Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? (3/5) 你有什麼新年目標嗎？（三）
A: Getting more exercise, losing weight and saving more money — these are all rather tricky to achieve. B: Perhaps you could try setting a different goal? A: What other popular ones are there to choose from? B: Other common resolutions include improving your diet, pursuing a career ambition and spending more time with your family. A: 多運動、減重、多存點錢——這三個新年目標都不太容易耶。 B: 或許你可以試試其它目標。 A: 還有什麼熱門選項嗎？ B: 其它像是改善飲食習慣、加強自己的事業心、多花時間陪伴家人都很常見。 （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
Hit by the surge of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron-variant in the US, the Recording Academy recently announced plans to move the Grammy Awards to Las Vegas on April 3. The award show was originally scheduled for Monday next week in Los Angeles. US singer Jon Batiste is leading the nominees this year with 11 nods. Renowned Taiwanese designers Xiao Qing-yang and designer duo Li Jheng-han and Yu Wei have been nominated for “Best Recording Package” this year, this being Xiao’s sixth nomination for the Grammys. However, Canadian singer the Weeknd has continued to boycott the annual event since he was shut out of any nomination last year after choosing to perform at the Super Bowl over the award show. Meanwhile, Canadian singer Drake has also withdrawn his two nominations, having criticized the event organizer on Instagram after the Weeknd received “zero” nomination last year, calling for the creation of a new awards body to challenge the Grammys. (Eddy Chang, Taipei Times) 隨著變種病毒在美國持續發威，錄音學會於近日宣布，葛萊美獎延期至四月三日在拉斯維加斯舉行，原本頒獎典禮下週一將在洛杉磯登場。而美國歌手強巴提斯勇奪十一項提名，是今年入圍的大贏家。 本屆有兩組台灣設計師入圍「最佳唱片包裝設計獎」項目，分別是蕭青陽，及雙人組李政瀚、于薇，這是蕭青陽第六度入圍該獎項。加拿大歌手威肯仍持續杯葛該項盛會，他去年因選擇在跟葛萊美獎撞期的超級盃足球賽表演，最終慘遭封殺未獲得任何提名。 加拿大歌手德瑞克則撤回他本屆獲得之提名，他在威肯去年零入圍後曾在IG批評主辦單位，並呼籲要發起新的音樂獎項以挑戰葛萊美獎。 （台北時報張聖恩〉
A: What are the most common New Year’s resolutions that people make? B: According to one piece of research, the top New Year’s resolution that people made last year was to get more exercise. A: What were the second and third most popular resolutions? B: The second was to lose weight, and the third was to save more money. A: 大家最常設定哪些新年目標呢？ B: 根據一份調查，在去年最常見的目標，第一名是希望多運動！ A: 那第二、三名呢？ B: 第二名是減重，第三名則是多存點錢。 （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩）
Microsoft stunned the gaming industry when it announced on Jan. 18 it would buy game publisher Activision Blizzard for US$68.7 billion, a deal that would immediately make it a larger video-game company than Nintendo. Microsoft, maker of the Xbox gaming system, said acquiring the owner of Candy Crush, Call of Duty, Overwatch and Diablo would be good for gamers and advance its ambitions for the metaverse — a vision for creating immersive virtual worlds for both work and play. But what does the deal really mean for the millions of people who play video games, either on consoles or their phones? And will it actually happen at a time of increased government scrutiny over giant mergers in the US and elsewhere? Is this really about the metaverse? Microsoft says so. And there are some ways Activision could help the tech giant compete with rivals like Meta, which renamed itself from Facebook last year to signal its new focus on leading its billions of social media users into the metaverse. Metaverse enthusiasts describe the concept as a new and more immersive version of the Internet, but to work it will require a lot of people to actually want to spend more time in virtual worlds. Microsoft’s metaverse ambitions have focused on work tools such as its Teams video chat applications, but online multiplayer games such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft have huge followings devoted to interacting with each other virtually for fun. Pushing more people into such virtual social networks will not be all fun and games, however, and could amplify existing problems with online harassment, trolling and identity theft, according to Elizabeth Renieris, founding director of the Technology Ethics Lab at the University of Notre Dame. Will it actually happen? That’s a big unknown. Regulators and rivals could turn up the
