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The Happiness Project 我的快樂生活提案(上)
空中英語教室 20250103
修正英文文法，保留中文部分，同時將簡體中文修改為繁體中文
Here’s the revised text with the corrections you requested, including grammar fixes and changing Simplified Chinese to Traditional Chinese:
Hello friends,
My name is Ann Marie,
and today is a great day to learn something new,
so let’s do that together. Friends, I’m John.
Today here on Studio Classroom, we are talking all about a book
called The Happiness Project,
and we have a question to start our lesson off with.
Are you ready for a question? Yes?
All right, here it is:
Our Talk About It question is, "What do you want from life?
Describe what you can do to reach your goal."
This is a deep question.
It is.
There are lots of different things to want. For me, I want joy
that lasts, that doesn’t go away. I’m a Christian,
so I feel like I found it. All right, well friends,
what do you want from life?
If you do not have the answer to this question,
today is a great day for you to think about the answer
as we get right into our first reading for the day.
The Happiness Project: A year-long search for satisfaction
and a happier life. What would your answer be
if I were to ask you what you wanted from life?
Would it be money, power,
a loving family, close friends, a great job, or something else?
Author Gretchen Rubin asked herself that question one day
while sitting in traffic on a bus. After giving it
some thought, she realized that
overall, she wanted to be happy. If happiness was to be her goal,
Reuben realized, the days
are long but the years are short. Time is passing,
and I’m not focusing enough on the things that really matter.
Hi, I am Jack. 今天的 Usage Tip 是現在進行式。
現在式的 be 動詞 is, am, 或 are 加現在分詞 VING，
表現出現在進行式，強調說話當下
或是近期某個動作正在發生。
例如，文中的 Reuben 說話時，時間正在流逝，
"Is passing"。
他也意識到自己現在沒有充分專注
"am not focusing" 在重要事物上。
如果這個時態跟 always, constantly, forever 等字連用，
則帶有某動作反覆發生而且令人厭煩的語氣。
我們來看個例句：
The picky teacher is always searching for his students mistakes.
這位挑剔的老師總是在找學生的錯誤。
All right, thank you so much, Jack! Friends,
let’s get into our lesson. We read here: a year-long
search for satisfaction and a happier life. I get the idea that this
is the reason why the writer of The Happiness Project
started this project to begin with.
She wanted to find satisfaction. Now, what is satisfaction?
Well, it’s the fulfillment of your wishes,
expectations, or needs,
and it’s the idea that from this comes a type of happiness.
That’s right. Sometimes we use this word with food.
You could say, "Wow, I ate so much pizza,
I feel like I have a lot of satisfaction."
Or you could say, "I am satisfied" as an adjective. Satisfaction
comes from a lot of different places in life.
Some people get a lot of satisfaction
from their jobs or other places.
We’re going to talk more about that idea here
in the rest of our article.
How does our article continue, John? Well,
we get a question here: What would your answer be
if I were to ask you what you wanted from life?
So friends, ask yourself that question. Would it be money, power,
a loving family,
close friends,
a great job, or something else? We read, "Okay."
There are a lot of things on that list.
There are a ton of things on that list,
and friends, only
you can really answer that,
what you feel is missing from your life.
But we read on here:
Author Gretchen Rubin asked herself that question one day
while sitting in traffic on a bus. Now,
I think this is a situation
a lot of us have been in before, on the way to work,
or maybe she was on her way to do some errands.
She’s stuck in traffic,
so maybe she’s not going anywhere on this bus full of people.
All these people are going someplace.
It makes you kind of question your life.
It does. There’s nothing like being in traffic. I was in Chicago
when I first learned to drive,
and you were always in traffic. By the way, traffic is a noun,
and that means trucks, buses,
cars are all on the road together. Traffic can be heavy or light.
That’s typically how
you would describe traffic. That’s right.
So we see here: After she sat
on this bus and gave it
some thought, she realized that overall,
she wanted to be happy. Now,
to give something
some thought means that you’re going to sit
and think about something for a while. Yeah,
and you can tell your friend, "Hey,
I have this idea, but why don’t you give it
some thought?" You could say that to me. Take your time
and think about it.
There’s another word in here though, Ann Marie—"overall,"
and that is defined as taking everything into account.
What that means is
you have thought about everything, and overall there is
a big idea that is kind of over everything else.
That’s right.
