跟讀練習: We're Reading Dracula in October - 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。
270 句
如果句子過短或過長,請點選 Edit 進行調整。
1
October belongs to Dracula right here
2
so most of you know I host a book club the
3
seriously well -read book club it is part of my patreon
4
and you will find a link to
5
that in the description below it's $20 a month
6
but we pick a classic each month we read it we discuss it in detail on Voxer.
7
I make private videos that are only available to the Seriously Well Read book club members.
8
And since October is not only just Halloween, but also Victober, and Dracula is a Victorian novel,
9
what better time to read Dracula, okay?
10
And, okay, Dracula, Guinness Book of World Records says that Dracula has been portrayed on screen over 538 times.
11
That was 10 years ago.
12
So who knows how many times Dracula has been portrayed on screen since then.
13
So everybody thinks they know the story, but most people haven't read the original novel.
14
If you're one of those, if you haven't read the original novel Dracula, or if you have read it and you want to read it again.
15
October is the perfect time to get in on this.
16
I'm telling you, it's going to be a blast, okay?
17
I'm Randy Ray.
18
This is The Literate Texan.
19
It's my channel on YouTube where I talk about books and reading, highbrow, lowbrow, everything in between.
20
I'm not sure what you would consider Dracula.
21
It's old enough that you might think it's highbrow, but it's gothic horror enough that you might think it's lowbrow.
22
I don't know whether it's highbrow or lowbrow.
23
I just know it's the good stuff and you'll enjoy it.
24
And don't think that because it was published in 1897, it's going to be hard to read.
25
It is not hard to read.
26
You will not have any trouble with the language in it at all.
27
We're not reading Shakespeare or Beowulf here or Chaucer.
28
It's written in almost contemporary English.
29
And so they're, they're just a handful of, of phrasing differences, but yeah, you won't have any trouble at all with Dracula in terms of reading the language.
30
Okay.
31
So let's talk about the book for just a second, Dracula.
32
Most editions are about 400 pages long, but it varies.
33
This is my copy.
34
This is the Norton critical edition.
35
So it's got all kinds of extra stuff in it, but you can usually find a copy of Dracula in like a Signet classic or something like that for next to nothing.
36
And actually you can go to standardebooks .com and you can get an ebook version of Dracula completely free.
37
I mean it's in the public domain.
38
It was originally published in 1897.
39
It was written by Bram Stoker.
40
Bram Stoker is considered one of the great original gothic horror writers.
41
In fact the Horror Writers Association of America.
42
Their annual award for fiction is called the Brom Stoker Award, okay?
43
Now, I haven't read his other works, but I understand none of them come even close to being as good as Dracula.
44
I don't know.
45
I've heard different things.
46
You know, he also wrote The Jewel of Seven Stars.
47
I can't remember the names of them.
48
He wrote seven or eight novels, I think, and some short stories.
49
One of the short stories that he wrote was called Dracula's Guest.
50
And is it Dracula's Guest?
51
It might be Dracula's Guest.
52
It might be Dracula's daughter.
53
I'm not sure which, but I think I'm going to do a read aloud of that one.
54
And I'll probably do that for free right here on the YouTube channel, so you won't have to miss out on that.
55
But it's a great book.
56
The pacing is terrific.
57
The characterization is interesting.
58
It's an epistolary novel, okay?
59
If you don't know what that means, and I didn't until someone explained it to me.
60
An epistolary novel is a novel that's told using clips from newspaper clippings,
61
diary entries, letters, and that sort of thing.
62
Now, you might think that's weird, and you might have trouble understanding that, but you know, you'll be surprised.
63
If you've read Carrie by Stephen King, that's also an epistolary novel.
64
Epistolary novels are pretty common, actually.
65
You don't necessarily know that's what you're reading unless you know about that sort of thing.
66
But yeah, Dracula is one of the best examples of an epistolary novel that's out there.
67
And it is legitimately scary.
68
And there's some fascinating themes going on at work.
69
It basically, it asks the question,
70
what happens in civilization when ancient evil encroaches upon modern civilization?
71
I'm not going to get into too much more detail
72
because I don't want to spoil any of the plot for you
73
and I'm going to recommend to you if you're not familiar with the novel don't spoil it for yourself.
74
Let it do its work on the page because and just forget what you've seen in the movies if you can.
75
Don't think about the TV shows.
76
Let the novel do its work, because believe me, it's worth it.
77
Okay, so why are we reading Dracula today?
78
Why now?
79
What makes this worth reading now?
80
Well, you know, as I already explained, it is Victober, so this does give you an opportunity to read something that was written in Victorian England, okay?
81
And this is one of the great Gothic novels.
