Scientific American 60 Second Science听抄（有音频文件）

zhenzhen_163UID: 196150

Kelediguo asked me a very interesting question so I thought I’d share it with everyone here. His question is:

I have a question for you. Why we should write like this "an HIV vaccine", not "a HIV vaccine"?

Most of us have learned in the grammar book that when the word following the indefinite article “a” begins with a vowel, the “a” automatically becomes an “an”. (Did you notice I said an “an”? :) ) The vowel here does not mean “vowel letters” such as a, e, i, o, u; it refers to the pronounced sound of the word. Since HIV is pronounced as eitchaivee, it is a word with a beginning vowel.

But do you know why we do this? The answer has to do with the fact that English is a “stress-timed” (用重读的音节控制节奏) language with a liberal use of consecutive consonants and ending consonants. “Stress-timed” refers to the rhythm of the language; specifically it means that when we speak English we use the stressed syllables to delineate measures (小节) in the text. The measure here refers to a metric unit similar to what we have in music and poems. Within each measure, all phonemes (音素) are pronounced in one breath with no pauses between them or between words (连读). To produce this musical kind of spoken language, English speakers have grown accustomed to having consonants between vowels and in fact it is very awkward for them to pronounce two consecutive vowels. This is why we put an “n” between a and HIV so it will sound like tumeikuneitchaiveevakseen (to make an HIV vaccine). Without the “n”, it would have sounded like tumeiku PAUSE eitchaiveevakseen. When there is a pause in the measure, it disrupts the rhythm of the language.

With this said, you will notice that many people write “a HIV virus” instead of “an HIV virus”. In written English, “a HIV virus” is a mere oversight; a tiny tiny little mistake. However, in spoken language, you will never hear a native speaker say “a HIV virus”.

For those of you who are not bored by my explanations, here’s some bonus information:

In contrast to English, “syllable-timed” (用各个音节控制节奏) languages such as Japanese, Spanish, and yes, Chinese, generally end each word with a vowel. Such a language’s rhythm is punctuated by ending vowels or stand-alone vowels. To borrow the example from the web link below, the Spanish sentence’s rhythm is  te  ki  e  ro. (Te quiero. 我爱你) Can you feel the rhythm—da da da da? And if you pay attention to spoken Chinese sentences, you will notice the same rhythm.

(For a contrast of these two types of languages, see http://www-english.tamu.edu/pers/grad/welsh/ling209/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Syllable%20vs%20Rhythm%20Timed%20Languages%20for%20ss%20one%20page.pdf.)



[ 本帖最后由 zhenzhen_163 于 2007-7-24 23:51 编辑 ]

zhenzhen_163UID: 196150

Good. If you find your transcription nonsensical, most likely it is incorrect.   :)

Top-down, top-down!

dcbUID: 2232749

July 24

Being able to read with comprehension doesn't just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacy can actualy be the difference between life and death. That's according to a study in the current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The study began 10 years ago when Northwesten University researchers started following more than 3000 medicare patients. The investigators tracked health as education, income, exercise, literacy, smoking  and drinking habits and chronic medical conditions like asthma and diabetes. What they never expected to discover was that low literacy was the second leading predictor of death in their studied population. Only smoking was a stronger indicator of a pro prognosis(?). David Baker, the principle author of the study, said :" When patients can't read, they're not able to do things necessary to stay healthy. They don't know how to take their medications correctly. They don't understand when to seek medical care. And they don't know how to care for their diseases." All of which likely contribute to their higher probability of dying sooner.

[ 本帖最后由 dcb 于 2007-7-24 23:14 编辑 ]

feministUID: 2276535

thanks for sharing !

ManmanyipUID: 2299676

第一次发完整的听抄贴！请大家指正！

July 24
Being able to read with comprehension doesn’t just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacy can actually be the difference between life and death. That’s according to the current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The study began 10 years ago when Northwestern University researchers started following more than 3000 medicare patients. The investigators tracked health as well as education, income, exercises, literacy, smoking and drinking habits and chronic medical conditions like asthma and diabetes. What they never expect of the discover was the low literacy was the second leading predictor of death in their study population. Only smoking was a stronger indicator of proponosise??. David Baker, the principal author of the study, said (quote) ‘when patients can’t read, they are not able to do the things necessary to stay healthy—they don’t know how to take their medication correctly, they don’t understand when to seek medical care, and they don’t know how to care for their diseases at all, all of which likely contribute to their higher probability to dying sooner.’