Here’s how you could use "overall" in a sentence:
Overall, she did a good job on her project or her homework,
even if she did make some mistakes. So,
even though there were some mistakes in this project, overall,
or most of it was okay. Now,
Ann Marie, I have to make a comment: If I say, "I am wearing overalls,"
it’s something totally different, right?
No, overalls are a specific type of clothing.
A lot of times, farmers will wear them.
It’s where the bib part in the front is attached to the pants.
Yeah, usually,
like jeans with little shoulder straps
that farmers would wear. Their overalls are in fashion,
but that is the word "overall" with an "s" at
the end for different things. Yeah,
two different things. So, overall,
she wanted to be happy, and if happiness was to be her goal,
Reuben realized the days are long but the years are short. Okay,
she’s got this sentence here. It’s a quote. What does it mean?
Yeah,
so this quote has become very, very popular in recent years.
It means that individual days might go by very slowly,
while you’re at school, or at your job, or home with your kids,
but if you look back on your life,
you will find that these years have gone by very, very quickly.
And I have found that this phrase is especially common
and popular when parents are talking online,
because they’re talking a lot about raising children.
Because it takes a lot of work to raise children day by day.
It does. We might not look like it, but between Ann Marie
and I, we have six kids.
My wife and I have three kids. She’s got three kids.
So, the days are long, but the years are short. It’s also
a reminder: Don’t just float
along. You’ll find that your life goes away really quickly.
So actually,
finding the meaning of your life is something really important
for young people,
and I think if you’re one of our older friends,
you’d agree with me, right?
That’s true. Now, in our next sentence here,
we have our usage tip for the day: "Time is passing,
and I’m not focusing
enough on the things that really matter."
Is it really, really important
how much time you spend
on certain things,
or that you watch that TV show,
or is the time you’re spending with your family
more important?
These are all the kinds of questions
you can ask yourself, friends, as we go to our next reading:
The Happiness Project
This conclusion began a twelve-month commitment
to discover what would add more happiness to her life.
The quest resulted in Rubin’s New York Times
bestselling book, The Happiness Project.
According to some of the reviews,
this is more than a typical self-help
book. It’s full of humor, insight,
and actual examples from Rubin’s year-long experiment.
Welcome to Language Lab. 我們先來看 "quest" 這個字，它可以當名詞或是動詞，意思都是探索或者追求。 譬如：
On his quest for money and fame, he became a very unhappy person.
他在追求金錢和名聲的過程中，變得非常不快樂。
或是：
The game guides you through several dangerous quests on a mysterious island.
這個遊戲會引導你在一個神秘的小島上完成幾個危險的探索。
或是：
Many scientists quest to find a cure for cancer that works
equally well on all forms of cancer.
許多科學家都在努力尋找一種對各種癌症同樣有效的癌症治療方法。
All right, thank you so much, Jack! Friends,
let’s get right into the next part of our lesson.
This conclusion began a twelve-month commitment
to discover what would add more happiness to her life.
We have a great word
that we want to talk about in this first sentence,
and that’s the word commitment.
Commitment. You make a commitment.
A commitment is a promise to do something.
You’re telling—
you can make a commitment to yourself.
Often, you’ll make a commitment to someone else.
Marriage
is a commitment to my wife.
You could also make a commitment to a job, or maybe
for example, for studying overseas,
for a certain period of time,
I made a commitment to study overseas
for one year. Another way you could use this word.
But our article continues by saying the quest
resulted in Rubin’s New York Times bestselling book,
The Happiness Project.
So, John, what it sounds like is this lady
who wrote
this book was thinking a lot about her life and realized,
maybe
there are a lot of other people wondering these same things,
so she kind of wrote down all of her research and her thoughts,
and it became this book.
That’s right.
The New York Times bestselling list is a list of popular books
by the magazine,
the New York Times, and a quest, as we learned,
is an adventure or a journey to do something.
But we continue reading here: According to some of the reviews,
this is more than a typical self-help book.
We’ve got two phrases:
typical and self-help. What’s typical?
Yeah, so if something or someone is typical,
it means they have the same characteristics as everyone else
or everything else in the same group.
So when we’re talking here about self-help books,
maybe we should define that first. Okay,
a self-help book is a type of book,
it’s a category,
and it means a book that is designed to help people do things
themselves or achieve their goals.
So instead of going to a therapist, you read a self-help book.
Self-help books
sometimes have this reputation of not always helping
or just kind of making people feel isolated,
but they could also be really helpful,
so it’s just important to carefully read
and really think about what a book is saying.
