英語文章朗讀
英語文章朗讀
當(dāng)今時(shí)代，英語已經(jīng)成為一種多國、多文化，多功能的國際語言。下面是學(xué)習(xí)啦小編帶來的英語經(jīng)典美文誦讀，歡迎閱讀!
英語經(jīng)典美文誦讀篇一
The power of press
In democratic countries any efforts to restrict the freedom of the press are rightly condemned. However, this freedom can easily be abused. Stories about people often attract far more public attention than political events. Though we may enjoy reading about the lives of others, it is extremely doubtful whether we would equally enjoy reading about ourselves. Acting on the contention that facts are sacred, reporters can cause untold suffering to individuals by publishing details about their private lives. Newspapers exert such tremendous influence that they can not only bring about major changes to the lives of ordinary people but can even overthrow a government.
The story of a poor family that acquired fame and fortune overnight, dramatically illustrates the power of the press. The family lived in Aberdeen, a small town of 23,000 inhabitants in South Dakota. As the parents had five children, life was a perpetual struggle against poverty. They were expecting their sixth child and faced with even more pressing economic problems. If they had only had one more child, the fact would have passed unnoticed. They would have continued to struggle against economic odds and would have lived in obscurity. But they suddenly became the parents of quintuplets, four girls and a boy, an event which radically changed their lives. The day after the birth of the five children, an aeroplane arrived in Aberdeen bringing sixty reporters and photographers. The news was of national importance, for the poor couple had become the parents of the only quintuplets in America.
The rise to fame was swift. Television cameras and newspapers carried the news to everyone in the country. Newspapers and magazines offered the family huge sums for the exclusive rights to publish stories and photographs. Gifts poured in not only from unknown people, but from baby food and soap manufacturers who wished to advertise their products. The old farmhouse the family lived in was to be replaced by a new 0,000 home. Reporters kept pressing for interviews so lawyers had to be employed to act as spokesmen for the family at press conferences. The event brought serious changes to the town itself. Plans were announced to build a huge new highway, as Aberdeen was now likely to attract thousands of tourists. Signposts erected on the outskirts of the town directed tourists not to Aberdeen, but to 'Quint-City U.S.A.' The local authorities discussed the possibility of erecting a 'quint museum' to satisfy the curiosity of the public and to protect the family from inquisitive tourists. While the five babies were still quietly sleeping in oxygen tents in a hospital nursery, their parents were paying the price for fame. It would never again be possible for them to lead normal lives. They had become the victims of commercialization, for their names had acquired a market value. The town itself received so much attention that almost every one of the inhabitants was affected to a greater or less degree.
在民主國家里，任何限制新聞自由的企圖都理所當(dāng)然地受到譴責(zé)。然而，這種自由很容易被濫用。常人軼事往往比政治事件更能引起公眾注意。我們都喜歡看關(guān)于別人生活的報(bào)道，但是否同樣喜歡看關(guān)于自己生活的報(bào)道，就很難說了。記者按事實(shí)至上的論點(diǎn)行事，發(fā)表有關(guān)別人生活的細(xì)節(jié)，有時(shí)會(huì)給當(dāng)事人造成極大的痛苦。新聞具有巨大的威力。它們不僅可以給尋常人家的生活帶來重大的變化，甚至還能推翻一個(gè)政府。
下面這戶窮人一夜之間出名發(fā)財(cái)?shù)墓适聭騽⌒缘卣f明了新聞報(bào)道威力。這戶人家住在南達(dá)科他州一個(gè)人口為23，000 的小鎮(zhèn)上，鎮(zhèn)名為阿拜丁。家里已有5個(gè)孩子，全家人常年在貧困中掙扎。第6個(gè)孩子即將問世，他們面臨著更為嚴(yán)峻的經(jīng)濟(jì)問題。如果他們只添了1個(gè)孩子，這件事本來就不會(huì)引起任何人的注意。這家人會(huì)繼續(xù)為克服經(jīng)濟(jì)上的拮據(jù)而奮斗，并默默無聞地活下去。但是他們出人意料生了個(gè)五胞胎，4女1男。這事使他們的生活發(fā)生了根本的變化。五胞胎降生第二天，一架飛機(jī)飛抵阿拜丁，隨機(jī)帶來60名記者與攝影師。