82
If you like Stephen King, if you like Clive Barker, if you like Grady Hendrix, if you like any number of modern horror authors,
83
a lot of them are drawing on that tradition, especially if you're reading vampire novels, okay?
84
Modern vampire novels like They Thirst by Robert McCammon, which is a favorite of mine, Salem's Lot by Stephen King,
85
Live Girls by Ray Garton, you know, a lot of these modern novels draw upon Dracula for their version of vampires.
86
They all play with the tropes,
87
but basically, modern pop culture and modern pop culture's depictions of vampires are all talking back to Dracula, okay?
88
Now, Bram Stoker didn't invent the vampire, okay?
89
He didn't invent the vampire story.
90
In fact, he was heavily influenced by some other works.
91
There's a book called Camilla by Jay Sheridan and Life I Knew, which I think is great extra credit reading.
92
And one of the things that I'll do for my book club members is offer extra credit reading, and there'll be plenty of it.
93
But, you know, there was Varney the Vampire, which was a penny dreadful that seemed to go on forever.
94
It was influential on Dracula, too.
95
Dracula, far better book. So, yeah, Dracula, you think you know the story too
96
that that's why it's
97
so much fun to read in my opinion you think you know the story
98
but actually you don't it's full of surprises okay
99
and it's fun to think okay how much of our pop culture understanding of vampires
100
and Dracula actually come from the original novel
101
and where did these pop culture versions of Dracula differ okay
102
and you know there was a movie in 1931 starring Bela Lugosi called Dracula, directed by Todd Browning.
103
There was a silent film called Nosferatu, which was based on Dracula.
104
There was The Horror of Dracula, which was the first of the Hammer series of Dracula movies,
105
which starred, you know, Peter Cushion and Christopher Lee, and countless others.
106
Those are just some of the most famous versions of Dracula.
107
Jack Palance has played Dracula.
108
Frank Langella.
109
Gary Oldman has played Dracula.
110
And it doesn't matter which versions you've seen, you will find stuff in the novel that's going to surprise you, it's going to scare you,
111
and it's going to delight you.
112
Now, all of my book clubs are read -at -your -own -pace book clubs.
113
You don't have to read according to any particular schedule
114
but I always provide guidance and I like to do this so that the people participating know
115
where they should be to finish in the course of the month
116
but also you don't want to spoil things for people who aren't reading as fast as you are
117
so if you know where we're at in the discussion
118
because we'll have lengthy discussions every Friday but
119
if you know where we're at in the book you'll be able to avoid spoiling it for other people
120
and I do ask that out of courtesy of the other members of the book club
121
that you do that I'm going to put the reading schedule in the description below okay
122
but also I'll have the reading schedule posted on patreon .com okay
123
and there will be a voxer discussion group voxer for those
124
of you who don't know it's just a voicemail instant messaging service
125
but it's particularly well suited for discussions of books you just leave a voicemail
126
and everybody in the group gets the voicemail or you send a text
127
and everybody in the group gets the text I've tried other
128
options for hosting discussions voxer works best for me since I'm
129
hosting the book club that's the one we're gonna use I know some people prefer discord
130
and that's okay they can host a discussion over on Discord if they want to.
131
I won't be joining in.
132
Discord, it just doesn't work for me.
133
I don't know if I'm an old fogey or what.
134
But here's the calendar, okay?
135
So first of all, i think october 1st
136
or october 2nd i think the first friday in october is october 2nd okay
137
so we're not going to have a discussion on october 2nd that'll be
138
when you start reading it we'll have our first discussion
139
and the first video on october the 9th
140
and to be caught up to be where we need to be you should have finished with chapter eight
141
and i'm not using page numbers because the different editions have different page numbers okay
142
and I'm also basing the stomping points around the story arcs okay
143
so they're not exactly even
144
but they're close okay I think you know one week we're
145
reading 100 130 pages one week we're reading 117 pages I think there's another week we're reading 87
146
or 90 pages something like that but I mean it's close
147
but I'm more concerned with the story beats being natural ending
148
points than I am with an arbitrary page number goal each week.
149
So October 16th, you should be finished with chapter 16.
150
Not starting chapter 16, but finished with chapter 16.
151
And then October the 23rd, the third week, you should be finished with chapter 22, it's only six chapters.
152
And then on October the 30th, that'll be our grand finale.
153
That'll be our final discussion.
154
You should be finished with the book by October the 30th.
155
That's the reading schedule.
156
Like I said, it's going to be posted in the description below.
157
It will be posted over on our Patreon site too.
158
And also my plan is every Friday on the Patreon site, I'm going to put up a fairly lengthy video discussing Dracula.
