Xiaolu Guo - People and Places

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/radio/specials/1728_people_places/page4.shtml


rural
adjective - in, of or like the countryside: - luar bandar - mereka tinggal terpencil diluar bandar - kawasan2 luar bandar

......The area is still very rural and undeveloped.

Compare urban

clash
noun1 [C] a fight or argument between people - pertelingkahan - pertelingkahan sering berlaku antara 2 pemimpin - pertembungan - ada pertembungan dalam jadual - pertentangan personality - tidak kena- percanggahan -

......Rioters hurled rocks and petrol bombs in clashes with police at the weekend.
.....There were violent clashes between the police and demonstrators in the city centre.


2- [C usually singular] a situation in which people's opinions or qualities are very different from and opposed to each other:

....a clash of opinions/loyalties/personalities


clash (NOT ATTRACTIVE)
verb [I not continuous] If colours or styles clash, they look ugly or wrong together:

......I like red and orange together, though lots of people think they clash

more or less
lebih kurang - perbelanjaan perkahwinannya lebih kurang 5000

1- mostly:The project was more or less a success.

2 - approximately:.....It's 500 kilos, more or less.

3 very nearly:He more or less admitted he'd done it.


tune (UNDERSTANDING)
be in/out of tune with sb/sth
If you are in tune with people or ideas, you understand or agree with them, and if you are out of tune with them, you do not: - secocok - sesuai - muzik itu nampak secucuk dengan perasaannya - perempuan muda yang secucuk dgn zaman hidupnya -==- berbunyi sumbang - dia selalu menyanyi sumbang - dia rasa sudah tidak secocok dgn kelas itu -

.......Much of his success comes from being in tune with what his customers want.
.......Her theories were out of tune with the scientific thinking of the time.

survival noun
- 1 [U] when a person, organization, etc. continues to live or exist: - hidup - pesakit itu cedera parah, dia boleh hidup terus diragui - kewujudannnya - kami sedang berjuang untuk kewujudan demokrasi dalam dunia - bertahan - kamu mesti diplomatik utk bertahan dalam politik...

.....The doctors told my wife I had a 50/50 chance of survival.
.......His main concern is to ensure his own political survival.
.......England are fighting for survival (= trying not to be defeated) in the match.


2- [C] something that has continued to exist from a previous time:......Most of these traditions are survivals from earlier times.


survival
adjective -
.....We all have a strong survival instinct.
......The survival rate for people who have this form of cancer is now more than 90%.

manage (SUCCEED) verb
1- [I or T] to succeed in doing something, especially something difficult: - kerja banyak, tapi walaumacamanapun saya akan usahakan - dapat [hidup] - dia dapat hidup senang dgn gaji kerani - dapat [ berjaya] - walau dia miskin - dia dapat menyekolahkan anak hingga menara gading - mereka tiada masa nak buat kerja tu semua, tapi saya rasa mereka dapat membuatnya - urus - kendalikan - luangkan - saya akan luang masa - dapat -

.,....I only just managed to finish on time
.......[+ to infinitive] Did you manage to get any bread?
........A small dog had somehow managed to survive the fire.
........MAINLY UK I'm afraid I can't manage the time (= I'm too busy) to see you at the moment.
..........Can you manage dinner on Saturday (= Will you be able to come to dinner)?
.......I can't manage all this work on my own.
........Don't worry about us - we'll manage


2 - [I] to succeed in living on a small amount of money:

.......After she lost her job, they had to manage on his salary.


represent -
merupakan - angka itu merupakan 1/3 dari KDNK negara. - mewakili - dia mewakili negara dalam sukan itu - melambangkan - mahkota itu melambangkan pemerintahan beraja - - mengambarkan - memegang peranan - dia pegang peranan watak jahat dalam drama itu - mengatakan - dia mengatakan dirinya layak - pendapat ini mewakili pendapat umum - peguam itu mewakili saya dalam perbicaraan hari ini- kami akan menyatakan idea2 kami -

represent
(ACT FOR) - verb [T]
1- to speak, act or be present officially for another person or people:

.....They chose a famous barrister to represent them in court.
......Union officials representing the teachers met the government today.
.......Women were well/poorly represented at the conference (= there were many/few present).


2 - to be the Member of Parliament, or of Congress, etc. for a particular area:
.....Mr Smythe represents Barnet.