這一家迅速出了名。電視攝像機(jī)和報(bào)紙把消息傳送到全國。報(bào)紙、雜志出高價(jià)向他們購買文字、圖片的獨(dú)家報(bào)道權(quán)。不但素昧平生的人寄來了大量的禮物，而且嬰兒食品、嬰兒肥皂制造廠商為了替自己產(chǎn)品做廣告也寄來了大量的禮物。這家人住的舊家舍將由一座價(jià)值50萬美元的新住宅所取代。由于記者紛紛要求會(huì)見，他們不得不請(qǐng)了律師充當(dāng)他們家的發(fā)言人舉行記者招待會(huì)。眼下，五胞胎還靜靜地躺在醫(yī)院嬰兒室的氧氣帳里，他們的父母卻為這名聲付出了代價(jià)，他們?cè)僖矡o法過正常的生活。他們成了商業(yè)化的受害者，因?yàn)樗麄兊拿志哂辛耸袌?chǎng)價(jià)值。這些孩子立即成了商品，而不是5個(gè)新的家庭成員。
英語經(jīng)典美文誦讀篇二
Do it yourself
So great is our passion for doing things for ourselves, that we are becoming increasingly less dependent on specialized labour. No one can plead ignorance of a subject any longer, for there are countless do-it-yourself publications. Armed with the right tools and materials, newly-weds gaily embark on the task of decorating their own homes. Men of all ages spend hours of their leisure time installing their own fireplaces, laying-out their own gardens; building garages and making
furniture. Some really keen enthusiasts go so far as to build their own record players and radio transmitters. Shops cater for the do-it-yourself craze not only by running special advisory services for novices, but by offering consumers bits and pieces which they can assemble at home. Such things provide an excellent outlet for pent-up creative energy, but unfortunately not all of us are born handymen.
Wives tend to believe that their husbands are infinitely resourceful and versatile. Even husbands who can hardly drive a nail in straight are supposed to be born electricians, carpenters, plumbers and mechanics. When lights fuse, furniture gets rickety, pipes get clogged, or vacuum cleaners fail to operate, wives automatically assume that their husbands will somehow put things right.
The worst thing about the do-it-yourself game is that sometimes husbands live under the delusion that they can do anything even when they have been repeatedly proved wrong. It is a question of pride as much as anything else. Last spring my wife suggested that I call in a man to look at our lawn-mower. It had broken down the previous summer, and though I promised to repair it, I had never got round to it. I would not hear of the suggestion and said that I would fix it myself. One Saturday afternoon, I hauled the machine into the garden and had a close look at it. As far as I could see, it only needed a minor adjustment: a turn of a screw here, a little tightening up there, a drop of oil and it would be as good as new. Inevitably the repair job was not quite so simple. The mower firmly refused to mow, so I decided to dismantle it. The garden was soon littered with chunks of metal which had once made up a lawn-mower. But I was extremely pleased with myself I had traced the cause of the trouble. One of the links in the chain that drives the wheels had snapped. After buying a new chain I was faced with the insurmountable task of putting the confusing jigsaw puzzle together again. I was not surprised to find that the machine still refused
to work after I had reassembled it, for the simple reason that I was left with several curiously shaped bits of metal which did not seem to fit anywhere. I gave up in despair. The weeks passed and the grass grew. When my wife nagged me to do something about it, I told her that either I would have to buy a new mower or let the grass grow. Needless to say our house is now surrounded by a jungle. Buried somewhere in deep grass there is a rusting lawn-mower which I have promised to repair one day.