A: The Lunar New Year is almost upon us. B: Have you made any New Year’s resolutions? A: New Year’s resolutions? So you make resolutions at the start of every year? B: Yep. I feel this makes life full of promise, and it also instills a sense of responsibility. A: 農曆新年就快要到了。 B: 你有什麼新年目標嗎？ A: 新年目標？原來你每年還會設定目標喔？ B: 對啊，這樣會感覺人生充滿了希望，也可以培養責任感！ （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
With more and more people keeping pets in Taiwan, a pet school has catered to the market by introducing Lunar New Year dishes for “furry friends,” such as eight-flavored sticky rice, “Buddha jumps over the wall” soup, “happy tiger buns” — to celebrate the Year of the Tiger — and edible “lucky bags,” which all look like food to die for. The owner of the school said that dishes designed for furry companions cannot include seasoning such as salt, sugar or soy sauce. Instead, it is better to retain the original taste of the food and avoid using ingredients not suitable for pets, like onions, raw eggs, nuts, grapes and chocolate. A version of “Buddha jumps over the wall” soup for pets was also meticulously prepared by the school. The ingredients include old hen, pork tendons, fish skin, scallops, pork, white beech mushrooms, white clamshell mushrooms, bok choy, carrots, wood ear fungus, Chinese wolfberries and lotus seeds. To celebrate the Year of the Tiger, one of the New Year dishes is “happy tiger buns.” The bun dough is first made with plain flour, virgin olive oil and yeast, then a natural food coloring is added to imitate a tiger’s fur coat, and finally the buns are stuffed with locally-reared chicken breast. (Translated by Rita Wang, Taipei Times) 台灣養貓狗的人愈來愈多，寵物安親班業者瞄準商機，配合農曆春節推出毛小孩年菜，連人看了都想吃。除了八寶飯、佛跳牆、還有因應虎年的「幸虎肉包」及可食用的福袋。 業者說，毛孩料理最重要的是不要用鹽、糖、醬油等調味料，維持天然原味，並避免洋蔥、生雞蛋、堅果、葡萄、巧克力等不適合毛小孩食用的食材。 這家寵物安親班為毛孩準備的「五福臨門佛跳牆」一點也不馬虎，採用老母雞、蹄筋、魚皮、干貝、豬肉、鴻禧菇、美白菇、白菜、紅蘿蔔、黑木耳、枸杞、蓮子。 今年生肖年是虎年，毛孩年菜中有一道「幸虎肉包」，外皮是以中筋麵粉、初榨橄欖油、酵母製作，以天然色素粉做出虎皮外形，內含國產雞胸肉。 (中央社)
Retired teacher Sunny Hsu majored in advertising design and he is a former director of general affairs of National Keelung Commercial and Industrial Vocational Senior High School. His mother is in her 80s and suffered a brain injury that prevents her from expressing her thoughts clearly, so in 2018 he decided to go back to his hometown Penghu County to look after her, returning to Keelung for one week of each month to visit his wife and daughter. Being a keen photographer, when Hsu is staying in Penghu he often hops on a bus and goes around taking photos of rural and human scenes. On one occasion, he happened to take a bus to Longmen Village in Husi Township. While he was in the countryside around Longmen, Hsu come across an old yellow cow. While chatting with the cow’s owner, he found out that she was 20 years old and because of her age and loss of strength in her hind legs, she could no longer plow the fields, so her three co-owners had sold her to a butcher. Having sought his elderly mother’s agreement, and with the encouragement of many friends and former students, Hsu bought the old yellow cow for NT$30,000 and named her “Sanwan,” which means 30,000. Sanwan also sounds like the Taiwanese Hoklo for “three slows,” which means “come over in your own time, take your time eating and do not rush to leave.” From that day on, Hsu has been getting his first-ever experience of keeping cattle. Every morning, Hsu and his elderly mother go to the Beichen Market, where he asks the vegetable vendors for corn leaves and other leftover vegetables, which he then drives over to Jianshan Village in Husi Township. When the vegetable vendors found out about Hsu’s act of kindness, they wrote a
A: Congratulations! You successfully completed the presentation of your research paper today. B: Thanks. Now, all that’s left is the product display tomorrow. A: What products is the graduating class going to display this year? B: Our class has chosen several extremely popular products: beer, masks and chocolate. Want to come? A: 恭喜你！今天的研究報告發表順利結束。 B: 謝啦，現在只剩下明天的商品展示。 A: 今年的畢業班要展示哪些商品？ B: 我們班挑選了啤酒、口罩、巧克力，都是蠻受歡迎的產品，你要來參觀嗎？ （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
