外刊讲解版@Mat 20220906​

外刊讲解版@Mat 20220906​

注：本文档主要是为同学理解和学习Mat老师的外刊提供参考，建议同学先听课程音频，有需要时再
对照文本。另外，外教讲解偏口语化，在听课及对照文本时，不必在语法上过分细究。

Part I Background ​
Hello listeners welcome once again, this is me Mat Clark, and today we are talking about
mysterious toys. ​
Now, some historians or archaeologists, those people who dig in the ground and look for old
things, one of these people found some objects, actually many different people have found
similar objects in different places. And these mystery objects are round and flat, but one man
now thinks they are toys, maybe in the past, we didn't really know what they are. ​

So as I said all around the world we have found similar objects in lots of different places and
some of them are really old, like 4000 years old, and this is important because maybe some
people think that maybe in the past children didn't have toys, but maybe these discoveries
show us that even 4000 years ago kids played with toys. ​

So what kind of toys are they? ​

Well actually, I can remember making a similar toy when I was young. We used to cut a piece of
card into kind of round disc shape and then we made two holes in the card. And then we put
string through the two holes. I can't remember exactly how we did it. But something that you
pull the string and if you pull it and then relax the string the round disk. It spins around really
really fast.​

And I think we used to paint them or we used to draw a colorful pattern on the card, so when
it's pan really fast, the colors looked amazing and I think I did it when I was very young, around
5 or 6 years old. ​

So I wonder did you make these when you were young? Do you have this memory? I'm quite
sure that I made them when I was around the age of about 5 or 6.​
​
Now that's the main topic of the article today. Someone found some mystery toys in the
ground and those toys are old. ​

Part II Story​
I actually found a mysterious object similar to a toy in the ground when I was young. I think I
was about 8 or 9 years old. It was summer I was digging a hole in the garden. Don't ask me why
I don't know why I was digging a hole in the garden. But I was. ​
I remember I kept digging deeper and deeper and deeper. I think I just wanted to see where my
whole could go. But then I saw something. A small white object, not very big about the same
size as an egg and at first I thought it was an egg. ​

But then when I looked closer, it looked like some kind of figure. I picked it up, I cleaned it. And
it was quite dirty. And then I looked, it was a small man on a horse and it seemed to be made of
clay or stone. It looked quite old. I liked it because it looked quite cool, a little man with a
shield and a helmet and a sword on our little horse and I played with it. ​

For a while, I think it was one of my favorite things and I remember I put it on the shelf in my
bedroom. But then just like all kids, I grew up and I stopped playing with little men and horses.
I think I did or my mom probably put all my toys in a box and I forgot about them. But a few
years later, I think I was at college, university. I was watching a TV program. ​

An old man with a long gray beard, historian or an archaeologist, one of those people who like
old things. He was on the TV and he was talking about old chessmen. Pieces from old chess
games. And he had some examples there on the TV program. I looked carefully. It looked
familiar. And he was holding a small white figure a little man on a horse with a helmet and a
shield and a sword. Then I remembered. I had one of these. The man on the TV explained that
these chessmen were quite rare and quite special. Some of them could be over 800 years old,
and they were valuable, especially if they were in good condition. ​

I quickly try to remember. Where did I put my one? Where was my little white man on the
horse? I asked my mum. ​

-Mum, did you keep any of my toys from when I was young? ​
-Yeah, said my mom, I think there's a box somewhere, maybe in the top of the house in the
attic. ​

So I climbed the stairs to the top of the house in the attic. I started searching. I found old dolls
belonging to my sisters, dolls houses belonging to my sisters. I found model planes. I found
model cars, which I think belonged to me and my brother. I found old school books. Games.
Lots of games. Little plastic soldiers, plastic animals. A toy zoo, a toy farm, but no man on
horse. ​
I emptied all the boxes, I searched everything. I didn't find the little man on the horse. I went
downstairs. On TV they were still talking about the very rare chessmen. I thought and I
thought.​

-Mom are there any boxes of old things at grandmas house? ​

-Maybe, said my mum. ​

My grandma lived nearby so I went to her house and I asked her. ​

-Grandma do we do, we have any like boxes of old things, especially like toys. ​
-Oh, she said actually in the top of the house in the attic, I think there are some old boxes of all
of your old things.​

I climbed into the attic and I saw lots of boxes. I started searching old books, old clothes, old
cups, old teapots, old spoons, old shoes. And then. At the bottom of a box I saw something. ​