現(xiàn)在我們自己動(dòng)手做事的熱情很高，結(jié)果對(duì)于專業(yè)工人的依賴越來越少了。由于出版了不計(jì)其數(shù)的教人自己動(dòng)手做事的書報(bào)雜志，沒有人再能說對(duì)某事一無所知。新婚夫婦找來合適的工具和材料，喜氣洋洋地開始布置新房。特別是男人，常利用空閑時(shí)間安裝壁爐、布置花園、建造車庫、制作家具。有些熱衷于自己動(dòng)手的人甚至自己組裝電腦。為了滿足自己動(dòng)手熱的需要，商店不僅為初學(xué)者提供專門的咨詢服務(wù)，而且為顧客準(zhǔn)備了各種零件，供他們買回家去安裝。這些東西為人們潛在的創(chuàng)造力提供了一個(gè)絕妙的用武之地。但不幸的是，我們并非人人都是能工巧匠。
妻子常常認(rèn)為她們的丈夫無比聰明能干。甚至那些連一枚釘子都釘不直的男人都被認(rèn)為是天生的電工、木匠、水管工和機(jī)械師。每當(dāng)電燈保險(xiǎn)絲燒斷、家具榫頭松動(dòng)、管道堵塞、吸塵器不動(dòng)時(shí)，有些妻子認(rèn)為丈夫總有辦法。自己動(dòng)手的例子中最糟糕的是，有時(shí)甚至是男人盡管接連失敗卻還誤以為自己什么都行，原因就是要面子。
今年春天，妻子讓我請(qǐng)人檢查一下我家的割草機(jī)。那臺(tái)割草機(jī)去年夏天就壞了，盡管我答應(yīng)修，但一直沒抽出時(shí)間，我不愿聽妻子的建議，說我自己會(huì)修。一個(gè)星期六的下午，我把割草機(jī)拉到了花園里，仔細(xì)檢查了一番。在我看來，只需稍加調(diào)整即可。這兒緊緊螺絲，那兒固定一下，再加幾滴油，就會(huì)像新的一樣了。事實(shí)上，修理工作遠(yuǎn)不是那么簡(jiǎn)單。修完后割草機(jī)還是紋絲不動(dòng)。于是，我決定把它拆開。一會(huì)兒工夫，割草機(jī)便被拆成一個(gè)個(gè)金屬零件，亂七八糟地堆在花園里。但我卻非常高興，因?yàn)槲艺业搅嗣∷?。?qū)動(dòng)輪子的鏈條斷了一節(jié)。我買來一根新鏈條后，面臨的就是如何把這些令人眼花繚亂的拼板重新組裝起來。等我裝完后，那臺(tái)割草機(jī)仍然一動(dòng)不動(dòng)，對(duì)此我倒并不感到吃驚。原因很簡(jiǎn)單，因?yàn)檫€剩下幾個(gè)形狀奇特的零件似乎哪里也裝不上去。我無可奈何，只好罷休。幾個(gè)星期過去了，草長(zhǎng)了起來。妻子喋喋不休讓我想點(diǎn)辦法。我告訴她，要么買一臺(tái)新割草機(jī)，要么讓草長(zhǎng)下去。不用說，我家現(xiàn)在已被叢林包圍。深草叢中的某個(gè)地方有一臺(tái)正在生銹的割草機(jī)，那就是我曾答應(yīng)某日要修理的割草機(jī)。
英語經(jīng)典美文誦讀篇三
Too high a price?代價(jià)太高?
Pollution is the price we pay for an overpopulated, over industrialized planet. When you come to think about it, there are only four ways you can deal with rubbish: dump it, burn it, turn it into something you can use again, attempt to produce less of it. We keep trying all four methods, but he sheer volume of rubbish we produce worldwide threatens to overwhelm us.
Rubbish, however, is only part of the problem of polluting our planet. The need to produce ever-increasing quantities of cheap food leads to a different kind of pollution. Industrialized farming methods produce cheap meat products: beef, pork and chicken. The use of pesticides and fertilizers produces cheap grain and vegetables. The price we pay for cheap food may be already too high: Mad Cow Disease (BSE) in cattle, salmonella in chicken and eggs, and wisteria in dairy products. And if you think you'll abandon meat and become a vegetarian, you have the choice of very expensive organically-grown vegetables or a steady diet of pesticides every time you think you're eating fresh salads and vegetables, or just having an innocent glass of water!
However, there is an even more insidious kind of pollution that particularly affects urban areas and invades our daily lives, and that is noise. Burglar alarms going off at any time of the day or night serve only to annoy passers-by and actually assist burglars to burgle. Car alarms constantly scream at us in the street and are a source of profound irritation. A recent survey of the effects of noise revealed (surprisingly?) that dogs barking incessantly in the night rated the highest form of noise pollution on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. The survey revealed a large number of sources of noise that we really dislike. Lawn mowers whining on a summer's day, late-night parties in apartment blocks, noisy neighbors, vehicles of al kinds, especially large container trucks thundering through quiet village, planes and helicopters flying overhead, large radios carried round in public places and played at maximum volume. New technology has also made its own contribution to noise. A lot of people object to mobile phones, especially when they are used in public places like restaurants or on public transport. Loud conversations on mobile phones invade our thoughts or interrupt the pleasure of meeting friends for a quiet chat. The noise pollution survey revealed a rather spurring and possibly amusing old fashioned source of noise. It turned out to be snoring! Men were found to be the worst offenders. It was revealed that 20% of men in their mid-thirties snore. This figure rises to a staggering 60% of men in their sixties. Against these figures, it was found that only 5% of women snore regularly, while the rest are constantly woken or kept awake by their trumpeting partners. Whatever the source of noise, one thing is certain: silence, it seems, has become a golden memory.
