American drama should be the most common method for every friend who learns English, whether it is to improve his speaking ability or to exercise his vocabulary skills. Almost all English learners learn a line or two from different film and television productions to show their English proficiency.
Lang Gejun is no exception, and I prefer to pay attention to some seemingly ordinary expressions than some proper nouns that are only used in film and television scenes (such as gladiator, gladiator). The vocabulary used in such expressions is usually very basic, but its meaning cannot be understood literally.
Therefore, today Lang Gejun will share with you the three favorite film and television works of Lang Gejun, let's take a look at it! I hope to have some inspiration for your English learning.
01
Go ahead, make my day
Shoot it, make me happy
Taiwanese Source:
This line comes from the 1983 film "SuddenImpact" starring Clint Eastwood.
Synopsis:
One day, Agent Harry Callahan went to a coffee shop for breakfast as usual when he encountered a group of bandits who were robbing the shop. Callahan drew his gun and shot several of the bandits, the last of whom caught a waitress, pointed a gun at the waiter's head, and threatened to kill her. Without backing down, Callahan continued to point a gun at the bandits and uttered the above line.
Excerpts:
This sentence is difficult to understand in Chinese thinking, and its essence means "something will make me happy", close to make me happy. In this episode, it is used to threaten the bandits, implying that if you dare to shoot, I will shoot.
After the film, make my day quickly became popular, and to this day, many people still use this phrase to express their excitement after encountering something unexpected, such as:
Whenmy neighbors surprised me with homemade chocolate cookies, it really made myday.
My neighbor suddenly gave me homemade chocolate chip cookies and I was quite happy.
Gettingcompliments at work always makes my day!
Whenever I receive a compliment at work, I am always quite happy.
IELTS/TOEFL related applications:
In the oral part of IELTS or TOEFL, there are often some questions about personal preferences or achievements, and candidates should not only use words such as happy and exited to express happiness, because these words have been so common in the minds of Europeans and Americans that they have almost lost their meaning, and they can say the things that are happy first, and then add a sentence of it makes my day to express excitement. This seems more authentic.
02
Youdon’t understand!
You don't understand!
I could’ve had class. I could’ve been a contender.
I could’vebeen somebody, instead of a bum,
which is what I am
I could have gone into high society, I could have been a boxer, I could have gotten ahead of the curve and not been as wasted as I am now.
Sources:
This line of dialogue is from the classic 1954 film On the Waterfront.
Terry (Malone Brando) is originally a promising young boxer, but is seduced by his brother Charlie to join the gang and is involved in several murders. Later, during an argument with his brother, Terry uttered the line of dialogue in despair, meaning that his brother had ruined his life.
This set of analogous sentences is sonorous and powerful, and each sentence is a deep indictment of Charlie's instigation at that time. Let's start with the sentence Could have done something. This sentence form belongs to the subjunctive tone, expressing facts contrary to the past, that is, the opposite of the current situation, Chinese to the effect of "could have been":
Theycould have won the race, but they didn't try hard enough.
They could have won that race, but they didn't work hard enough.
Juliecould have bought the book, but she borrowed it from the library instead.
Julie could have bought the book, but she went to the library to borrow it anyway.
This sentence can also be used when expressing some remorse
Ifit wasn’t for taking care of my brother, I could have taken the contest and wona prize.
If I hadn't had to take care of my brother at the time, I would have participated in that competition and won an award.
Back to the dialogue at the beginning. There are two words in it that we can also analyze. The first is the class. When we first started learning English, we knew that class meant class, but Iculd've had class obviously didn't mean "I could have had a class." Class means more generally, category, class. This sentence refers to the elite of society, the upper class, with a single class. At the same time, we can match the class with an adjective to form a compound word to accurately express different classes,
Such as: upper-class (upper class), working-class (working class).
In addition, somebody in the dialogue does not refer to "someone" in general, but specifically refers to people with a certain status, especially when used to make initial judgments about someone. Like what:
He must be a person of status (not that he must be someone).
So, when expressing the same meaning, don't just say He must be a famousperson.
03
ElenaGilbert: Why don't you let people see the good in you?
Elena Gilbert: Why don't you let people see your good side?
DamonSalvatore: Because when people see good they expect good. And I don't wannahave to live up to anyone's expectations.
Damon Salvatore: Because as soon as people see kindness, they expect (me) to be kind. I don't want to live like someone else's mind.
Lines from The Vampire Diaries
It is an American fantasy television series based on the best-selling novel series of the same name by American female author L.J. Smith, telling the story of two vampire brothers and various love-hate relationships with humans. Male number one, Damon Salvator, was transformed into a vampire in the 19th century by his vampire girlfriend Caterina. He has always loved his girlfriend, but her girlfriend doesn't care about him. This made Damon very angry, often hiding his good heart with a cold appearance and evil deeds. Until the appearance of the heroine Elena, it gradually revealed a gentle heart. The dialogue came from an intimate conversation between Elena and Damon.
First look at the good in Elena's question. This expression is sometimes "counterintuitive". We always expect to pile up high words in articles, intending to accurately express a certain meaning. If you encounter some more abstract concepts, such as moral vocabulary, it is more difficult to come up with suitable words. But experienced English speakers can use "the + adjective" to express an abstract noun concept. For example, the good here should be understood as a noun, meaning good things, and for human nature is good. In the same way, the wicked can be understood as evil.
In addition, the "the + adjective" is also often used to express people who meet certain characteristics, such as the rich (rich people), thepoor (poor people) and so on.
Look again at Damon's dialogue. When people see goodthey expect good good can be considered noun. In spoken English, there is often a certain degree of deletion of sentence components to make the expression more fluent. This sentence omits the two thes in front of the good, and does not good change from an adjective to a noun.
In addition, live up to is a sentence often used in spoken English, which means to meet a certain requirement, to reach a certain expectation, and this demand and expectation is generally from others. Like what:
We'dheard so many good things about the new restaurant, but the food didn't live upto our expectations at all.
We have heard many good things about this restaurant, but the food here did not meet our expectations at all.
Childrenrarely live up to their parents' ideals
Children rarely reach the ideal state of their parents.
How, after watching Lang Gejun's analysis is not to find that the American dramas watched before are white, this is the best way to watch American dramas to learn English, don't just look at the plot, watch handsome and beautiful women!
Leave a message today
What other American drama lines do you think are classic, and where are the classics?
Which American drama is it from,
Share it with you to see!
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