A small wooden box, about the size of a small shoebox, but made of wood, dark wood. I
remembered this box. It was mine, I opened the box and inside I found some old coins, some
old badges like my old school badges. And then there it was, sitting in the bottom of the little
wooden box, in a bigger box, hidden by all of those old books and old clothes there it was. ​

The little white man in a helmet with a shield with a sword on a horse, in perfect condition. Not
a single piece was broken. I quickly took it downstairs and I put the little man on the table and I
told my Grandma. I just saw a TV program. They were talking about this morning on TV and I've
got one. ​

She picked up the little man and admired it then she said, Oh, I think it's got some markings on
it, look, maybe even some words. But I can't read them because I'm not wearing my glasses. I
grabbed a little man and I turned it over and looked on the bottom. ​

And there I saw the words: made in China. A souvenir from the British Museum. I don't think
my little white man was very valuable at all.​
Part III Vocabulary
Okay, so that's my story. Now we have some vocabulary.​

1. puzzle​
We know that a puzzle is a game or a toy but we can also use the verb to mean something
difficult to understand, something confusing. ​
• I'm puzzled by these questions. ​
I don't really understand them. ​
• This question has been puzzling me for a few days now. ​

2. vast​
We know that vast means very big. We use it most commonly with the word majority. The vast
majority meaning most. ​
• The vast majority of shops are closed on Sundays. ​
• The vast majority of people listen to music on their phones nowadays.​

3. upcycle​
In our article we have this sentence upcycled from potsherds. Now I'll be honest, I did not
know the word potsherd. It was the first time I've even seen or heard this word. I had to check
it in the dictionary. It just means a broken piece of an old pot, potsherds. So don't worry about
that word. I've never seen or heard it before and I don't think I'll ever see or hear it again.​
Upcycled from potsherds the word up cycle is similar to recycle. But it has a difference. ​
Recycle means to take old material and then use it again to make the same thing. ​
Upcycle means to use old material again, but to make something better, to make something of
a higher quality. For example:​
• You can upcycle a quilt and you can make it into a nice jacket. ​
• You can upcycle old bottles, you can paint them and then use them as a nice vase for your
flowers.​

4. deliberate​
If something is deliberate, it is planned, you mean to do it. You planned before and then you
did it, it's not by chance. It's not by accident. We often use it with the word attempt. ​
A deliberate attempt to do something meaning you tried to do something, you planned this
thing, it was your intention. It was not an accident, for example:​
• This advertisement is a deliberate attempt to trick or fool customers. ​
• The new rules are a deliberate attempt to stop people working overtime.​
​
5. miscellaneous​
Miscellaneous things are some things like in a group, but they have no connection to each
other, kind of random things. ​
• There's a box of miscellaneous items on the shelf there. ​
• The book is a collection of miscellaneous poems and essays from all around the world.​
​
6. in my early years ​
Now we can use this expression in my early years to mean when I was young before I was an
adult, so I guess it kind of means when I was a child or teenager. ​
• In my early years I played a lot of sport. ​
• In his early years, he lived with his grandparents.​
​
7. remark​
The verb to remark means to say your opinion or to say what you think about a certain thing. ​
• He remarked how beautiful the city looked in spring. ​
• She remarked that he was looking quite handsome today.​
​
8. not least of all because ​
Now this is a set phrase, we can have two versions. We can say "not least because", "not least
of all because". Not least of all because, It's just a stronger version of not least because.​
As I said, it's a set phrase we use to emphasize an important example or reason, to emphasize
an important part of something, for example:​
• Some dieting can be harmful not least of all because people might not eat enough food.
And this can be quite unhealthy. ​
• You should take warm clothes on the trip, not least of all because his house has no heating.​
​
9. get to the heart of something
If we get to the heart of something we find the most important facts or the most important
point of something.​
• It's important to get to the heart of the matter before we make a decision.​
• I am trying to fix the computer. I think I've got to the heart of the problem: the battery is
broken. ​

10. a decades-old debate​

A decades-old debate is something that people disagree about, disagree on, they've been
disagreeing on this topic or question for many years. ​
• There is a decades-old debate about knocking down the old train station building. ​
Some people want to do it. Other people don't want to do it, they never agree. It's a decades
old debate. ​
• Teachers are still discussing the decades-old debate about whether exams are useful.​
This argument has been around for 50 years or more.​

Part IV Comprehension ​
Okay, so that's a vocabulary now our article. I think we know the background information
already, so let's just look at the senses and try to put them into very, very simple sentences. ​

