-Background knowledge-

If you haven't read the whole book Aesop's Fables, you must have read or heard some of the stories. Farmers and snakes, turtles and rabbits racing, wolves coming, foxes and grapes … these familiar stories all come from this book. It personifies animals to convey ideas, moral values or life experiences, thus achieving the role of teaching people.

It is said that these stories were written by Aesop, a slave in ancient Greece. Because no one systematically edited Aesop for three centuries after his death, some other stories, jokes and proverbs that appeared at that time and after were also classified in Aesop's Fables. Aesop's Fables began to be edited, summarized and sorted out in various languages in the first century, and finally more than 300 articles were sorted out hundreds of years later. Of course, this also includes essays that scholars think cannot be classified as Aesop's stories.

(1485 Italian version of Aesop's fable)

1. Greek wrestling

The wrestler in the picture is printed on the four drachma silver coins (an ancient Greek silver coin) used in Aspendos city. This scene shows the scene of Greek wrestling (also known as ancient Greek wrestling or Palé) at that time.

Wrestling in ancient Greece was the most popular sport in ancient Greece at that time, and it was listed as an Olympic event in 708 BC. Interestingly, the original ancient wrestling competition was held on the track, and the length and width of all the later ancient Greek wrestling venues were set as the width of the competitive track: 1 Greek citation (about 30 meters).

2. the show

The article refers to fighting beast performance. Arena amphitheater, which means Colosseum in the text. For example, the Colosseum, one of the new seven wonders of the world, was the largest amphitheater in ancient Rome.

-A collection of phrases-

Wrestling competition wrestling competition

Congratulations on something to celebrate something.

natural abilities? Instinct, talent

Be proud of something.

At first, at first

Go up to go up to ...

Be able to do something, be able to do something.

Wrap up something dressing

Let loose release

Set free release

Take care of care

Pass by

In the shade.

Keep up with somebody can catch up with sb.

Judge by ... judge by ...

-Key words-

1."impress": as a verb in the text, it is to impress ...; To impress. Often used in the passive, it expresses admiration and surprise for ...

Original sentence: ... then I would really have been impressed.

Impress is also marked as a noun; The meaning of impression.

Example: Time has left its impress upon him.

Translated into Chinese, this sentence means "years have left a mark on him". Is it very artistic? You can learn.

2. "recognize": identify with verbs in the text; The meaning of recognition.

Original sentence: ..., he recognized his friend, ...

Recognize also means to acknowledge and confirm.

Example: I recognize my own shortcomings.

-Sentence analysis-

1. “In that case, I don’t think you deserve much praise after all,” said Aesop.

"In that case" and "in that case" are equivalent to "in that case" in Chinese. You can try to make a sentence with this phrase ~

"deserve much praise" "deserves a lot of praise". The word "abandon" means "deserve, deserve", which can be followed by good things (e.g. pray) or bad things (e.g. blame). Praise can't be counted clearly, it is an uncountable noun. So it is decorated with much.

"after all" "after all, in the final analysis; In the end, after all. " In that case, I don't think you can get so much praise.

2. As he was walking about there, he saw a lion lying down, crying in pain.

"walk about there": besides the familiar "about, about", the word about also means "around, everywhere". "walk about" means "walk around" ~

Lie down. Lie down. The ing form of lie is not directly followed by ing, but to become lying.

So, this is “lying in bed” :

But! ! Lie spelled the past tense differently when she was lying and lying. Look it up and tell everyone what the difference is! ~

"see someone doing" sees someone doing something or seeing someone in a certain state. Androcles saw the lion lying down and moaning in pain.

"in pain" is in pain. It can be said that someone is in pain, or doing something in pain is doing something.

3. A little while afterwards both Androcles and the lion were caught, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the lion, after the lion had been kept without food for several days.

"a little while afterwards」 ：while has the meaning of" a little while "in addition to" when … ". Afterwards is "after" A little while afterwards means "in a little while".

Be sentenced to」 ：sentence doesn't mean "sentence" here ~sentence means "sentence" when it is used as a verb.

4. He pulled out the thorn and wrapped up the paw of the lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog.

What's like lick … like a dog ~

5. An ant running about in the sunshine looking for food met a caterpillar that was almost at its time of change, and had already wrapped a hard shell about itself.