159
Now, I have had some health problems in the past
160
that have prevented me or slowed me down in terms of putting together these videos, but I get so enthusiastic and excited about Dracula
161
that it's like there's a whole ain't no stopping me now kind of thing going on here.
162
So that's one of the big selling points of the Patreon .com membership are the videos.
163
And I want to thank the people who are in my
164
Patreon group for being patient with me in the months
165
that I haven't been able to fulfill that and get all the videos live that I necessarily were promised.
166
Okay, I want to reiterate this again.
167
Why are the divisions where I put them?
168
Chapter 8, Chapter 16, Chapter 22 two.
169
It's not based on number of pages.
170
Okay.
171
They're roughly equivalent, but they're pretty various.
172
It's because they're based on story beats.
173
Okay.
174
I want, I don't want to end in the middle of one of the mini story arcs
175
or one of the plot arcs.
176
Okay.
177
And like any book, you know, this has multiple story arcs.
178
Trust me on this.
179
Okay.
180
The schedule is the way it is for a reason.
181
It's a good schedule.
182
And this is not my first time to host a discussion of Dracula or to host a reading of Dracula.
183
And trust me, it's just a good schedule.
184
Okay, now if this is your first time reading Dracula,
185
don't worry if Dracula, the character or the story,
186
seems to be different from what you're expecting, okay?
187
The first story arc in Dracula, and I'm not spoiling much here,
188
concerns Jonathan Harker in Castle Dracula, okay?
189
It is different from what you've seen in the movies, okay?
190
In a lot of ways, it's more effective and scarier, but it is different don't let
191
that throw you off okay
192
and then the story arcs you know various movies are faithful to the book in various ways
193
but even francis ford coppola who made dracula with gary oldman
194
and anthony hopkins great cast by the way even he is not completely faithful to the novel
195
so don't worry about that don't worry about the language being too difficult you won't have a problem with it.
196
Don't worry about archaic references.
197
There's not a lot of that to worry about.
198
You don't need a bunch of footnotes.
199
This was written in modern day English.
200
For example, if you've read the Sherlock Holmes novels, you'll have no trouble with this.
201
If you've read Pride and Prejudice, if you've read Charles Dickens,
202
you will have no trouble at all understanding Bram Stoker's language in Dracula.
203
And I am going to suggest avoiding adaptations of this while we're reading it.
204
Once we get towards the end of it, I'll have some adaptations to suggest and some things to look for in those adaptations.
205
And I am going to have...
206
what i call extra credit assignments or additional things to read
207
that are completely 100 % optional yesterday i made a video about literary double features books
208
that are good to read back to back
209
and one of the ones i suggested was reading dracula back
210
to back with salem's lot salem's lot is a stephen king novel from 1978
211
and it's marvelous it's absolutely terrific but it stemmed from the idea of what
212
if Dracula came to America to a sleepy town in Maine instead of going to London, England.
213
That was the springboard for that one.
214
But I'm also going to suggest that Dracula was partially the inspiration for the Lord of the Rings.
215
A lot of the story beats are the same.
216
Gandalf you can see as being a type of Van Helsing character.
217
Frodo you can see as being kind of a Jonathan Harker character.
218
Sauron, the Dark Lord, is kind of a Dracula character.
219
Even Gollum is like Renfield, okay?
220
You can draw these parallels, but of course it's different.
221
He's working in a secondary world instead of a modern American, or what was then modern day England and Transylvania.
222
But, uh, but yeah, so that's another one where it can make for a really entertaining back -to -back read.
223
But there are other things too, like Camilla, I've already mentioned by Sheridan Lafaneu, really great.
224
There are excerpts from other things,
225
but I'll have extra credit stuff that you can read if you're interested that will enhance your enjoyment of Dracula.
226
It's one of the perks of belonging to the book club
227
okay how can you participate this is part of my patreon
228
okay this is a bonus this is what we're doing for
229
the month of october for my patreon my patreon is how i support this channel okay
230
so it's 20 a month you can start
231
and stop at any time you want
232
if you want to just join just for dracula
233
and then leave that's okay i don't think you should i think you should stick around for all the classics
234
that we read there because it's fun
235
and you will not find a more interesting
236
or interested group of readers than the people who participate in my book club it is a terrific community
237
so to participate just go to my patreon sign up there
238
look for the posts okay there will be posts there there will be videos there
239
and contact me once you sign up for the Patreon.
240
Let me know that you're on Voxer
241
and I will add you to the Voxer discussion group
242
because that's where the discussion is going to take place is in
243
that Voxer discussion group and in the comments to those videos.
244
That's about how simple it is.
