）

吴念真：意外的人生-音轨修改版

万达集团董事长王健林哈佛演讲 万达的全球化之路

Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today I want to continue our look at how you can improve your communication skills.

Communication between people is never perfect. Even with the people closest to us, who you might think we can understand very well, there is miscommunication. Sometimes we don’t hear things correctly, or we don’t hear them at all, and sometimes people don’t express ideas precisely. That’s enough to complicate the situation, but then we can throw in implied meaning and our own understanding of what’s being said indirectly. Add to that the challenges that arise when you’re working in your second, or third, or fourth language, and it might be surprising that we understand each other at all!

But have no fear. There are ways to work though the minefield of communication and make everything clear. And that’s exactly what we’ll look at today: clarifying what people have said. There are basically two reasons to clarify: first, when we don’t know what someone said because we didn’t hear them; and second, when we don’t know what someone meant because we didn’t understand them.

Let’s begin with clarifying what someone said. When you don’t hear someone, you can simply tell them, politely of course. Use diplomatic expressions like “Pardon me?” Or, “I’m sorry, but I didn’t catch that.” Or, “Would you mind repeating that please?” Avoid short and blunt questions like “What?” or “What did you say?” These questions seem rude to many people. And when in doubt, too formal is a better mistake than too informal.

Now, if you heard what someone said but you don’t know what it means, make sure they know that. If you use the expressions we just looked at for when you didn’t hear someone, they might just repeat what they said. But if you didn’t understand the first time, chances are you won’t understand the second time. So how do you make it clear that you haven’t understood?

Well, avoid just saying “I don’t understand.” That feels too blunt and direct. Instead, try, “I’m not sure I follow you.” Or, say a speaker uses the expression “contingency plan” and you don’t know what that means. You can say, “Could you explain what you mean by contingency plan?” Or, “What exactly do you mean by contingency plan?” These kinds of expressions let the speaker know that you haven’t understood, not just that you haven’t heard.

Okay, so in some cases you might think you understand, but you’re not sure. So you want to clarify by checking your understanding. The first thing you can do is paraphrase what someone has said and ask for confirmation that your interpretation is correct. Paraphrasing just means saying the same thing but in different words. And you can do this by acknowledging what someone has said, restating it, and confirming with a tag question.

Here’s an example: if someone says “we anticipate that the share price will continue to soar,” you might say “I see, so you’re saying the stock will remain high, right?” Or if someone says “our marketing strategy needs a complete overhaul,” you can say “okay, you mean we need to change our strategy, right?” If you’re correct, the speaker will let you know. And if you’re incorrect, he will explain. Notice that the tag question “right?” is a yes/no question. Yes/no questions make it easy for the speaker to confirm your understanding or provide further explanation if you misunderstood.

Another technique for clarifying what someone has said is echoing to get confirmation or more explanation. This means repeating the key idea with question intonation. So if someone says “this year’s recruitment drive needs to be more aggressive,” you might say “it needs to be more aggressive?” In this way, you’re inviting more detail or examples. And the speaker might come back with “yes, last year we missed our goal. This year we need to work extra hard to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” Now you can be sure what the speaker meant.

Now, here’s a word of warning: some of the questions we use for clarifying can also be used to cast doubt on someone’s ideas or opinions. We act surprised and ask for confirmation to show that we disagree or don’t believe what someone has said. Sometimes our intonation makes it clear what our purpose is, but it’s often best to make it extra clear by adding something like “just to clarify” or “just so I understand here” to the beginning or end of a question. You don’t want someone get bent out of shape because he thinks you disagree him.

Now let’s recap. When you don’t hear someone, just politely let them know. If you don’t understand, tell the person, but don’t be too blunt or direct about it. And to avoid misunderstanding or invite greater explanation, you can use paraphrasing or echoing. So, now you’ve got clarifying techniques to go along with the listening techniques we learned last time. Remember, listening and clarifying go hand in hand. And with these tools and a spirit of understanding, you can improve your communication skills.

That’s all for today. So long. And see you again soon.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today I want to look at how you can improve your communication skills.

We spend a lot of time looking at different ways that you can make other people understand your ideas. But what about your ability to make sure you understand what other people are saying? Some people say that there’s a good reason we have two ears but one mouth: because we should spend twice as much time listening as we do speaking. And countless business leaders have emphasized the importance of good listening skills as the foundation of good communication.

Okay, but listening and understanding are not always easy. We’ve all found ourselves in situations – it could be a meeting, a presentation, an interview, or a negotiation – where we think “what did he just say?” or “what was that word?” Well, for starters, we need to accept that we might not understand everything. That’s not necessarily a problem. But what you do when you don’t understand something is what separates a good listener from a bad listener.

