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英文小酒馆 LHH

英文小酒馆 LHH

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《小酒馆·大世界》-粉色就是“娘”?别被“刻板印象”局限了

1.Has people’s spending habits or their preferences changed after Covid?2.How is prosecco rose different from prosecco?3.How to pair prosecco with food?4.Special mixology tips for prosecco rosé.5. What kind of new prosecco events are on the horizon? Hi, everyone and welcome to the show. This episode is made in collaboration with the Prosecco DOC Consortium. After our talk with Tanja, I'm sure you all got to know a bit more about prosecco and the beautiful region it comes from. Now let's connect with another one of our guests, Roger, who is not only representing Casa prosecco in China, but also the owner of a trendy restaurant on Gulangyu island, Xiamen. Hi, Roger. Hi Lulu. Welcome back to the show.Haha, it’s been a pleasure.So since we talked last time, what has been happening with Casa Prosecco, your restaurant and the general restaurant, food and beverage industry.Well, we have really bad impact from the pandemic. It's been a really tough time for the restaurant owners during the period, but lucky to see we are slowly going through it. Now we see some really, really good conditions gonna come in, shows up and then to have a better economic situation right now. For our restaurant, it was really quiet, people are afraid to go out, have dinner or something. Now we get back to normal, so I'm happy to see that this is or a good sign for the future. I'm quite happy with that.Yeah, I mean good to know that. But would you say... you said it's back to normal, but I just want to know how has this, obviously Covid has a lot of impact on people in all aspects, so have your customers changed somehow like their spending habits or their preferences? For example, have they been spending more after everything opened up? Have they been celebrating more or are they more cautious about spending money? What would you say?This is a great question because it's some sort of controversy in between because after such a long period of lockdown and people were not able to go out freely to have a good time together with a friend or any events.Now they are free to go, so they sort of really happy with that. When they come to our restaurant, I also found out it's a better condition compared to before, however, the purchasing power looks like it goes down. I mean the whole economic situation, it's not really going back to normal, but I'm looking forward to see that, but nowadays if people wanted to buy some champagne, you know the customer used to have champagnes, now they don't really have the money, they would say, okay, show me something really happy stuff and not too expensive. You know what I mean, so now comes to the realistic that people would like to have some fun, they love to and eager to have some fun, but don't cost me too much.Well, prosecco now becomes a more affordable and approachable option I guess.That is exactly what I'm going to say that, now the happy style and they cost less and you can spend less for a longer period of happiness if you know what I mean.

Sep 19, 202316 min

《Geek时间》-拉人头、洗脑...五天剥夺理性,这套路和传销、骗局一样?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Keywords1.Types of cults that existed thousands of years ago2.Cults VS. Marketing scheme3.Why start a cult?Welcome back to Geek Time advanced. I'm Brad. Hi, Brad. How's it going Lulu? Yeah. I'm good. I'm ready to talk more about cult.All right. So we're gonna talk a little bit about some of the early cults before like thousands of years ago those types of cults. Oftentimes, cults were considered to be part of like minor religions .So just like pagan beliefs.Definitely, like smaller groups of people having different ideas when the movies we often see them as cannibalistic or something like that really sinister kind of like the Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and ripping hearts out of your body, stealing your soul kind of thing.Honestly, I think in terms of Indiana Jones, if you don't mind me saying it, it is a little bit of racial prejudice and it's like mystifying or even vilifying cultures that you don't know perhaps.Yeah, they have those...now one of the actual cults that was kind of like it was almost a runner up to early Christianity was called mithraism.Mithraism.Mithraism yeah. Now that was in the Roman empire. You could see they had these underground places where they would worship and mithraism was kind of like... it was an astrological type of cult, they worshipped space and that type of... it wasn't a particular god or anything like that they worshipped, it was the closest thing to a god you could see was like the Taurus, the bullAlmost sounds like the earlier definition of cult is basically just outside of the mainstream. It doesn't have that destructive element.Yeah. Some of them did, some of them had like they might have had sacrifices, although some people think that those sacrifices may not have actually been people they killed, they may have been people that have just died. And so it's kind of hard to see where it actually happened. It could just be that the bigger religions were trying to vilify them as mentioned earlier, but that's something that was actually this mithraism was actually quite common. They found over 400 sites around Rome where they did worship.

Sep 17, 202310 min

《Geek时间》-调查未果的神秘幻想背后,是隐情还是献祭?

Cult可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek time. 欢迎回到Geek时间。Welcome back to the studio, Brad.Thank you.Today we are going to talk about something equally niche. We’re gonna talk about cult.Indeed.就是邪教了。You know cult I guess in any culture in any country is kind of a taboo topic, isn't it?It can be. Especially like if you know someone who was part of cult because that's when you see someone going through the process of getting into a cult, it kind of like can destroy a whole family.It's something very serious and it can potentially be very, very dark. First of all, let's talk about the definition of cult. What is a cult?Usually a cult is a group of people that follow a leader or some sort of ideology. It might be some sort of idol as in like a thing. 一个领袖或者一种理念。 And they are usually just families joining, or individuals join...Sometimes it's families, but often time it's like a group of people will follow an enigmatic person.I think cults based on my very limited understanding of cults, the reason why there are cults is because they hurt people. They are destructive. Oftentimes they are, and it's something you see after the cult becomes much much bigger, you don't see it in the early stages because if you were to do something like that, people are obviously going to quit. But once you have a cult established and you have these followers, then in order to keep people from going somewhere else, you might hurt them in order to get them to not leave.So a lot of it is to attract them first, and then once they build up some sort of loyalty or fear to the leader and then it's destructive. Right. It's some sort of dependence on them oftentimes like a cult will get someone to sell off all their possessions or like hand over the money, or if you have a house, you sign over your house to the cult leader, so then you have nowhere to go, you have that home and you can live there so long as the cult allows it. It seems like a lot of the cults across the globe seem to believe that the world is going to end and then just believing in that cult is the only way to save yourself.Right. It's either the cult is you're going to save yourself by being in this cult or that they as a cult are going to be the thing that saves the world. 这种所谓的末日邪教doomsday cults. But we talked about secret societies before. What are the differences? It sounds somewhat similar - it’s secretive with a small group of people.Well, like a secret society can be kind of a subset of cult in some ways they have the, usually it’s an ideology rather than like an individual person. Like in a secret society, you may not know who the cult leader is. It may change from area to area and it might be like a group of cults over a large area.So they don't worship any particular leaders. Secret societies are more connected by an idea. Yeah, an idea or some sort of idol. And in most cases, there can be like secret societies that are akin to a cult in the fact that they have a leader who's controlling everything, but secret societies tend not to have such a limited nature. I mean when you're back in the states, like growing up, did you have any run ins or have ever heard about cults in like your social circle?In fact, I did. I've known several people who have been in different types of cults, it's actually when I was just after high school, one of my friends who I worked with actually, he got fired, he lost his job, his wife divorced him. And then he kind of joined this cult, inside of the cult the leader said that he could read other peoples’ previous life so it was like this reincarnation cult.这种重生转世。 And why would people believe him?

Sep 14, 202312 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-来这里谁不迷糊,"气泡脑袋"简直狂喜!

Keywords1.Brief idea of what is Prosecco?2.What is DOC short for?3.What are the aims of the Prosecco DOC Consortium and especially what new development has been made with regard to Casa Prosecco, the overseas branches of the consortium.4.After the pandemic, has the sales of Prosecco worldwide experience a significant increase? What is the forecast for Prosecco sale in the near future?5.Are cocktails like spritz popular in Italy?6.If people travel to the Prosecco region, what can they see and do.Hi, everyone and welcome to the show. This episode is made in collaboration with the Prosecco DOC Consortium. Today we are very lucky to have a special guest in the studio Ms. Tanja Barattin, representing the Prosecco DOC Consortium in Italy. First of all, welcome to the show, Tanja . Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me today.Actually, I should say welcome back, because last year, if you remember, Tanja was on the show talking about Prosecco already.Yes, exactly. It's a pleasure to be back with you today.And it's my pleasure. I mean, still probably some of our listeners haven't listened to that particular episode. So could you give us a brief self-introduction about your role in the Prosecco DOC Consortium? What exactly do you do?Yeah, sure. I'm Tanja Barattin, I’m the promotional department manager at the Prosecco DOC Consortium. So my role is in marketing and promotional activities in the China and foreign markets, and I coordinate events and recreation for Prosecco DOC.I see, so definitely representing Prosecco. Then can you give us a very brief idea of what is Prosecco to people who have probably not heard of it or just heard of it briefly? What is Prosecco?Prosecco is one of the most worldwide consumed Italian sparkling wine. It is produced with Glera grapes and it's named after the former village of Prosecco. So we can see the Prosecco is expression of a specific territory which is located in all these of Italy lying between the Dolomites to the Adriatic Sea, a unique area that we call as a dreamland. Thanks to the particular interaction between climate, soil and wine making tradition.So Prosecco is a location name.Yeah, it's a location. It represents a territory with specific rules collected also into production specification and also the supply chain. So from the vineyards and wine sell out into the labeling and commercialization.I see, so to sort of like make an analog so that audience can understand, is it a bit like when people think of champagne, this is the wine from champagne area. When you people think of Prosecco, this is a specific dual tag. It is the same, actually DOC, so the Denominazione di Origine Controllata (controlled designation of origin) prosecco was born in 2009 from the wine makers, and sparkling houses of nine provinces between the regions of Veneto and Friuli Venezia Giulia, and these in order to link in this solemnly the wine to its territory of origin.

Sep 13, 202317 min

《闲话新西兰》-没有夜生活和外卖,他们居然能活?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~So the sense of community is definitely a pro living in small town. What about some of the cons? Did you feel like I just can't get used to this, especially initially. So there are a few things I mean the lack of food options was a big thing, like I really miss Chinese food; entertainment, I mentioned karaoke before, there was karaoke, but you'd have to go to someone's house to do it. Karaoke in the sense of like karaoke rooms. This does not exist. If I wanted to go to the... there was a supermarket but it was fairly small. So the shopping options were fairly limited; and public transport, there was no public transport if you didn't have a car, you had to walk, because New Zealanders traditionally live in houses with big gardens, not apartments. Walking into town could actually be quite a distance. I see, what about the quietness? Because one thing that I couldn't take when I just spent a few days in English countryside, it was too quiet. It was driving me crazy. How did you handle it?That didn't bother me to be honest. I remember like when I first moved from New Zealand to Beijing, I... this was the year of 2000 and I was staying in Daxing district, and I would just get woken up every morning by thousands of bicycles and bike bells. I struggled with that. I did not struggle coming back to New Zealand with the quietness.I think it's also because you grew up in a smallish town. Right? I grew up a in a city of about 65~ 70,000 people. So a small area, a low populated area.When you move back after all these years living in Beijing to this 4,000 people town, did you notice that your lifestyle has changed or your perspective about things have changed?Absolutely, hugely.So when I lived in Beijing, I had this... it was almost like a feeling of being invincible in some ways, you could go out. It felt like anything was possible in China, that might have just been the time that I was living there around the Olympics, prior to the Olympics, and around the time of the Olympics.It was very high profile...It was just fanatic and it was always stuff going on. There was always opportunities and people were just so optimistic and positive. I was caught up in that. I loved it.Coming back to New Zealand. Everyone was very sedate, very quiet, probably quite pessimistic compared to the optimism that we've been feeling in China.Am I to understand it's kind of like people in Beijing especially back then, no matter if you're Chinese or not Chinese, you felt like there's so many opportunities, so anything can happen, I can make something out of myself. I don't really know how big a success that I can land in the future.But going back, it's more like how your life's gonna be.I'd say so, I've obviously got older as well. So I've been back in New Zealand, living in New Zealand for the past 10, 12years. I've aged as well. So I'm quite happy going to bed at 9 o'clock.Actually, this is my next question. What is the life like in small town, New Zealand, if you have to walk us through a typical day, not just you, I know you have your business, you have actually a lot of things to do, but for an average New Zealanders living in a small town. What is their average day like?Yeah, most people that live in small towns, I just like everyone else. They would either go to school or have a job. In small town, New Zealand, unemployment is probably a bit higher than in the cities. So there will be.. I mean unemployment is still fairly low, but unemployment does exist. New Zealand has a pretty good social welfare system.So if you are unemployed, you get paid weekly. The chances are if you're living in a small town, everything is gonna be much cheaper.