xbx_leeUID: 129512

Being able to read withcomprehension doesn't just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacycan actualy(actually) be the difference between life and death. That's accordingto a study in the current issue of the journal Archives of InternalMedicine. The study began 10 years ago when Northwesten Universityresearchers started following more than 3000 medicare patients. Theinvestigators tracked health as (well as) education, income, exercise, literacy,smoking  and drinking habits and chronic medical conditions like asthmaand diabetes. What they never expected to discover was that lowliteracy was the second leading predictor of death in their studiedpopulation. Only smoking was a stronger indicator of a pro(poor, maybe) prognosis.David Baker, the principle author of the study, said :" When patientscan't read, they're not able to do things necessary to stay healthy.They don't know how to take their medications correctly. They don'tunderstand when to seek medical care. And they don't know how to carefor their diseases." All(,all) of which likely contributes to their higherprobability of dying sooner.

Great job! The last sentence obviously is an attribute clause, so a comma should be used instead of a full stop.

kelediguoUID: 149939

on dcb

2007-07-24
Being able to read with comprehension doesn’t just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacy can actually be the difference between life and death. That’s according to a study in the current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The study began 10 years ago when Northwestern University researchers started following more than 3,000 Medicare patients. The investigators tracked health as well as education, income, exercise, literacy, smoking and drinking habits and chronic medical conditions like asthma and diabetes. What they never expected to discover was that low literacy was the second leading predictor of death in their study population. Only smoking was a stronger indicator of a poor prognosis. David Baker, the principal author of the study, said: " when patients can’t read, they’re not able to do the things necessary to stay healthy. They don’t know how to take their medications correctly. They don’t understand when to seek medical care and they don’t know how to care for their diseases." All of which likely contribute to their higher probability of dying sooner.

[ 本帖最后由 kelediguo 于 2007-7-25 02:44 编辑 ]

kelediguoUID: 149939

原帖由 zhenzhen_163 于 2007-7-24 11:34 发表
Kelediguo asked me a very interesting question so I thought I’d share it with everyone here. His question is:

I have a question for you. Why we should write like this "an HIV vaccine&quo ...

Thank you, zhenzhen. It's very helpful.

kevinliu6883UID: 2338522

Being able to read with comprehension, doesn’t just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacy can actually be the difference between life and death. That’s according to a study in current issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine. The study began ten years ago when Northwestern University researchers started to follow more than 3000 Medicare patients. The investigators tracked health as well as education, income, exercise, literacy, smoking and drinking habits and chronicle medical conditions like asthma and diabetes. What they never expected to discover was that low literacy was the second leading predicator of death in their studied population. Only smoking was a stronger indicator of a poor prognosis. David Baker, the principal author of the study said: [quota.] When patients can’t read, they are not able to do the things necessary to stay healthy.  They don’t know how to take their medications correctly. They don’t understand when to seek medical care, and they don’t know how to care for their disease [end quota], all of which likely attribute to their higher probability of dying sooner.

jingying04UID: 2313326

坚持

yyhwzcUID: 2273827

July 24

Being able to read with comprehension doesn't just vastly improve the quality of life. Literacy can actually be the difference between life and death. That's according to a study in the current issue of the journal archives of Internal Medicine. The study began ten years ago when Northwesten University researchers started following more than three thousand medicare patients. The investigators tracked health as well as education, income, exercise, literacy, smoking and drinking habits, and chronic medical conditions like asthma and diabetes. What they never expected to discover was that low literacy was the second-leading predictor of death in their study population. Only somking was a stronger indicator of a poor prognosis. David Baker, the principal author of the study, said, (quote)"When patients can't read, they are not able to do the things necessary to stay healthy. They don't how to take their medications correctly. They don't understand when to seek medical care, and they don't know how to care for their diseases."(end quote), all of which likely contribute to their higher probability of dying sooner.

[ 本帖最后由 yyhwzc 于 2007-7-25 10:28 编辑 ]

阿yaUID: 2179933

a poor prognosis是什么意思呢？

zhenzhen_163UID: 196150

原帖由 阿ya 于 2007-7-25 11:37 发表
a poor prognosis是什么意思呢？

举个例子，医生给病人一个poor (糟糕的) prognosis:“你还能活三个月。” :)

chao2317UID: 2178047

果然楼主很强，我九月就要考了，每天过来看看寻找动力·····:mad

billyliuUID: 2367326

是啊!好难啊
真佩服LZ
加油