"its time of change" combined with the context, this caterpillar later changed into the butterfly, so time of change refers to its transformation period.

The backbone of this sentence is "An ant met a caterpillar". running about in the sunshine looking for food? It describes ant, and the sentence after "that" describes caterpillar.

What kind of ant meets what kind of caterpillar? Ants running around in the sun looking for food met a caterpillar that was in a time of change and had wrapped itself in a hard shell.

6. He looked up and felt himself fanned by the wings of a beautiful butterfly.

A very common usage of "feel one's own done" is "feel oneself being …". In the article, "he looked up and felt that he was fanned by the wings of ..." Of course, in order to better understand, it can be said that "the wings are fanning him."

In addition to "fan", the word fan also has the noun "fan, fan" and the verb "incite, blow".

So the question is coming? Fan or fan？

7. “Look at me now,” said the butterfly,“the one you felt so sorry for! Tell me now what a good runner and climber you are — if you can keep up with me!”

"the one you felt so sorry for": here, sorry doesn't mean "sorry", but "feel sorry and pity". English words are basically polysemous words. As you can see, when the common meaning is incomprehensible in the context, you must look it up in the dictionary to see its other meanings, and then put it in the context to understand. Let's think about the previous plot. The ant said that the caterpillar was ugly, so when the caterpillar turned into a butterfly, he said, "You used to think I was miserable, but now look at me!" Let's talk about it if you can catch up with me. "In short, after the caterpillar finished its metamorphosis, it hanged the little ant with its backhand.

8. Then the butterfly flew up into the air, carried high and far on the summer winds, and was never seen by the ant again.

A difficult content in this sentence is "carried high and far on the summer winds".

Carried here is a passive usage, which means that butterflies are carried to high and far places by the wind, and the literary point can be expressed as "flying freely by the wind";

On the summer winds means to be supported by the wind.

Today's reading is all short stories. Every short story is followed by a Moral. In order to let everyone better understand the truth expressed in these short stories, the teacher presented here the Chinese-English bilingual version of Moral.

1. Don't be proud of your natural abilities: be proud of what you do with them.

Don't be proud of your talent, but be proud of what you have done with your talent.

2. Bravery in taking care of others is often well rewarded.

People who take care of others are always rewarded.

3. Do not judge by appearances.

Men cannot be judged by their looks

Special section: the role of grammar

Grammar learning needs systematic learning, and it needs to be accumulated over time. We will try to weaken the role of grammar in reading, because we prefer that grammar is only one aspect to help people understand, rather than learning grammar through reading.

Judging where an attributive clause and an adverbial clause are in a sentence can't help you understand the content for a long time, because if you want to read fluently, you won't stop to analyze the sentence components of each sentence.

If you get caught up in the whirlpool of grammar and struggle with the tense and sentence components of each sentence, reading will become a very tiring and time-consuming thing. It is also easy for students to feel disgusted and rejected by reading.

So we hope that everyone will weaken the role of grammar when reading. If you encounter long or difficult sentences, try to break the sentences first or check whether there are phrases in the sentences. This kind of reading will be easier and more efficient.

Today is the first day of reading. I wonder if you find it easy or difficult? The teacher has been watching everyone's discussion in the group all day, and feels that there are three sentences that must be said at once.

1. When you encounter a word you don't know, the first reaction should not be to look it up, but to understand it through the context. It is impossible to have no words you know in a sentence, so you can infer the words you don't know through the words you know and the general idea of the context. That's right. If you still can't understand it according to the context, you should look it up in the dictionary to see what this word means besides the common meaning you know.

2. Grammar is learned imperceptibly. It is boring and meaningless to learn it alone, and it will make people lose interest in English, which is terrible (imagine the endless cloze and single choice in junior high school and high school). We learn languages for communication, not to restrict ourselves with rules and regulations.

3. also remember three points: a. everyone has different needs. B. what suits you is good? C. haste makes waste. Everyone's foundation is different, and the time they can take out to study is different every day. Is that what learning is like? We are no longer exam-oriented education, and the teacher will not limit how much you have learned, as long as you can find a method that suits you ~ ~

There are still 100 days left, so we must stick to it ~ We have made a good start, let's cheer together.

