BBC 6 Minute English 是BBC Learning English 出品的英语学习节目。每周一期,每期约6分钟,两位主播围绕世界时尚流行话题展开,非常适合做听力训练,难度为中+,适合雅思考生,大学生,或者英语水平B1+(PET)的高段学生

想要了解世界前沿信息,练习英式口音,学习最地道的英语表达,无痛get英英释义,选它准没错~来源:BBC,仅用于语言学习分享,除新话题外,我会每天更新之前内容,感兴趣的可持续关注~

听力练习建议

至少要完整听3遍,听时专注聚焦,能进行配套练习更佳

📍 不暂停听1遍,听懂大意;

📍 听第2遍,没听懂的可以倒退再听;

📍看原文听第3遍(觉得语速快,也可以放慢倍速听)。

Why everyone loves the underdog

「Listening」

01

Question 问题

Which club overcame odds of 5000-1 to be beat top clubs to win the 2015-16 English Premier League title. Was it:

a) Charlton Athletic?

b) Leicester City? or,

c) Crystal Palace?

Listen to the programme to hear the answer.

02

02

Vocabulary 词汇

underdog

person or team in a competition or situation who seems least likely to win

look down your nose at (someone)

think you are better than or superior to (someone)

choking

failure of a sports player or team to perform their best due to psychological pressure or social expectation

top dog

(informal) most successful, powerful or authoritative person in a group

on the flip side

the opposite, less positive, or less popular side of something

underperform

perform worse than expected

03

02

Transcript 文本

Neil  

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I’m Neil.

你好。这是来自 BBC Learning English 的 6 分钟英语。我是 Neil。

Georgie  

And I’m Georgie. Whether it’s Cinderella, David and Goliath, or the Rocky movies, we all love an underdog story. The underdog in a situation is the person who seems least likely to win. Nevertheless, with some luck and plenty of hard work, the underdog sometimes ends up the winner.

我是 Georgie。无论是灰姑娘、大卫和歌利亚,还是洛奇电影,我们都喜欢失败者的故事。在某种情况下,失败者是似乎最不可能获胜的人。尽管如此,凭借一些运气和大量的努力,弱者有时最终会成为赢家。

Neil  

Sport is full of underdog stories, minor teams and sportspeople who play with courage and end up beating the superstars and multi-million pound clubs. But if you were given a choice between your team being the favourite to win or being the underdog, it’s pretty obvious you’d want to be the favourite, right?

体育运动中充满了失败者的故事、小球队和运动员,他们勇敢地比赛,最终击败了超级巨星和价值数百万英镑的俱乐部。但是,如果你可以在你的球队是获胜的热门还是冷门之间做出选择,那么很明显你希望成为热门,对吧?

Georgie  

Well yes, being the favourite gives a team confidence. But maybe the fact that no-one expects the underdog to win is actually an advantage which could help them to a surprise victory. In this programme, we’ll be hearing about an underdog football club doing just that, and, as usual, we’ll be learning some useful new vocabulary too.

嗯,是的,成为热门会给球队带来信心。但也许没有人期望弱者获胜的事实实际上是一种优势,可以帮助他们取得意外胜利。在这个节目中,我们将听到一家弱者足球俱乐部这样做,而且,像往常一样,我们也将学习一些有用的新词汇。

Neil  

Great. But first I have a question for you, Georgie. One of the biggest underdog stories in sports history happened in the 2015-16 English football season when a little known club beat top clubs like Manchester City and Liverpool, overcoming odds of 5000-1 to win the Premier League. But which club? Was it? 

伟大。但首先我有一个问题要问你,Georgie。体育史上最大的失败者故事之一发生在 2015-16 英格兰足球赛季,当时一家鲜为人知的俱乐部击败了曼城和利物浦等顶级俱乐部,克服了 5000-1 的赔率赢得了英超联赛。但哪个俱乐部呢?是吗?

a) Charlton Athletic?  

a)查尔顿竞技?

b) Leicester City? or,  

b)莱斯特城?或

c) Crystal Palace?  

c)水晶宫?

BBC六分钟英语| Why everyone loves the underdog

Georgie  

I’ll guess it was Crystal Palace.

我猜是水晶宫。

Neil  

OK, Georgie, I’ll reveal the correct answer at the end of the programme. The English football Premier League is a good place to find underdogs. Each season the three best clubs in the second league are promoted up, while the three weakest Premier clubs are relegated down. One club that knows all about relegation is Luton Town FC.

好的,Georgie,我会在节目结束时公布正确答案。英格兰足球超级联赛是寻找弱者的好地方。每个赛季,乙级联赛中最好的三家俱乐部都会升级,而最弱的三家英超俱乐部会降级。一家对降级了如指掌的俱乐部是卢顿镇足球俱乐部。

Georgie  

In 2009, Luton Town were relegated entirely from the English League. Slowly their fortunes improved however, and they’ve now become the first English team to progress from non-league to the Premier League. Here’s Luton fan, Alex, talking about his team’s chances to BBC Radio programme, Mental Muscle:

2009 年,卢顿镇从英格兰联赛中完全降级。然而,慢慢地,他们的命运有所改善,他们现在成为第一支从非联赛晋级到英超联赛的英格兰球队。以下是卢顿球迷亚历克斯在 BBC 电台节目 Mental Muscle 中谈论他的球队的机会:

Alex  

…But some of these elite Premier League clubs will look down their nose at us and just think we shouldn’t be there, and we are there on merit and we’ve just gotta prove it this season. So we are the underdog, certainly financially, but on the pitch I don’t think we will be.

