跟读练习: Introduction 1, Context - 通过视频学习英语口语

正在创建课程...
1
Cement Chemistry for Sustainable Cementia Materials Hello and welcome to this series on Cement Chemistry for Sustainable Cementia Materials.
2
In this series of modules, we're going to look at the cement chemistry and how this helps us to understand the sustainability of these very important materials.
3
Most of the modules should be really understandable to anybody with a fairly basic knowledge of high school chemistry.
4
So in this first module, we're going to look at the overall context.
5
We're going to look at the role of cementitious material in the world today
6
and what are the origins of their CO2 footprint.
7
Now, in this first slide, we can see the overwhelming dominance of cementitious materials.
8
They make up between 30 to 50 percent of everything we produce,
9
probably about 50 percent of solid materials and 30 percent if we include things like fossil fuels.
10
And in the light of that, the fact that they're responsible for CO2 emissions of around 5 to 10 percent is a very good ratio.
11
But more importantly, we can really see
12
that it would in no way be possible to replace semantitious materials with alternatives at any meaningful level.
13
For example, if we look at the amount of wood produced worldwide, this is between 10 and 15% the amount of cementitious materials.
14
And already it's estimated that this amount of wood is beyond the limits of sustainability.
15
That's to say we're cutting down more trees than we're planting.
16
So while this may be a nice option in Europe and North America, it's really not practical for the many people who need to be housed in countries like China,
17
India, Africa, South America.
18
This slide here really shows how the environmental footprint of concrete is very low.
19
And we should talk about concrete because concrete is the final material we really use.
20
Cement is the precursor and there's roughly about 10% of cement in concrete.
21
On the right here, I've normalized these figures compared to the highest, which is aluminium.
22
You can see very vividly just how much energy and CO2 you can save by recycling aluminium.
23
And I hope after seeing this, you don't throw your Coke can in the bin anymore.
24
But concrete is really extremely low, lower than almost all other materials.
25
Of course, this is just on a weight basis.
26
When you put this into a structure, it becomes more complicated.
27
We're not going to go into that here, but generally, even in that situation,
28
concrete still comes out very strongly as an environmentally friendly material.
29
The amount of cement we're using has increased very, very dramatically in the past few decades.
30
Since 1950, the population has increased about threefold, and in the same period,
31
the amount of cement we use has increased by about 34 times.
32
In recent decades, this has really been driven by the development in China.
33
And we should not view this negatively because this development has lifted a lot of people out of poverty.
34
It's provided them with decent homes, with roads, railways to get around and everything like that.
35
But we certainly cannot imagine that this growth in demand for cement is going to slow down because there are many,
36
many other parts of the world where people still haven't had decent housing or transportation systems.
37
Finally, what we do with our lives and the CO2 produced is a question of choices.
38
And here again, you know, if we decide to build a house, we make maybe a house for a family of three people,
39
this will typically take about 10 to 20 tons of cement and last for about 50 years.
40
So we can calculate from that
41
that the CO2 to do with your materials in your house is about 12 kilograms a month.
42
Now, if you're driving a car, which you almost certainly are,
43
that same family of three will probably drive at least 10,000 kilometers a year.
44
And then they'll be consuming fossil fuels, which will be producing about 90 kilograms of CO2 per year,
45
seven or eight times more than the materials in their house.
46
But we should also reflect on our other choices in life, for example, the food we eat.
47
Here you can see for a very meat intensive diet,
48
the associated CO2 production would be around five to seven kilograms of CO2 per day.
49
whereas a vegetarian diet is much lower at around 3 to 4 kilograms of CO2 per day.
50
And so if we calculate for the same imaginary family of three that they went from eating meat to being vegetarian
51
maybe for just two
52
or three days a month this would be equivalent to saving all the CO2 that they needed to build their house.
53
So rather than just blaming the producers of these materials we have to think about what we're doing in our lives
54
and what we choose to do that produces CO2.
55
Okay, there's no reason for complacency because if we did nothing about the CO2 footprint of cementitious materials,
56
we could end up in a situation like this.
57
Here we see the blue line is the trajectory
58
that has been estimated we should try to meet if we're to restrict global warming to this two degrees temperature rise.