Yesterday, we talked about some common misunderstandings in reading English. Today, let's talk about how to use mint to read more efficiently ~

At the beginning, the two rules that apply to everyone are to form habits step by step.

In order to make English reading a part of your life, you only need to do this in the first 2 1 day:

develop a habit

Progress comes from accumulation: why do we do things for only three minutes? -because I didn't get into the habit. How to say it specifically?

We do things for three minutes because the brain really doesn't like change. The weight of the brain only accounts for about 3% of the human body, but it consumes 20% of the human energy. Constant means no need to think, and no thinking means no need to consume energy.

If our brain decides that a certain behavior is the same as usual, it will maintain it. For example, it is difficult to quit smoking because the brain feels that smoking is the same as usual and there is no need to change it. On the other hand, if our brain thinks that a good habit is "as usual", it is easy to stick to it.

Whether a plan is carried out or not, the most important thing is whether you did it at the beginning or not. If the reading target of 100 day still seems too far away, the first thing you should do is to keep reading on time for the first 7 days. Seven days is enough for you to develop a habit, whether it is running, getting up early or reading.

After reaching the goal of reading on time for 7 days, the next stage is the goal of # first 2 1 day #. 2 1 day is close to finishing reading the first book. Reading for 10 minutes every day has been integrated into your life, and you will enjoy it more and more. After reading 100 days, it will become more natural.

step by step

Effective input is the guarantee: time is precious. It seems like reading an English book, but not all the English words you read have been understood, learned and improved. Some people may yearn for the original English works such as Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Gone with the Wind, etc., but when you really read them, you will not be able to read them for various reasons or you will gulp them down.

In fact, the concept of "graded reading" is a reading method that has been popularized in the United States for a long time, which means that different reading levels are customized according to everyone's reading level, so as to truly open an English book at will and read it without barriers.

The reason is just like buying shoes, you should wear shoes as big as your feet.

For example, when the vocabulary is 3,000-4,000, go to see Hamlet, just like you ask yourself to read Historical Records at the age of 3. There is no other way to play except to throw away the book and watch TV.

Different English reading materials are difficult to distinguish from each other in terms of vocabulary difficulty, sentence difficulty, background culture and novel structure.

Therefore, if you want to improve your English by reading the original English (which is the best way to learn English, there is no one), you must find materials that suit your level.

"Then what kind of difficult book should I read?"

Stephen Krashen, a famous American language educator, devoted his life to Second-language acquisition and put forward the world-famous "input hypothesis theory"-

Simply speaking, this theory means: to learn this kind of thing, the learning materials should not be too simple or too difficult. Too simple to learn anything, too difficult to learn anything.

Input Hypothesis holds that your reading input is really effective only when your reading materials are i+ 1 for you (that is, materials that are slightly more difficult than your current English ability range are neither too simple nor too difficult), and you can learn from them to the maximum extent, and expand from the "comfort zone" of your English ability to the "learning zone".

1.Simple: A baby panda rolls on the ground.

2.More Conplexity: The round panda baby rolled on the ground.

3.Greatest Complexity: The rotund panda cub tumbled on the verdant earth.

If you are now 1, then reading 2 is a valid input; If you are now 2, then reading 3 is a valid input. However, if you are now 1 and skip to read 3, it is an invalid input.

I+ 1 is also the core of our mint reading course. This is reflected in two aspects:

1. For those of you who have passed the vocabulary test, the four books that have been reasonably rewritten since today: Black Beauty, 20000 Leagues Under the Sea, King Arthur and Peter Pan are i+ 1 difficult for everyone. As long as you stick to one step at a time, step by step and persevere, you will definitely make a breakthrough in English reading.

2. The words in [Today's Word List] are pushed according to the reading level, and only the words that are one level higher than your own level are pushed. For example, your reading level is level 5, and there are only level 6 words in [My Word List], but there are no levels 7, 8 and 9 words. We don't want everyone to eat a big fat man in one bite. After memorizing some words, we should pay more attention to the application of these words, so as to truly master these words.