Sep 10, 202313 min

《闲话新西兰》-偶遇黑帮大佬,谎称中国人竟被邀请去唱K?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone. And welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village. 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】Actually since we're talking to Simon in this segment again, I thought we’d just call this a new segment, just call it New Zealand Under The Microscope. 干脆我们把跟Simon的这一段改叫【闲话新西兰】得了, hi Simon.你好, hello, kia ora.So Simon, we've talked about quite a few topics related to New Zealand, life in New Zealand, today I thought I'm gonna propose another topic that is related to lifestyle in New Zealand, which is how does it feel living in small town New Zealand, or how is it different from your experience of living in places like Beijing or Seoul Or Auckland? Sure. What do you think? Yeah, that sounds good. All right. First of all, for people who don't really know New Zealand, at least you know it's... New Zealand is next to Australia, is in southern hemisphere and is far away from most of the other countries in the world. So exactly how far is New Zealand to other parts of the world, say in flight times from where you live? So New Zealand is very far from everywhere pretty much, we've got Antarctica below us, but there's not many people, in fact, almost no people there, lots of penguins. We've got Australia to our west, it's about 4 hours flight from Auckland to Sydney. So 4 hours by plane, if I wanted to go to, for example, HongKong or Guangzhou, you're looking at around 12, 13 hours, 14 hours to Seoul, 14.5 to Beijing. If I want to go all the way to the UK, so to London Heathrow, it's going to take 24 hours, it's gonna take a full day to fly there. I've been to New Zealand, but I never really fully like realized how far it is. I would imagine going from... I know going from Beijing to New Zealand is far, but I would imagine going from HongKong to New Zealand is not as long as that, but that's really long. We sort of have a bit of an island mentality when things in the world are going badly.

Sep 7, 202314 min

火遍外网"吃了不胖"的主食,真的健康么?

欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮,短短几分钟,让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资!可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】咨询课程or加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Gluten Free. In the past few years, if I went to restaurants overseas, especially say in Europe or some trendy western restaurants in China, I've started to see this word a lot on the menu. 也就是近几年, 不管我是在国外的餐厅, 还是说国内的一些西餐厅网红店, 经常会在菜单上看到这个词, Gluten Free. So what exactly is Gluten Free? 今天的新词特饮我们就来说说这个叫做Gluten Free的饮食风潮. First thing first, what is Gluten Free? Gluten直译是麸质, 麦麸的麸, 这个字还挺复杂的. A gluten free diet is an eating plan that excludes foods containing gluten. 所谓的Gluten Free就是无麸质饮食, 可能听到这里还是很多小伙伴一头雾水, 到底这个麸质是在什么食物里有呢?Gluten is a protein found in wheat, barley, rye, and triticale.麸质其实就是一种蛋白质, 它常见于wheat 小麦, barley大麦, rye 裸麦和triticale这个词我也是第一次听到叫黑小麦, 听到这里可能很多喜欢吃面食的小伙伴都沉默了. A Gluten Free Diet means you can't eat any of that? Then why would people go on this diet? 既然这些最常见的麦都不能吃, 为什么会有人愿意吃这种Gluten Free Diet无麸质饮食? Originally, a gluten free diet is essential for managing signs and symptoms of celiac disease and other medical conditions associated with gluten. 它最早其实不是一个饮食风潮, 而是对于一些疾病的应对措施. The top one is celiac disease, 这个在中文叫乳糜泻.Celiac disease is a condition in which gluten triggers immune system activity that damages the lining of the small intestine. It is an autoimmune disorder. 简单来说乳糜腺Celiac Disease就是是指摄入含麸质的食物之后, 会产生一种自体免疫性肠道疾病, 所以有这种病的人需要无麸质饮食, 就跟糖尿病人需要低糖饮食一样. The other type of health condition that requires people to go on a gluten free diet is Wheat Allergy. 另外一种需要无麸质饮食的健康状况叫做Wheat Allergy 小麦过敏.Like other food allergies, this is the result of the immune system mistaking gluten as a disease causing agent. This will trigger immune system response that may result in congestion, breathing difficulties and other symptoms. 这种小麦过敏就和其他的食物过敏症差不多, 你都会有一些不良的身体反应, 比如说呼吸困难等等.But then because some celebrities are endorsing this diet, the gluten free diet started to become popular among people who don't have these medical conditions. That's because a lot of people are claiming a gluten free diet has other benefits, for example, improved health, weight loss, and increased energy. 但是在国外一些明星大V开始推动了 Gluten Free无麸质饮食的风潮, 说它除了治病还有很多的好处, 比如说improved health会改善你的整体健康状况, weight loss可以减肥, increase energy也可以让你整个人更精神更有能量, 所以 Gluten Free Diet就开始在普通人中间流行起来.

Sep 5, 20239 min

《闲话英伦》-这些单词只有上流社会才会说?现在怕都是段子手的梗吧

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~o Money doesn’t mean that you are posh.▪ Posh people generally dress in tweed, wellington boots and shabby clothes – nothing to prove!o Only a quarter of the people actually want to be posh.▪ Many people in the UK see posh people as spoilt, snobbish and entitled. Seen as old-fashioned and pretentious.▪ British people don’t like people who try to pretend to be posh by showing off their wealth and being fake.• Posh wordso Loo (instead of toilet)o Suppero Marvellouso Terriblyo GoshActually I do wanna say something. You mentioned like posh accents before and everybody's saying in Britain, people can tell which class you are from just by accents. I see that in this you didn't really mention accents. So is accent really a sign of whether you're posh or not. To a certain extent, yeah. Accents really do show where you come from. So in the UK sometimes people say that I've got a bit of a posh accent. I don't have a typical accent from where I grew up, but that's mostly because I’ve lived in China for years and years and years and also been a teacher. I don't think you've got a posh accent, people who say 安澜 has got a posh accent, you really haven't heard a real posh accent. No, that is very exaggerated. However we did explain before, right? Even the real posh people, the old money people nowadays, sometimes they try to tone down their posh accents. Mockney. They actually try to talk common people accent. Yeah, because nowadays only 1/4 of the people who were actually interviewed in this survey actually want to be posh. To be honest, it's not that difficult to understand that because we're not just talking about money, right, later on we're gonna talk about money doesn't mean that you're posh. It's not really about money and enjoyment, is mostly about rules. A lot of this they are privileges, but also attached to many rules you can’t just be running around like other kids and doing all this random things, you probably have a lot of family rules to follow.More partly yeah. I would say it is changing a lot. And to be honest, I would say that being posh is now more of a sign of identity. It's not I would say as it was maybe 50 years ago, certainly not a hundred years ago when being posh meant that yes you had to go... you went to the best schools therefore you got the best jobs you would probably in government. Actually, they probably didn't even have jobs think about Downton Abbey. Yeah, exactly. The idea of job and weekends is very middle class. Yeah, they just had lands to inherit, castles, and so manor houses, exactly, to inherit and family coat of arms, heirlooms. I've met posh people in my life and…

Sep 3, 202310 min

《闲话英伦》-装X宝典,英国人的“bigger”朋友圈都这样?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~keywordsBritain under the Microscope – Posh • What does posh mean?o Positive – expensive and high quality▪ Posh restaurant/car/clotheso Negative – describing someone as posh.▪ He is really posh.▪ Posh accent• How do you know if someone is posh?o There was a survey in 2021 and these are the top 10 signs.▪ You went to boarding school.▪ You have antiques and family heirlooms.▪ You have a wine cellar.▪ You have paintings of your ancestors.▪ You never discuss money.▪ You call your parents “mummy” and “daddy” when you are an adult.▪ You have a family coat of arms.▪ You ride horses.▪ Your dinner parties are catered.Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hello, 安澜. Hi Lulu. Hi, everyone. So let me propose a topic. Okay. This is a question that has been bugging me for ages. There's one word in British culture that I find very difficult to translate correctly or accurately into Chinese. This is the word posh, p-o-s-h. I know some of you listening to this show, you probably think Lulu you're a translator, easy, just look it up online and dictionary. But it's not so much I don't know the word because that has so much cultural connotation. Yes, the idea of posh really changes its meaning constantly. So first things first, if you look it up in English-Chinese dictionary, ‘posh’ probably can be translated into上流社会的,优雅的, things like that. But it has so many more meanings. The first question I'm gonna ask you is posh a good word or a bad word. It depends. I knew it. So for example, you use the Chinese word 优雅 which is more elegant in English. Now we could describe a place as posh, so a posh restaurant, a posh car, posh clothes. That just means it's expensive, it's high quality, fancy, it's fancy, it's luxurious, maybe. But it's when you describe somebody as posh that becomes a bit negative. If I say 安澜 is really posh. I would not take that as a compliment. So if you say someone is really posh, they have posh accent, what you’re doing is you're being a little bit negative. You're saying they're pretentious. Pretty much.就是有点装. 对吧?装着高大上的感觉. Pretentious and also snobbish as well. Snobbish means... meaning you look down on other people, you think you're better. But keep in mind. Posh is very subtle. If you use it to describe things, locations, it's good, it means luxurious, expensive; but use it to describe people usually quite negative, it focuses more on snobbery and pretentious. Yes, that's right. But that still hasn't answered the question. What is posh? Seriously, what is... well I know you're not. I'm not, very much, common as Muck. What is posh? Is it just higher class?Mostly, yes. Now to be posh is not just about money. Is you have a certain family background, you have a certain identity around kind of where you live, what you do and also the people that you hang out with. It still sounds really vague. I mean if only there’s some sort of criteria. Funny you should say that, there was actually a survey in 2021 on how do you know if someone is posh?Okay, let's hear that. So these are the top 10 signs that someone is posh. 大家听听这个英国人自己评选出来的10条, 这10条如果你都中了或者中了绝大多数, 你就是英国人眼里的posh. So let's hear it. So number one, you went to boarding school. Isn't boarding school just when you actually live in school on campus就是寄宿学校. In China boarding school is just... boarding is just a function. Yeah, no, in the UK, boarding school or private school is incredibly posh because they're very expensive.

Aug 31, 202310 min

《用英语·说中国》-下班早点回家,今晚上别瞎溜达哦~ (往期回顾)

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~In Chinese culture, the seventh month of the Lunar Calendar holds special significance. It is known as “Ghost Month” 鬼月and hosts the so-called “Ghost Festival” (鬼节) on the 15th of the ghost month. Several Asian countries celebrate the annual Ghost Festival, which is also referred to as either “Zhongyuan Festival” or Yulanpen Festival盂兰盆节. The festival finds it origins in Buddhism, Taoism and Chinese folk beliefs.中元节,民间俗称七月半,七月十五,祭祖节,佛教则称其为盂兰盆节。在统治者推崇道教的唐代,道教的中元节开始兴盛,逐渐将“中元”固定为节名,并相沿迄今。Ghost Month 鬼月Ghost Festival 鬼节Buddhism 佛教Yulanpen Festival 盂兰盆节Taoism 道教Zhongyuan festival 中元节Folk belief 民间信仰Ever since ancient times, Chinese people had the ritual of paying tribute to their ancestors in the middle of the seventh month on the night of the full moon.Taoist doctrine holds that the three basic elements that generate everything in the universe are heaven, earth and water, namely sanyuan or “three elements". The official of heaven brings blessings during Shangyuan (Lantern Festival). The official of earth absolves sins during Zhongyuan Festival, while the official of water dispels disasters during Xiayuan Festival. 自古以来,每年农历七月半满月的晚上,人们有祭拜先祖的习俗。道教将宇宙中万物归为三类:天,地,水,又叫做三元,并以三元配三官,说天官赐福,地官赦罪,水官解厄。上元天官正月十五日生,对应的是上元节(元宵节);中元地官七月十五日生,对应的是中元节(鬼节);下元水官十月十五日生,对应的是下元节(比较不受重视,没有小名)。 Pay tribute to one’s ancestors 祭祖Bring blessing 赐福 Absolve sins 赦罪Dispel disaster 解厄

Aug 29, 20238 min

《Geek时间》-外国小哥分享“躺赢”赚钱办法,咦他人还怪好的嘞。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Welcome back to Geek Time advance, this is Brad. Hello, lulu. Hi Brad. So we're gonna continue on talking a little bit more about web3.0, it's a kind of a difficult subject, but we'll try to make it as easy as possible. One thing you can kind of consider with decentralization is we’re cutting out intermediaries, we’re preventing people from being in the middle as much as possible. So basically with web3.0, each individual like us, we will have more of a say as to how our data is used and what kind of data we can access. Right. So rather than having someone with a centralized website, they can have a website, they can put out information, but it will be much harder for them to control your data or get your information, because they are not gonna have a server that holds all of that. And the way you can kind of look at it is we have the cost of the internet and part of the cost of the internet is that we have ISPs, the internet service providers, they charge you to use the internet. But then there is the cost for all of these servers, and we need place to store all the information, but we may not necessarily have to with web3.0 because everyone can donate their processing power as a way to process the internet, so rather than having single servers that are like costing money, people can donate or rather than... I say donate rather than pay money to use the internet. You can give your processing power as part of the payment. So your personal computer becomes a member of the so called block chain processing. Right, just like you could do Bitcoin mining or something like that, rather than do Bitcoin mining, you're doing web3.0 processing. I see, so it's kind of like you said donating your… not donating, but it's like a trade off, so what you give is your computers processing power allow your computer to become a member of the block chain processing and in return you get sort of like data usage for example, the access to data and internet use.