That’s a really good point.
I think some self-help books can be helpful,
depending on the topic, like for example,
if you’re trying to improve your eating habits
or improve your punctuality.
A self-help book could really help with these kinds of things,
but if you have some deeper heart issues,
a self-help book might not be the way to go. Yeah,
it depends on how good the advice is, you know what I mean?
Definitely, for sure.
So, this book was not a typical self-help book. That means
this book isn’t like the other ones.
Why is that? Well,
let’s keep reading and find out. What does our article
say, John? First of all,
it’s funny—we read it’s full of humor,
insight, and actual examples from Rubin’s year-long
experiment. Okay,
humor means how funny something is, as we said.
Insight means how deep it goes,
and actual examples are always fun to read.
I don’t know about you,
John, but I find that when I am reading a book
or listening to a speaker speak,
and they share experiences from their own life
or what they’ve actually learned themselves,
I often end up listening to them more
because I think, "Oh,
you’ve had personal experience with this,
you must know what you’re talking about."
And actually, there’s a lot of science behind that.
Did you know when someone tells a story,
your brain starts focusing more?
That’s really interesting.
It’s true.
One time I heard a story about someone telling a story,
and it really made me interested,
but I was trying to do an example of that.
It was very interesting.
But yeah, so this book has a lot of humor and insight in it,
and this was a whole year-long experience,
so I’m sure
that Rubin had a lot of different examples to share in it.
As well, I haven’t read it yet. Have you read this book, John?
No, not yet, but there’s a word in there
you should know: experiment.
If you experiment with something as a verb,
it means you’re testing it to see
if it works. And experiment as a noun
is a word you’ll see a lot in science, right?
People are testing to see if something
is true or not. That’s right.
All right, friends, well
we’ll be back in just a moment right after today’s InfoCloud.
Welcome to InfoCloud!
Have you ever heard of the American Declaration of Independence?
One famous quote from it
talks about how all people have the right to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We studied that in school.
It was written in the 18th century by Thomas Jefferson,
one of the founding fathers of the United States.
He was also America’s third president,
and I think that’s a great quote. But what are the rights to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?
Well, life means safety from danger,
and liberty is another word for freedom. For example,
the Statue of Liberty. And how about the pursuit of happiness?
If you pursue something, you chase after it or make it your goal.
Being happy in life is a good goal.
It is. So,
America was founded
on the principle or idea that all people are created by God,
therefore they are equal
and all have the same rights: to be safe, to
be free, and to choose a life that makes them happy.
When we are talking about the pursuit of happiness,
we’re not just talking about a feeling that comes
and goes. That’s right.
The original meaning is closer to a sense of well-being. Pursuing
happiness means making choices in life
that will bring good to you and to the world around you.
The Happiness Project
In an effort to reach her goal,
she tested numerous theories on happiness,
sifting through philosophy, science,
popular culture,
and more. The writer chose specific habits to examine
and try to incorporate into her lifestyle.
接下來，讓我們來看看名詞“philosophy”的意思：“哲學”。
我們來看例句：
Philosophy is the study of life’s big questions, such as why people suffer.
哲學是對人生重大問題的研究，例如人為什麼會受苦。
Philosophy 也指理念或信念，
譬如：
The philosophy of the school is that every student is valuable and can succeed.
該校的理念是每個學生都是有價值的，都能取得成功。
與 philosophy 相關的另一個名詞是 philosopher，也就是哲學家，
例如：
Many philosophers have tried to explain the meaning of life.
許多哲學家都試圖解釋生命的意義。
Alright, friends, well
before the break,
John was talking about experiments, and we’re going to
see that idea here in our next sentence.
We read, "In an effort to reach her goal,
she tested numerous theories on happiness." Now,
this word theories often goes with the word experiment,
because what happens
is someone has a theory or an idea,
or a thought of how something could be,
and then they do experiments to test it.
We have this phrase
at the beginning of the sentence, in an effort to.
This just means that you are going to attempt to do something.
I could say, "In an effort to eat better,
I told myself, no more McDonald’s." Sorry, McDonald’s!
Okay, well,
we also have another word here, and that is the word numerous.
Can you define that for us, John? Sure! Numerous
just means very many,
very many things or very many ideas. Okay,
let’s move on to the next sentence
and look at some of the things there.