污染就是我們?yōu)檫@個(gè)人口過密，過度工業(yè)化的星球所付出的代價(jià)。當(dāng)我們開始考慮垃圾問題時(shí)，我們只有4種對(duì)付垃圾的方法：傾倒、焚燒、把垃圾變成再生材料或試圖少產(chǎn)生一些垃圾。我們一直在試這4種方式，但是，我們?cè)谑澜绶秶鷥?nèi)僅產(chǎn)生的垃圾的量就有把我們覆蓋的危險(xiǎn)。
然而，垃圾只是我們這個(gè)星球的污染問題的一個(gè)方面。日益增長(zhǎng)的對(duì)廉價(jià)食物的需求導(dǎo)致了另一種形式的污染。工業(yè)化的農(nóng)作方式生產(chǎn)出廉價(jià)的肉類制品——牛肉、豬肉和雞肉。使用殺蟲劑和化肥生產(chǎn)出廉價(jià)的谷物和蔬菜。為了廉價(jià)食物我們付出代價(jià)已經(jīng)太高了：牛肉中的瘋牛病，雞肉和雞蛋中的沙門氏菌，奶制品中的利斯特桿菌。如果你想放棄肉類而變成一位素食者，那么你可以兩者擇一：或是選用價(jià)格昂貴、有機(jī)培植的蔬菜，或是當(dāng)你認(rèn)為在享用新鮮色拉和新鮮蔬菜或飲用一杯無害的水的時(shí)候，實(shí)際上每次都不斷吃進(jìn)殺蟲劑。
但是，還有一種更加隱蔽有害的污染，它專門影響城鎮(zhèn)地區(qū)，侵襲我們的日常生活，那就是噪音。防盜警報(bào)器在白天和黑夜的任何時(shí)候都會(huì)響起來，它的作用只是騷擾過路行人，而實(shí)際上卻幫助竊賊入室行竊。在街上，汽車的防盜警報(bào)不斷對(duì)我們吼叫，這是人們極度煩燥的一個(gè)原因，最近一個(gè)有關(guān)噪音的作用的調(diào)查(令人吃驚地)指出，夜間連續(xù)不斷的狗叫聲，在一個(gè)從1級(jí)至7級(jí)刻度表上應(yīng)列為最嚴(yán)重的噪間污染。這個(gè)調(diào)查揭示了我們所不喜歡的大量的噪間的來源：夏天嗚嗚作響的割草機(jī)，公寓樓里深夜聚會(huì)的喧嘩聲，大聲吵鬧的鄰居，各式各樣的車輛，特別是穿越寂靜的村莊的集裝箱卡車，從頭頂飛過的飛機(jī)和直升機(jī)，被帶到公共場(chǎng)所、音量開到最大的大功率收音機(jī)。新技術(shù)也為噪音作了它的貢獻(xiàn)。許多人都反對(duì)移動(dòng)式電話，特別是在如飯店，公共交通車等公共場(chǎng)所使用移動(dòng)電話。用移動(dòng)電話大聲交談干擾我們的思路，破壞我們和朋友在一起輕聲聊天所得到的樂趣。這個(gè)有關(guān)噪音的污染調(diào)查還揭示了一種出人意外而同時(shí)可能會(huì)引人意外而同時(shí)可能會(huì)引人發(fā)笑的老式噪音源。它竟然是鼾聲。人類是這方面的罪魁禍?zhǔn)?。調(diào)查指出，20%的35歲左右的男人打鼾;而到60歲這個(gè)年齡段，這個(gè)數(shù)字上升到令人驚愕的60%。與這些數(shù)字相比，只有5% 的女性經(jīng)常打鼾;而其余則經(jīng)常被與她們同睡、像吹號(hào)似地打著呼嚕的男人吵醒或弄得睡不著。不管噪聲來自何方，有一點(diǎn)是肯定的：看來寂靜已變成一種珍貴的回憶。
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