Aug 27, 202314 min

Web3.0能干嘛,能隔着手机闻到味儿吗?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to Geek Time, 欢迎回来【Geek时间】. Hi, Brad. Hi, Lulu. What are we talking about today, Lulu? Actually, I have been running into this concept online. It's called web3.0 and I was just wondering what that actually means. Can we talk about that web 3.0? You can kind of think about the internet as being in three main stages. We're in the web2.0 for the most part right now. Web3.0 is gonna be the future of the web if it can be created to the extent that we hope it to be, then the earlier web which was web1.0. Okay. 所以就是网络的1.0时代, 2.0时代和3.0时代, you said we're currently in web2.0? Right. Here web is ‘www’, world wide web. If I remember correctly, this was created, world wide web was created, invented in 1989, I believe? Correct, yeah. So what was the idea or what is the idea of web1.0, the original world wide web. The basic idea is that you can put Information that's accessible to other people who have web devices. If you have a computer or another device to go online and access that data, most of the early web1.0 was just text or some simple pictures that were read only, you went to a website and you could read what was available there. It could be changed and people could update the websites. There were some websites that were bulletin boards where you went there and you did post some information. But a lot of the early web was things made by individuals, hobbyists, someone had and something interesting and so they would post information about it. They liked movies, they would write about movies. If they did art, they might draw something and put it up on their website. But it was quite basic, right? That was mainly from like, 1991 until the early 2000s. 所以1991-2004年之间, web1.0主要还就是一些只读信息, 就是very few interactions.

Aug 24, 202311 min

《词源考古研究所》-眼瞎了?故意的!接着奏乐接着舞

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~1)Turn a blind eye (to refuse to acknowledge something that you know is true)a.Admiral Horatio Nelson was fighting a naval battle (Battle of Copenhagen)b.His fellow Admiral sent a message telling them to disengagec.Nelson believed that they could win if they carry on fighting.d.Nelson put a telescope to his blind eye and pretended that he didn’t see the signal.Hi everyone, and welcome back to our new segment 【It means what】.欢迎回来我们新的一个小板块叫做【词源考古研究所】, 在这个板块里我和安澜会跟大家分享一些英文常见的词和习语它们背后的历史故事. Hi, 安澜.Hi Lulu, hi everyone. What is our idiom or word of the day?Our idiom today is Turn a Blind Eye. Blind means you cannot see, so To Turn a Blind Eye is actually a very common idiom, it means?Well, it means to refuse to acknowledge that something is true. Or just basically pretend not to see it. 中文里我们也有一个一模一样的词, 就是睁一只眼闭一只眼, 安澜也知道吧? And I bet it has a specific historical background.

Aug 22, 20234 min

《七夕特辑》-爱神月老的故事原来槽点满满?(往期回顾)

酒馆“进阶口语课”第22期就要结课了,8/29号(周二)晚我们会在视频号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】直播结业典礼,参与直播间互动即可免费获得【英语水平能力测试】一次,联系直播客服了解详情,好机会别错过,一起来进步!Hi everyone and welcome back to Happy Hour.欢迎你回到酒馆.It's going to be our own 七夕 festival or double 7th festival this weekend.转眼又到七夕,in all of these lover related holidays in the past Chinese or western we have already done a few episodes, for example,we have done romantic love stories,romantic love quotes,we have done,tragic love stories even anti-love stories. So when you guys were busy thinking about gift ideas,I've been trying to come up with a relevant topic; and then it dawned on me, although you see 七夕 related advertising everywhere, few people would actually dig deeper into the legend of love. I'm sure most of you would recognize Cupid,but if I ask you who are the gods and goddesses of love in our own legend and folklore,I'm sure many of you would be shaking your heads. 比起西方神话里家喻户晓的丘比特,如果问到中国爱神,想起很多人就有点儿摸不着头脑了。 And for those of you who got to know me throughout the years, you know that one of my biggest interests is folklore and mythology. So in today's special 七夕 episode,let me introduce you to some of our own gods and goddesses of love.今天的七夕特辑里,璐璐就带你认识一下我们自己的那些爱神,and interesting yet sometimes bizarre stories relating to them. First of all,let's start with the story of 七夕 itself. I'm sure most of you know the story behind 七夕,there are two main characters,牛郎and织女. In English, they are often called the cowherd and the weaver girl. 如果你听到牛郎,首先脑子里面想到的是ホスト,那就建议你和璐璐一样去面壁思过一下,go back to the topic, cowherd and a weaver girl. Cowherd was a poor farmer boy,and the weaver girl was from the heaven. And they fell madly in love and got together like any other star-crossed lovers,and of course the emperor of heaven or the Jade Emperor玉皇大帝found out about this, and was furious. So he got the weaver girl back to heaven when the heart broken cowherd decided to chase after her, the Queen Mother of The West西王母 drew a silver river in the sky and blocked his way. But then because their love was so great,the magpies decided to form a bridge over the silver river for them to meet. In the end, even a jade emperor was moved. So he allowed this couple to meet on the magpie bridge once a year on the 7th day of the 7th month according to the Chinese calendar. And this was the origin of the 七夕 festival. And since thousands of years ago in the Han Dynasty,the tale of the cowherd and the weaver girl had already been celebrated. And on this day,girls would go to local temples to pray to the weaver girl for wisdom,especially skills in needle work,which symbolize the traditional talents of a good wife.古代的七夕少女们会向织女祈求至巧,特别是做针线活这种心灵手巧的手艺,以求能靠手艺符合如意郎君。So七夕was also called“乞巧festival”,which literally means praying for wisdom and dexterity. On that day,girls would also dress up and make wishes for marrying someone who would be a good and loving husband.

Aug 20, 202313 min

《闲话英伦》-因“穿着丑陋”被禁止入内,餐厅你还挺“挑”啊?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ So far we've talked about formal and smart casual; when it comes to casual, it’s pretty much whatever you wear, right? Yeah. Casual means that you can start wearing things like trainers, jeans, T-shirts. These are fine for casual events such as going to the pub or just going out. But you wouldn't really wear this when you’re going for dinner or you wouldn't wear this when you’re going to theater for example. Hang on a minute. You cannot wear trainers or sneakers. 就不能穿这种运动鞋去正式的晚餐或者说去看戏.Some clubs and some places in the UK they would actually ban people from wearing trainers. What do they have against trainers. Well, because it's seen as too casual.I think the rules are changing as well. They are changing, but there are a lot of dress codes or a lot of places that still have dress code, they would actually say no trainers. To be completely honest, I mean we can talk about that for a little bit in the end. But my experience in London, there are still many places that would really require a dress code.Yeah, and I would say kind of if you do go to a restaurant or go for dinner, you should be looking for smart casual. Yeah, smart casual is very safe because you also don't want to overdressed to the point that people think you just went to a baptism or wedding.Exactly.But I have to say in English you say dress up and dress down, right? Dress down means dress more casually, dress up means you are more dolled up. You are more sort of formally dressed. But I always want to dress up rather than dressed down because when you're under-dressed, when you're too casual for the venue, for this scenario, you are gonna feel very uncomfortable. Yeah. I would still say in the UK we are quite conservative when it comes to what we wear. And for example, it’s like trainers, generally I only wear trainers when I'm working out. Oh, trainers are supposed to be sportswear. Yeah, so when I go for runs or if I go for like long walks, then I wear trainers. But if I'm going out anywhere else, I would always wear shoes. Talk about casual, in the very beginning we mentioned there is a layer even more casual than casual called loungewear, 这个就是我们意义上的什么家居服.Loungewear is basically what you wear at home, i.e. what you wear in the lounge, so loungewear would include things like pajamas, but also things like sweat pants or joggers. 就是那种松垮那种运动裤对吧?Yeah, so you would wear jogging bottoms, maybe a T-shirt. Women might wear leggings and people would wear these if at home, but they would also wear them if they're working out or going very quickly to the shops for example.Nearby shops.

Aug 17, 20239 min

豚门已有4.3亿信徒,主打一个情绪稳定,在哪都能随便“活一活”。

欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮,短短几分钟,让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资!关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】,获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is Capybara. 今天的Buzzword里我们就来说说最近社交媒体上一个现象级的明星Capybara, 如果你没有听过这个词, then listen to this. 【Music】即使你不知道Capybara这个词, 听到刚才那段音乐你是不是也悟了?Just 2 months ago, if you ask me anything about capybara, I would have said “Capywho”?如果是两三个月前, 你跟我讲capybara, 我可能会一头雾水. But these days, I am knee-deep in saving cute capybara videos and searching for various capybara merch. 但现在我的手机里至少存了10段以上的可爱的capybara视频, 并且我的某宝搜索已经加车了不少capybara主题的周边. So what is capybara? Well, capybara is an animal. It's basically like a big guinea pig, Capybara就是被大家戏称为大耗子的水豚. And I'm sure not the only one addicted to these super chill animals. Videos containing the hashtag “capybara” have garnered over hundreds of millions of views on social media. 关于它的视频在全世界至少被播放了上亿次. How does it look like? Measuring about a meter long and weighing 50 kg on average, capybara has the barrel body shape of a pig, tiptoes around on its webbed feet, looks like an upsized guinea pig.Capybara水豚, 它一般有一米长, 大概50公斤左右的体重, 长得像一个筒形, 所以叫水豚嘛,因为有点像猪猪, 怎么看都怎么像一个大型的guinea pig, 就像一个大型的荷兰猪或者豚鼠. But what really sets it apart from other animals is that it exudes the nonchalance of a river stone. 但它最吸引人的是那种特别淡定, 处变不惊的气质, 英语里这个词nonchalance, 我觉得基本相对于我们说的一种 “死了活着都无所谓的气质”. Now I'm sure you've seen all these cute videos about capybara, but let me share with you some of the fun facts about the animal. 接下来就跟大家分享几个关于水豚的热知识. Fact one, capybaras are the largest rodents on earth. 它们是世界上最大的啮齿动物. On average, they weigh about 50kg, however, the biggest capybara ever recorded weighed a whopping 91kg. That's definitely comparable to a fully grown human being. So they're probably larger than you in measure. Fact two, they're pretty much the Semi-aquatic jack of all trades.Native to South America, capybaras like to be close to the water, hence can mainly be found near lake, swamps or rivers like the Amazon. 水豚是属于Semi-aquatic animals它们属于半水生的动物, 所以经常是在水域旁边出现.这种来自南美洲的动物, they are well adapted to stay both on land and in water.And on land, these furry creatures are surprisingly fast. They can reach a speed of up to 35 kilometers per hour.

Aug 16, 20239 min

《闲话英伦》-“老钱风”着装教科书,有钱人现在都这么穿?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under The Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜.Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone. So 安澜, usually you would propose the topic, today let me propose one. Okay, that sounds rather dangerous. I think it's something that you do have some knowledge of, not a lot, but some knowledge of. Okay. Let's talk about fashion and clothing in the UK.You are right. I don't have much knowledge on that at all.But I can vouch for 安澜, I think he's got a pretty good sense of style. Oh, thank you. Now first things first, when people think of your fashion or clothing in the UK, I think perhaps a lot of our Chinese listeners would have certain stereotypes from old movies, period dramas, like Downtown Abbey for example. Yeah, there's a lot… I've noticed as well like for example when I buy clothes on 淘宝, it would say things like London style or kind of English style clothes, and I look at them and think well, yes, they were English style clothes but when my grandad was alive. I see, well, but retro, vintage. So first things first, let's start with the fact that you don't really have “national dress”. Right?Like for us, you think about 旗袍 or for Japanese you think about kimono. Yeah, UK doesn't really have a national dress. Generally, the clothes that we wear are very similar to the clothes that worn in other parts of Europe, and also in America. Did you guys invent like suit就整个那种西服套装是…Yeah, we did.So obviously everyone knows a suit and many of our listeners probably own maybe one or two if not more suits. Originally it was a British invention, it was invented in the 18th century because before then people would dress in very colorful clothes, very intricate clothes you know that required lots layers, but actually a really famous British dandy called “Beau” Brummel invented a suit where the focus was it's gotta be simple, elegant, and how you show how rich you are or how wealthy you are is by the use of the fabric, it’s by the use of the quality.

