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| Talk To Win中學校際講英語比賽已完滿結束，恭喜勝出的嘉諾撤聖方濟各書院。
今次比賽，參加同學須用英語分析一首英文歌的主題和寫作風格等，不但增加學生學習英語的機會，亦為文學欣賞作好準備。英詩教育在香港的中學尚未普及，同學在英文文學方面的訓練不算太濃厚，由於部分英文歌的歌詞水準相當接近詩，所以透過欣賞英文歌曲，可學習分析英文詩的技巧，並引發對人生的思考、以及對社會的觀察。
比賽所選用歌曲，有些對中學生來說無疑是較深，例如總決賽這一首Sound
of Silence，歌名本身是一個paradox（相互表面矛盾），比賽時我一直期待參賽同學帶出paradox這個字，結果落空。
英語中有很多種Paradoxical
usage，其中英國詩人華茲華斯(William Wordsworth, 1770-1850)的詩句The
child is father of the man就是一個好例子。這句話表面聽起來充滿矛盾，兒童年紀較成年人少，如何可以成為大人的父親呢？這句說話就和Sound
of Silence一樣，是一個paradox。詩人認為兒童是最接近天國門口的花朵，人成長後學懂世故、生活中的權術，心靈受到污染，便會失去童真、以及接近上帝的機會，因此成人應該反過來向兒童學習。
我們只要細心觀察，不難在英文中發現很多這樣的語句，表面看起來矛盾，但仔細思考卻會發現另有一番哲理和道理。以下說回一些英語文法的問題︰
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Ken說︰There
was many problems
existing in this world. |
提及problems一定要用there
are，而不是用there was/there
were，因為這些問題現在還存在，不是三十年前寫這首歌時才出現。尤其tense（時態）要統一，當後面提到Simon
& Garfunkel時是用現在式，前面也一定要用現在式。
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Sunny說︰I think it
is a song about a solitary
man who is very dissatisfied
with human relationship. He prefers living
his live all alone himself. Just look at the third
verse, I think he realizes that people are treating
others without their true hearts. People tell
lies and being insincere to the others, and they
don't care about what other
feels inside their hearts. |
頭一句表達得不錯，但solitary這個詞稍有斟酌餘地，因為這個詞較深，可選用較淺的字，例如a
lonely man會更加適合。英語中solitary比lonely有一層更深層的意思。
另外， very dissatisfied略嫌
formal，口語可用fed up，同樣是dissatisfied的意思，粗俗些可以用piss
off with human relationship或piss
off by the situation he lives in亦可，間中使用較粗俗的詞，有神來之筆的效果。
…they don't care about what
other feels inside their hearts一句中，what
other feels有些問題，應改為what
other people feel，講英語往往要預先思考，如名詞是眾數，就要緊扣不要漏了一個單數動詞出來。
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Kelvin說︰During the
60s and 70s, during that period they are talking
about the deterioration of peoples' values, the
war on Communism, and all that sort of
stuff or the history going
the turbulent times. A few points from
the lyrics, it says that "no one dares disturb
the sound of silence" which I think that
nobody really wants to object
the government during that period because
they are really afraid of Communism. In
the fourth paragraph, it says that "But
my words like silent raindrops
fell. And echoed in the wells of silence"
You won't have an echo with only one silence raindrop. |
war on Communism應改為war
against Communism，而history
going the turbulent times則應改為history
going through turbulent times。
…I think that nobody really wants
to object the government…應改為object
to the government，或改用oppose會更好。In
the fourth paragraph, it says that…要留意paragraph通常用於散文，若指一首流行曲或一首詩，應該用stanza較地道。
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Sophia說︰Simon explains
his dreams. He sees himself
walking on cobblestone-paved streets. Cobblestone
may mean uneven fragmented, fragmented path he
feels himself traveling. He also refers to the
weather being cold and damp, and streets dimly
lit. This may mean social apathy. His eyes are
stabbed by neon lights….
