什么叫听力一级棒、“超级棒”，我来给你们演示一下，再说说怎么练的

周一早上本站发出的《太白英雄帖：如果您的英语听力一级棒，请来帮我。不白干！》一文引发了强烈反响，——倒不是说有许多朋友发来了听写文字，而是大家纷纷问，什么叫听力一级棒、超级棒？你说你听力超级棒，怎么证明？

看来大家都不太服气呀！那好，今天俺就来给你们演示一下什么叫听力超级棒，顺便证明一下我的英语听力的确是超级棒。

简单说，“超级棒”就是500个词的一篇文章，不查词典听写出来只有一处没把握，或者说，听写的错误率能够控制在1%以下，甚至远低于此。

有的朋友会说，那我怎么知道你手上有没有官方文本？OK，我来证明：BBC的Thought for the Day节目是有官方文本放出来的，地址：

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00szxv6/clips

这里基本上每篇都有对应文本。巧的是，偶尔也有少数文章一直都没有官方文本，只有听力内容。我想，如果官网都找不到听力文字，可以证明我手上本来没有文本了吧？

这两天正好就有这么一期节目，是2017年1月6日天主教评论家Catherine Pepinster就传统节日“第十二夜”（Twelfth Night）发表的一通感想。直到本文成文，这期演讲都没有放出官方文本。我把这期节目的页面放在本文左下角的“阅读原文”按钮上，大家可以去看看，估计到现在还是没有的。或者，我也不是吹牛，即便它有了，估计也是错得比我多。

我想既然大家对我的听力水平还不信服，那我就来听写这篇给大家看看。公平公正！（周一文章里的试听文章我不能公布文字，因为招募还没有结束，到时候我会公布的）

先放听力：

下面是我听写的内容：

(You are listening to a program from BBC Radio 4. 

The Catholic commentator Catherine Pepinster. Good morning.)

Good morning, Michelle.

The recycling area in my local park has been packed since December 27 with unwanted Christmas trees. It’s a sign that the old tradition of Twelfth Night being the end of Christmas is fast disappearing.

Twelfth Night is synonymous with today’s feast of the Epiphany, which marks the moment when the three wise men, or magi, arrived at the stable in Bethlehem to honor the child born there. It is one of the greatest holy days of Christianity. The scene is familiar from numerous Christmas cards and Renaissance paintings: the three men on their camels who follow the star, and find Jesus lying in a manger. But this is no ordinary visit to a newborn. It is an epiphany, a word meaning a moment of sudden revelation.

And yet the gifts that the magi bring suggest even as they set out on their journey, they sensed this encounter with the child deserving of high honor would be transformational. Matthew’s Gospel records the gifts as gold, frankincense and myrrh. At the time, these valuable gifts were standard means of showing respect for a king, and were also recorded as being used as tributes for the God Apollo.

The gifts can be read in another way. For the ancients, gold signified wealth and power, in other words, earthly concerns. Frankincense represents worship, a connection with the divine, and myrrh, an oil extracted from a thorn tree, is used in burials, and so represents death. These three, earthly powers, the divine and dying, are the great issues that face all humanity.

Part to be living this world, who or what is god, is death the end? Having left their gifts and seen the child, the magi were warned in a dream not to go back the same route they’d come, and to avoid visiting king Herod, who’d ask them for intelligence about the child, when they’d found him. They returned to their own country by a different way, records Matthew.

A different way can mean literally a different road. But in the older New Testaments, it could also signify a new path for one’s life, a change in one’s behavior or lifestyle. For the magi, it was much more than giving Herod a white birth, it was the fruits of their epiphany. This feast of the epiphany, then, can signal a moment of change if people ponder what the magi’s gifts represent. The great issues of life, the divine, and death. It could well be a difficult path to walk upon, but a journey that needs taking.

(And that was Thought for the Day with Catherine Pepinster.)

说明一下：

1、分段是我分的，个别地方看起来似乎不太合乎逻辑，主要是考虑到微信文章手机查看，段落太长大家都不高兴看了，所以分得短一些。红色的Part是我唯一没有把握的地方，其他如有错误朋友们请指出。

2、这一段是周一（9日）晚上花了半小时听写的，期间还处理了其他几件小事，改到现在的状态又花了半小时反复听。没查字典，全凭记忆写单词，如有拼写错误请朋友们指出。

3. 疑点：我感觉听写应该是没写错，一开始不理解，后来我明白了，这句话是这么分析的：Part to be living this world, who or what is god, is death the end? 这三个并列的成分（有短语、有句子）对应的是上文的earthly concerns, the divine and dying（尘世的追求，神圣与死亡）；part to be living this world，这里的live是一个及物动词，是live a quiet life过宁静的生活的live，所谓的live this world，是指“体验这个世界”、“红尘滚滚走一遭”。

part呢，某个人的“戏份”，不是说吗，人生如戏，戏内戏外傻傻分不清？act a pat，出演某个角色，就是这个用法。

综合起来，part to be living this world就是“我们在这滚滚红尘中打滚的戏份”。

当然也有另一种解法：part to believe in this world，但从演讲者的语流能够感觉到，in并没有强调，不像这个说法，而且这样一来文意不对，无法和上文对应。

如果朋友们有更好的、更准确理解，请一定留言告诉我。懂了我就圆满了！

4、本人没有出过国，更别说留过学了。我的英语都是在国内跟中国老师或者靠自己学的。我也没参加过任何字幕组，没有机缘认识那里的大牛。

我可以非常自信说，这篇稿我的错误率不超过1%。我认为这就叫听力“超级棒”。

如果听写错误率在5%以下，也即100个词不超过5个错误，就叫听力“一级棒”。

------------------------

怎么练的？

首先，《再谈“想练好英语口语，却没有语言环境”（上）》这篇文章的后三分之一详细讲述了我20岁到23岁那几年苦练听力的经过，朋友们可以看看；

其次，大前年，也就是2014年，我通读了詹姆斯钦定版英文圣经，对上面文章里的单词如frankincense、myrrh等词汇可以说是熟悉的；

再次，虽然我并没有每天听，但2013年以来断断续续地算是坚持在听Thought for the Day节目，有文字的对照文字，没文字的多听几遍，争取听熟、听透。Catherine Pepinster的语音我也听过不止一回了，即便不是非常熟悉，也不算很陌生；

最后，我坚持平均每天朗读两小时英文，哪怕读到自己都不知道读到哪了，还是读完这两小时。

总之，只要坚持时间足够久，功夫下得足够深，哪有什么听不懂的英文！