跟讀練習: Indus Valley Civilization: Crash Course World History #2 - 通過影片學習英語口語

選擇練習模式

每種模式都會開啟全屏練習室。

133 句
如果句子過短或過長,請點選 Edit 進行調整。
1
Hi, I'm John Green and this is Crash Course World History.
2
Let's begin today with a question.
3
Why am I alive?
4
Also, why don't I have any eyes?
5
Ah, that's better.
6
The way we answer that question ends up organizing all kinds of other thoughts, like what we should value, and how we should behave, and if we should eat meat, and whether we should dump that boy who is very nice
7
but insanely clingy in a way that he cannot possibly think is attractive.
8
All of which adds up- Mr. Green, Mr. Green, uh, are you talking about me?
9
Yes, I am talking about you, me from the past.
10
I am telling you that one of the reasons we study history is so that you can be a less terrible boyfriend.
11
But more on that momentarily.
12
Today we're going to talk about civilizations, but in order to do that, we have to talk about talking about civilizations, because it's a problematic word.
13
So problematic, in fact, that I have to turn to camera two to discuss it.
14
Certain conglomerations of humans are seen as civilizations, whereas, say, nomadic cultures generally aren't, unless you are, say it with me, the Mongols.
15
By calling some groups civilizations, you imply that all other social orders are uncivilized, which is basically just another way of saying that they're savages or barbarians.
16
Side note, originally Greek, the word barbarian denoted anyone who did not speak ancient Greek, because to the Greeks, all other languages sounded like bar bar bar bar bar bar bar.
17
So that is to say that we are all essentially barbarians, except for the classics majors, which is worth remembering when we're discussing civilizations.
18
Civilizations are like most of the things we like to study.
19
They're intellectual constructs.
20
No one woke up in the city of Thebes in Egypt one morning and said, What a beautiful morning!
21
I sure am living at the height of Egyptian civilization.
22
Still, they're useful constructs, particularly when you're comparing one civilization to another.
23
They're less useful when you're comparing a civilization to a non-civilization type social order, which is why we will try to avoid that.
24
And yes, I am getting to the good boyfriend stuff.
25
Patience, grasshopper.
26
So what is a civilization?
27
Well, diagnosing a civilization is a little like diagnosing an illness.
28
If you have four or more of the following symptoms, you might be a civilization.
29
Surplus production.
30
Once one person can make enough food to feed several people, it becomes possible to build a city, another symptom of civilization.
31
It also leads to the specialization of labor, which in turn leads to trade.
32
Like if everybody picks berries for a living, there is no reason to trade, because I have berries and you have berries.
33
But if I pick berries for a living and you make hammers, suddenly we have cause to trade.
34
are also usually associated with social stratification, centralized government shared values, generally in the form of religion, and writing.
35
And at least in the early days, they were almost always associated with rivers.
36
These days you can just bisect a segment of land horizontally and vertically and boom, build a city, but 5,000 years ago civilizations were almost always associated with rivers,
37
whether that's the Tigris and the Euphrates, the Yellow River, the Nile, the Amazon basin, the Coatzacoalcos.
38
Gah, I was doing so good until I got to Coatzacoalcos!
39
Coatzacoalcus.
40
Coatzacoalcus, maybe.
41
Why river valleys?
42
They're flat, they're well watered, and when they flood they deposit nutrient rich silt.
43
We'll have more to say about most of these civilizations later, but let's talk about this guy, the Indus Valley Civilization, because it's my all-time favorite.
44
The Indus Valley Civilization was located in the flood plain of the Indus and Souardi Rivers, and it was about the best place in the world to have an ancient civilization
45
because the rivers flooded very reliably twice a year, which meant that it had the most available calories per acre of pretty much anywhere on the planet.
46
We know the Indus Valley Civilization flourished a long time ago, probably around 3000 BCE.
47
Why is that question literally hanging over my head?
48
But people of the Indus Valley were trading with Mesopotamians as early as 3500 BCE.
49
We also know that it was the largest of the ancient civilizations.
50
Archaeologists have discovered more than 1500 sites.
51
So what do we know about this civilization?
52
Let's go to the Thought Bubble.
53
Everything we know about the Indus Valley Civilization comes from archaeology, because while they did use written language, we don't know how to read it, and no Rosetta Stone has thus far appeared to help us learn it.
54
I meant the other Rosetta Stone thought bubble.
55
Yeah, although come to think of it, either would be acceptable.
56
So here's what we know.
57
They had amazing cities.
58
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro are the best known, with dense, multi-story homes constructed out of uniformly sized bricks along perpendicular streets.
59
I mean, this wasn't some ancient world version of Houston, more like Chicago.
60
This means they must have had some form of government and zoning, but we don't know what gave this government its authority.
61
Cities were oriented to catch the wind and provide a natural form of air conditioning.
62
And they were clean.
63
Most homes were connected to a centralized drainage system
64
that used gravity to carry waste and water out of the city in big sewer ditches that ran under the main avenues, a plumbing system that would have been the envy of many 18th century European cities.
65
Also, in Mahendradara, the largest public building was not a temple or a palace, but a public bath, which historians call the The Great Bath.
66
We don't know what the Great Bath was used for, but since later Indian culture placed a huge emphasis on ritual purity, which is the basis for the caste system,
67
some historians have speculated that the bath might have been like a giant baptismal pool.
68
Also, they traded.
69
One of the coolest things that the Indus Valley civilization produced were seals, used as identification markers on goods and clay tablets.
70
These seals contain the writing that we still can't decipher and a number of fantastic designs, many featuring animals and monsters.
71
One of the most famous and frightening is of a man with what looks like water buffalo horns on his head, cross-legged between a tiger and a bull.
72
We don't know what's really going on here, but it's safe to say that this was a powerful dude because he seems to be able to control the tiger.
73
How did these seals let us know that they traded?
74
Well because we found them in Mesopotamia, not the Indus Valley.
75
Plus, archaeologists have found stuff like bronze in the Indus Valley that is not native to the region.
76
So what did they trade?
77
Cotton cloth.
78
Still such a fascinating export, incidentally, that it will be the subject of the 40th and final video in this very series.
79
Here's the most amazing thing about the Indus Valley people.
80
They were peaceful.
81
Despite archaeologists finding 1,500 sites, they have found very little evidence of warfare and almost no weapons.
82
Thanks, Thought Bubble.
83
Okay, before we talk about the fascinating demise of the Indus Valley civilization, it's time for the open letter.
84
Magic!
85
I wonder what the secret compartment has for me today.
86
Oh!
87
Fancy clothes!
88
I guess the secret compartment didn't think I was dressed up enough for the occasion.
89
An open letter to historians.
90
Dear historians, The Great Bath?
91
Really?
92
The Great Bath?
93
I'm trying to make history fascinating and you give me a term that evokes scented candles, bath salts, and Frederick Fekai hair products?
94
I know sometimes the crushingly boring names of history aren't your fault.
95
You didn't name the Federalist Papers or the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Adam Smith.
96
But when you do get a chance to name something, you go with The Great Bath?
97
Not the epic bath of Mohenjo-Daro, or the bath to end all baths, or the pool that ruled, or the moist mystery of Mohenjo-Daro, or the wet wonder.
98
The Great Bath?
99
Really?
100
You can do better.
101
Best wishes, John Green.
102
So what happened to these people?
103
Well, here's what didn't happen to them.
104
They didn't morph into the current residents of that area of the world, Hindu Indians or Muslim Pakistanis.
105
Those people probably came from the Caucasus.
106
Instead, sometime around 1750 BCE, the Indus Valley civilization declined until it faded into obscurity.
107
Why?
108
Historians have three theories.
109
One, conquest.
110
Turns out to be a terrible military strategy not to have any weapons, and it's possible people from the Indus Valley were completely overrun by people from the Caucasus.
111
Two, environmental disaster.
112
It's possible they brought about their own end by destroying their environment.
113
Three, earthquake.
114
The most interesting theory is that a massive earthquake changed the course of the rivers
115
so much that a lot of the tributaries dried up adequate water supplies for irrigation, the cities couldn't sustain themselves, so people literally just picked up and left for greener pastures.
116
Well, probably not pastures, it's unlikely they became nomads, they probably just moved to a different plain and continued their agricultural ways.
117
I am already boring you and I haven't even told you yet how to be a better boy and or girlfriend.
118
I'm gonna do that now.
119
So we don't know why the Indus Valley civilization ended, but we also don't really know why it started.
120
Why did these people build cities and dig swimming pools and make unnecessarily ornate seals?
121
Were they motivated by hunger, fear, a desire for companionship, the need to be near their sacred spaces, or a general feeling that city life was just more awesome than foraging?
122
Thinking about what motivated them to structure their life as they
123
did helps us to think about how we structure our own lives.
124
In short, you're clingy because you're motivated by fear and a need for companionship.
125
And she finds it annoying
126
because it's enough work having to be responsible for herself without having to also be responsible for you.
127
So you're not really helping her by clinging, and from the Indus Valley in the Bronze Age to school life today, human life is all about collaboration.
128
Trading cloth for bronze, building cities together, and collaborating to make sure that human lives are tilted to catch the wind.
129
Next week we will travel here to discuss the hot Mesopotamia, but in the meantime, if you have any questions,
130
leave them in comments and our team of semi-trained semi-professionals will do their best to answer them.
131
Also you'll find some suggested resources in the video info below, he said pointing at his pants.
132
Thanks for watching and we'll see you next week.
133
Don't forget to be awesome.

