跟讀練習: Why Are Things Cute? - 通過影片學習英語口語
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29 句
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Hey, Vsauce. Michael here. And The Pet Collective offers 24-hour coverage of puppies and kittens. It's really cute.
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But what is cute, scientifically? I mean, why do we like soft, cuddly things and why do cute things have a unique effect on us?
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Well, the word cute is a shortening of acute, which originally meant "keen," "shrewd," "perceptive." About 180 years ago, the word cute began to be used as slang for a girl, who was pretty.
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And after that, it accrued a new meaning and was used to describe cuddly, delicate, quaint, precious, youthful traits. Konrad Lorenz studies cuteness in living things and put together a great specific list of what we consider cute.
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Small body size with a disproportionately large head, large eyes and round and soft body features. But why exactly did these characteristics elicit an "ooooohhh" response from us humans? Well, Lorenz pointed that you could find all of those characteristics in the human baby, which makes sense.
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If merely looking at our offspring makes us instinctively feel protective and nurturing, well, that's great for all of us. A fun consequence of this is that our experience of cuteness can be triggered by things that aren't human babies.
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For instance, shells, bunnies, owls and even a hammer.
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A hammer, how can that be? Take a look at this interactive tool from the Exploratorium. A hammer is boring.
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But if we apply Lorenz's traits and make it really round and really squat, it goes from a utilitarian tool to a cute little tiny hammer. Oh, he's just a little hammer, don't hurt him.
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It is a hammer that has become cute, because we gave it qualities that we see in our own offspring.
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As Daniel Dennett puts it, "if human babies looked like this, instead of that, we would find this cute." And whenever we saw something that looked like it, we would wanna cuddle and snuggle with it.
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Alright, so we have a pretty good idea about the how and what of cute.
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But where is cute? Well, researchers have shown cute baby pictures to subjects while using functional MRI to track activity in the brain.
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And sure enough, the cuter the baby in the picture, the more activation found right here - the nucleus accumbens. A pleasure centre.
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When activated, the nucleus accumbens releases dopamine.
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It's all part of our internal reward system. It's the same part of the brain targeted by cocaine and meth. Cuteness is such a powerful force on the brain in fact that it can affect our behaviours - what we like, what we buy.
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And so it's no coincidence that the creators of cartoon characters, like Mickey Mouse or Pikachu, have drawn them more and more cute over time.
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The Japanese concept of Kawaii is a great example of this and it's one that's fun to quantify.
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If you're an adult, how many of your own heads, stacked on top of each other, do you think it would take to equal your height?
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The answer for most of us is around 7.5. But illustrations of people that are meant to make them look heroic or noble tend to make the person around 8 to 8.5 heads high.
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Cute goes the other way. Manga characters tend to only be about 5.5 to 6.5 heads tall.
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Back to babies.
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There are many other psychological factors at work that cause us to want to instinctively take care of our young. And to be sure, some of them are decidedly not cute. For instance, poopy diapers.
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Researchers have found that mothers, when exposed to soiled diapers, tend to consider the smell coming from their own child's diaper to be the least terrible, despite not knowing which diaper belonged to which kid. When something retains juvenile traits all the way through adulthood, it is called neoteny. And we love it, especially in animals that we keep as pets. Of course, us humans have selectively bred all kinds of animals to make each generation more and more useful to us.
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But the dog may be the animal that've spent the most time designing, making each generation better at hunting or better at staying cuter for longer.
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Dogs like this have been designed by us to look, grow and behave in ways that we want.
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Not that dissimilar from how we would design, say, a DVD player and its features.
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So whether it's staying cute forever or just being a really great hunting companion, the modern dog, more than any other animal, could be considered not so much a consequence of nature as much as it is a piece of human technology. As Science Friday puts it, "the dog is man's best friend because it may be man's best invention." So go pet a cute dog today.
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And as always, thanks for watching.
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為什麼要通過這個影片練習口語?
在這個影片中，Vsauce的Michael探討了“可愛”的科學意義，解釋了為何我們對溫柔、可愛的事物產生吸引力。通過跟隨這樣的對話，學習者可以在聽力理解和口語表達方面獲得極大的提升。使用這種shadowing site，可以幫助你提高對英語的口語能力，尤其是在理解和運用與“可愛”相關的詞彙和句子結構時。這種內容豐富且有趣的對話非常適合進行英語口語練習，讓你在輕鬆的氛圍中提高表現。
語法與表達在語境中的應用
在影片中，Michael使用了幾種有效的語法結構，這些結構非常適合在提高英語發音和口語表達時參考。
- 使用“what is...”結構:例如，“what is cute, scientifically?”這樣的句型在提問時提供了清晰的語境，使聽眾能夠深入思考。
- 因果句型:影片中提到“if looking at our offspring makes us feel protective…”使用了因果關係，幫助學習者理解事件之間的聯絡。
- 比較句:Michael提到“if human babies looked like this, we would find this cute.”這種比較句可以用於強化觀點，提升表達的效果。
這些結構在shadow speak時非常有用，能夠讓學習者更靈活地運用英語進行交流。
常見發音陷阱
在影片中，有一些可能對學習者造成困惑的發音，尤其對於非母語者來說:
- “cute”與“cut”: 這兩個詞的發音相似，但含義截然不同，易於混淆。
- “cuddle”的發音:這種詞的發音需要注意，尤其是尾音部分，常常被忽略。
- 連音現象:如“the more activation found right here,”其中的詞與詞之間的連讀可能讓人不易聽清楚。
通過精準的提高英語發音練習，可以幫助你在與他人交流中減少誤會，讓你的表達更加流暢。
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 |
|---|---|
| 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 become · have shown · have drawn |
| 被動語態 be + 過去分詞 — 強調發生了什麼，而不是誰做的 | can be triggered · are meant · is called |
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。