跟讀練習: How China is Turning its Deserts Green - 通過影片學習英語口語
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125 句
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Beijing 2021.
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Hundreds of flights were cancelled as an apocalyptic orange haze swept the skies.
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This wasn't pollution, it was sand.
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It was a symptom, a consequence of decades of land collapse.
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But China is fighting back with an ambitious project spanning decades known as the Great Green Wall.
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This is the Gobi Desert region in northern China and this is their attempt at turning it green.
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And I say attempt because it's not all going to plan.
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In some areas, the project is failing.
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Trees are dying, soil is drying out and the land is collapsing again.
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But what makes this story so insane is that China isn't just planting a few trees.
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They're attempting one of the largest greening projects in human history.
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A project that began in 1978 and won't be finished until 2050.
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But how do you even fight a desert?
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How do you stop sand from swallowing farmland and cities?
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And how did one of the most ambitious environmental projects ever attempted start to go wrong?
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If China gets this right, it could become the blueprint for saving dry lands everywhere.
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But if they get it wrong, they don't just lose trees, they lose the land itself.
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To understand why China is doing this, you have to understand what desertification actually means.
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Deserts don't expand like people imagine.
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It's not like a line of sand slowly rolling forward.
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It starts with something much smaller.
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A patch of grassland gets overgrazed.
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A hillside gets farmed too hard.
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A drought hits or trees get cut for fuel.
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Once the vegetation disappears, the ground loses its armour.
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The roots of plants stitch the soil together, so when those roots vanish, the soil stops behaving like ground and starts behaving like dust.
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Then the wind arrives, and suddenly the land doesn't just dry out, it literally begins to leave.
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Then, when rain falls, it doesn't soak in.
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It hits hard ground, floods and then tears away even more soil.
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And once that cycle begins, it accelerates.
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Simply explained, that's how deserts formed, and in northern China, it became a national crisis.
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The Gobi Desert, stretching across northern China and southern Mongolia, sits right on the edge of major population and farming regions.
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, huge dust storms repeatedly swept into northern China.
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And as you saw earlier, Beijing, a city with a population of about 22 million people,
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would literally disappear behind a wall of yellow sky.
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This wasn't weather, it was farmland disintegrating.
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If you're a government watching your land literally blow away, you don't have time to wait.
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And it's fair to say China's response was very ambitious.
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In 1978, China launched a project called the Free Northern Shelter Belt Program, but most people know it by its nickname, China's Great Green Wall.
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And it's genuinely one of the most ambitious environmental projects in human history.
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The goal was to build massive belts of trees and vegetation across northern China, covering the northeast, the northwest and the north central regions.
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It spans 13 provinces and it's planned to run until 2050.
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That's a 72 year plan, 7 years shorter than the average life expectancy in China.
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The theory behind it is quite simple.
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If you want to stop a desert, you don't fight sand, you fight wind.
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Because the wind is what turns land into dust.
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These shelter belts act like giant windbreaks.
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Long corridors of trees and shrubs that slow the wind near the ground, trap sand and protect farmland.
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Even a thin layer of vegetation can massively reduce erosion.
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So China planted, and planted, and planted.
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The estimates vary, but some reports say 50 billion trees have been planted, with others speculating that number could be as high as 100 billion.
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And for a while, it looked like the plan was working.
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China's forest cover increased significantly compared to the 20th century lows, and by Despite the modern era,
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China is often reported as being over 20% forested.
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So the project was a success then?
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Well, not exactly.
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Because a forest isn't just a row of trees, it's an ecosystem.
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Planting trees is easy, but planting the right trees in the right places without destroying the ecosystem underneath is much harder.
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And as you're about to find out, in some regions, China got this wrong, very wrong.
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wrong that a billion trees died.
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But first we need to discuss one of their successful transformations.
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The Lus Plateau is an example of one of the most incredible transformations on Earth.
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The region was once described as one of the most severely eroded landscapes on the planet and it's easy to see why.
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The Lus Plateau is made of Lusse, a fine powdery soil deposited over thousands of years by wind.
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It's extremely fertile, but only if it stays in place.
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Once vegetation is removed, Lusse erodes ridiculously fast.
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Over centuries, huge areas were cleared for farming and grazing, and the result was catastrophic.
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Rain ripped through the soil like a knife carving enormous canyons.
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And the soil didn't disappear, it ended up in China's rivers, especially the Yellow River.
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It became famous for carrying so much sediment that it actually turned a yellowy browny colour.
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People were trapped in a cycle, they needed to farm to survive, but farming destroyed the soil which made survival even harder.
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So China attempted to rebuild the system.
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They banned farming on the steepest slopes, They restricted grazing in key areas.
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They built terraces across hillsides,
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not for aesthetics, but because terraces slow rainwater down letting it soak into the ground instead of ripping the soil away.
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They built check dams to trap sediment.
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They weren't just stopping erosion, they were literally catching the land before it could escape.
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Slowly the landscape began to rebuild itself.
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Grass returned first, then shrubs, then trees.
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World Bank reporting
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and widely cited project summaries have described vegetation cover in the parts of the Luspe Plateau rising from around 17% to 34%.
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The improvement wasn't just environmental either, the social impact was huge.
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Figures often cited estimate 2.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty through the combined ecological and economic transformation.
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The restoration didn't finish with stopping erosion, it also changed what the land could be used for.
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Because today, in parts of northern China, you can now see huge solar farms built on areas that used to be barren and collapsing.
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Land that once blew away in dust storms is now stable enough to generate electricity.
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This project showed that planting trees alone isn't enough, you have to fix the physics of the land.
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A lesson which unfortunately China skipped in some places.
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A mistake which nearly ruined everything.
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Here's the problem.