We read: Sifting through philosophy,
science, popular culture, and more, the writer chose specific habits to examine
and try to incorporate into her lifestyle.
There’s a lot of things here,
but first, let’s look at this idea of sifting through something.
If you sift through something,
it means that you go through something to find out
if it is useful or not.
I could say, "I had to sift through a lot of old photographs
before I found my school pictures."
Okay, so it sounds like you had a lot of photographs,
and you didn’t quite know where
those pictures were,
and you had to go through a lot of things that maybe weren’t
what you were looking for,
or what you wanted to find the one
that was valuable to you in that moment. Exactly!
When you sift through things,
you’re going to leave a lot of things behind before
you find that thing
you’re looking for. That’s right.
Okay, so
let’s also look at some other things in this sentence.
We see this word incorporate.
This is such an interesting word. Let’s talk about it, John.
Okay,
to incorporate means to add something into something else
and make that outside thing a part of the new thing.
You can see the prefix
in means in or into, and corporate actually comes from a word
meaning the body.
If the word corpse means a dead body,
so incorporate means to make something part of the body,
and you’ll see that word for corporations or companies, right?
But incorporate is a very useful word.
It is! Here’s an example of
how you could use incorporate in a sentence:
She always incorporates a lot of color into her paintings.
So, if she’s painting a picture,
she’s putting a lot of colors
and making them part of that body of her painting.
That’s right.
So, what do you like to incorporate into your lifestyle?
Tomorrow, we’ll talk a lot more about Gretchen
Rubin’s ideas. Is there anything
you love to incorporate in your daily life?
Yeah, there is. Recently, I’ve been trying to get more steps in—
that is, walk more for exercise.
So I try to incorporate a lot of walking into my daily life.
That’s right!
Well, it’s good to incorporate good things into your daily life.
It is. Alright, friends,
we’ll be right back after today’s fun fact.
Hello, Fact Friends!
I am Detective Ernest Finder, and I have a fun fact for you today. Did you know
that questing can be a verb? Ha ha, it’s true!
A quest is something you go on
when you’re looking for something, and questing
is the action for that. If someone is questing,
they are looking for something.
Sometimes we say knights or other heroes in books are questing.
They are on a quest, and that is today’s fun fact.
All right, friends,
as we wrap up our lesson for today,
I have a question for you and for John. Are you ready?
Yes! Here we go! Have you ever gotten an insight into being...
Oh, yeah!
Many. The most important insight
was to say sorry to the right people again.
Like I’m a Christian, maybe you’re not,
but say sorry to God
and begin that friendship. It opened a whole new life,
and that would be my advice.
I have found that I got a lot of insight into being happy
when I started spending more time
with the people who believed the same things
that I believed in, in places where we could
celebrate those things openly.
And I encourage you, friends, to find community.
You can find a lot of happiness in community.
We are not done talking about the topic of happiness, friends,
so make sure you come back and join us! My name is Ann Marie,
I’m John,
and we’ll see you next time right here on Studio Classroom!
The Happiness Project 我的快樂生活提案(下) 空中英語教室 20250104
修正英文文法，保留中文部分，同時將簡體中文修改為繁體中文
Hello, friends!
My name is Ann Marie,
and today is a great day to learn something new,
so let’s do that together. I’m John.
Today on Studio Classroom,
we are looking at day two of our article
called The Happiness Project. Now,
The Happiness Project is a book, right?
That’s right! It’s a special kind of book
called a self-help book.
It’s the kind of book you can read, and hopefully,
it helps you get a better direction for your life.
That’s right. Now,
we learned a little bit about the author of this book
in yesterday’s article.
Her name is Gretchen Rubin,
and she started to ask herself a question.
The question is, "How can I be happy?"
She’s looking for something called satisfaction,
which means to be happy and content.
And so, she made a commitment to herself.
That’s right! She decided to test numerous theories on happiness.
She looked at philosophy, science,
popular culture, and more.
She decided to look at specific habits
to try to incorporate them into her lifestyle.
What did she find?
Well, today we’ll talk more about that.
I hope you’ll join us for The Happiness Project.
The Happiness Project
Rubin’s book is divided into twelve chapters,
each highlighting a different month
and specific area of focus. In chapters
one through eleven,
each new focus or category
includes three or four things to work on. For instance,
the first chapter begins with January
and the importance of getting more physical and
mental energy.
The corresponding goals
consist of getting better sleep and exercising more.
Hi, I am Jack, and welcome to Language Lab!
