Đáp án và giải thích

This is Radio KBLM, and I’m your host, Brian Johnson.You’ve just heard a lively piece of music by the great ukulele player Jake Shimabukuro. It’s from his album Peace Love Ukulele. Why are we listening to ukulele music? Actually, that’s a pretty good question. It’s not the kind of music we usually play on this radio station. But Shimabukuro is not your typical ukulele player, either. Let me give you a little background information. Shimabukuro
is from Hawaii, and in Hawaii, the ukulele is a big part of the culture. He started to perform his music in 1998, and in 1999, he won a top award for his work with two other musicians. Soon after that, Shimabukuro left the trio and began his solo career. He has become very popular on the internet, where
you can download his songs, or if you can’t afford music downloads, you can watch videos of his performances for free. He’s not a singer. What you’ll see is just him playing the ukulele by himself, but you’ll hear some of the best ukulele playing in the world.

OK, as I said, Shimabukuro is not new to the world of music. Peace Love Ukulele was the ninth album he has made since 1999. But this album was different because, for the first time, Shimabukuro didn’t play alone, and here’s the reason: The ukulele is a pretty simple instrument. It’s small and has only four strings. Most of the time, when Shimabukuro performs, he plays popular songs that the audience already knows—songs by Michael Jackson, or the rock band Queen, or George Harrison from the Beatles. He has to interpret the music in his own way because he can’t play every note on the ukulele. He says the audience hears the rest of the song in their heads—the parts that he isn’t playing. But Peace Love Ukulele has some new songs on it that Shimabukuro wrote. The audience hasn’t heard the songs before, so he wanted a fuller sound—with drums and bass and other musical instruments. His 2012 album, Grand Ukulele, used a 29-piece orchestra behind Shimabukuro’s uke. Nashville Sessions, his 2016 album, was the first that included all-original songs. Shimabukuro has also written the music for two Japanese movies and for an American television show.

Trust me—you will want to hear his music. Shimabukuro plays several different styles of music, so whether you like rock music or classical music or traditional Hawaiian songs, something on this album will appeal to you.
OK, let’s hear a little more from Jake Shimabukuro ...

Đáp án và giải thích

Hello, class. Or instead of saying “hello” I could wave, or bow, or use another gesture of greeting. Today we’re discussing the importance of gestures as a form of communication. Gestures are movements that express an idea or meaning. People all over the world use gestures to communicate, but they’re more important in some cultures than in others.

For example, experts believe that Italians know and use about 250 hand gestures on a regular basis. These gestures can express all kinds of feelings and meaning just as sign language does, but they are used individually and don’t have a grammar to allow you to use them in sentences. The Italians may know something the rest of us don’t—that gestures support our spoken language.

There are two ways gestures support spoken language. First, they help the listener. Everyone knows that adding a gesture can help you communicate your message if someone
doesn’t understand you.

If you’re in a foreign country and someone asks you a question, you can shrug and lift your hands to say “I’m sorry. I don’t know.” Also, something about making a gesture signals to the listener to pay attention to your speech.

In addition to helping listeners, gestures also help speakers. They help speakers remember words and information they’ve learned, including math. If they make or even see a gesture while hearing a story, making the gesture again can help them recall vocabulary and details of the story.

We know that gestures are important in human communication, but they’re not limited to humans.

Members of the ape family, like orangutans and bonobos, use gestures to communicate with each other, as do other animals. Even ravens, a type of bird, can gesture with their beaks to point to something.

Now we can use gestures to communicate with technology. Computers can recognise the gestures of people with disabilities and help them to communicate. And now scientists are teaching robots to gesture. According to a recent study, humans can understand robots much better when they use movements along with speech in the same ways that people do.

As I hope you can see, gestures are a very important form of communication as they help both the speaker and the listener understand and remember. They may also be a way to communicate with animals and with computers.
Are there any questions?