…但一些英超精英俱乐部会看不起我们,认为我们不应该在那里,我们是靠实力而来的,我们本赛季必须证明这一点。因此,我们在财务上肯定处于劣势,但在球场上,我认为我们不会。

Neil  

Alex thinks some of the rich Premier League clubs look down their noses at Luton. If you look down your nose at someone, you think you’re better than them. But underdogs, Luton, have done better than expected, even beating some of the big clubs like Newcastle United.

亚历克斯认为一些富有的英超俱乐部对卢顿嗤之以鼻。如果你低头看某人,你会认为你比他们好。但弱旅卢顿的表现比预期的要好,甚至击败了纽卡斯尔联等一些大俱乐部。

Georgie  

The question is how? Is there something about being the underdog that improves a team’s chances of winning? To answer that, sports psychologist, Gillian Cook, spoke to BBC Radio programme, Mental Muscle:

问题是怎么做?成为弱者有什么可以提高球队获胜的机会吗?为了回答这个问题,运动心理学家吉莉安·库克接受了 BBC 广播节目 Mental Muscle 的采访:

Gillian Cook  

So, you can find that when the newly promoted team comes up they’ve got high confidence ’cause they just come from a season of winning – so they’ve got the belief that they can do it. But on the flip side it’s just as important to look at the top dog’s performance who… everyone expects them to win, they’re playing the newly promoted team. So we might think of Man City who might be about to come up against Luton Town… So what we can see from that is what in psychology literature is known as choking, and that’s when pressure gets to an individual or a team and they underperform.

所以,你可以发现,当新升级的球队出现时,他们有很高的信心,因为他们刚刚从一个胜利的赛季中走出来——所以他们有信心自己能做到。但另一方面,看看成功者的表现也同样重要,他们……每个人都期待他们赢,他们面对的是新队。所以我们可能会想到曼城,他们可能即将对阵卢顿镇……因此,我们从中可以看到心理学文献中所谓的窒息,即当压力到达个人或团队并且他们表现不佳时。

Neil  

Clubs newly promoted to the Premier League are used to winning and start the season confidently. On the flip side, they have to play much stronger teams than before. The phrase, on the flip side, is used to show the opposite, less positive side of something.

新升入英超联赛的俱乐部已经习惯了胜利,并自信地开始了这个赛季。另一方面,他们必须与比以前更强大的球队交手。另一方面,这个短语用于表示某事的相反、不那么积极的一面。

Georgie  

Of course it’s not just the underdog playing, there are also top dogs, the most successful or powerful person or team. No-one expects underdogs to win and this gives them freedom to relax and play naturally. Top dogs, on the other hand, experience a lot of expectation, and this sometimes leads to choking, a sports term which describes the failure of a player to perform their best because of psychological pressure or social expectation.

当然,不仅仅是弱者在比赛,还有强者,最成功或最强大的人或团队。没有人期望弱者获胜,这让他们可以自由地放松和自然地玩耍。另一方面,成功者会经历很多期望,这有时会导致窒息,这是一个体育术语,描述球员由于心理压力或社会期望而未能发挥出最佳水平。

Neil  

Choking causes teams and players to underperform, to perform worse than expected. It’s also true that neutral fans – people watching a match when their team isn’t playing – tend to support the underdog as well. In football, it’s tough at the top!

窒息会导致球队和球员表现不佳,表现比预期的要差。同样事实是,中立球迷——在球队不比赛时观看比赛的人——也倾向于支持弱者。在足球中,顶级联赛很艰难!

Georgie  

I think it’s time you reveal the answer to your question, Neil. You asked me about the famous Premier League winning underdogs of the 2015-16 football season, and I guessed it was Crystal Palace…

我认为你是时候透露你问题的答案了,Neil。你问我关于 2015-16 足球赛季著名的英超冠军冷门,我猜是水晶宫……

Neil  

Which was… the wrong answer, I’m afraid, Georgie. In fact it was Leicester City, nicknamed the Foxes, who became the unexpected champions of the Premier League. OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve learned from this programme about the underdog, the person in a competition or situation who seems least likely to win.

这是……恐怕是错误的答案,Georgie。事实上,正是绰号狐狸队的莱斯特城出人意料地成为了英超联赛的冠军。好,让我们回顾一下我们从这个节目中学到的关于失败者的词汇,即在比赛或情况下似乎最不可能获胜的人。

Georgie  

If you look down your nose at someone, you think you are superior to them.

如果你低头看某人,你会认为你比他们优越。

Neil  

The phrase, on the flip side, is used to show the opposite, less positive, or less popular side of something.

另一方面,这个短语用于表示某事的相反、不那么积极或不受欢迎的一面。

Georgie  

The top dog is an informal way of saying the most successful or powerful person in a group.

The top dog 是表示团队中最成功或最有权势的人的非正式方式。

Neil  

In sports, choking happens when a player or team fail to perform their best because of psychological pressure or social expectation.

在体育运动中,当球员或球队由于心理压力或社会期望而未能发挥出最佳水平时,就会发生窒息。

Georgie  

And finally, the verb to underperform means to perform worse than expected. Once again, our six minutes are up! Remember to join us again next time for more topical discussion and useful vocabulary, here at 6 Minute English. Goodbye for now!

最后,动词 to underperform 的意思是表现比预期的差。我们的 6 分钟又一次结束了!记得下次再次加入我们,了解更多主题讨论和有用的词汇,请点击这里 6 Minute English。再见!

Neil  

Bye! 

再见!

END

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