So the title.​
The mystery ancient toys puzzling archaeologists ​
People are still confused about these things they find in the ground.​
​

The article begins.​

Over the two decades that archaeologist Gus Van Beek excavated Tell Jemmeh, an Assyrian
settlement inhabited from around 3,800 to 2,200 years ago, he recovered so many objects, it
took the Smithsonian 40 years to catalogue them all. ​
So, for more than 20 years a man was digging looking for old things. The site is very old. He
found many things, so many things in fact that this museum spent 40 years trying to organize
them, but how does that work?​

If he spent 20 years looking for the things? How does the museum spend 40 years putting them
all in order? I guess the man found the things a long time ago, he stopped looking maybe more
than 20 years ago, but the museum is still trying to catalog them. That's the way I understand
this that. The man made these discoveries a long long time ago, the museum is still trying to
make sense of these discoveries.​

The article tells us: There were coins. Scarabs. Amulets. And an amount of pottery so vast,
some of it later would have to be discarded. ​

So, there were coins, those little carved stones, amulets, different types of jewelry and so much
pottery that they couldn't keep it, they had to throw some away.​

Then the article says:​

But for Van Beek, the site – in what is now modern-day south-west Israel – yielded ​
it gave us it produced​
a discovery that was "among the more enigmatic objects recovered": ​
the more interesting objects
17 small, rounded discs – some made of chalk, some of stone, but most upcycled from
potsherds – ​
is that word again​
with two deliberate holes in the centre.​

So there was one thing that the man found and he thought it was the most interesting thing
and that's the small round object with the holes in and we know what that is.

Then the article tells us:​

Van Beek wasn't the first archaeologist to discover objects like these. Nor was he the last.
They've been found at sites across Japan, Egypt, India, and the Americas, among others. Some
date back 4,000 years.​
So lots of different places and some of them are really old 4000 years. So many other people
have found similar things in other places.​
​
Then the article tells us. ​
Some archaeologists believed they were buttons or simply "miscellaneous objects". But they
reminded Van Beek of something else. "I remembered playing in my early years with a similar
object," he remarked. Thread string through the holes, then stretch and relax the string, and
the discs spin. ​

Just like I remember when I made them. So, the man in our article thinks these things are toys
and then in the last sentence:​
​
Understanding how children played is important, not least of all because it gets to the heart of
a decades-old debate: what childhood really meant to past generations – if it meant anything
at all.​

So these objects are important because they can teach us about the lives of children in the
past and finding things like this, it helps us to answer various questions like—​

What did children play with in the past did they have toys? Did they have a happy childhood?
Nowadays, kids know that they are kids and they know that they are meant to have fun in their
childhood, but was it the same for kids in the past? There are many things that we don't quite
understand about this. So finding games and toys is helpful for answering these questions.​

Part V Q&A​
Okay, now it's Listener Question Time.​

So last week, one listener asked: I'm confused about the expression times bigger. For example:​

• The kitchen is four times larger than the bedroom. ​

Okay, but what about: ​
• The kitchen is four times as large as the bedroom.​

So four times larger than the bedroom or four times as large as the bedroom. What does it
actually mean? Is it the same? Is the area of the bedroom and kitchen, is it the same in both
sentences? So it gets a bit confusing this.​

OK. Let's make it simple. Let's just say the bedroom is ten meters. Ten square meters. But I'll
just say meters right. ​

The bedroom is 10 meters. ​

• The kitchen is 4 times larger than the bedroom. For me the kitchen is 40 meters. ​
• The kitchen is 4 times as large as the bedroom. For me the kitchen is still 40 meters.​

Now wait, some people, some maths people, they believe that if the kitchen is 4 times as large
as the bedroom, then the kitchen is the bedroom, multiplied by four plus one (4+1). So, in that
situation, the kitchen is 50 meters, but most people don't use those expressions in that way.
For most native speakers, 4 times larger, 4 times as large, the same multiplied by four.​

3 times as long, 3 times longer, the same, multiplied by 3. ​

10 times as heavy, 10 times heavier, the same.​

So for most native speakers. The two expressions are the same, especially nowadays in
modern English all the same. No difference.​

But what we can say is that "3 times as big" is becoming less popular in written and spoken
English whereas "3 times bigger" is becoming more popular. So we use the "3 times as", we use
that less than "3 times bigger, 3 times larger, 3 times heavier, 3 times longer", hopefully that
answers your question.​

Okay, that brings me to the end of this episode. Thanks very much for listening. I'll be back
next week with more and now I'm going into the garden to dig a hole.​