A: Once you’ve finished writing the research paper for the graduation project, the presentation should be a piece of cake, right? B: Wrong: the presentation is even harder. My teacher has required that each group delivers its presentation in English. I’m almost a nervous wreck already. A: As the saying goes: “Practice makes perfect!” Practice a few more times and you’ll be fine. B: I’ve been using my mobile phone to record the rehearsals to see which areas I still need to improve on. A pretty good idea, don’t you think? A: 你寫完畢業專題的研究報告後，報告發表應該不難吧？ B: 報告發表更難，我的教授要求每組要用全英文來發表，我快緊張死了。 A: 所謂「熟能生巧」！你多練習幾次就好啦。 B: 我在排練時還會用手機錄下來，再看看有沒有需要改進的地方。這主意不錯吧？ （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
A: Once you’ve written up the results, the paper is finished, right? B: Not yet: the final component is a discussion and the conclusion. A: It sounds really complex. B: This final section is the most important part of the research paper! A: 寫完研究結果，報告應該就完成了吧？ B: 還沒完，最後還有結果討論和研究結論。 A: 聽起來好複雜。 B: 這部分可是研究報告的重點呢！ （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
Who was the most-streamed singer on your Spotify playlist for last year? According to the online music giant, the King of Mando-pop Jay Chou was once again the most-streamed act in Taiwan, topping the annual music chart for three consecutive years. Global K-pop sensation BTS took the second spot, while Canada’s Justin Bieber came third. The most-streamed songs for last year included “Your Name Engraved Herein” by singer Crowd Lu, “Oh Love, You Are Much Greater Than I Imagined” by rock band EggPlantEgg, and “Where I Lost Us” by rock band Accusefive. All three were theme songs from a blockbuster film or a TV drama. Rapper E.SO’s first solo album ”Outta Body” was the most-streamed album. As for the category of Podcast — a blend of “iPod” and “broadcast” — “Gooaye,” a show about stock market investment, replaced “Bailingguo News” to top the playlist on Spotify. The two were followed by “Froggy,” hosted by YouTuber-turned-Taipei City Councilor Chiu Wei-chieh, better known as Froggy. (Eddy Chang, Taipei Times) 誰是你去年最愛收聽的歌手呢？據音樂串流龍頭Spotify的統計顯示，華語天王周杰倫是去年台灣最常播放的歌手，連續三年稱霸串流排行榜榜首。韓流天團防彈少年團勇奪亞軍，加拿大歌手小賈斯汀位居第三。 去年台灣收聽次數最多的歌曲，依序是歌手盧廣仲的《刻在我心底的名字》、樂團茄子蛋的《愛情你比我想的閣較偉大》、樂團告五人的《在這座城市遺失了你》，前三名都是熱門電影或電視劇主題曲。而瘦子單飛後的首張個人專輯《靈魂出竅》，則是去年收聽次數最高的專輯。 至於播客項目——該字「Podcast」是由「iPod」和「broadcast」所拼綴而成——股市投資節目《股癌》成功取代前年冠軍《百靈果》，第三名是《呱吉》，該節目由網紅轉型的台北市議員邱威傑（呱吉）主持。 (台北時報張聖恩)
A: You have to write a research paper for your graduation project? Is it difficult? B: Yep. It’s basically the same as writing a graduation thesis. A: I’ve never written a thesis before. How do you write one? B: First, you have to write an introduction, then a literature review, followed by the methodology and the results. A: 你的畢業專題還要寫研究報告？很難嗎？ B: 對啊，這就像是在寫畢業論文一樣。 A: 我從來沒寫過論文耶，那要怎麼寫呢？ B: 首先要寫研究介紹和文獻回顧，再來就是方法和結果。 （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
A gigantic prehistoric “sea dragon” discovered in the Midlands, UK has been described as one of the greatest finds in the history of British palaeontology. The ichthyosaur, which is about 180 million years old with a skeleton measuring about 10m in length and a skull weighing about a tonne, is the largest and most complete fossil of its kind ever found in the UK. Joe Davis of the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust discovered it during the routine draining of a lagoon island at the Rutland Water reservoir in February last year. The first ichthyosaurs, which are called sea dragons because they tend to have very large teeth and eyes, were discovered by the fossil hunter and palaeontologist Mary Anning in the early 19th century. Dean Lomax, a palaeontologist who has studied the species, said: “Despite the many ichthyosaur fossils found in Britain, it is remarkable to think that the Rutland ichthyosaur is the largest skeleton ever found in the UK. It is a truly unprecedented discovery and one of the greatest finds in British palaeontological history.” Ichthyosaurs, which were marine reptiles, first appeared about 250 million years ago and went extinct 90 million years ago. They varied in size from 1m to more than 25m in length and resembled dolphins in their general body shape. The remains were dug out by a team of experts from around the UK in August and September last year. Two incomplete and much smaller ichthyosaurs were found during the construction of Rutland Water in the 1970s, but the latest discovery is the first complete skeleton. Mark Evans of the British Antarctic Survey, who has been studying the Jurassic fossil reptiles of Rutland and Leicestershire for more than 20 years, said that even from the first glimpse of the partially exposed fossil it was clear that it was the largest ichthyosaur