59
Whether we're going to do that or not is another question, but that's the trajectory of overall global emissions if we're going to do that.
60
If we achieve that blue line and we did nothing about cement,
61
then the emissions from the production of cement and cementitious materials would follow the red line.
62
And we see
63
that by 2050 we would end up in a situation where
64
cementitious materials would be responsible for something like 30% of world CO2 emissions, which is clearly unacceptable.
65
So where is the consumption of cement taking place?
66
What we see here is the distribution of cement use around the world.
67
And only about 10% of cement use is taking place in OECD countries.
68
And in these countries, it's forecast that demand will really stay pretty much constant.
69
More than 90% of consumption is taking part in the developing world,
70
particularly in China, which has been very dominant over the past two decades.
71
It's been estimated in the last three years, China produced more concrete than was produced in the whole of North America in the 20th century.
72
and many other countries like India in particular are looking to follow this development path to provide decent houses for their people,
73
decent rail systems, decent road systems and this will inevitably mean that the growth in use of cement is going to increase.
74
So if we're going to meet this challenge of the growing demand for cement we need solutions
75
which are first of all practical, They can be used by unskilled workers.
76
And, you know, this shows you the kind of typical situation you can have for mixing concrete.
77
The example is from India.
78
And also economically.
79
Now, you know, cement is an incredibly cheap material.
80
In most of Europe, you can buy a ton of cement for less than 100 euros for a whole ton.
81
In many developing countries, though, the prices are actually higher, even though the incomes are lower.
82
So it's very important that we have solutions
83
which are really economically viable for these countries where there's this huge need for building infrastructure and housing,
84
etc. So let's look at where these CO2 emissions are coming from.
85
Unlike most other industrial processes, only a minority of the CO2 emissions are coming from the energy consumption.
86
Producing cement is a high temperature process.
87
you're going up to temperatures of 1450 or so and this does take energy but it's still the minor amount.
88
A cement kiln as we see here looks like a fairly unsophisticated type of instrument.
89
But this is in fact not true
90
because in the past few decades there's been very dramatic improvement in the amount of energy needed to produce cement.
91
And in really state-of-the-art equipment now the production process is highly optimized up to nearly 80% of the thermodynamic limit
92
which is those of you who or study thermodynamics will know, is very close to the maximum you can achieve.
93
Another factor which is important is that rather than using fossil fuels, which used to be the dominant means in the past,
94
nowadays we can use a wide variety of waste fuels.
95
So for example, off cuts from producing furniture,
96
old car tires, Many, many different kind of waste can be burnt in a cement kiln.
97
And in many parts of Europe, plants are using more than 80% of waste fuels.
98
So this is a very efficient tool for valorizing waste materials.
99
So if we're going to make improvements, we need to turn to the other side, to the 60% of the equation.
100
And this 60%, this comes from the breakdown of calcium carbonate into calcium oxide and CO2.
101
Calcium carbonate, this is in fact limestone, which is 80% of the raw material used to make cement.
102
Now, the fact we have this chemical CO2 means that if we're going to reduce this, then we're going to have,
103
this has implications for the chemistry of the cement.
104
And that means it has implications for the whole way it behaves, in use, etc., etc., which of course is a big challenge.
105
So what have we seen in this lecture?
106
Well, we've seen how important semantitious materials are, how they make up by far the overwhelming majority of all the materials we used
107
and therefore cannot be replaced by other materials.
108
We've seen that in fact the environmental footprint from these materials is in fact quite low
109
and we've looked at where the CO2 emissions come from
110
and we've seen that most of the CO2 emissions come from the chemical breakdown of limestone,
111
that's calcium carbonate, and therefore we can't really imagine to do much about CO2 emissions by, for example, looking at alternative energies.
112
So in the next lecture, we're going to go into more detail about why the chemistry of cement is as it is.
113
So I look forward to seeing you next time and I hope you've enjoyed this first module.
114
If you want to find out more, then this publication, Ecoefficient Cements, which we published in November 2016,
115
gives you a very good background to all the aspects I will tackle in this first module.