Aug 13, 202312 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-移民之间还有鄙视链?搞小团体还是你们厉害

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ But having said about that, you also lived in South Korea, right?South Korea is an interesting one. So I lived in South Korea for about three... a bit over 3 years. So how are the communities different in China, the sense of community different in China, in Korea and also in New Zealand if you have to compare the three. So there's a few things which sort of come to mind. So in China, when you say sense of community, I think people dancing in the 广场in the square at nighttime.广场舞。Yeah. So when you say Chinese community that's what I think about. When you say Korea, I think having a good old protest about something, Koreans they love to protest and it's a really good opportunity to get out and have a sense...that's my... it's a sense of community there. I see. In New Zealand, the sense of community. It's probably for most like typical traditional Kiwis, a sense of community is around watching a rugby game or a sports event. Sports events. So it's not really on trading dear meat for crayfish. I mean the mainstream would probably be around rugby. Everything's around rugby. But New Zealand is becoming more multicultural. It's perhaps a bit more...it is fairly becoming more multicultural, so it's no longer just about rugby and shaving sheep. Let's not stereotype. I didn't do the stereotyping here. It’s interesting that you mentioned multicultural. So New Zealand obviously is an immigrant country. So do you see more multicultural elements over the years in the sort of local community in New Zealand?Hugely.So where I'm living now Hawk’s Bay region, in 2018, we had around 150 Korean permanent residents; today or this year is a census year, we've got over 600 Korean families living here permanently. Chinese numbers, I don't have exact data, but we would estimate maybe a three and a half four thousand Chinese live here.New Zealand like the projections, government projections would suggest that we by 2040, so it's still quite a few years away, but the 2040 we expect that 1/4 of our population, 26% of our population will be Asian. I see, it's certainly a very popular destination for people who want to emigrate. For example, I know quite a few friends who immigrated to New Zealand. When you talk about immigration, obviously you talk about assimilation. 这种融入当地文化的意思. Do you think new immigrants in New Zealand assimilate well? Is it easy or do they even want to assimilate based on your observation?So certainly the people immigrants they come to New Zealand, they want to assimilate, they want to become part of the mainstream community, in New Zealand, they can do it. I think overall while there is certainly racism in New Zealand, it’s racism in every country, I think generally speaking, your average Kiwi is quite open to people from other countries and other cultures. I have a number of Chinese friends that came to New Zealand and they were determined to assimilate, meet local people and effectively become a New Zealander. They could be Chinese New Zealanders, but they wanted to become a New Zealander. They wanted to understand the culture, they wanted to embrace it, and they very successfully did so. You also have a lot of migrants, and we see this with the Chinese community, with the Koreans, with the Vietnamese, with almost Americans are particularly bad at it to be honest, where they just want to transplant their culture from their home country and their prejudices from their home country and their problems from their home country and just replicate it here in New Zealand.Is it one of those sort of immigrants that they just become very insular? They just keep within their community and they also kind of are showing prejudice against the locals.That is a definite issue in my role as consul. I've been criticized, well, the embassy has received criticism because they asked an non Korean take on the role. I've experienced Chinese people in the local community complaining,

Aug 10, 202311 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-远亲不如近邻,也许就是community存在的意义

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi everyone, and welcome back to Global Village, 欢迎回来《小酒馆·大世界》. We have in our studio, our old friend Simon from New Zealand again, hi, Simon. Hey Kia Ora. 你好。Kia Ora. So previous time we were talking about disaster relief, obviously you guys just been through a cyclone. Then you mentioned how the community came together and then to help out people who were running out of supply in a disaster that just sounds super nice. I just thought that we can explore the topic of community a little bit more. What do you think?Sure, sounds great. So like I said, if you didn't listen to the previous episode, Simon is a pillar in the community, as they say in English. Simon应该属于这个community的领袖人物, 因为既是business owner, 也是相当于等一下让Simon自己说他有各种各样的role. First of all, before we go into the topic itself, Simon, could you give us a general background of your roles right now, like your identity, I know you own your business or businesses, you have multiple business there. But what else, what other roles do you have in the community?Sure. So I'm a bit hyperactive when it comes to businesses. So my main business is a consulting company. I work with New Zealand local councils, local governments. I manage their international partnerships. For example, in China like a foreign affairs office in a local government, 外办, New Zealand, local governments usually do not have 外办. So my company provides that service. We also own a small trading company, so we export various products mostly to China, but also the wider East Asia. And we have a small school teaching migrants that live in New Zealand. And hopefully from next month onwards we will also be attracting international students. Aside from this, wow, I don't sleep much. Just let me quickly cut in. And 酒馆, we are hoping to build some collaborations or cooperation with Simon's business as well. So in the future, we might also connect with Simon in our live stream so that we can see more of New Zealand.But do continue you just finished about your business roles. What are the roles you have?So aside from the business, I am the executive director for the Korea, New Zealand business council, which is a partially government funded organization and we assist New Zealand businesses that are wanting to export, to trade with South Korea. If I remember correctly, Simon, you speak Korean right, fluently or adequately?Yeah, conversational Korean. It's okay, it's enough to get myself in trouble. (Simon showing off his Korean-kidding)

Aug 8, 202312 min

外网爆火的“生活趋势”:老子烂也要烂在床上!

"欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮,短短几分钟,让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资!关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】,获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~" Hi everyone, and welcome back to Buzzword Mix. 欢迎回到我们的迷你双语板块【新词特饮】, 短短几分钟让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资. In today's Buzzword Mix, our Buzzword is Bed Rotting. This is a really, really new expression. Bed就是床, Rotting本意是腐烂, 所以如果直译就是在床上烂掉, it sounds pretty disgusting. But bed rotting is a new trend that is sweeping TikTok. It involves staying in bed for extended periods of time, not to sleep, but to do passive activities like eating snacks, watching TV and scrolling through devices. 虽然听起来有点恶心, 但是bed rotting它形容的这种状态, 相信大家都不陌生, 也就是 for extended periods of time, 很长的时间躺在床上, 无所事事, 只会干一些比如说吃零食、看电视、刷手机之类的passive activities. This trend is most popular with members of Gen Z, Gen Z is basically the equivalent to our 95后00后.So this trend is popular with Gen Z who may feel burnt out from work, school, family demands, or social engagements. 我愿意把它翻译成 “平躺摆烂”或者 “躺平摆烂”.On TikTok, bed rotting has more than 130 million views. So you get an idea of its popularity. Now people are talking about the benefits of bed rotting, it does have its perks in small doses. 如果适度的去躺平摆烂, 其实是对我们有好处的.Because it can calm the body and help ease stress and exhaustion, especially for people working long hours in a physically or mentally demanding role. 对于平时工作生活压力很大的人, 偶尔的bed rotting躺平摆烂其实是会让你的身体能够从压力和精疲力竭中修复过来. These individuals might use this practice to give themselves an opportunity to recharge their batteries. 中文里我们也说给自己充电, 英文里会说recharge your batteries. 这个意思主要是指的工作生活已经让你精疲力竭, 你需要一个时间修复充电.

Aug 8, 20239 min

《闲话英伦》-"老张"or"张总"?在外企我该怎么称呼上级?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Britain under the Microscope – British Workplace EtiquettePower DistanceoBosses are expected to be on first-name terms with their employees.oEasy access to managers is expected.oJunior staff members are also expected to give their opinions and suggestions. Dress CodeoBusiness casual is now most common.Wearing shirt, shoes and trousers or skirts/trousers for women. Jeans aren’t worn in an office. Ties aren’t worn as much.Shorts, T shirts or trainers are generally not acceptable. Better to be overdressed rather than underdressed. SocialisingoColleagues in many companies still go for drinks on a Friday evening. oImportant to buy a round or at least offer to buy them drinks. That brings us to a very interesting question you mentioned briefly earlier, the power distance. Now I taught cross cultural communication before. So this whole 权力距离 power distance is the distance between just like an entry level employee, for example, and the CEO, and the management, if the power distance is like shorter, that means you are more equal. It is longer, that means it’s more hierarchical. There are many layers. What would you say about British workplace? Is it more hierarchical or is it flatter?In the UK, it's very much low power distance. So bosses are expected to be on first name terms with their employees, and also the idea of easy access to managers is expected. So for example, if I was working for a British company, and even if I was like a really junior position, I would still expect that if I needed to, I would be able to speak to the CEO or the boss. Isn't that a bit idealistic though?It is a bit idealistic, but it's obviously you don't go up to the CEO and to say, hi, can you help me kind of with this? No. But it's the idea that it's expected that they cannot just say no, they'll think of an excuse maybe, but they can't just say no.I think the expectation is people who are actually in senior management position they should see themselves as part of the team instead of superior. Exactly. And with a low power distance, there’s a certain degree of personal charisma that comes into it. So bosses are expected to be leaders. They are expected to lead by example and they are also expected to be there for their employees as well. They don't just bark orders at people. They're supposed to be like the strong backing to support the team as well. A term that you might hear in English is first among equals. First among equals, I see. You do have a little bit more authority because of your position, but just relying on your position is not enough. You also need to work hard and you also need to set an example. You also need to have that personal charisma for people to respect you.Exactly. And part of that is listening to junior staff members. Because they are also expected to give their own opinions and suggestions. What about seniority? How do you regard seniority? If you, let's say there are two employees, A has worked with his company for 20 years and B has only worked here for a year. It's all based on performance. It's not an automatic seniority rules kind of thing, because A has 20 years of experience. It depends on the experience and it also depends on the performance as well. So it’s not something as automatically given. And this is a big thing in the UK around recruitment exercises. So when you recruit people, it's... you don't, for example, share things like age. Yeah, I think you get sued right, for age, discrimination for ages, but that's another, whole other topic. Moving away from this really heavy topic about hierarchy and power distance. By the way, what we're saying is the generalized version. Obviously, there are specific companies, there are specific industries that are very different.

Aug 3, 202310 min

《词源考古研究所》-英国人也信“鬼压床”?世界大同啊!

关注视频号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】,主页【商品橱窗】中进入购买即可,满满干货不要错过哦~1)Nightmarea.Comes from the Old English word mære.b.A mære or mare is an evil female spirit who visits sleeping people on a horse and sit on their chests to kill them.c.They also bring bad dreams and tangle up people’s hair. Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment【It means what?】Yeah!!!Stop it now. (kidding)Awh~欢迎回来, 我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】. Hi, 安澜.Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone. In the segment, we are sharing with you interesting origin, stories, words and phrases. So what is our word for today?Today's word is nightmare. Nightmare就是噩梦. Bad dreams, UMM. Yes, we do say bad dreams in English as well, but nightmare as a word is even older. It comes from somewhere that's even scarier. I sometimes wondered, I know ‘night’, but where does the word ‘mare’ come from?Mare nowadays in English means a horse, a female horse. Mare现在是有母马的意思, but I'm pretty sure the origin has nothing to do with horses. It's got something to do with horses, okay?But this particular ‘mare’ comes from an old English word ‘mære’. Now a mære is actually an evil female spirit. 就是恶灵这种感觉. So this spirit visit sleeping people on a horse and sits on their chest to try and kill them. Yeah, when you say old English, I’m guessing because I am a fanatic of folklore, most of our listeners know this. Now if you say old English lore that most likely this folklore or this whole evil spirit, it comes from Scandinavia? Yeah, Germany, Scandinavia, Nordic countries. We shared a very similar religious belief system. Especially old English is very Germanic. Very very Germanic. 日耳曼系或者说是Scandinavian就北欧的这些传说里面, they have this evil spirit mare. So it's the whole idea of sleep paralysis when you’re sleeping and you wake up but can't move. You know we have the exact word in Chinese, alright, it's called ‘鬼压床’, literally translates into ghost or spirit crushes you in your bed. Yeah, we have exactly the same in English. And this whole mare what you said visits sleeping people and sits on their chest to kill them or to crush them, this whole idea is basically it's a very vivid, very graphic imagery. You can actually see it in some of the artworks. Yeah. It all comes down to that very common phenomenon of sleep paralysis. I think everybody at one time or another, they feel that they've woken up in the night, but they can't move. I think a lot of this obviously has medical explanations behind it, but let's say, people in the olden days they couldn't explain with science, or like medical science. So they could only explain this with the idea of an evil spirit. Exactly. And actually I did some research. So in Norwegian and Danish, in these two northern European languages, the words for nightmare can be directly translated as ‘mare ride’. 所以在挪语和丹麦语里 nightmare这个词直译 ‘mare ride’, basically a mare this evil spirit is riding on you, scary.It is terrifying. In old English, we believe that they used to bring bad dreams and also quite strangely, they used to tangle up people's hair. So they messed people's hair. So when you wake up in the morning and your hair is all over the place, it's not because you were tossing and turning bed. It was because an evil spirit came and played with your hair.

Aug 1, 20236 min

《闲话英伦》-英国人的职场礼仪,去外企必看!