A: The semester is almost over. What have you been up to recently? B: I’m in the middle of preparing for my graduation project. A: Graduation project? What’s it on? B: We have to present a research paper and do a product display. A: 這學期就快要結束了，你最近都在忙些什麼？ B: 我正在準備畢業專題。 A: 畢業專題？內容包括什麼？ B: 我們要發表研究報告，還要進行商品展示唷。 （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
In the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Benjamin’s life that ages in reverse made a profound impression on audiences. US teenager Adalia Rose had a similar life to the movie’s protagonist. She was diagnosed with Hutchinson-Gilford progeria syndrome when she was three months old, making her look like an elderly person. However, Rose’s passion towards life was second to none. She often shared videos of her daily life, makeup tutorials, and dancing on social media. Because of her radiating positivity, she amassed a huge following online, racking up 2.9 million subscribers on YouTube, 12.55 million Facebook fans, and 370,000 Instagram followers. Rose was undoubtedly an extraordinary Internet celebrity. On Jan. 12, Rose passed away at the age of 15. Her family posted on social media, thanking her fans for their support and encouragement, and the medical personnel who had been taking care of Rose along the way. “She is no longer in pain and is now dancing away to all the music she loves,” they said. There are around 30 cases of progeria syndrome in Taiwan. (Translated by Rita Wang, Taipei Times) 電影《班傑明的奇幻旅程》中，主角班傑明「倒轉」的生理時鐘令人難忘，而美國少女蘿斯的人生和班傑明相似。蘿斯出生三個月後，就被診斷罹患早衰症，使她外表看起來就像個長者。 儘管如此，蘿斯對生命的熱愛並不會輸給其他人；透過社群媒體，蘿斯樂於分享自己的日常、美妝、舞蹈等等，正向積極的她在YouTube上坐擁破兩百九十萬粉絲，臉書與Instagram帳號則個別擁有一千兩百五十五萬和三十七萬人追蹤，無疑是一名傑出的網路名人。 本月十二日，今年十五歲的蘿斯離開了人世，她的家人透過社群平台發布公告，向一路支持、鼓勵她的粉絲表達謝意，也誠懇向一路上所有照顧過蘿斯的醫護人員道謝，「如今她不再痛苦，正隨著她喜歡的音樂翩翩起舞」。 台灣目前的早衰症確診個案約 三十例。 (自由時報)
Sometimes in winter you may get a scratchy feeling in your throat just after waking up in the morning, which feels quite unpleasant. Founding chairman Lou Chung-liang of the Taiwan Traditional Chinese Medicine Preventive Health Association shared a post on his Facebook page in which he says that a sore throat is a common symptom in cold weather and it may be caused by any of the following three conditions: First: chronic pharyngitis You are probably in this category if it gets better after brushing your teeth, rinsing your mouth and drinking a sip of water. It can be caused by cold weather and relatively dry air, plus the fact that your mouth does not secrete enough saliva while you are asleep. You can use a humidifier while sleeping to help make the air more humid. Second: allergic rhinitis (hay fever) Allergies tend to involve a persistent stuffy and runny nose plus sneezing that lasts for more than two weeks. You might have a sore throat when you get up in the morning, but it only lasts for a few hours. This is because when you have a blocked nose you can only breathe through your mouth. If this exposes your throat to too much cold or dirty air, it can give you a sore throat. It will improve after drinking some water to soothe and clear your throat. Lou recommends getting a reasonable amount of regular exercise and avoiding ice-cold, deep-fried and sweet foods. He recommends drinking chicken soup, or else boiling up a soup with ginseng and dates and sipping it to strengthen the mucous membranes in your nose. Third: having a cold If a sore throat is accompanied by symptoms such as fever or lethargy, you may have caught a cold. Reduced saliva secretion during sleep can cause the mucous membranes in your
A: Wang’s marriage dispute has finally come to an end. B: You’re still gossiping about it. Why are you so interested in his marital affairs? A: It’s just a healthy dose of curiosity. B: There’s an old saying: “Even a great judge finds it hard to settle a family quarrel.” So outsiders should keep their noses out of private family matters. A: 老王的婚姻糾紛終於要落幕啦。 B: 你還真八卦，那麼關注他離婚的消息。 A: 我很好奇嘛，這不就是人們的天性嗎？ B: 俗話說：「清官難斷家務事。」這是人家夫妻之間的家務事，外人還是少插手吧。 （Translated by Edward Jones, Taipei Times／台北時報張聖恩） Audio recordings for Speak Up! dialogues will be suspended until further notice due to the pandemic.
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