下載應用

流利口語所需的一切

AI 發音評分逐句打分
音標練習掌握每個音
詞彙學習建立你的詞庫
詞彙遊戲邊玩邊學

同頻道

FOR YOU

推薦影片

本節課學習內容

通過觀看這段關於印度河流域文明的影片,你將練習英語聽力理解與口語表達。影片中John Green以輕鬆幽默的語氣講述歷史知識,涵蓋文明定義、印度河文明特點及消亡原因等內容。你可以跟著模仿他的語速、語調,同時學習歷史相關詞彙,提升英語口語的流暢度與發音準確性。

核心詞彙與短語

  • civilization:文明
  • surplus production:剩餘生產
  • social stratification:社會分層
  • centralized government:中央政府
  • ritual purity:儀式純淨
  • environmental disaster:環境災難

影子跟讀練習技巧

影片中John Green的語速中等,語氣生動,非常適合進行“英語影子跟讀”(shadowspeaks)練習。建議你先完整聽一遍,熟悉內容後,逐句跟讀。注意模仿他的停頓和重音,比如在講述“為什麼河流谷地適合文明發展”時,“flat”“well watered”“nutrient-rich silt”等詞的強調。遇到長句子,如“Civilizations are like most of the things we like to study, they're intellectual constructs”,可拆分短語進行練習。

練習時,可使用“shadow speech”方法,即延遲0.5-1秒跟讀,訓練耳朵與嘴巴的協調能力。重點關注歷史術語的發音,如“Mohenjo Daro”“Coatzacoalcos”,通過重複模仿糾正發音。堅持每天練習10-15分鐘,不僅能提高英語發音,還能增強英語口語的流利度。記住,影子跟讀是提升口語的有效方式,慢慢來,你會看到進步!

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are seen · are uncivilized · are also usually associated
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 discovered · have speculated · have found
定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物uncivilized, which is · anyone who did · majors, which is

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。

影子跟讀法: 閱讀完整分步指南 →