You see, it wouldn’t always be a good idea to stop a speaker and say “what was that word you just used?” Or “can you repeat that sentence?” If you didn’t catch something, well, get over it. And fast. You don’t have time to stop listening and think about what something means. And you don’t have time to translate either. You’ll get lost, and it will be difficult to get your head back into what you’re supposed to be listening to. Instead, you need to grab onto what you do understand, and then fill in what you don’t with logical guesses.

What you should be shooting for, first and foremost, is the gist of what’s being said. That means the main idea or underlying point that the speaker is trying to make. Details will support that main idea, and if you don’t catch them all it’s not the end of the world.

Okay, but how do we catch the gist? Well, one way is to focus on key words. Key words are the words that we understand that show the central message. They provide direct clues to the main idea. So if you hear someone say “blah blah new plan blah blah blah terrible idea blah blah blah can’t support blah blah blah”, then you have a good idea what the person is saying without understanding all the “blah blah.” If you focus on the “blah blah,” however, you might miss those important words that you do understand.

Another thing to remember is that people often repeat or explain their ideas further. If you don’t understand an idea right away, just be patient. The speaker might explain what she means, or give an example, or repeat the idea in different words. But if you get hung up on not understanding the first statement, you risk confusion. Here’s an example: say you’re listening to someone give a presentation on the latest sales figures, and he says “The last quarter was particularly disconcerting.”

Now, do you know what “particularly disconcerting” means? If not, don’t worry too much. Because the speaker will probably go on to explain or give examples. He might say something like this: “Our electronics division was down 13%. Mobile was down 16%. And automotive was down a whopping 24%.” Now, you can probably guess that “particularly disconcerting” is negative, right? But if you stopped listening and started wracking your brain to figure out what it meant, then you might have missed the explanation.

Of course, sometimes there are things that you hear that provoke questions that you need answered. That does certainly happen. And in those situations, the best thing to do is to write them down. You can make a note of a couple of important words, or write down an entire question. Then you can follow up on the matter later. And because you’ve written it down for later, you can put it aside at the time and keep listening.

So let’s do a quick review of what we covered here and see how well you were listening. Remember to accept that you might not be able to understand everything. Don’t stop listening when something you don’t know comes up, just keep trying to get the gist and the key words. And be patient because sometimes explanation or repetition can clear things up for us. And finally, make notes if you have to. Now, will these strategies guarantee that you understand everything perfectly? Of course not. Sometimes we need to ask for clarification, and if you tune in next time you’ll hear some tips for doing just that.

That’s all for today. So long. And see you again soon.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today I want to look at ways to take your English vocabulary to the next level.

Many students of English have the feeling that they’ve learned pretty much all the grammar they need. Many also feel that they can understand fairly well and speak and write at an acceptable level. But these same people sometimes feel that they’re missing something, and that they say the same things in the same way all the time.

In fact, once you’ve reached an intermediate level, vocabulary becomes more important than ever. You need to add more and more words, idioms, and expressions to your stock of language so that you can take the next step up in proficiency. So how can you learn new words? What are the secrets of expanding your language ability?

First, let’s talk about materials, or what you use to learn English. You need to find good sources of English that will include words and expressions that will be useful to you. I strongly recommend you use both listening and reading materials. If you focus only on reading, as many students do, you won’t learn how language sounds and feels in your mouth. If you focus only on listening, you won’t know how it’s written.

So then what should you be listening to and reading? You want resources that are relevant to your purpose, both in terms of context and topic. Let me explain what I mean. If your purpose is to improve your conversation and presentations skills to do your job as a salesperson, then use resources that teach you conversational English and the language of presentations. That’s the correct match for the context of your English development. And if your work as a salesperson is in the hi-tech sector, then find resources that include vocabulary related to technology. That’s the correct match for the topic of your studies.

I don’t mean that you should limit yourself to only the kinds of language that you’ll meet every day. Variety is important too, and you need to read and listen to things that are interesting to you, not just practical. But there are only so many hours in a day, and if you’re like most people in business, you need to find what gives you the best bang for your buck.

Now, I’ve mentioned what kind of resources you should look for, and you’ll notice that I didn’t mention anything that is specifically about vocabulary. I mean like a vocabulary book, or word lists. That’s because it’s best to study vocabulary in context. You might have memorized words and definitions for language tests in high school or university. But did that really teach you how to use those words? Did you really understand the kinds of situations that those words can be used in? Probably not, so instead of memorizing lists, study vocabulary in its natural environment, and it’ll be easier to incorporate new words into your own speaking and writing.