关注视频号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】,主页【商品橱窗】中进入购买即可,满满干货不要错过哦~Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi, 安澜.Hi Lulu, hi everyone. So what is the topic for today?Well, I thought today based on some of the comments that we've been receiving and also some of the people that would be meeting, events, I thought today we can talk about the workplace.The workplace. In particular, British workplace etiquette.Etiquette basically means manners, right?Yeah. 就是这种职场的礼仪. I would imagine British workplace etiquette is going to be quite different from the Chinese one. Very different. Very, very, very different.I have so many questions to ask. I mean, I worked with British people before, but I haven't really worked in the full on British environment. It is quite different. It's also a little bit different from America as well. So let's get started with introducing yourself. So you go to the office, first time there, what do you do?To be honest, I think that is one of those questions that is so common but most people don't even think about it. So let's just say we're in Britain first day in the office. I've been here for years and you are the newcomer. Am I to initiate contact or are you gonna come in as new guy and say, hi, I'm the new guy. You would be expected to start the contact. I would say, I haven’t seen you around, are you new here? that sort of thing. And these type of introductions are still relatively formal. So for example, handshakes are still used and also small talk as well. You would be expected to engage a little bit of small talk, which I know for a fact that you really hate. We can talk about small talk in a bit because that is basically an entire topic on its own. Let's talk about the handshakes. So British people don't kiss, don't do the social kissing.No, certainly not in a workplace environment. I think I've seen people doing that, but probably because they also friends?Very close friends probably, but for the first time you don't kiss or hug. What about women and men like, so for example, I've been working here for ages and you are the newcomer. Shall I extend my hand first?You probably extend your hands at the same time. I see and say, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you.I see. And to talk about ‘small talk’, I absolutely hate the British small talk. I know you do.I don't mind if it's like getting to know each other. But sometimes you know this person very well already, you work with them for ages, and you really have some urgent business or tasks to talk about, but when you get them on the phone or see them in person, you still do a little bit of small talk first. Well, yeah, it's still important to do that. But ironically, in meetings, we don't really engage in that much small talk. But if it's one on one, you do small talk.You do. But how to address people? In Chinese we say 王总,张部长. In the UK, it's all first names.

Aug 1, 202310 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-外国人打架也兴“摇人”?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Let's talk about the differences. Would you say there are some differences in the not just mentality but personality like this sort of national psyche? There's a difference between your average Aussie and average Kiwi in terms of personality. I think it’s a general rule. New Zealand is very concerned about being polite. We don't like confrontation. Most kiwis hate confrontation. We're very indirect which can be quite annoying, I think for many people; Australians, I found they are a lot more decisive, a lot more direct, a lot more self confident. Sometimes can be even a bit aggressive Australians. It's quite interesting. So even you look at our national foreign policies, so how do our two countries interact globally? New Zealand will always just try and get along with everyone when we make foreign policy decisions, it's usually based on the united nations. Just trying to figuring out what is the right thing to do and sticking to it. We hate being told what to do, America.Australia, on the other hand, is obviously quite staunchly American. They're the big country in the Pacific. They know they're the big country in the Pacific. They expect other people to follow what they say. For lack of a better word, it's kind of like a bully mentality, isn't it?Yeah, they're the United States of the Pacific. It's like the original bully kind of idea. But this is just, I'm saying for lack of a better word, again, we're not trying to make over generalizations in that sense. You're more than welcome to share your opinion in the comment section if you disagree with us. Now coming back to this, the other difference that is quite obvious is that the fact the native people are different, right? The native people in Australia, they're called aboriginal people. And then in New Zealand is obviously Maori. Would you say that Maori people play a much bigger role in New Zealand compared with aboriginal people, aborigines in Australia?Yeah, I think so. I would say the Maori population that certainly had a very terrible time at the hands of British colonialism. There is certainly a much greater recognition of Maori culture in wider society than perhaps of aboriginal culture in Australian society. I knew the New Zealand government has... it's over the last 20 years been trying to work with the various Maori tribes, the Iwi, to recognize them to and to try and provide some some support for... an assistance, for the terrible things that happened to them. Australia, the Australian government, I think is now beginning to look at this. But I think while in New Zealand, the main like most New Zealanders accept the importance of Maori culture and Maori and Maori language. I would say that still there are a lot of Australians that would not have the same attitude towards the aboriginal people. I think this is something that most of our audience know very little about. So it's... if you're interested, look into it, at least that's what I feel like from an outsider. I could definitely see Maori people have more of a presence in New Zealand compared with aboriginal people in Australia, but I could be mistaken. Now let us talk about, well, moving away from these very, very heavy topics about history. Let us talk about something a bit more lighthearted. What is or what are some of the things or topics that are going to or are likely to provoke a fight between Aussies and Kiwis, or are there any?No, there's really not that much. Of course we joke about rugby. I won the rugby. No, you won the rugby, cricket, who's got the better beer, 啤酒, 非常重要, but no, there's really not much, people to people, New Zealanders and Australians usually get on pretty well.

Jul 27, 202311 min

《词源考古研究所》-“muscle”"mussel"傻傻分不清楚?嗯,跟老鼠有关

《词源考古研究所》-“muscle”"mussel"傻傻分不清楚?嗯,跟老鼠有关!a.Comes from the Latin word ‘musculus’ which means little mouse.b.The Romans believed that when you flex your muscles, it looks like little mice running under the skin. c.The Romans also thought that mussels looked like little mice (remember the Romans used to eat mice) so that’s why mussels are also called mussels. Hi everyone. And welcome back to our new segment It Means What.Yeah.It’s nice to see you as well. 欢迎大家回来我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】, hi, 安澜. Hi. Lulu, hi, everyone. So 安澜you have been working out a lot, doing a lot of exercises. I've been exercising a bit. So let's talk about the word muscle 肌肉. Okay. So for those of you who know me and see me, that I'm incredibly muscular. Not. I am. I’ve got one muscle. So where does this word come from? Is it from the ancient Greeks where they like to rub themselves with olive oil and then they basically run around naked?No.Okay. It comes from Latin, and it comes from a Latin word ‘musculus’ . Which means? little mouse, 小老鼠. That's because the Romans believe that when you flex your muscles, it looks like little mice running under your skin. You know what I've actually heard that expression in Chinese, I think ages go, I don't know if it's a direct translation from the English etymology, but some people do call, I think it's old fashioned, but they did call muscle 小老鼠. They say I have 小老鼠, I have little mouse. Really?So this is when you're trying to flex your muscle, you're trying to show your muscle, then it looks like a little mouse running around. You can kind of see that, can't you? I think it’s a vivid imagery however not really friendly to people who really are terrified of mice. I like mice, I think they're really cute, but there's also another word in English that comes from ‘musculus’ and probably you can see and guess what it is. It's a type of seafood. I know, mussels就是青口贝, because it sounds exactly the same, muscles, mussels. The pronunciation is Complete the same, the spelling though is different. It's m-u-s-s-e-l-s, and that's because the Romans thought that mussels, i.e. the seafood look like little mice. Again? That's because remember, the Romans used to eat mice. They used to eat mice with honey, it was a delicacy.Okay, for them it's food anyways, so muscles, the seafood looked like another food they ate, which was the mice. I like the muscles, the physical muscles better. I do actually like mussels the seafood as well though. I love mussels, but now you're saying the origin of this word is little mice. I probably have to think twice. Yeah, don't think about it so much.

Jul 25, 20235 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-卷不动了?“意式躺平”了解一下。

CAMPAGNA FINANZIATA AI SENSI DEL REG. UE N. 1308/2013CAMPAIGN FINANCED ACCORDING TO UE REGULATION NO.1308/2013可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Since you're talking about Prosecco, now let's bring the topic back to Prosecco. Now, Mikelino, I know that Prosecco is one of your best selling items, right? Or you only do Prosecco, you do other wine as well? No, no. I do also sell wines or other kind of wines, but Prosecco is my king. Yeah. But why do you think it's so popular? Like compared with some of the other products that you sell?Easiest answer is because it's super adaptable, super versatile to so many occasions, and we go from a formal dinner, a formal welcoming drink for a dinner to the craziest party that we can have in the nightlife places. This is a 360° of versatility found for such a wine. Prosecco DOC, it's the most exported wine that we have in Italy and this is the reason can use it. I mean, everybody is like every different kind of client there if you're talking to the B to B so from our restaurants to a bar to a club to private event, it's definitely my best selling item to around the 30% of my sales is out of Prosecco DOC. Oh. So adaptability and versatility. Yeah, and also it's very easy to drink, very easy to drink. It goes into cocktails. You can drink it by itself, as a serving style because it could be sweeter or drier according to your preference. So it's really something that find the highest level of applications and the highest number of consumers, not only women or a certain kind but everybody.Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with the versatility and adaptability part, and especially think about my community, I have a community of over 1 million followers. A lot of them, they would probably, like 70% are women, they would like to try some sort of wine, but they can't get into the heavy wine. I mean, we've held some really, really professional big wine sort of wine tasting. And then it seems like people find those very, very hard to accept because they haven't developed their palate so to speak, but Prosecco is just so friendly to beginners in wine tasting.Totally, yes. Yeah.Yes, I agree.Also I was surprised once we, I mean, talking about ourselves, when we started the cooperation with the Revolucion, I was kind of surprised because like nightlife club, I'm open to any kind of clients and Santi was saying, no, we have a very differentiated clientele and we do need the Prosecco, it is not just all about cocktails, despite that as we told before, now the mixology is an important part for Prosecco. This kind of wine is really a different than wine drinking. It's Prosecco drinking. It's a category per se, we could say. It's very different. So I'm gonna ask Santi actually, since Mikelino was saying that you guys were talking about your clientele, their drinking habits, so I'm going to ask is Presecco or sparkling wine in general a popular choice for your customers?OK, as we were talking before concerning the market, a different order from our shops.It's different because the network is different, but in some city, especially Shanghai like we sell a lot of spritz.also because I'm half Italian half Albanian.So in every shop I have a part of Italian community in everywhere. So it's also for that, but not only for that, but in the end, people stay with me say oh I like these, can I try?It's such a great experience drinking Spritz on summer's day and just to remind our… Do you like it? I love it. Just to remind our listeners, Spritz, I hope I'm getting this correct. So Spritz is a sparkling wine like Prosecco, for example Prosecco and some other form of alcohol like for example I drink Aperol Spritz sometimes, so that is Aperol and Prosecco. And I want to say soda, like sparkling water, soda water?And orange slice. Totally right, yes. Yeah.You can be our new bartender. Thank you.

Jul 25, 202314 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-明明是邻居,咋总说别人是“坐监”的

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to Global Village. 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】. We're very happy to get Simon back, Simon from New Zealand. Hi, Simon. Hey Kia ora, how’s going?Kia ora, it's going well. And I would like to propose a topic today that I'm not sure if it's sensitive or not. There are not a lot of sensitive topics when it comes to New Zealand, but this one just might be, it's New Zealand versus Australia. Don't get me started. You know the thing is, neighbors, if you look at the world, neighbors or neighboring countries usually have somewhat of a love hate, a really strange, subtle, nuanced relationship from the UK I’ve talked to 安澜about their relationship with the French; I've talked to James from America... talked to their American relationship with Canadians. So with you, I thought we talk about New Zealand and Australia. So do you think New Zealand and Australia have that kind of nuanced love hate relationship. I mean we talk about a bit of a friendly rivalry, but personally I think we're not too dissimilar. We often joke about New Zealand is better at rugby, Australia, won at the cricket, nothing but....Usually sports based.Usually sports based, they steal our celebrities. A lot of Kiwis, perhaps Kiwis a little bit older than me. There used to be a really famous New Zealand band called Split Enz. They grew up in New Zealand, they started in New Zealand. But the Australians all say that they're an Australian band, that makes people upset. It's the origin story. New Zealand is claiming Russell Crowe as a New Zealander, Australian say he's Australian, so Australians are pretty good at stealing our stuff. Okay, you just said there's no love hate relationship, yet you accuse them of stealing. Because they're “bad people”. For all my friends out there who are Australians or living in Australia, no offense. Like it's Simon's opinion, doesn't represent the opinion of the show, I need to have this disclaimer here. Alright, but jokes aside, I think to, before we get into this topic, let's give our audience a general idea. How far is New Zealand from Australia? How far are these two countries apart? I know most people obviously know if you have a little bit of geographical knowledge, you know that these countries are very close together, but exactly how close. So it's quite deceptive.