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He sees himself walking
on cobblestone-paved streets一句表達得很好，比walking
on the street paved with cobblestones更加地道，英文句子很多時候可以縮寫，令句子更形象化。His
eyes are stabbed by neon
lights…，stabbed by的意思是用刀戳，改為His
eyes are dazzled by neon lights會比較合適一點。
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Weisi說︰Most people
only obsess with making
money. They bury themselves
in the root think only of the money and neglects
their relatives and friends. Most of them become
self-centered. There are no interactions, no concerns
between one another. Parents are becoming the
money earning machines, who do not really communicate
with their children. |
obsess這個詞多用於被動語，第一句應改為most
people are only obsessed with making money.
接著一句They bury themselves
in the root think only of the money and neglects
their relatives and friends. 句中主語是they，後面動詞neglect就不應該加s。Parents
are becoming the money
earning machines, who do not really communicate with
their children中的the，在這情況下是不需要的。
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Sophia說︰I don't
think it's on the government
social side. I think this song is more
on a personal level. Referring to the song, people
talking without speaking and people hearing without
listening. |
何謂government
social side呢?我相信Sophia的意思是I
don't think it's the government's social responsibility.
Referring to the song,
people talking without speaking and people hearing
without listening.這句可能是勝利的關鍵，因為她掌握了talking跟speaking的分別，以及hearing和listening的分別。用心聆聽的稱為listening，無意中聽到的稱作hearing，talking及speaking也有差不多的分別。這句說話準確地點出歌曲的主題，贏得不少分數。
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Gigi說︰But this song
is telling you how hollow people are back there,
they live a very busy and routine silly life,
they don't communicate on the emotional aspect.
So this can lead to a very mechanical lives of
people. |
communicate on the
emotional aspect應改為they
don't communicate in the emotional aspect，或者說they
don't communicate emotionally已可以。至於mechanical
lives of people的意思則令人不解。
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Weisi說︰they don't
care. They are bury
themselves in a busy life. |
改為They bury themselves
in a busy life已經足夠，這句話非常形象化，好的英語應該多用形象思維(metaphorical
usage)，例如I get buried in my office
work，意指我被辦公室的工作活埋，而不是用I am very busy或I am terribly
busy.
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Sophia說︰This song
is talking about humanity |
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Kelvin說︰This is talking
about the war on Communism. |
Sophia這一句話點出了歌曲主題--人道精神(humanity)，若歌曲內容只講越戰，不可能流行30年而不衰。
兩隊學生的表現都很出色，雙方進行了精彩的激辯，不過，男生專注於工業技術革命和越戰，女生較為可以超越政治問題，看到人道、人性的一面，這亦可能是她們獲勝的原因。事實上各隊參賽同學均各有擅長，希望他們能夠總結經驗，日後學習英語時能盡量堵塞文法上的漏洞，加強句子之間邏輯轉折方面的能力。
返回 Grand
Final
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| Ladies
and Gentlemen,
On behalf of the Organising
Committee, let me first of all welcome you all to
the Final Round of the Talk to Win English Speaking
Competition. A special thank you should be extended
to our former Chief Secretary for Administration Mrs.
Anson Chan who is no stranger to off-the-cuff public
speaking, has kindly agreed to be the adjudicator
for today's competition.
It was once said that
most of life's lessons can never be fully learnt through
vicarious methods, they must all be experienced first
hand. The same applies when it comes to learning a
language, you have to use it and experience it to
really gain anything. In light of this, RTHK, South
China Morning Post and the British Council have come
together to organize this competition with the aim
of enhancing the communication skills and English
language proficiency of HK students.
Since the handover
in 1997, the role of English as a living language
of the HKSAR has not diminished. In fact, as Asia's
world city, the importance of English as an international
language has constantly been emphasized.
As the sole public
broadcaster in Hong Kong, RTHK continues to offer
diversified English radio and television services
which are distinctive and of high quality. To take
a few examples, Radio 3 is Hong Kong's only locally
produced English language radio station providing
news and current affairs, educational and entertainment
programmes 24 hours a day. Radio 4 has been producing
programmes such as "Songbirds", "Poetry
On Air", "Short and Sweet" which all
encourage students to use English. Our Chinese listeners
have not been neglected either, in fact, our Chinese
channels have included segments in certain programmes
to teach listeners how to speak English such as "One
Minute English" and "Speaking Better English".
