大家好，欢迎进入新一期《视听音画》。 时间是什么，有来处吗，又去往哪里呢？我们想过有那么一天可能见到古代的人来到我们这个世界吗？

练习1.猜词：根据文中空缺词的中文意思猜出英文原词。(奖励50）
练习2.翻译：把标有下划线的句子翻成中文。（奖励50）
练习3.问答：Can you imagine a tour by time machine? Where would you go if you had a chance to take such a tour? (within 100 words) （奖励80）

Oct. 22th 2007

Do you have enough time to do what you need to do? If you don’t , it may be because several hundred years ago you lost ten days! Here’s what happened.

Ancient cultures did not have the benefit of today’s _________（历法）. Instead, they measured time according to day and night and the changing seasons. They counted four _________（阶段）in a cycle: new moon, half moon, full moon and half moon. The early farmers counted 12 moon cycles from spring to spring when they planted crops. They made this 12-moon cycle into one year, which led to a 354-day _________（月亮的） calendar.

This calendar, however, did not predict an important event in Egypt: the annual _________（泛滥，涨水） of the Nile River. The Egyptians needed a different way to mark time. About 6,000 years ago, they noticed that every 365.25 days the star “Sirius” rose next to the sun—about the same time the Nile flooded. So they made a new calendar based on the sun, and Sirius’ appearance marked the start of a new year.

Oct. 23th 2007

Even though this Egyptian _______ (太阳的 ) calendar was widely used for centuries, different ______（文明） changed it or continued to use a lunar calendar. Eventually in 46 B.C., Julius Caesar adopted the 365.25-day calendar. This Julian calendar added an extra day every four years to account for the quarter day. But this calendar also had problems. Its year was longer than the real time it took for the sun to return to the same location to begin a new year. So every 128 years, the calendar gained a day. Thus, the seasons slowly began a day earlier, and that , in turn, affected the ________（宗教的） holidays.

To get the seasons back in sync, in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII removed 10 days from the calendar! Now spring would begin again on March 21. He made a few other changes, too, to keep the calendar _________（精确）. This Gregorian calendar, still used today, is only 26.8 seconds a year longer than it should be.

So you actually have extra time—26.8 seconds a year. Use it wisely!
More information

1）the Nile River 尼罗河
2) Egyptians (pl n)埃及人
3) Julius Caesar(n)凯撒大帝（古罗马君主）
4) Sync(n)同时发生（指时间上一致）

10月22号的视频

下载地址: http://file.hjbbs.com/studio/20071022db.wmv

23号的视频

下载地址: http://file.hjbbs.com/studio/20071023rl.wmv

NOTES :
1.文本摘自《空中英语教室》，转载请注明转自〖沪江视听版音画每日谈〗栏目。
2.更多讨论欢迎进入音画讨论组。
3.欢迎订阅音画每日谈。