24/09/2013
Learning English- Smart Audio Text 1
Belajar kian makin mudah dengan makin merebaknya Smartphone. Dengan perangkat portable bisa belajar dimana saja. Slah satu cara Learning English yang banyak dianjurkan oleh para pakar adalah listening Audio-Text. Mendengarkan sekaligus memperhatikan text. Dengan cara ini, kita bisa belajar 3 keahlian sekaligus : Listening, Grammar dan Pronounciation.
Alamyin.com akan memposting secara berkala Audio dan Text yang dikoleksi dari VOA, BritishCouncil ataupun Audio-book dari youtube. Semoga bermanfaat.
1. Art-of-mingling
If
All Else Fails at a Party, Throw Yourself on the Mercy of the Crowd
AA:
I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and this week on Wordmaster: If mixing
with people at parties leaves you at a loss for words, writer Jeanne Martinet
offers some help in an updated edition of her popular book "The Art of
Mingling."
RS:
"Give us some tips -- what works?"
Jeanne
Martinet
JEANNE
MARTINET: "Well, what doesn't work is that you should never walk up to
somebody and ask them right away what they do for a living. It's not only sort
of rude, and it's sort of like 'who are you, are you worth my time?' But it's
also bringing up a conversation that you don't know what you're bringing up.
"There's
an opening technique that I call the 'flattery entrée,' which works very well
if that person has an unusual pair of earrings or tie on. You can walk up to
somebody and say 'Hey, I really like that pair of earrings' and you get into it
that way. I think the mistake that people make is they think that the only way
to talk to people is to ask them questions. And while that's good to do within
a conversation, it's actually less threatening to open with something that's
more of an observation.
"One
of the reasons that people, I think, are afraid to approach strangers at
parties is they're really afraid of what happens if something bad does, you
know, occur. And if you know that you can escape from anyone, it actually makes
you much less afraid to talk to people in the first place.
"So,
you know, you'll try and talk to someone and it doesn't work very well, and
maybe you get the idea they really would rather go back to the conversation
they were having or something, in which case you can do one of many escape
techniques that can help you save face -- or even get you away from someone
that you discover that you don't want to talk to."
AA:
"For example?"
JEANNE
MARTINET: "Like, you know, the 'buffet bye-bye' -- what my cute name for
'well, I've really got to get a drink' or 'I'm starving -- that thing you're
eating is making me even more hungry. I'll be back.' You can even say 'I'll be
back' and never come back. At a party you're allowed to do that."
AA:
"Now let me ask you about -- I know in every culture certain subjects are
maybe off-limits or you really shouldn't [talk about them] unless you know a
person well. So, thinking about in American culture, three that come to mind
are money, religion and politics -- "
JEANNE
MARTINET: "Yes!"
AA:
"What do you think about that."
JEANNE
MARTINET: "The two safe subjects used to be your health and the weather.
Well, the weather now leads you to topics of global warming -- at least it does
[for] me -- and your health, you can easily start talking about health
insurance, and before you know it you are in the areas of politics. So I
outline in the book ways to test for people who might be fanatics in certain
areas, so you can really stay away, and also 'defuse' and 'escape' lines."
RS:
"What would be some of those -- you talked a little bit about escape
lines, but you're in an argument or you find yourself close to an argument, how
do you get out of it?"
JEANNE
MARTINET: "Well, most of them are sort of cute lines which are just
tension-defusing lines like 'well, I guess we can't solve the world's problems
in one day.' Or you say, if it's really gotten heated and you feel up to this
particular kind of humor, you can say, 'Well, you know, if we talk about this
anymore, we're going to have to step outside.'"
RS:
"All right, let's put a context here. We have a student, a foreign
student, in the United States or elsewhere [who is] with a group of Americans
and wants to mingle. What kind of advice would you give to this person [about]
how to start and how to go through his day?"
JEANNE
MARTINET: "If you're talking about mingling at a gathering of a lot of
people, I've often used this when I'm feeling particularly out of my element
and I don't know anybody, I will go up to someone or a group of people and say:
'Hi, my name is Jeanne Martinet and I don't know a single soul at this party.'
"That
is really -- really, basically to throw yourself in a little bit asking for
help from other people, is usually not a bad idea because it kind of endears
you to the people and it usually gives you a warm response. People who are
really shy can try using what I call the 'fade-in,' which is where you go up to
the periphery of a group of people and listen carefully to what's being said,
and then just adding in your two cents when it's appropriate.
RS:
"Jeanne, this takes courage."
JEANNE
MARTINET: "It doesn't; it takes practice. It's funny, because once you do
it a couple of times, like if somebody who just listening to me saying this,
would just use that approach that I said, where they walked up to somebody and
said 'you know, I don't know a single person at this party,' when they get this
response that they will get, -- nine times out of ten it will be a wonderful
like 'oh, this is so-and-so and please let us show -- I'll introduce you to Joe
over here.' And when that happens, and that happens a couple of times, you will
start to lose your fear.