RTHK will continue in its commitment to produce both
educational as well as entertaining programmes.
Well, enough from
me, on behalf of the organizing committee, I wish
all the finalists a lot of fun and good luck! Thank
you.
返回
Grand
Final
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Good afternoon boys
and girls, I've been asked to share with you my experience
of learning English. I think the first thing is to regard
learning English as something to be enjoyed, not at
all, not something that you must do but which you don't
like doing. Because learning to speak good English is
not only very good for your own personal development,
but of course a good grasp of English will give you
a better career choice. I think it would assist you
in your communication skills with other people, and
communication skills are the one thing I think that
governs human relationship. The more effective you are
able to communicate with people, the better it is.
The second thing about learning English is it helps
if you have a thick skin figuratively speaking. By that
I mean that you mustn't be afraid of making mistakes.
You all know that you learn through mistakes. And the
more you are aware of your mistakes, the better able
you are to overcome these mistakes and to make sure
that you don't repeated them. I often think that girls
are, generally speaking, I hesitate to generalize, but
generally speaking girls perhaps learn faster and more
effectively because they have a thicker skin than the
boys. Boys are generally fine, will reframe from doing
things unless they think they will out perform, they
will out-shine everybody else. And in learning languages,
I think that's a mistake.
Thirdly, I would encourage everybody who wants to learn
a language … English, Chinese Spanish or anything else.
There is no substitute for reading and for speaking,
particularly reading. I know that today you have so
many other attractions that less and less boys and girls
actually do a lot of reading other than the standard
textbooks that you have to cope with. When I was small,
I had very few attractions outside of the school. I
was brought up in a very very strict family, and there
are all sort of things weren't allowed to do. My sister
and I used to spend our entire summer holiday just reading,
anything that we could lay our hands on. And I attribute
my reasonable fluency in English to that fact that I
did such a lot of reading.
But in my days, I also had an opportunity perhaps to
speak more English than you have today, only because
in my school, there were number of students who are
non- Chinese speaking. So in our everyday communication,
we were really forced to speak a language and you must
all know whether you are learning Putonghua, learning
any other foreign language, the more you speak it, the
better you will be at it. But I have to say, my fellow
adjudicators and I have been very impressed by the very
high standard of English that we've just heard.
Sophia
Do you think English is still the most important language
in Hong Kong?
Anson
I think English and Chinese are both very important,
particularly Chinese. My guess is that one of these
days, and perhaps within a shorter period that most
of us think, English and Chinese will be the two most
widely spoken languages in the world. And so for you
boys and girls, if you are proficient in both languages,
then I think your career choice would be unlimited.
So I would encourage you to pay equal attention to
both English and Chinese. But of course you must also
remember, that proficiency in English is one of Hong
Kong's competitive edges. The more we could improve
on our standard of English, the better we will be
able to compete with people in the Mainland.
Sunny
Would you consider hiring native speaker as being
teachers as useful to Hong Kong students?
Anson
Yes, I am not saying that non-native English speakers
cannot teach English well. Of course they can, but
on the other hand, I think it's very difficult to
argue that a native-English speaker probably taught
how to teach English as a second language would not
be able to teach very very effectively in his or her
own language.
Sunny
It's a quite hard thing to have an environment to
speak English in Hong Kong
Anson
So you have to create the environment yourself.
Sunny
It's rather weird to speak English with your friends…
Anson
You've laid your hands! I think one of the main problems
about speaking English and that is that too many boys
and girls for that matter, too many adults seem to
believe that speaking English is somehow unpatriotic
and un-nationalistic. That's a whole lot of rubbish!
Do you know that a lot of young men, and boys and
girls in the Mainland are so keen to learn English
that almost any foreigner, particularly English speaking
foreigner that they meet, speaking to them in Chinese
they will prefer to converse with them in English.
返回
Grand
Final
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