本课的词汇与口语要点

这节 C1 级别的口语课以视频“Introduction 1, Context”为素材。 视频中反复出现的词有:cement, material, emissions, concrete, amount。 这段视频共有 115 个句子、1706 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 11:57。 说话人语速平稳,每分钟约 143 个词,很适合跟读。 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
cement 名词/səˈmɛnt/水泥, 洋灰
emission 名词/ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/排放
module 名词/ˈmɑd͡ʒul/模塊 /模块
kilogram 名词/ˈkɪləɡɹæm/千克, 公斤
footprint 名词/ˈfʊtpɹɪnt/腳印 /脚印, 足印
calcium 名词/ˈkælsi.əm/鈣 /钙
carbonate 名词/ˈkɑɹbəneɪt/碳酸鹽 /碳酸盐
fossil 名词/ˈfɑsl̩/化石
kiln 名词/kɪln/窯 /窑
overwhelm 动词/ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/吞沒 /吞没
trajectory 名词/tɹəˈd͡ʒɛktəɹi/軌道 /轨道, 彈道 /弹道
aluminium 名词/ˌæl.(j)uˈmɪn.i.əm/鋁 /铝, 鋼種 /钢种
limestone 名词/ˈlaɪmˌstoʊn/石灰岩, 灰岩
vegetarian 名词/vɛ.d͡ʒɪˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/素食主義者 /素食主义者, 素食者
calculate 动词/ˈkælkjʊleɪt/計算 /计算, 算

视频中出现的短语动词

单词发音释义
make up 动词/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/組成 /组成
come out 动词/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/出, 出來 /出来
cut down 动词砍倒
find out 动词找出, 查明
look forward to 动词期待, 向往
slow down 动词減速 /减速, 放慢

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
“used to” used to + 动词 — 过去的习惯或状态,现在已不再如此used to be · used to make
现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事I've normalized · has increased · has really been driven
定语从句 who / which + 从句 — 补充说明人或事物people who need · highest, which is · fuels, which will
被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么,而不是谁做的be housed · been driven · has been estimated

需要注意的发音

说话人用了 29 次缩略和弱读形式,例如 we're, we've, you're。请按听到的简短形式来说。

  • “th” 音: thermodynamic /ˌθɝmoʊdaɪˈnæmɪk/, thermodynamics /ˌθɜː(ɹ)moʊdaɪˈnæmɪks/
  • “sh” 和 “zh” 音: emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/, cementitious /ˌsɛmɛnˈtɪʃəs/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, equation /ɪˈkweɪ.ʒən/
  • 长单词——注意重音位置: cementitious /ˌsɛmɛnˈtɪʃəs/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, trajectory /tɹəˈd͡ʒɛktəɹi/, aluminium /ˌæl.(j)uˈmɪn.i.əm/, sustainability /səˌsteɪnəˈbɪlɪti/

中文母语者容易读错的音:

  • /v/ — 不要读成 /w/,上齿轻触下唇: overwhelm /ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/, vegetarian /vɛ.d͡ʒɪˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/, valorize /ˈvæləˌraɪz/, vividly /ˈvɪvɪdli/, inevitably /ɪˈnɛvɪtəbli/
  • 词尾辅音 — 要读清楚,后面不要加元音: cement /səˈmɛnt/, cementitious /ˌsɛmɛnˈtɪʃəs/, footprint /ˈfʊtpɹɪnt/, carbonate /ˈkɑɹbəneɪt/, calculate /ˈkælkjʊleɪt/
  • /r/ 和 /l/ 的区别: kilogram /ˈkɪləɡɹæm/, recycle /ɹəˈsaɪkəl/, valorize /ˈvæləˌraɪz/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/

如何用这段视频练习

  1. 先完整听一遍视频,不要开口,记下不认识的单词。
  2. 用正常速度逐句跟读,每句重复到你的节奏与说话人一致为止。
  3. 录下自己的声音并与原声对比,特别注意 cement, emission, module 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。

影子跟读法: 阅读完整分步指南 →