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If you want a desert to look green quickly, you don't plant a complex ecosystem.
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You plant monocultures, one species, straight lines and fast growing trees.
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They look impressive and they grow fast, making it feel like you're winning.
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However, monocultures are fragile.
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If one disease hits, the entire forest is vulnerable.
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In the year 2000, massive poplar plantations in northern China suffered devastating losses due to disease and pests,
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with some reports claiming losses on the scale of hundreds of millions to over a billion trees.
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That's not a setback, that's a collapse.
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But disease wasn't even the biggest problem.
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The biggest problem was water.
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Many of the areas being planted were never meant to hold dense forests, they were dry lands.
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So when you plant thirsty trees into dry soil, you essentially drain the land.
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Native grasses die, the roots vanish, the soil becomes loose again, and you know by now what happens next.
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In other words, planting trees didn't stop the desert, it made the land even weaker.
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That's why over time China began changing strategy towards something much smarter.
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The final part of this story is so important because it's not just about China, but the future of our planet.
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China realised the goal isn't to destroy the desert, the goal is to stop living land, grasslands, farms and villages from collapsing into dust.
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So instead of focusing on trees, they focused on shrubs, hardy grasses and native drought resistant species.
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One of the simplest methods they used is also one of the smartest, straw checkerboards.
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You literally lay straw in a grid across sand dunes.
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The wind hits the straw, slows down and drops sand.
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The dune stabilises, the shrubs can survive, the grasses return and the soil begins forming again.
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Then, and only then, do trees have a chance.
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It's simple really.
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Slow the wind, catch the sand, hold moisture, and build life from the ground up.
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And that's how parts of China's desert regions have become greener over time.
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China's project proves that the earth isn't fixed.
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Landscapes aren't permanent.
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We assume deserts are forever, but deserts expand and retreat.
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Grasslands collapse and rebuild, and humans are actively shaping in which direction those systems go,
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which is equally hopeful, but also terrifying.
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Because if we can reverse land collapse at this scale, we can also cause it.
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And our future depends on which one we choose.
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If you've enjoyed this video, I'd really appreciate it if you could hit the subscribe button.
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And I'm sure you'll enjoy one of these other two videos on screen now.
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本課的詞彙與口語要點
這節 B2 級別的口語課以影片“How China is Turning its Deserts Green”為素材。 影片中反覆出現的詞有：China, trees, land, desert, soil。 這段影片共有 125 個句子、1543 個單詞可供跟讀。 講話部分時長為 10:51。 說話人語速平穩，每分鐘約 142 個詞，很適合跟讀。 只有 77% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞，詞彙難度較高。
影片中的重點詞彙
影片中最難的 15 個單詞，附發音和釋義：
| 單詞 | 發音 | 釋義 |
|---|---|---|
| collapse 動詞 | /kəˈlæps/ | 倒坍, 崩潰 /崩潰 |
| vegetation 名詞 | /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/ | 植被, 草木 |
| shrub 名詞 | /ˈʃɹʌb/ | 灌木, 灌木叢 /灌木叢 |
| ambitious 形容詞 | /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/ | 有雄心, 遠大 /遠大 |
| farmland 名詞 | /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/ | 農田 /農田, 田地 |
| grassland 名詞 | 草原, 草地 | |
| erosion 名詞 | /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/ | 磨蝕 /磨蝕, 侵蝕 /侵蝕 |
| ecosystem 名詞 | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | 生態系 /生態系, 生態系統 /生態系統 |
| rebuild 動詞 | /ɹiːˈbɪld/ | 重建, 再建 |
| straw 名詞 | /stɹɔ/ | 稈子 /稈子, 秸稈 |
| disappear 動詞 | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | 消失 |
| dune 名詞 | /djuːn/ | 沙丘 |
| erode 動詞 | /ɪˈɹəʊd/ | 侵蝕 /侵蝕, 腐蝕 /腐蝕 |
| graze 動詞 | /ɡɹeɪz/ | 放牧 |
| hillside 名詞 | /ˈhɪlˌsaɪd/ | 半山腰 |
影片中出現的短語動詞
| 單詞 | 釋義 |
|---|---|
| slow down 動詞 | 減速 /減速, 放慢 |
影片中的語法
說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：
| 結構 | 影片中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的 | were cancelled · won't be finished · have been planted |
| 現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事 | have been planted · have described · have been lifted |
需要注意的發音
說話人用了 30 次縮略和弱讀形式，例如 don't, isn't, wasn't。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。
- “th” 音: aesthetics /ɛsˈθɛt.ɪks/, thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, northeast /noːˈθɪjst/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, northwest /nɔɹθˈwɛst/
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/, erosion /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/
- 長單詞——注意重音位置: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, monoculture /ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/, apocalyptic /əˈpɒ.kə.lɪp.tɪk/, desertification /dɪˌzɝ.tɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
中文母語者容易讀錯的音：
- /v/ — 不要讀成 /w/，上齒輕觸下唇: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/, behave /bɪˈheɪv/, devastate /ˈdɛv.ə.steɪt/, massively /ˈmæs.ɪv.li/
- 詞尾子音 — 要讀清楚，後面不要加母音: collapse /kəˈlæps/, shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/, farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/, rebuild /ɹiːˈbɪld/
- /r/ 和 /l/ 的區別: farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/, rebuild /ɹiːˈbɪld/, monoculture /ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/, blueprint /ˈbluːˌpɹɪnt/, ridiculously /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs.li/
如何用這段影片練習
- 先完整聽一遍影片，不要開口，記下不認識的單詞。
- 用正常速度逐句跟讀，每句重複到你的節奏與說話人一致為止。
- 錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比，特別注意 collapse, vegetation, shrub 這類單詞。
什麼是跟讀法？
跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。