245
I mean naturally you'll need to get a copy of Dracula
246
and do the reading but if you want to participate that's all you got to do.
247
Get a copy of the book, do the reading.
248
If you're having trouble finding a copy of the book let
249
me know i will help you get a copy of the book okay um
250
but yeah this is a patreon only thing
251
and you know i've got something free coming up for lone
252
star book club members too we're going to be reading the turn of the screw that's free and
253
if you're looking for a free option to read something scary
254
with me in october you got it the turn of the
255
screw is what we're reading as part of the Lone Star Book Club, and I'll make another video about that soon.
256
But that's all you need to know about how to participate in the seriously well -read book club's reading of Dracula.
257
Sign up over at my Patreon, get a boxer account if you don't already have one, let me know so that I can add you to the discussion group,
258
read the book, and participate in the comments of the videos that I post over there at patreon .com.
259
So this year, October belongs to Dracula.
260
And even if you think you know the story, even if you read Dracula before, but especially if you haven't,
261
I think this book and this discussion is going to have a lot to offer you.
262
So we're going to start on October the 1st. If you're thinking about joining in, contact me and let me know if you have any questions.
263
I include my email address and my Voxer in the description of all my videos, and you're welcome to contact me there anytime.
264
You're going to get a faster response if you contact me via Voxer, though, that's for sure.
265
And with that, I'm going to let you go.
266
I'm just going to ask you to do two things for me before our next video.
267
One, stay hydrated.
268
It's so much more important than you think.
269
And two, please, book two, stay sexy.
270
I love you guys.
同頻道
FOR YOU
推薦影片
本課的詞彙與口語要點
這段影片共有 270 個句子、3142 個單詞可供跟讀。 講話部分時長為 20:09。 說話人語速自然,每分鐘約 156 個詞,接近日常對話。 84% 的單詞屬於英語最常用的 3,000 詞,其餘的詞建議在練習前先學一下。
影片中的重點詞彙
影片中 15 個值得學習的單詞,附發音和釋義:
| 單詞 | 發音 | 釋義 |
|---|---|---|
| participate 動詞 | /pɑːˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/ | 參加 /參加 |
| horror 名詞 | /ˈhɒɹ.ə/ | 恐懼 /恐懼 恐怖, 驚悚 /驚悚 |
| arc 名詞 | /ɑɹk/ | 弧 |
| belong 動詞 | /bɪˈlɒŋ/ | 屬於 /屬於 |
| scary 形容詞 | /ˈskɛə.ɹi/ | 恐怖 |
| necessarily 副詞 | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | 必然地, 必定地 |
| pace 名詞 | /peɪs/ | 步伐, 步幅 |
| faithful 形容詞 | /ˈfeɪθ.fl̩/ | 忠實 /忠實 |
| civilization 名詞 | /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | 文明 |
| invent 動詞 | /ɪnˈvɛnt/ | 發明 /發明 |
| membership 名詞 | 會籍 /會籍, 會員身份 /會員身份 | |
| bonus 名詞 | /ˈbəʊ.nəs/ | 額外收獲 /額外收穫 |
| silent 形容詞 | /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/ | 安靜 /安靜, 恬靜 /恬靜 |
| fiction 名詞 | /ˈfɪkʃən/ | 虛構文學 /虛構文學, 小說 /小說 |
| sexy 形容詞 | /ˈsɛksi/ | 性感 |
影片中出現的短語動詞
| 單詞 | 釋義 |
|---|---|
| put together 動詞 | 拼合, 組合 /組合 |
| sign up 動詞 | 報名 /報名, 註冊 /註冊 |
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 |
|---|---|
| 條件句 if + 從句,will/would + 動詞 — 條件及其結果 | if you're interested that will enhance |
| 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 | has been portrayed · haven't read · I've heard |
| 被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼,而不是誰做的 | has been portrayed · was published · was originally published |
| 定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物 | McCammon, which is · Vampire, which was · Nosferatu, which was |
需要注意的發音
說話人用了 118 次縮略和弱讀形式,例如 don't, I'm, we're。請按聽到的簡短形式來說。
- “th” 音: faithful /ˈfeɪθ.fl̩/, enthusiastic /ɪnˌθjuːzɪˈæstɪk/
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, partially /ˈpɑɹʃəli/
- 長單詞——注意重音位置: participate /pɑːˈtɪs.ɪ.peɪt/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.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。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟讀,熟練之後再回到正常速度。
- 錄下自己的聲音並與原聲對比,特別注意 participate, horror, arc 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。










![613. Murder Mystery Story [Part 2] Victorian Detective 3 by Peter Carlson](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZTwCyrhSLFw/mqdefault.jpg)


