新概念英语第四册笔记-完整版

新概念英语第四册笔记-完整版

L1 Finding fossil man

We can read of things that happened 5,000 years ago in the Near East, where people first learned to write. But there are some parts of the world where even now people cannot write. The only way that they can preserve their history is to recount it as

sagas----legends handed

down from one generation of storytellers to another. These legends are useful because they can tell us something about migrations of people who lived long ago, but none could write down what they did. Anthropologists wondered where the remote ancestors of the Polynesian peoples now living in the Pacific Islands came from. The sagas of these people explain that some of them came from Indonesia about 2,000 years ago.

But the first people who were like ourselves lived so long ago that even their sagas, if they had any, are forgotten. So archaeologists have neither history nor legends to help them to find out where the first'modern men' came from.

Fortunately, however, ancient men made tools of stone, especially flint, because this is easier to shape than other kinds. They may also have used wood and skins, but these have rotted away. Stone does not decay, and so the tools of long ago have remained when even the bones of the men who made them have disappeared without trace.

New words and expressions

recount /ri'kaunt/ v.叙述/ ' rei'kaunt/ 再数一次

record / ' rek[d/ /ri' kC:d/ 第一个音节带重音，名前动后

叙述：recount : emotionless 重复

describe

depict：a little emotional

narrate：temporal&spacial 根据时间或空间顺序描述。portray：描述

saga /'sa:g[/ n.英雄故事描述的内容mostly real 北欧海盗活动的故事

legend /'ledV[nd/ n.传说，传奇unreal e.g robin hood anthropologist/ 'AnWr['pCl[dVist/ n.人类学家

anthrop：人

philosophere :philo＋sopher|爱＋智慧＝哲学家philanthropist : 慈善家（对人有爱心的人）

anthropology :人类学

带-gy结尾的都是学科：biology 生物学geography 地理学ecology 生态学

remote/ ri'm[ut/ n.遥远

ancestor / 'Ansest[/ n.祖先

an- 在前面

forefather,forebear ，predecessor祖先

rot/ rCt/ v.烂掉

leave me rot.＝leave me along

rot to death.

soon ripe,soon rotten.

decay 国家民族逐渐衰亡decompose 逐渐衰竭deteriorate 关系逐渐恶化

trace /treis/ n.痕迹，踪迹

trace the problem

i follow your trace＝i follow where you go

polynesia 波利尼西亚

poly-多

polyandric: a wife with more than one husband

polygeny : a husband with more than one wife

flint /flint/ n.燧石flinting hearted

fossil / ' fCsl/ n. 化石cobble 鹅卵石

read of 读到

谈到：speak of ,talk of ,know of,hear of

near east：近东mediterranean, south europe,north afric

far east

非限定性从句，表原因

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written language.

precede :什么在什么之前，不用比较，直接跟名词counterpart: two things or two people have the same position

oral(spoken) language is earlier than written counterpart. preserve: 保留，保存（腌制）

如果句中有only，那后面的表语结构就要用to do sth,而不是doing sth.

storyteller: 讲故事的人

fortuneteller, palmreader: 算命先生

migration ：移民１）migrant ２）immigrant

v. migrate:迁移，迁徙

migratory bird:候鸟

none: no body

people＋s 民族

if they had any: 即便是有

his relatives,if he had any,never went to visit him when he was hospitalized.

find out千方百计，费尽周折＝explore

modern men :the men who were like ourselves

however－anywhere you want ,加逗号

but,yet－不加标点，only at the beginning of the sentence therefore－自由

so－自由

tool:小工具

instrument:实验器械

equipment:设备

shape:成型；教育，改造

may also have:表推测

peel:果皮

leather:皮革

hide:兽皮cowhide:牛皮

without (any) trace:无影无踪

L 2 Spare that spider

Why, you may wonder, should spiders be our friends ? Because they destroy so many insects, and insects include some of the greatest enemies of the human race. Insects would make it impossible.for us to live in the world; they would devour all our crops and kill our flocks and herds, if it were not for the protection

新概念英语第四册笔记-完整版

we get from insect-eating animals. We owe a lot to the birds and beasts who eat insects but all of them put together kill only a fraction of the number destroyed by spiders. Moreover, unlike some of the other insect eaters, spiders never do the least harm to us or our belongings.

Spiders are not insects, as many people think, nor even nearly related to them. One can tell the difference almost at a glance for a spider always has eight legs and an insect never more than six. How many spiders are engaged in this work on our behalf ? One authority on spiders made a census of the spiders in a grass field in the south of England, and he estimated that there were more than 2,250,000 in one acre, that is something like 6,000,000 spiders of different kinds on a football pitch. Spiders are busy for at least half the year in killing insects. It is impossible to make more than the wildest guess at how many they kill, but they are hungry creatures, not content with only three meals a day. It has been estimated that the weight of all the insects destroyed by spiders in Britain in one year would be greater than the total weight of all the human beings in the country.

T. H. GILLESPIE Spare that Spider from The Listener New words and expressions flocks and herds 牛群和羊群 ／flCk/ the birds of the same feather flock together.物以类聚，人以群分

you are the same flock.也可指人 herd多指牛群 cowherd cowboy throng and crowd swarm owe vt.感激欠 i owe you. i owe you a big favor. 欠 issue

oblige indebt appreciate----常用口语 …… 此处隐藏：4962字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……