3 FORMAL to express or complain about something, to a person in authority:
....We represented our grievances/demands to the boss.



represent (DESCRIBE)
verb [T]
.....This new report represents the current situation in our schools.
......He represents himself as an expert, but he knows nothing.

represent (BE)
verb [L only + noun] to be the result of something, or to be something:

.......This book represents ten years of thought and research.
........The new offer represented an increase of 10% on the previous one.

work out -
- kuruskan badan - excecise - dapat menyelesaikan - masalah ini tidak akan dapat diselesaikan - jadinya - seronok jika kita tengaok bagamana ianya terjadi - fahama - dia selalu moody, saya tak fahamlah - mencari penyelesaian - kerajaan sedang cari penyelesaian krisis ekonomi - mencipta [kaedah] - kami akan cipta kaedah baru untuk bahan ini -


work sth out (CALCULATE) phrasal verb [M]to do a calculation to get an answer to a mathematical question:

.....We need to work out the total cost of the project.

work out (EXERCISE) phrasal verb
to exercise in order to improve the strength or appearance of your body:

.....Huw works out in the gym two or three times a week.



Vocabulary from the programme

rural
to do with the countryside

a clash
a conflict, a situation where two things are very different from each other

Mandarin
the official language of China

more or less
This expression means 'about' or 'approximately'.
Example: She said she felt more or less the same as everyone else about the new timetable.

to be in tune with something
to be similar to something and combine well with it


inspiring
adjective - encouraging, or making you feel you want to do something: - sumber ilham - inspirasi - kata2 yg memberi inspirasi -

......She was an inspiring example to her followers.



BBC Learning English
People and Places
Xiaolu Guo


Amber:

Hello! Today, we meet a young and highly-successful Chinese writer and filmmaker, Xiaolu Guo. She talks about learning English, and about how she had fun trying to find the right kind of English for a character in her best-selling novel, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.


Xiaolu’s own life is a fascinating story. She grew up in a small ‘fishing village’ in rural China. (‘Rural’ means to do with the countryside.) Then, she went to study film in the huge city of Beijing. She describes this as a big ‘clash’ (a shock, or conflict). It was a very different experience from what she was used to as a young girl.


We’ll listen a couple of times to Xiaolu describing her early life. The first time, try to catch what made her time in Beijing a new and different experience.


Xiaolu Guo

I stayed in this fishing village until I was 18 and it’s a really rural village in the South East China Sea – it’s a fishing island. So that kind of life is a completely physical way of living. Every day is about (survival). So when I came to the film school in Beijing – it’s a very big art academy, and I studied there, I studied French cinema, European cinema, for 10 years. It
starts from a big clash because I couldn’t even speak Mandarin because in my village we speak local dialect. So in Beijing, I spoke Mandarin and I started to write poetry and make films. Every day, we discuss something but very far away from our life, for example, we would talk about Jean-Paul Sartre or American 1930s cinema, but I think I managed to write
novels, fictional stories, to represent that clash between a little person and that environment.


Amber:


So Xiaolu says that living in Beijing was a shock for her because she couldn’t even speak the language, Mandarin, and that she and her fellow students would talk about subjects that were far removed, or ‘far away from’ their lives – subjects like the French existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre, or American 1930s cinema!


Listen again and notice Xiaolu explains how her life gave her a subject to write about in her novels! She says her stories could ‘represent’ the clash she was experiencing as ‘a little person’ in a strange, new place, or ‘environment’.

Xiaolu Guo

I stayed in this fishing village until I was 18 and it’s a really rural village in the South East China Sea – it’s a fishing island. So that kind of life is a completely physical way of living. Every day is about (survival). So when I came to the film school in Beijing – it’s a very big art academy, and I studied there, I studied French cinema, European cinema, for 10 years. It
starts from a big clash because I couldn’t even speak Mandarin because in my village we speak local dialect. So in Beijing, I spoke Mandarin and I started to write poetry and make films. Every day, we discuss something but very far away from our life, for example, we would talk about Jean-Paul Sartre or American 1930s cinema, but I think I managed to write novels, fictional stories, to represent that clash between a little person and that environment.


Amber:


But it didn’t stop there. Xiaolu left China five years ago and moved to London. She didn’t know very much English. But, only last year, her first novel in English, A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers, was short listed for a major literary prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction!
She explains that she wanted to write the book in a kind of broken English to show that the character was learning to understand a strange, new place. But, she says it was really fun to write. Can you work out why?


Xiaolu Guo

I want to use this kind of foreigner’s, strange English to represent that character come from another nation, (she tries) to plug herself in and to communicate with this big room … It was a difficult novel to write but it was also the most fun of what I have ever written in my life, I think, linguistically. I had great fun with the linguistic side which I was using my second language, which I only started to speak during my writing. So in a way, it’s a kind of easy process I should say, because it took 3 years to finish that novel. In my third year, my English more or less resembled the character in my book - she could speak nearly, nearly fluent English. And in the end of the book, she speaks English after 3 years of living in England. So that was kind of in tune with my own personal life.

Amber:


Xiaolu says she had great fun with the linguistic side of her first novel in
English because the character’s story was ‘in tune with my own personal life’ – if something is in tune with something else, it means is very similar. So as Xiaolu’s English improved, so did the English spoken by her character! Well, we hope you find Xiaolu’s story inspiring – perhaps YOU could write a best-selling novel in English! Why not try?