Jul 23, 20239 min

《闲话英伦》-国外人均18被“赶出家门”,学费靠贷款,维生靠兼职?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜.Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. So, last time we were talking about part time jobs for students and you were sharing with us your quite unsuccessful or successful experience working part time. Yes, as a waiter I worked for about maybe 4, 5 weeks...And got fired.I wasn't fired. You were asked to leave.I was just told not to come back. There is a difference. But you were a pretty successful tour guide. Yes. I wasn't fired from that job. But we also talked about in our previous episode on expenses for students, we talked about how expensive our universities and do parents pay for their kids’ education. And we ended up talking about 70% of British university students have student loan. I don't know if this is the latest figure, but this figure is relatively new. Do you mind if I asked, did you have student loan when you were in universe?Yeah. Back then you only had one loan and that was just called student loan. But now you have two different types of loan. You have a tuition fee loan, which is the loan directly for your tuition fees. 就是学费的贷款. This is paid directly to the university. And for everyday expenses, rent and all of that, you have the maintenance loan. 就好像生活费的贷款. Parents don't help at all? It depends. It really does. But I can talk a little bit about my own experience. So because I was working, I only really took out the money as a loan to pay for my tuition fee. That's because my first year at university I lived in halls (学生宿舍), I should use my savings to pay the fees to live in halls, and I worked to get a little bit of that extra money. And the second and third year I lived at home. So I would say in that type of situation is quite common. My parents didn't ask me for rent or I didn't have to chip in for food and drink and things like that. I see. So they don't give you money per se. You don't get pocket money.But they basically in a way subsidized your living because they allow you to live under their roof without charging you. They don't charge you for food when you stayed at home that sort of thing. I see. And there are some parents that do give an allowance to their kids, but I would say that's not seen as a good thing, that's not seen as something the children would be particularly proud of. So they're not gonna go around and say, my mom and my dad they just give me£5,000. They're not gonna do that. No, because people would actually judge them because the whole idea of being at university is that you are becoming more independent. So that's why lots of university students they're trying to go to universities probably a bit further away from where they live. I see. I can take my niece for example. At the moment she's looking at universities that are completely in different cities from where she lives now. Because she wants to be independent, she wants to have her own life. I can relate to that actually. So when I was choosing universities, when I was in high school, I also it's not really like running away from your parents because you don't like your parents. It's more like you want to prove that you can make it on your own.Exactly. And I would say for 17, 18-year-olds in the UK, they don't look at themselves as children anymore. They want to start live in a more independent life and that's something that is actively encouraged. So it's not about how much allowance their parents would give them. It's more like how much they can earn and what kind of life they can live. Now bringing it a little bit back to student loan. Can anyone like, can anyone living, or British national, can anyone apply and get it approved?Yes, the maintenance loan is means-tested though.Means-tested?So that means they do award you a loan based on your household income and where you're studying. So for example, if you're living in London, then you get more money.

Jul 20, 202312 min

《词源考古研究所》-词源带个“死”字,是还不上贷就把人往死里弄?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ 1)Mortgagea.Sounds really scary as it means ‘death pledge’. b.Actually means the pledge would be considered ‘dead’ when repaid.c.The idea of a mortgage dates back to the 1100s but it was only 20th Century that they became really popular.Hi, everyone. And welcome to our new segment 【It Means What?】Yeah!!!You don't have to do this every time. No, I enjoy it. 欢迎大家回到我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】, hi, 安澜. Hi, Lulu, hi everyone. So in this segment, we are bringing you interesting origin stories of some of the most common words and phrases in English. So today's word, I'm gonna give you a little bit of a clue. Okay, what do you think is one of the scariest things that most people have in their lives?I don’t know, illnesses?Even scarier than that in some cases. What do you think that we spend most of our money on?So you're talking about money. I know what you're talking about, so you're talking about mortgage. Mortgage很多时候被翻译成房贷, 但它其实是抵押贷款的意思, 对吧?就是有个抵押物, it’s... we translated into house loan in Chinese mostly because that's... for most people mortgage is about house, most people don't have other things. The question is why don't we call it a housing loan in English? And the reason is and it sounds rather scary, it actually comes from French and Latin. It means “death pledge”. Death pledge, pledge is like a promise. Yeah.所以有点死亡抵押的意思. It does sound scary. It does sound a little bit like someone's gonna kill you, but it's not actually it means pledge would be considered dead once the loan has been repaid. So basically, once you pay off your loan, then no longer exists, is dead. Exactly. It's technically dead. Actually, I've seen another version of the etymology. 我看到这个词源的另外一个解释, it's also death pledge, but they're saying it's more like the collateral that you put down like in case you're dead, so you borrowed money, right? Then you have to put your house or some of the things as collateral. 就是要把你房产或者地作为抵押物, because if you die, then how can they collect the money back?That's also one other explanation of death pledge. Yeah. And there are lots of different explanations and that's one of the interesting things about etymology, is the fact that no one is hundred percent sure. 对, 词源学是一个非常有意思的事情, you can always go back and further back. And then there are different variations.

Jul 18, 20235 min

《闲话英伦》-现在的年轻人,在打一种很新的工。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来《闲话英伦》. Hi, 安澜. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. So recently I've seen a lot of the clips, videos on social media about how much money a university student needs for day to day living. And that reminds me of a subject of working, especially when you're still a student. And I thought we both had experience in that.Oh, yes.By the way, when did you start working? When was your first job, part time?My very very very first job, I was about 12. Child labor much? 童工. No, it's not that bad. My mom used to work at florist. So when it was a really, really busy time, like for example, Valentine's Day or Christmas, what I would do is I would sit in the van with the driver who deliver flowers, but because it takes time for the driver to get in and out of the car, pick up the flowers, I would just be the runner. Oh, you are the flower boy, the flower delivery.I was a flower boy, so I'll just sit there, run out, knock on the door, leave the flowers so we can get to the next house, very quickly. But my first regular part time job, I was about 15, 16?I was 16, 17, actually 17, I think.Late starter. Not in China, but... so I thought we can spend a couple of episodes on talking about 打工, working part time job, as a very young person, as a student. So what was your part time job?My part time job is tutoring, using my brains. You had a very high-end part time job. All right. I mean, let's first start by talking about the age. When do kids in the UK start working part time? I don't think they start at 12, that’s against the law.No, that's only because it was like a family friend gave me a little bit of pocket money to do that. It's informal.

Jul 16, 20239 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-卷不动了?“意式躺平”了解一下。

CAMPAGNA FINANZIATA AI SENSI DEL REG. UE N. 1308/2013CAMPAIGN FINANCED ACCORDING TO UE REGULATION NO.1308/2013可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Since you're talking about Prosecco, now let's bring the topic back to Prosecco. Now, Mikelino, I know that Prosecco is one of your best selling items, right? Or you only do Prosecco, you do other wine as well? No, no. I do also sell wines or other kind of wines, but Prosecco is my king. Yeah. But why do you think it's so popular? Like compared with some of the other products that you sell?Easiest answer is because it's super adaptable, super versatile to so many occasions, and we go from a formal dinner, a formal welcoming drink for a dinner to the craziest party that we can have in the nightlife places. This is a 360° of versatility found for such a wine. Prosecco DOC, it's the most exported wine that we have in Italy and this is the reason can use it. I mean, everybody is like every different kind of client there if you're talking to the B to B so from our restaurants to a bar to a club to private event, it's definitely my best selling item to around the 30% of my sales is out of Prosecco DOC. Oh. So adaptability and versatility. Yeah, and also it's very easy to drink, very easy to drink. It goes into cocktails. You can drink it by itself, as a serving style because it could be sweeter or drier according to your preference. So it's really something that find the highest level of applications and the highest number of consumers, not only women or a certain kind but everybody.Yeah. I mean, I totally agree with the versatility and adaptability part, and especially think about my community, I have a community of over 1 million followers. A lot of them, they would probably, like 70% are women, they would like to try some sort of wine, but they can't get into the heavy wine. I mean, we've held some really, really professional big wine sort of wine tasting. And then it seems like people find those very, very hard to accept because they haven't developed their palate so to speak, but Prosecco is just so friendly to beginners in wine tasting.Totally, yes. Yeah.Yes, I agree.Also I was surprised once we, I mean, talking about ourselves, when we started the cooperation with the Revolucion, I was kind of surprised because like nightlife club, I'm open to any kind of clients and Santi was saying, no, we have a very differentiated clientele and we do need the Prosecco, it is not just all about cocktails, despite that as we told before, now the mixology is an important part for Prosecco. This kind of wine is really a different than wine drinking. It's Prosecco drinking. It's a category per se, we could say. It's very different. So I'm gonna ask Santi actually, since Mikelino was saying that you guys were talking about your clientele, their drinking habits, so I'm going to ask is Presecco or sparkling wine in general a popular choice for your customers?OK, as we were talking before concerning the market, a different order from our shops.It's different because the network is different, but in some city, especially Shanghai like we sell a lot of Spritz.also because I'm half Italian half Albanian.So in every shop I have a part of Italian community in everywhere. So it's also for that, but not only for that, but in the end, people stay with me say oh I like these, can I try?It's such a great experience drinking Spritz on summer's day and just to remind our… Do you like it? I love it. Just to remind our listeners, Spritz, I hope I'm getting this correct. So Spritz is a sparkling wine like Prosecco, for example Prosecco and some other form of alcohol like for example I drink Aperol Spritz sometimes, so that is Aperol and Prosecco. And I want to say soda, like sparkling water, soda water?And orange slice. Totally right, yes. Yeah.You can be our new bartender. Thank you.

Jul 13, 202315 min

《词源考古研究所》-"傻缺"的英文来源这么浪漫?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Idiot keywordsa.Comes from the Ancient Greek word – “idiṓtēs” which means “a private person”b.The Greeks believed that everyone should be involved in government of the city (or “polis” where the word politics come from)c.Every citizen had to attend the assembly. If they didn’t, they were marked with red paint and fined.d.Those who didn’t were seen as foolish or ignorant.Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment. It means what? 欢迎大家回到我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】. Hi 安澜. Hi Lulu, hi everyone. In the segment, we will share with you some of the interesting origin stories of words and phrases in English. So what is the word for today?Idiot.I’m Sorry, why are you looking at me when you say that word? No, that's the word that we're gonna be discussing today, idiot. Idiot, 翻译成白痴、笨蛋.Yeah. Idiot is pretty rude, right? If you call them oh, such an idiot. Well, it's not like a swear word or anything, but nobody likes to be called an idiot. I would imagine idiot if it goes... even if you trace back to ancient times, it would have something to do with IQ?No. So it doesn't have to do with IQ?Nothing to do with IQ whatsoever. It comes from an ancient Greek word “idiṓtēs” . Which means?A private person. A private person which means he keeps to himself?Pretty much. 就是不合群呗, a loner kind of.Well, a loner, but somebody who just is a bit unique as well. So not like everybody else. That's because the ancient Greeks believe that everybody should be involved in the government of their city. Everyone had to go to the assembly, all the citizens had to take part in the government. This strong sense of citizenship and community. And idiṓtēs was somebody who didn't do that. 还是觉得是不合群的人.

Jul 11, 20235 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-疫情后的报复消费?夜店老板:还没等到。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~keywordsl How are cities different in terms of spending habits and consumer choices (drink orders)? How is the Chinese market different from other markets? l Have you noticed any changes compared with the days before Covid? (bars/clubs/wine business)Have the sales of prosecco recovered after the lifting of all restrictions? Guest speaker:MikelinoAn entrepreneur based in Shanghai, a sommelier graduated by the Italian Sommelier Association, a passionate wine lover with rich experience in wine business.SantilianoA managing partner of a popular cocktail bar/nightclub franchise called Revolucion Cocktail, an enthusiastic wine lover with sharp perspectives towards the market.Hi everyone and welcome to the show, this episode is made in collaboration with the Prosecco Doc Consortium. Today we're very lucky to have two guests in the studio. Mikelino, who is a wine expert and runs his own wine import business, the wine guy; and Santi who is a managing partner of a very popular cocktail bar/nightclub franchise called Revolucion Cocktail, and they're both based in shanghai. So welcome to the show. Hello to everybody.Hi, everyone. First of all, could both of you tell us a little bit about your business? Let's start with Mikelino, I know you're like an old friend. You've been on the show last year talking to us about Prosecco, but could you tell us still a little bit about your business?Yeah, absolutely. It's a great pleasure to be back. As you correctly mentioned, I am an importer and distribute wine under the company named The Wine Guy. But as most important, I’m representing Prosecco Doc as Casa Prosecco stuff from the Shanghai part, from the Shanghai branch, so I'm very glad to be back on your broadcast and… You are all about Prosecco.Yes, all about Prosecco, yeah, you know me very well. All right. And some of you probably have met or seen Mikelino during the live stream the other day and teaching me how to open a bottle of Prosecco. Okay, and Santi, could you tell us a little bit about your bar/ club?I noticed that you have a few different locations as well. So first of all, thanks for having me. And thanks also Mikelino to introduce for having these broadcasts. First of all, Revolucion is, as mentioned before, is a cocktail bar/club, why? Because Revolucion cocktail come from a Latino concept, is also a Revolucion cocktail and the first one was in Shanghai already 10 years have been past. Yes, and after we start to develop in all over China such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Xiamen, Chongqing, Chengdu. Now the next opening in China will be in Xinjiang in Keketuohai, the ski area. Yeah, we are also in the Bangkok, Thailand, and we opened the first one in France, it’s another concept but still under revolucion, but a very similar concept that is in other ski area. So the energy is, as we state, is a cocktail bar, so we have like cocktail and a high level cocktail. And after, who wanna keep going to party, it was found properly in a club. So you have this kind of connection between these two places and our definition for that is a jumping bar.