"Everybody
is just as afraid as they are. That's the other one of my mingling survival
rules is that nobody is thinking about you, they're only thinking about
themselves. So it's sort of helpful to remember this to become less
self-conscious."
AA:
But Jeanne Martinet, the author of "The Art of Mingling," says you
should also remember not to monopolize people at parties, or you could be seen
as a "barnacle." In general, she says, spend five to fifteen minutes
chatting, then move on.
RS:
And that's Wordmaster for this week. You can find lots more advice about
communicating in our archives at voanews.com/wordmaster. And our e-mail address
is word@voanews.com. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.
2. would have said
AA I'm Avi Arditti with Rosanne Skirble, and
this week on WORDMASTER: We meet the 24-year-old creator of the website
wouldhavesaid.com.
RS:
The premise is simple. People submit letters saying the things they would have
said to a person if they had the chance. Jackie Hooper got the idea for the
project in March of last year, when actress Natasha Richardson hit her head
during a ski lesson and died from a brain injury.
JACKIE
HOOPER: "I'm not entirely sure why it affected me in the way that it did.
But it brought all of these emotions about how people leave our lives so
quickly, and a lot of the times it's very unexpected, and how at those moments
I feel like there's so much that a person would want to say to the person who
passed away unexpectedly.
"I
started locally and I went to retirement homes, jails, schools, and asked them
to think of these kinds of situations. I didn't want to limit it to, you know,
unexpected deaths because it doesn't always apply to people. But just things,
you know, if people left your life, if you lost contact with them, what might
you have said to them. Would you like to apologize or thank them for
something?"
RS:
"What did you find when you went to these places?"
JACKIE
HOOPER: "That people had so much to say! You know, when I started, I knew,
I felt like it was a good idea and that it would be beneficial for people. But,
you know, I didn't know how people would respond, if they would want to share
those kinds of personal, deep feelings with some stranger.
"And,
you know, a lot of people in the jails wrote about broken relationships they
had with their parents, or a wife that they left, and, you know, explain the
situation of how they got to jail and how they wish they could done so many
things differently so that they didn't end up there.
"And
kids, surprisingly, I mean, some people question whether or not they've
experienced enough to be able to write these kinds of letters. And, you know,
kids write to dads. One little girl wrote to her dad asking him to stop
drinking so much and stop having so many different girlfriends. So it's, you
know, pretty powerful stuff no matter the age."
AA:
"What have you noticed about, or have you noticed, sort of dominant themes
that keep coming up over and over again?"
JACKIE
HOOPER: "The biggest one I've noticed -- and I really, I mean
there's at least three or four a week that I get that are written to fathers.
It's not to parents, it's to fathers, and then just overall to parents,
grandparents.
"Lately
I've been getting a lot to people, like if they bullied someone in high school
and felt really bad about it now. And I really love those kinds of letters
because not only does it show that it doesn't have to be someone who passed
away, but it shows just the idea of regret and how to these people it feels so
fresh in their minds."
AA:
"How many letters a day are submitted to your site?"
JACKIE
HOOPER: "It definitely varies. If there's, you know, a lot of discussion
around it, if there's an article written or something, I can get fifty a day.
No matter what happens, I still get a few each day."
RS:
"We can see from your website that there's lot of options here, you can
submit a letter, you can follow you on Twitter, you can be a fan on Facebook, and
a number of other things. so you're using the new media to advance your
ideas."
AA:
"Yeah, actually, in terms of ages, I'm curious, have you noticed trends in
who's submitting, by age group?"
JACKIE
HOOPER: "At first it was a lot of middle-aged, older women. But now it's
kind of, I think because it's growing on social media-type websites, I'm
getting much younger, college-aged submissions."
RS:
Jackie Hooper knows that some people may be trying to relieve themselves of
guilt over something they said. But she says they are also trying to offer a
lesson.
JACKIE
HOOPER: "They know that they've said it and that they can't do anything
about it, really, you know, if they can't reach the person. But this does help
them on a personal level kind of express it and get it out and they really hope
that it will help change someone else. Whether they're, you know, being mean to
someone or they've said something negative to someone, they just want it to be
used as a tool to make people think twice next time."
AA:
And has she ever posted her own letters on her site?
JACKIE
HOOPER: "Well, I wrote one on the year anniversary of Natasha Richardson's
death, kind of to her, saying what great thing has come of such a
tragedy."
RS:
You can find around 200 letters on wouldhavesaid.com. Jackie Hooper adds
another one each day, and has hundreds more submitted on paper for her project.
AA:
She has an education degree but isn't sure about a career. She currently works
as a law firm receptionist in Portland, Oregon. One goal she is sure of,
though, is to publish a book based on some of the letters.
RS:
And that's WORDMASTER for this week. With Avi Arditti, I'm Rosanne Skirble.
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