跟读练习: Don't Try - The Philosophy of Charles Bukowski - 通过视频学习英语口语
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Charles Bukowski was a 20th century American writer and poet known for his unfiltered, potent, and often crude takes on life.
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Bukowski was born in Germany in 1920 and then emigrated with his family to America in 1923.
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Bukowski had a horrible childhood, beaten regularly by his father, starting at age six.
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As an immigrant from Germany, Bukowski was ridiculed by other kids for his accent and clothing, ostracized as an outcast throughout his schooling.
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Into his teenage years, Bukowski developed a condition that covered his face with extreme acne and acne-related blemishes, further intensifying his self-consciousness in isolation.
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The circumstances of abuse and loneliness imposed on Bukowski as a young child
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and adolescent laid the groundwork for his perspective on life and his desire to express himself as a writer.
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In an interview much later in his life, Bukowski said that his father was a great literary teacher because he taught him the meaning of pain, more specifically, pain without reason.
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When you get the shit kicked out of you long enough, you will have a tendency to say what you really mean," said Bukowski.
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In his 20s, after two years at college, Bukowski would quit school and make his first real attempt at becoming a professional writer, bouncing around the United States,
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doing short-term blue-collar jobs while writing hundreds of short stories.
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However, out of the hundreds of stories, only a couple during this time would go on to get published, and the ones that did found essentially no success.
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After a couple years, Bukowski basically stopped writing altogether, disappointed by the publishing process and his apparent inability to write well enough to be successful.
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Bukowski would go on to work various blue-collar jobs for several years thereafter.
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Then in 1955, at 35 years old, after about 10 years of not writing, Bukowski nearly died from a serious bleeding ulcer.
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He survived, however, and then soon after, as fate would have it, Bukowski quit his job, which was at the post office at the time, and began writing again.
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A couple more years went by and Bukowski would publish several pieces during this time, but But still, nothing was providing much success, and he was forced to return to the post office of which he had originally quit.
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Counter to the original time though, this time, Bukowski continued writing while at the post office.
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Before his shift, he would use whatever time he had to write.
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Bukowski would continue in this for many years, getting a collection of pieces published here and there in underground magazines, all with very little success.
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With no real sight of success or money or fame or even just creating a living from writing, Bukowski continued writing nearly every day before work for years.
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Of course, we know how Bukowski's story ended.
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He is being spoken about right now as a writer.
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A renowned, successful, and important enough one to be spoken about with significance decades after his passing, to be considered one of the greats of all time.
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Bukowski, however, didn't end up becoming traditionally or publicly successful until he was into his 50s, many more years into the second stint of working at the post office.
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Only after a long, continued attempt at writing did Bukowski's work finally become noticed and appreciated by an audience, and only after a deal with a publisher who agreed to find Bukowski's work,
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did Bukowski begin to make any sort of living from it.
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At 50 years old, on the tail end of the traditional career timeline, Bukowski got his first real shot and took it.
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After it would seem like to many that it was over, it began, and he would soon become increasingly successful and famous in the literary world and culture at large not long after.
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It took Bukowski years and years of writing and toiling
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and trying to finally have circumstances work out in his favor so he could gain traction and find success as a writer.
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To get what he wanted since he was a teenager and fulfill what he believed his life was for.
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In this, it is at least initially perplexing that his gravestone reads, right now, don't try.
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A message that seems rather grim, especially for a gravestone, as well as counterintuitive to his story.
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How could a man who became successful in fulfilling his idea of himself, a man who, although it took a while, found immense respect and recognition for his craft, all because of his relentless trying,
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how could this man leave the words, don't try, as his final offering?
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Arguably, Perhaps this is where the most important idea can be found, not only in Bukowski's work, but in Bukowski's life.
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In a letter to William Packard, a publisher, friend and fellow writer, Bukowski wrote, Too many writers write for the wrong reasons.
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They want to get famous, or they want to get rich, or they want to get laid by the girls with the blue bells in their hair.
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When everything works best, it's not because you chose writing, but because writing chose you.
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It's when you're mad with it, when it's stuffed in your ears, nostrils, under your fingernails.
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when there's no hope but that.
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In this letter, Bukowski is referring to aspiring writers, but he's arguably referring to something much larger, the notion of purpose and success and creative endeavors in general.
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When you were very young and someone asked you for the first time what your favorite color was, and you decided that it was blue or red or whatever else,
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perhaps it felt like a choice, but it wasn't really.
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No one chooses how colors make them feel and why some seem to paint onto the brain with better feelings than others.
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We can describe the reasons why we like the colors we like, but we can't choose why we do.
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The color, sort of, chooses us.
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In a relatively low-stakes situation like our favorite color, it's easy to just realize which one feels best and declare it without trying.
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How one defines their purpose and carries out the bulk of their life, however, is not so easy nor so low-stakes, making it inevitably more complicated, convoluted, and challenging.
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Although, perhaps it is, at its core, somewhat the same as knowing your favorite color.
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In the same letter to Packard, Bukowski went on to say, We work too hard.
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We try too hard.
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Don't try.
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Don't work.
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It's there, looking right at us, aching to kick out of the closed room.
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In this, Bukowski alludes to the idea that if you have to try to try, if you have to try to care about something or have to try to want something, perhaps you don't care about it,
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and perhaps you don't want it, perhaps it isn't your favorite color.
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Throughout his life, Bukowski constantly returned to writing, never reducing or modifying his voice for the sake of something else,
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never letting the rejection or the suffering throughout the process ultimately take writing away from him.
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It's not that Bukowski didn't try, it's that he didn't try to be something that he wasn't.
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He tried to be a writer, but he didn't try to want to be a writer.