首先來看 highlight 這個動詞，意思是強調。
比如 her talk will highlight the importance of reading aloud to small children
他的演講將強調為幼兒朗讀的重要性。
highlight 的另一個意思是標註，
例如 look at this vocabulary list and highlight the words you don’t understand
查看這個詞彙表，並標出你不理解的單字。
highlight 如果當名詞，則是指亮點或是最精彩之處，
譬如
learning to serve was the highlight of my summer vacation helping me overcome my fear of the ocean
我暑假最精彩的一件事就是學習衝浪，它幫助我克服了對海洋的恐懼。
All right, thank you so much, Jack.
Let’s get right into our lesson for today, friends.
We read Rubin’s book is divided into 12 chapters,
each highlighting a different month
and specific area of focus. Now,
I haven’t read the book,
and I’m not sure,
but I’m guessing the first chapter is about January,
which is maybe why we are talking about this book in January,
when so many people make New Year’s resolutions. Yeah!
And it’s a helpful way to break things down, one month at a time.
We read that each chapter,
or each new focus or category,
includes three or four things to work on. There’s a word
there: category.
That’s super useful to know. A category is a group that’s
divided by some characteristic. Yeah!
Did you know that tomatoes are actually in the category of fruit?
I have heard that.
It’s because they are the part of the plant that has the seed,
so they’re in the fruit category. Now,
we see this phrase in the next sentence: for instance.
We read, for instance,
the first chapter begins with January.
I was right!
And the importance of getting more physical and mental energy.
Now, for instance is really easy, friends.
It just means that something is going to be given as an example.
That’s right! Instance, by the way, is a noun.
You will see,
an instance means an example or a time something happened.
So,
if you’ve been talking about things, for example or for instance,
I could say,
I always have trouble sleeping, for instance, last night
it took me two hours to go to bed.
So that’s an example of why you usually have problems sleeping.
All right, so friends,
we also see here this idea of physical and mental energy.
So mental energy is the kind of energy
that you take up with your mind
by thinking about things, and physical energy is with your body,
right?
Exactly! Physical relates to the body instead of the mind.
You can also say
something is very physical. For example,
working out is a very physical activity.
Maybe you have a physical education class at school, friends.
It’s another way you will see this word used. But we
move on here. We read, the corresponding goals
consist of getting better sleep and exercising more. This is what
our writer says will contribute to your happiness.
We have that word corresponding here,
and that means it’s comparable.
It’s the same in character, form, or function.
Yeah, and corresponding is a big word,
but it’s extremely useful on English tests. For instance,
you will probably see on tests
a statement that says,
Match the question with the corresponding correct answer.
You know the word responding, right, Ann Marie?
Yeah, when you answer somebody.
Exactly. So,
if something is corresponding,
it means together they are responding or relating to each other.
Ah, very interesting! I think this statement is really true.
Though I have found that when I get enough sleep
and I exercise more,
my physical health is better,
but my mental health is better as well.
So I can see how our author
believes this could contribute to someone’s happiness. Definitely!
You know, sometimes being happier is just helping to
take away the things that make you unhappy.
I think true happiness is much deeper than just working out.
Definitely!
But if you’re tired all the time,
it’s hard to be happy. So eating right,
getting good sleep is very important.
Just changing your mental state can do a lot towards
how you feel on a day-to-day basis.
So I would have to say this part of the book,
I totally agree with, friends.
What do you think? It’s a great thing for you to talk about in English
as we go to our next reading for the day.
The Happiness Project
Later chapters
discuss topics such as the importance of making time for friends,
playing your passions, and
more. Chapter 12 concentrates
on pulling everything together
and implementing all the new habits.
One Amazon review reads,
This is the rare book
that will make you both smile and think often
on the same page. At the end of her
12-month
journey, Rubin concluded that small daily changes had in fact
resulted in a deeper sense of happiness.
接下來看動詞 implement，意思是實施。
比如 The city is going to implement a new recycling program.
該城市將實施一項新的回收計劃。
或者是 The school is implementing a garden project that will involve the whole community.
該校正在實施一個園藝計劃，整個社區都會參與其中。
implement 的名詞是 implementation，
意思是施行或是應用。
譬如，Do you think that the implementation of AI into our daily lives is a good idea?
你認為，將人工智慧應用到我們日常生活中，是個好主意嗎？
All right, friends,
let’s take a look at some of the other things
that we will find in The Happiness Project.