Jul 9, 202314 min

《小酒馆·大世界》- 全世界都在恐婚恐育,为何法国女子要“硬刚”?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Now moving away from topics that heavy, let's talk about everyday feminism. So at workplace, do French women nowadays struggle with the same equality issues at workplace like equal pay or sort of like equal opportunity to get promoted? Is there glass ceiling or maternal wall that sort of thing. In theory from what I know, the law in France is particularly they make sure that companies are not supposed to discriminate against like hiring a woman but that goes as well people from minorities because they are like around 20%...there is like a lot of people who actually come from like North Africa, Africa, Asian countries, a little bit of... and 1 or 2 generation ago, it was like more for Spain, Italy and Portugal. So we do have laws regarding discrimination, then after, obviously it's gonna be difficult to prove that you've been discriminated against. Like if I'm applying for a job, I'm a woman and another guy’s been selected, I think is gonna be a bit hard to convince a jury that they choose that guy because he was a guy and they didn't choose me because I was a woman. In my recollection, they have not been big public cases of discrimination like this. Still like a French woman, according to the law, people should be paid equally, but I just checked and roughly women are being paid roughly 15% less than men. Than men. Yeah, and I remember like recently a friend of mine she works in a big company. She was explaining to me that they decided the company was having nice bonuses and they decided to raise everyone’s bonus everyone’s salary, because they had such a good year, and good for them it’s just that at the end they raised everyone the same level. So the big manager they were making good money, so I think they give everyone 3% but so like she thought it was kind of silly because entry workers...He didn't really bridge. Yeah, like an entry worker, 3% is not gonna be the same as a big manager. So she thought like they should have equalized the pay of entry workers and women and people maybe who don't have a proper diploma. Sometimes it's a whole work in progress. And to give you another example, I think which is very important regarding maternity leave. French women enjoy a 6 months paid maternity leave when they have a child or the second or the third child. Whereas men just got 2 weeks and I do have a few friends of mine...I think this is roughly the same as in China, give or take, women get 4 to 6 months and men just get 1 or 2 weeks. That's... I don't know how you guys feel about that because that is hardly equal because that kind of sort of just effectively taking men out of the child care responsibilities because they simply do not have the time to do that. Yeah, definitely. And that is an issue. I do know that some of my French friend who became dad and who are supporting feminism, that's the one thing that would complain about. They would say like... they could like drop their job and take a 6 months non-paid vacation, but people are not stupid like if they have to choose between a salary or no salary, they are gonna take their salary. But I do know that some of them were like this is not fair like why can't I be with my spouse and or baby for 6 months, and because at the end it keeps on the discrimination like every man will would have to be forced to take like a 6 months parental leave. I think first of all, you would really reduce like the whole workforce like the chore that you do at home like then guys would have to do the same as woman hopefully. And then second then when you are hiring someone who is like around 28, 30, then you would not think about maybe take a man over a woman because at the end of the day, if they become a father, they would have to take a 6 months paid leave. But the problem is that's not the law right now. Hopefully it will change. But I do know that even for some of those dads, they are a bit like they are not that super happy a

Jul 6, 202314 min

《词源考古研究所》-Cold shoulder可不是冷肩膀,据说90%的人都错了

Hi everyone, and welcome to our new mini segment It means what? 欢迎回来我们新的mini板块【词源考古研究所】 在这个板块里, 我和安澜会跟大家分享一些非常常见的英文的词汇或者是习语, 它们背后的有趣故事. Hi, 安澜. Hi Lulu, hi everyone. So what is our word or idiom of today? Today we're gonna be looking at the idiom ‘give someone the cold shoulder’. So give someone the cold shoulder. I know this one, it means someone is giving you sort of like a hostile attitude, like treating you with hostility. But it's not kind of like hostile as in shouting at you. It's more about ignoring someone.就是冷落你的感觉. So you ignore them, you don't acknowledge them, you don't welcome them. You give them the cold shoulder. I often find this expression quite strange because I'm always imagining someone is trying to use his shoulder to sort of like push me out of the door that imagery. No, don't be stupid. It's nothing to do with a person's shoulder. So it's not a human shoulder. No, it actually comes from medieval table manners. Ok, 是餐桌礼仪的一部分, 就中世纪的时候, ok. What would happen is when the meals come into an end, and the host wanted everyone to leave, they would hint it was time to leave by serving cold slices of pork or beef shoulder. Hang on a minute.

Jul 5, 20236 min

《小酒馆·大世界》-最近的“热搜瓜”,说起来和这场运动还有点关系。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone and welcome back to your favorite segment Global Village, 欢迎回来【小酒馆·大世界】. Welcome back, Aladin.Hi, Lulu. Thank you for inviting me again. So last time we were talking about French people being romantic or are they actually romantic. Actually, when I think of, or when I stereotype, for lack of a better word, France, I don't think of romance, I think of actually progressive thoughts. For example, feminism. I thought we can talk about that. Sure. I thought you were going to talk about the Great Revolution of 1789, but sure we can talk about feminism as well. Yeah, more on that perhaps later, but let's focus on feminism, since our audience, my audience are 70% to 75% women, and a lot of them are very sort of independent modern ladies. And I'm sure they will be interested in knowing feminism in France. By the way, I've heard this theory. Now this is in cultural theory where they group cultures in sort of like masculinity and femininity, not in the traditional sense, not like manly or feminine. But masculinity is more focusing on valuing achievement, success, power, hierarchy, whilst femininity values more equality, welfare. In that sense, a lot of the charts would say France is more leaning towards femininity, valuing equality and welfare. Do you agree with this whole setting? Yeah, I mean, you brought up that topic and I will admit when in France we never had this thing about success equals masculinity and equality equals femininity. I mean, in that case, I think Karl Marx would be like a feminist. I mean, just joke aside like we don't really have such terms for if you're a successful person, you are really like a man or an alpha male or whatever, maybe other country they have more this idea about that, but in France it's not really like this, just like equality and healthcare and things like that, they are just seen like social public services. I see. Actually the word feminism is a word English has borrowed from French, I think it was féminisme in French. Does it mean exactly the same as feminism means in English?Before I answer that question Lulu, I just want to tell to the audience, like I'm well aware that in case you haven't listen, in case you have not understood them, like a white male of a 34 year old. So I speak under like I'm glad to bring that topic, but I'm sure and I hope one day you can interview other western feminist female who could like keep adding on that, because what I'm gonna share is more like my personal view. And what I've read from the press to consider that I support feminism. But at the same time, like I think it's a bit hard sometimes for a guy to say I'm a feminist, I think.I understand your concern. It's kind of like you're worried being called your men's blaming feminism to a bunch of ladies. That's exactly that. Don't worry about that, it’s an open dialogue.Okay. Just right now, just check like the French definition of feminism on Wikipedia that I'm gonna read in English, don't worry guys, so according to French Wikipedia, feminism is a set of political, social and cultural movements which IDs and objectives are to promote equality between men and women by campaigning for the rights of women. I think that's basically the definition in English. It is the same. I see. And like right now, if I'm thinking about feminism and how it has sort of developed in France, I would think French, like France is more on the progressive side, but it wasn't always like that, was it? I mean, France wasn't always leading the feminism movement.

Jul 2, 202311 min

《词源考古研究所》 -牛油果的外文这么“污”?不建议搜图!

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment It Means What?Yeah.Okay, that starts to become annoying. 欢迎回来我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】Hi 安澜.Hi, Lulu, hi, everyone. In this segment, we're bringing you interesting origin stories of very common words and phrases. So I would like to propose a word for today. Go ahead. This is definitely not an English word I think. But this is a star food in this whole super food trend. Okay?这种超级食物或者说这种健康饮食里面, 最近这些年的一个网红食物, 不光是在中国还是在西方. This is avocado.中文现在是叫牛油果. Yeah, I always find it really interesting kind of the Chinese where that comes from. I think it might just be the texture. It tastes a bit buttery because it has really nice fats, right?It's certainly better than the origin of the English word. But it's not English, is it? It's not English, no.Avocado, based on my limited knowledge. It comes from Latin America. So avocado comes from Spanish and the Spanish word comes from the language of the Aztecs.Aztec就是阿兹特克, 中美洲的, where Mexico is right now. If you're interested in history, you definitely have heard of the Aztecs. Yes. The Aztec spoke a language called Nahuatl.Nahuatl. And avocado comes from the word āhuacatl, which means testicle. What? for those of you who don't really understand the word ‘testicles’, well, how shall I explain this?They are the most precious part of a men, a pair of them, if you don't understand, then check it out. I can't... for this show to be out, I cannot say it. Yes, but don't do an image search. But why would they call it testicles? It's a fruit, right? It's food. Yeah. But what do they look like?Forget my question. It's funny to think that avocados are now so popular and they're expensive. They're popular in the UK as well. Very, very very popular.

Jun 29, 20236 min

《Geek 时间》-明星路人都爱的搪胶玩偶,一个无止尽的超级天坑。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Chibi figuresBig head small bodyVery popular in the US now Funko pop brand figures for just about every TV series that is popularEven Chibi gundam modelsModification of modelsCommon for people to modify models with self made partsLife like dioramas DIY videos are popular on youtube nowGarage kitsRealistic models of anime figures Are made to be modified or posed in almost anyway you chose.Became popular in the 80s These are what started the modification of other modelsComparison to the US Models were more popular in the US before the DIY boomMostly cars and airplanes rather than anime characters, but with otaku culture in the US being more popular that is changing.

Jun 27, 202311 min

《Geek时间》-大人小孩都沉迷的这个玩具,算赌博么?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to Geek Time. 欢迎回来【极客时间】Hi, Brad. Hey, Lulu.So what topic are we going to talk about today? I thought we talk about like action figures, figures and models. Action figures, figures and models, 比如说模型、人型、人偶、手办这一类的是吧? Now I know when you mention this to a lot of people, if they don't know anything about this, they would be like, those are for kids, you're grown up. These aren't just for kids, the models are for everyone. Yeah. So, first of all, let's talk about the basics. Are we just talking about models for I don't know like a character in the movie or in an anime? Not just like an action figure of like a character from them, but there's a lot of different types. There's models of characters, models of cars, models of machines that actual things that will move. You can buy like models to put together like that replicate a car engine. There's models just like could be just about anything. Can I just clarify a word, a phrase, action figures, what does it actually mean, action figures?Action figure is a figure that moves that has some sort of action. Now, not all action figures will move on their own. In fact most don't, but some will have like a button and if you push the button, they'll do an action of some sort, a punch or something or a kick. But mostly an action figure is just something that is actionable. They can move. They could have an arm joint or shoulder joint and knee joint. They can move around and be posed. So for example, if you have a Batman action figure, perhaps his arm can move, his legs can move or of that kind of idea, right? Yeah.I remember hearing in terms of these figures or action figures or models, there was one... very, very famous one called I think is that Gundam?There's a lot of other robot models and stuff, but Gundam is probably one of the most popular and there's even huge lifelike recreations of these in various cities in Japan. There is one that even moves in like, I think Yokohama (横滨), if you're really into Gundam, you can go see them in person. They're like three or four stories tall.

Jun 25, 202311 min

《词源考古研究所》-古代打工人的工资就这?!

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new segment It Means What?Yeah!You sound very excited.I am. 欢迎回来我们的新板块【词源考古研究所】, Hi安澜. Hi Lulu, hi everyone.In this segment we are going to share with you the interesting origin stories of some phrases and words. So let me propose the word for today.Okay.It’s a word that everybody is interested in and everybody knows, but I've always wondered about the origin of this word. Okay. SalaryThis is salary. Salary?So you work, you get paid and that payment is usually called salary, 你的薪水或者工资, but why salary, where does it come from?That's actually a really good question because it comes from a Latin word, Sal.Sal?Sal. And Sal means salt. Salt like salt and pepper salt?Yep, salt you put on your food. 就是盐, quite a leap from salt to money. Not really, that's because salt for centuries has always been very expensive. It's a very important commodity that's for sure. Very very important. There were huge trade routes around salt. So people were using gold to buy salt and they were also using salt as payment.