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Nor did he try to write how he wanted to write, he just did it and kept on doing it.
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At least creatively, we seem to often perform at our best when we are ourselves, natural and honest, attending to who we really are and what we really want to say or do,
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without the addition of ulterior motives, without forcing it or overthinking too much.
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And perhaps this is, in part, what Bukowski meant.
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Truthfully, no one other than Bukowski can say or know exactly what Bukowski ever really thought or meant in anything.
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And none of this is to suggest that something as hard
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and complicated as purpose and passion and desire and success is easy or prescribable.
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Because it isn't.
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It's all as unclear and complicated as the very brain that contrives the whole system.
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And it's not as if writing or filmmaking or painting or making music or business or whatever else else, must come easy to the writer or filmmaker or painter
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or musician etc. in order for it to be the right thing or for them to be great at it.
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But it is likely, however, that if the pain and endurance of working through the process does not feel worth it,
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and you are not compelled to do it even in the face of rejection or hardship or sacrifice, then perhaps it is here where Bukowski might say, don't try.
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But if it does, if the thought of not doing the thing hurts more than the thought of potentially suffering through the process, if the thought of a life without it or never having tried it at all terrifies you.
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If it comes to you, through you, out of you, almost as if you're not trying, perhaps Bukowski might say, here, try.
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And if you're going to try, go all the way.
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Charles Bukowski.
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You can find the Patreon page by clicking on the link in the description or the icon on the screen.
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Thanks again for watching and see you next video.
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本课的词汇与口语要点
这节 C1 级别的口语课以视频“Don't Try - The Philosophy of Charles Bukowski”为素材。 视频中反复出现的词有：Bukowski, writing, writer, perhaps, color。 这段视频共有 81 个句子、1551 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 7:38。 说话人语速较快，每分钟约 203 个词，会出现较多连读和弱读。 86% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，其余的词建议在练习前先学一下。
视频中的重点词汇
视频中最难的 15 个单词，附发音和释义：
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| litter 名词 | /ˈlɪt.ɚ/ | 垫料 |
| circumstance 名词 | /ˈsɝ.kəmˌstæns/ | 情況 /情况, 狀態 /状态 |
| acne 名词 | /ˈækni/ | 痤瘡 /痤疮, 粉刺 |
| fulfill 动词 | /fʊlˈfɪl/ | 履行 |
| rejection 名词 | /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ | 拒絕 /拒绝 |
| arguably 副词 | /ˈɑɹɡjuəbli/ | 按理說 /按理说, 可以說 /可以说 |
| collar 名词 | /ˈkɑlɚ/ | 領子 /领子, 領 /领 |
| aspire 动词 | /əˈspaɪɚ/ | 熱望 /热望, 渴望 |
| compel 动词 | /kəmˈpɛl/ | 強迫 /强迫 |
| convoluted 形容词 | /ˌkɑnvəˈlutəd/ | 曲折 |
| counterintuitive 形容词 | /ˌkaʊntəɹɪnˈtuɪtɪv/ | 反常識 /反常识, 反直覺 /反直觉 |
| emigrate 动词 | /ˈɛmɪɡɹeɪt/ | 移民, 移居 |
| filmmaking 名词 | 電影製作 /电影制作 | |
| fingernail 名词 | /ˈfɪŋɡɚˌneɪl/ | 指甲, 手指甲 |
| groundwork 名词 | /ˈɡɹaʊndˌwɜːɹk/ | 基礎 /基础, 基礎性工作 /基础性工作 |
视频中出现的短语动词
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| carry out 动词 | /ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/ | 進行 /进行 |
| end up 动词 | 到达 |
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | was born · was ridiculed · was forced |
| 定语从句 who / which + 从句 — 补充说明人或事物 | job, which was · man who became |
需要注意的发音
说话人用了 19 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 don't, didn't, you're。请按听到的简短形式来说。
- “th” 音: truthfully /ˈtɹuːθ.fəl.i/, thereafter /ˌðɛɹˈæf.tɚ/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: rejection /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, blemish /ˈblɛmɪʃ/, hardship /ˈhɑɹdˌʃɪp/, traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/
- 长单词——注意重音位置: convoluted /ˌkɑnvəˈlutəd/, counterintuitive /ˌkaʊntəɹɪnˈtuɪtɪv/, creatively /kɹiˈeɪtɪvli/, intensify /ɪnˈtɛnsɪfaɪ/, ulterior /ʌlˈtɪɚ.i.ɚ/
中文母语者容易读错的音：
- /v/ — 不要读成 /w/，上齿轻触下唇: gravestone /ˈɡɹeɪvstoʊn/, contrive /kənˈtɹaɪv/, convoluted /ˌkɑnvəˈlutəd/, counterintuitive /ˌkaʊntəɹɪnˈtuɪtɪv/, creatively /kɹiˈeɪtɪvli/
- 词尾辅音 — 要读清楚，后面不要加元音: circumstance /ˈsɝ.kəmˌstæns/, allude /əˈljuːd/, blemish /ˈblɛmɪʃ/, contrive /kənˈtɹaɪv/, convoluted /ˌkɑnvəˈlutəd/
- /r/ 和 /l/ 的区别: arguably /ˈɑɹɡjuəbli/, creatively /kɹiˈeɪtɪvli/, nostril /ˈnɒs.tɹɪl/, ridicule /ˈɹɪdɪkjuːl/, truthfully /ˈtɹuːθ.fəl.i/
如何用这段视频练习
- 先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
- 先用 0.75 倍速逐句跟读，熟练之后再回到正常速度。
- 录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 litter, circumstance, acne 这类单词。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。