We read, Later chapters
discussed topics
such as the importance of making time for friends,
playing your passions, and
more.
Let’s talk about this idea of making time to do something, okay?
Making time
does not literally mean creating time out of dark matter,
but making time means setting aside time in your schedule.
For example, it’s important to make time to do your homework
if you’re a student.
I like that you mentioned the word schedule here,
because
that’s how I think about this: make time in your schedule.
People usually make time for things that are important to them,
whether you realize it
or not. If you’re watching a lot of hours of TV
or playing hours of games on your phone,
those things are important to you,
because you’re making time for them.
So it’s just an opportunity for ourselves to ask a question:
What’s important to us?
What are we making time for? Our writer
here says we should be making time for what, John?
Well, friends,
playing your passions and more. So friendships are very important,
including your family.
Playing means doing fun things, and your passions here
mean things you’re really excited about. Yeah!
Sometimes the things we’re excited about
could be things relating to your job
or things that you enjoy doing in your free time.
Passions could really be anything.
But we read on here,
Chapter 12 concentrates on pulling everything together
and implementing all the new habits. Now,
if you pull something together,
it means to work
hard to get things together in a group to achieve something.
That’s right!
You could say, Making the wedding was a lot of work, but at
the end, my mom pulled it all together,
and we had a great time.
That’s right!
But friends, if you use this phrase a little bit differently, it means something totally different. And what does that mean? If I say "pull yourself together," it means I’m doing something wrong, or I’m kind of messy, or maybe I’m laughing too much at the wrong time. And you’re telling me, "Pull it together," it means "be serious." Hmm, sometimes there’s a phrase "to be put together." If I say, "While Anne Marie is always really put together," that means you’ve pulled it together, and you are doing the right thing. So these phrases can kind of mean slightly different things depending on their context, as a lot of phrases are in English, friends.
But here, the idea of pulling something together is bringing it all together to see how it works as a group. So we’re looking at all of these new habits and their relationship to each other now. We hear here from an expert on Amazon, that’s right, a reviewer, someone who has read the book. And as we read here, one Amazon review reads, "This is a rare book that will make you both smile and think often on the same page."
Okay, I love to smile and I love to think. Yeah, sounds like the book for you! Such a good book. I do like books that make me think, but it is nice if you are able to think through a book and also be happy about it at the same time. So it sounds like this might be an enjoyable read.
That’s right. Okay, sorry, I need to pull it together here and be more serious about this book. We read, "At the end of her twelve-month journey," so this is probably in the December chapter, Reuben concluded something. She concluded that small daily changes had in fact resulted in a deeper sense of happiness. There are a few things we need to look at here first. We want to talk about the idea of concluding something.
That’s right, concluding or to conclude means to arrive at an opinion or an idea by thinking. So you could say, "I thought a lot about it, and I have concluded that dogs are better than cats." Yes! And a conclusion is something that you can come to as well. We often say "to come to a conclusion." That is, after you’ve thought about it and compared all of the options. But we also have something else in this sentence we want to look at, and that is the idea of a "sense" of something.
If you have a "sense" of something, it means you’re feeling that something is the case, or that something is true. So if you have a "sense" of happiness, it means that you are feeling happy. Or you could say, "That guy has no sense of danger; he just does crazy things." By the way, the word "sense," if we use it in the plural, "senses," means something a little bit different, right?
That’s right! We have five senses, as you know, friends: sight, sound, touch, taste, and hearing. And those, it’s a little bit different than how it’s used here in our article.
That’s right! Well friends, now it’s time for our info cloud.
Info Cloud:
Hello, everyone! Welcome to InfoCloud. Garrett, do you ever find it challenging to juggle work and your personal life?
Definitely, it can be tough to keep everything in balance. That’s why we talk about work-life balance.
Exactly! Work-life balance is the idea of working hard, but not focusing on work so much that it negatively affects things like your health, family, and other relationships.
Why is work-life balance so important?
I would say it’s important because it helps prevent burnout, reduces stress, and allows you to enjoy life outside of work too. You can be more productive and happier in both your professional and personal life when things are in balance.
I agree. I just have a hard time getting that balance sometimes. The demands of work feel urgent. You keep working and working until there’s no time left for your personal life.