So, you have found some good resources, and you understand the importance of context, but when you read and listen, which words and expressions should you be learning? How do you choose the vocabulary that you should study? Well, a lot of good study materials will identify the useful vocabulary for you. And they might give you definitions and examples. So with the context and this added info, you’ve got something to work with.

But if you’re trying to choose vocabulary on your own, you should focus on two ideas: relevance and frequency. Put another way: words that suit your purpose and words that are common. Words that suit your purpose are those that are related to your work and your English output. If you never write formally in English, then a word like “hence” might not really be relevant to you. And if you work in finance, then a marketing term like “segmentation” might not be relevant. Words that are common are important, because you’ll hear them more often and they’ll be more useful. So although you might encounter the word “pip” and think it’s interesting, it’s very uncommon, and so you shouldn’t spent your mental energy trying to remember it. There are thousands of more common and more useful words that you should learn first.

The fact is, we can’t learn every word we meet. We need to pick and choose carefully, and that means focusing on what is relevant and common. And we’ll find what is relevant and common in reading and listening resources that have the right topic and language context.

So long. And see you again soon.

Transcript:

Hello and welcome back to the Skills 360 podcast. I’m your host, Tim Simmons, and today I want to look at more ways to take your English vocabulary to the next level.

So, you’ve found some great resources for studying English that suit your purpose. You’ve got a variety of listening and reading material chock full of great words and expressions that you want to learn to use. But how do you do it? How do you take those words and expressions and not only remember them but also make them an active part of your working vocabulary? Well, there are several things to keep in mind, and a few key techniques that you can use, as we’ll see today.

One really important idea is that words are used in groups. Sometimes we call them “chunks” or “collocations.” The basic idea is that we put words together in common patterns, and we should learn those patterns, not just individual words. Think of a simple sentence like “Dave is interested in golf.” Understanding what “interested” means is a piece of cake. But if you really want to make that a useful word, you need to pay attention to the fact that we say be interested in something. Take another example like the noun “profit.” It’s hard to use the word if you don’t know that we usually say make a profit or turn a profit.

The idea of groups of words is especially important when it comes to idioms and phrasal verbs, because together words can have a new meaning. So when we hear “give up”, we don’t think about giving or the idea of up, but the meaning they have together, which is “quit”. And don’t think about squares when you hear the expression “back to square one.” Together, those words mean “start again.”

Once you understand the importance of chunks of language, how can you sort out what those chunks mean? A good starting place is context. Look at how the words are used in the situation. From the situation, you can usually get clues to the meaning. Only after examining the context should you look at a definition. And if you really want to get a solid grasp on the meaning, you should look at more examples of the word or expression in a sentence. Good study materials should give you example sentences to learn from.

But it’s not enough just to notice vocabulary and chew over its meaning. You need to do something with it if you’re going to remember it and be able to use it. That starts with writing vocabulary down. Keep a record of good words and expressions that you come across. Write down the word, the context, and example sentences if you can. This is not just so that you have something to review. The act of writing the word and examples down will help you remember it later.

Okay, beyond writing down what you’ve learned, you need to put your new vocabulary to good use. The means trying to use the words you’ve learned in new sentences. You don’t need to write a masterpiece on business communication; you just need to practice putting that new word into a different context. And if you struggle, look back to where you found it or your example sentences. From that context, you should be able to see how the word or expression fits into a sentence. And again, practicing like this will really give you a leg up in recalling the words.

Okay, it seems like we’ve been dwelling on reading and writing, but let’s not forget listening. Learning words through listening is great if you want to actually apply them in conversation. We can learn how individual words sound, and how groups of words sound together. If you’re using listening materials that include a transcript, don’t lean on that transcript too soon. Really listen carefully before reaching for the written version.

Again, vocabulary you learn through listening should be written down and practiced in sentences. But to really take it to the next level, you should actually say the words. Start by repeating what you hear in your listening. Really try to mimic the sound and flow of speech. Then read aloud from your examples or the sentences you’ve written. And try to make completely new sentences just in speaking. In this way, you’re getting your brain and mouth ready to actually apply the words in conversation.

As you probably realize, it’s pretty easy to forget new words if we don’t take steps to commit them to memory. And even when we remember them when we hear or read them, it can be difficult to use them. But if you focus on chunks of language, if you look closely at how words are used in context, and if you write them down and practice using them in writing and speaking, you’ll be well on your way to building a better vocabulary.

That’s all for today. If you’d like to test yourself on what we’ve just covered, have a look at the myBEonline.com website. There you’ll find a quiz about today’s show as well as a complete transcript.

So long. And see you again soon.

TPO 04 Lecture 2 Literature