That’s true. One way to fix that is setting boundaries. You might decide not to check work emails after a certain time each evening. You can also prioritize time with family, your hobbies, and relaxation when it’s not work hours. It’s all about finding a healthy balance that works for you, so you can be successful at work without sacrificing your personal life.
work-life balance 工作與生活之間的平衡 當一個人的工作量太大，很容易帶來非常大的壓力，甚至危害健康。因此很多人在提倡 work-life balance，也就是工作與生活之間的平衡。work-life balance 很重要，但是不容易達到。你必須要很有智慧的設定一些工作上的界限，用一些技巧避免過量的工作和不必要的責任落到你頭上。
The Happiness Project: In this New Year, instead of making new resolutions that you’ll probably abandon by February, why not give Ruben’s Happiness Project a try? It is likely that you will then see an increase in your own happiness in 2025, and the happiness you bring to others around you.
今天的 usage tip 是 "it is likely" 或 "unlikely that" 的句型。likely 意思是很可能的，反義詞為 unlikely 是不大可能的。在後面加上 that 字句，可以表達針對某件事情發生的機率高或低的預測。它的意思跟 it is possible 或 impossible 或是 it is probable 或是 improbable that 的用法相似。如果想要進一步強調可能性非常高或非常低，可在 likely 或 unlikely 前面加上 highly, quite, extremely 等副詞加以修飾。我們來看一個例句：It is highly unlikely that the disease will be wiped out from the world. 這種疾病從世界上消失的可能性非常小。
Friends, every single January, we talk about New Year’s resolutions, but here for the first time, we are recommending that maybe you shouldn’t make New Year’s resolutions. Let’s see what our article says: it says, "In this New Year, instead of making new resolutions that you’ll probably abandon by February, why not give Ruben’s Happiness Project a try?" Very interesting advice!
Let’s look at a few of the words here in this sentence first. We do have this word "resolutions," and as you know, this is a firm decision to do something or to not do something.
That’s right! You have decided it. You know the word "solution" means the answer, so "resolution" means you’ve gone back to your answer and you’re not going to change. I could say, "I made a resolution never to eat those spicy potato chips again." That’s a pretty serious resolution there. Not gonna do it!
Okay, we also have another word here, friends, and that is the word "abandon." If you abandon something, it means you cease to support something, to look after it, or that you’re going to give something up completely. Here, in this context, we’re talking about giving something up completely. This is just what happens with most people’s New Year’s resolutions, right? They abandon them in just one month. By the time February rolls around, they’re really not sticking to them.
You can abandon all kinds of things. Hopefully, you don’t abandon your dog at the park or forget about something and abandon it. The word can be broken down to "a," which means not, and "band," which means together. Like a musical band is a group of musicians that come together. So "abandoned" means you don’t stick with something; you let it go.
That’s right! Thank you for that, John. And here, we have another phrase in this next sentence: "Why not give Ruben’s Happiness Project a try?" If you give something a try, what does that mean?
Well, it literally means you try it. Oftentimes, this phrase "to give something a try" means that you’re trying something, usually for the first time, or to form an opinion about it. So if I say, "Anne Marie, you should give this food a try," you probably haven’t tried it before.
That’s right! And that is a very common way that we use this phrase—to give a certain type of food a try. We also use it with activities or things people haven’t done before in the past.
We also read here, "It is likely that you will then see an increase in your own happiness in 2025 and the happiness you bring to others around you."
Alright friends, we’ll be right back. But first, let’s go to today’s fun fact!
Fun Fact:
Hello, fact friends! I am Detective Ernest Finder, and I have a fun fact for you today. Did you know that sometimes English speakers use the phrase "happiness is blank"? We use this phrase to describe something that is really, really good, and it can be a joke. For example, you could say, "Happiness is ice cream" or "Happiness is love for me." Or "Happiness is a giant lollipop that I bought for ten dollars."
Talk About It Question:
Are you ready to answer this question, Jon?
I am! Okay, here we go. Of the goals listed—more exercise, better sleep, more time for friends, play, and passions—which one do you want to work on? And please explain.
I have a one-year-old, two-year-old, and a three-year-old kid, so I think somewhere between more sleep and more play with the kids. Is that even possible? Probably more play. I don’t know if more sleep is possible. But if I could choose anything on this list, I would definitely choose more sleep. As I said before, I think our mental state is really changed by how much sleep we get, and exercise as well. So that would be my resolution. But what about you, friends?
This is a great thing for you to talk about in English. My name is Ann Marie, and I’m John. And we’ll see you next time right here on Studio Classroom!
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