Jun 20, 20236 min

《闲话英伦》-在国内,这种行为会被做成表情包全网热嘲?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~ Hi, everyone and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】Hi, 安澜.Hi Lulu, hi everyone. Before we start today's topic, let me ask you a question. Sure. What is British people's favorite sport? We talked about that, it was... we talked about football didn't we, in the past?No. Not football. Rugby? Nope. Cricket? No. I have no idea what you're talking about. It's something that everybody in the UK enjoys and it doesn't matter how old you are, it doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, it is queueing. I thought you're going to say drinking there for a moment.No.But we do enjoy a nice queue. We do like to line up and wait for things.排队. This is a running joke isn't it that British people love queueing?Even if there's only one person there, the automatic setting is to go and line up?Well. To be honest, I always say it's a little bit of exaggerated to say that we love queueing. I don't think anyone really likes to wait for things. I've actually seen that happen in the UK. OK.If you put a sign please queue here, you will see British people queue there.

Jun 18, 202313 min

《词源考古研究所》-把猫放出来,是什么不能说的秘密?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦 Hi, everyone. And welcome back to our new mini segment It Means What?欢迎回来我们新的小板块【词源考古研究所】.In this segment, we're gonna share with you the origin story of some of the common words and phrases in English. Hi, 安澜.Hi, Lulu, hi everyone. So let me propose one, you like cats, right? Yes, I do.There are many cat related idioms.Ah, loads. So I'm sure you know the origin of this one “let the cat out of the bag”. Let the cat out of the bag. 字面意思就是说 “让猫从口袋里跑出来了”. It sounds really strange. Well, it does, but it doesn't sound that strange when you know the story behind it. First of all, the meaning of this idiom “let the cat out of the bag” if I remember correctly is to accidentally reveal a secret就无异中泄密的意思. Yeah, so for example, if you're talking with a friend and you might be talking about a mutual person that you know and you accidentally say a secret. Do you know his...No, it's not like that. It's not intentional.It's not intentional. It's like, I really like that guy, but he's leaving next week. What? he's leaving next week? That is letting the cat out the bag. 无意中泄密了. What is the origin?

Jun 15, 20236 min

《闲话美国》-邻居把孩子送我家“打工”,是为了赚钱?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hello, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope, advanced episode. Hi, Lulu. Hi, James. Let's go ahead and continue our talk we were having about Americans and DIY. Last time you said DIY is partly because of money, because labor costs a lot. Certainly does. But also because people in America, you guys do find a sense of accomplishment from all these DIY projects.So Americans really get very proud with their work. What comes with that is when we are really proud of our own work is a lack of trust in other people's work.I could imagine, but bring that back a little bit. What happens when you actually have the money to hire professionals to do pretty much everything? Let's just say. You’re upper middle class, you've got the money to pay all of your contractors. Would people still do it themselves or would they consider outsourcing?Once you're in that situation, it really becomes more of not so much of a money issue, but more of a prime issue. So they are... people who are still upper middle class and have money, they might still do honey do projects and still do things. But they're gonna be focusing is like this project will take X amount of hours. This one will take two X amount of hours. So they might do the shorter project themselves but hire someone to do a longer project or hire someone who would do the project that goes well beyond their own skills.I see.So really just they're gonna do more of a cost benefit analysis and just timing and all those things. Whereas people who have lower income, they don't have that option.That actually makes sense, for example, like when I'm thinking about hiring a cleaner to clean, this is what I think if I can, within the same amount of time, make more money, then I would out source that because it makes more financial sense. Right? What about you James? like let's say if you guys moved back to the States and you bought a house, what kind of things are you willing to do yourself? What kind of things, what kind of work would you out source? Myself? any kind of painting I would do, I don't need to hire anyone to do that.Anything that evolves simple like repairs, like if I need to put up the... like fix the molding, things like this, I can do whether it's like outdoor things, fixing the fence, fixing the garden type stuff. I have no problem doing that myself.But no piping.Piping no, I would hire a plumber for that. Or if it's things related to the wiring.Electricity.Yes, then I would definitely hire a contractor for that. I don't trust myself enough like I can replace a light socket, I know how to do that. I know how to install a new light switch, that I can do; beyond that, I don't...I can't do it.Yeah, the thing is, just a side note, in my home it’s basically my dad who's doing all of that. My dad actually does not trust other people to do that. But then again, he is an electrical engineer, sort of makes sense.He has the skills. Exactly.But since last time you were talking about saying that if you go to an American's home, then they are going to talk your ear off about what they have done in terms of home improvement.

Jun 13, 202310 min

《闲话美国》-美国人DIY是因为成就感吗?其实emmm~

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi, everyone. And welcome back to America Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【美国美国】. Hi, James. Hi, Lulu. Hi, everyone. What are we going to talk about today?I have a question for you. It's actually more of an observation that I've noticed while living here. While living in China, one thing I noticed is that people are always like remodeling or fixing up their homes, right?I've never seen anyone paint their own homes. They always hire people to do it. Why is that? You mean paint their walls?Yes.Is that not normal?You're confusing me because in my understanding it’s just like you have to paint your wall or have your wall painted, then you hire a guy, you hire a contractor, hire someone who professionally...Does that, is that not the same in America?We do have professional painters and you can hire someone to do it. What you're more likely to come across in America is the Americans doing that themselves. I guess that's what we're gonna talk about today, the whole do it yourself, DIY. Because in America, DIY is a pretty big thing. And we'll talk about several reasons why that is. I mean that's kind of built in your DNA so to speak. That's a good way to put it. I mean Americans do kind of like to go their own way or create their own stuff. So the idea of doing it yourself is really ingrained in us. But come on. So when we were talking about why Americans like DIY does it not have anything to do with money?No, that almost certainly has everything to do with money. It's money because hiring people to do things for you is expensive. People are basically saying, obviously I don't really have the exact number. But is it true that contractors or let's say like plumbers, electricians, these people they actually make very good money. Yes. If I was an electrician in America, I would be making more money than I am currently as a teacher. Wow. But then I can imagine hiring someone to do painting to fix your pipes will be very expensive. Yeah, although when you're using like the term like an electrician or a plumber, those would be a couple of exceptions and most Americans would hire someone to do those things because making a mistake with wiring or pipes can lead to disaster. 水电还是要找人做的, but painting your house, what mistakes can you make?Couple of hand prints here or there, you might have painted over something you weren't supposed to, but it's pretty easy to fix. But the other thing, the reason why we like to do it is Americans really like to pride themselves on what they've accomplished themselves. So one way we kind of really express ourselves and like if you ever get a chance to go to an American’s home, they will talk your ear off about all the things that they have done to improve their home.

Jun 12, 20239 min

《闲话英伦》-英国人也活不起了?游行示威者:我们是被逼的。(下)

Jun 12, 20237 min

《词源考古研究所》-健身房的单词是从“裸男”来的?

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看完整全文稿和其他精彩内容哦~1)Gymnasiuma.Comes from the Greek word ‘gymnos’ (naked) and ‘gymnazein’ (to train naked)b.Men (only men!) who wanted to work out had to do so naked as the Greeks believed that exercising with clothes on was shameful!c.The Greeks focused on the perfect physique and they rubbed themselves over with olive oil while exercising to shine. d.Gymnasium were also places of learning which is why many high schools in Europe are called gymnasium

Jun 8, 20236 min

《闲话英伦》-英国人也活不起了?游行示威者:我们是被逼的。

可以搜索公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】或者添加【luluxjg2】加入社群,查看文稿和其他精彩内容哦~Hi everyone, and welcome back to Britain Under the Microscope. 欢迎回来【闲话英伦】. Hi,安澜.Hi Lulu, hi everyone.安澜 I know over the years we've talked about a lot of fun topics, but today I would propose a pretty painful topic. I hope you don't mind.That's fine. How painful we’re talking?You remember last time when we were discussing the coronation of your new King, we mentioned that people had problems with this elaborate spending because there's a huge cost of living crisis in the UK.Yes.大家看新闻, 包括中文媒体报道的可能就会每天都能看到英国, 甚至整个欧洲都有 cost of living, 就物价的上涨, 还有老百姓的各种罢工什么的.So I thought we talked about cost of living, get to the bottom of it, what cost it and how are people dealing with it?As you say, it's not a particularly light topic. So we are gonna be talking a little bit about the economy and we also be talking a little bit about the background behind this. I'm sure that there probably a few economists listening to this, so if you are, please also let us know your thoughts.Exactly. Or people who actually live in the UK.Absolutely.First of all, cost of living就是生活成本; but cost of living crisis, this is very easy to understand, it's basically it's getting more and more expensive to live in the UK.That's right. Prices and inflation have increased dramatically in a very short period of time, much faster than real incomes.Basically your income does not go up, but all of your outgoings, all of your expenses go up.That's right. So it is becoming a lot more expensive to live in the UK and I noticed it myself. I went back to the UK last year in 2022 for the first time since 2019, I was quite surprised how expensive things had got.And this basically covered everything or covers everything, right, from things you buy in supermarket to going out to have a drink in the pub.Inflation is around 10%. And as an attempt to try and stop the inflation, interest rates have also been increasing.首先通胀率是高起10% that's pretty high. But interest rate, honestly, every time you guys increased the interest rate, I was like this has got to be the last time they do it. They can't just keep doing it and then they do it again and then they do it again.Don't mention it. I've got a mortgage in the UK and when I first got my mortgage, it was like 1% interest, now it's 6%.Jesus. 所以从1个点到6个点的增长.Yes.How many times they've been doing it? At least 8, 9 times already.I've lost count.

Jun 4, 20238 min

取关朋友圈戏精和“有毒”博主后,我感到前所未有的快乐

欢迎来到英文小酒馆的迷你双语板块【Buzzword Mix】-新词特饮,短短几分钟,让不同段位的你掌握最新最地道的英文谈资!关注公号【璐璐的英文小酒馆】,获取更多有趣节目内容和文稿哦~In today's Buzzword Mix, our buzzword is JOMO. 如果你一直有听我们【新词特饮】这个板块的话, 可能还有点印象, 之前有一集我们讲到过FOMO这个词, FOMO, the fear of missing out. 中文把它翻译成 “错失恐惧症”.Now FOMO refers to feeling or perception that others are having more fun, living better lives or experiencing better things than you are. 这种所谓的 FOMO或者 “错失恐惧症”主要指的就是在社交媒体横行的今天, 我们随时随地都会觉得别人正在过着比我们更精彩的生活, 我们很担心会错失这样的人生经历. 今天的Buzzword就是把FOMO前面的F改成了J. So what then is JOMO? Let me ask you a question, have you ever felt a sense of joy, happiness when you knew you were missing out on an invitation to a party or the latest social media posts and influencer trends because you were “unplugged”? 大家有没有经历过那种最近什么网上流行的新潮流, 但是你没有赶上, 因为你没有关注社交媒体而错过这些潮流, 你有没有感受到一种特殊的轻松和喜悦?If so, then you have probably experienced “JOMO” – the joy of missing out. “错过的喜悦”, 我还看到一个翻译叫做 “错过之欢”. In many ways, JOMO can be considered the opposite of FOMO. 刚才我们也说了FOMO这个错失恐惧症更多的是跟anxiety焦虑, 还有其他各种的负面情绪连接在一起的. It's easy to blame technology and social media for FOMO. However, in fact, FOMO is rooted in our innate tendency to socially compare ourselves to others as we seek to better understand who we are and our place in the world. 很多人就会把FOMO怪在社交媒体上, 但实际上网络也好, 社交媒体也好, 不过是一个手段. 而这种不断的想通过和别人比较, 来寻求自己在社会中的定位, 这是我们人类与生俱来的一个天性.

Jun 1, 20238 min

《英美大不同》-不小心撞见老板和女同事暧昧,我该怎么办?

"英文小酒馆致力于打造沉浸式英语学习社群,无论是微信社群、有声节目、线上活动和课程,我们都全心全意为爱好英语的你带去一份专属于英语的快乐。关注公号: 【璐璐的英文小酒馆】查音频节目文稿,了解广阔的世界。跟随我们的脚步,体会英语的温度。"So the first six questions is more about sort of like dealing with bosses and working overtime. Now it's more dealing with people you work with.Do we have to?Depending on if what kind of people you work with?The first one, out of the blue, someone in your office lights up a massive pipe of tobacco and starts puffing away. 开始抽烟抽烟斗了, fill in the room with smoke, being British and being American, let's start with Anlan.Well, being British, what you would do is you go okay, pour yourself a scotch. Sit down with them, drink a scotch and probably start smoking. Even if you're not a smoker.Even if you're not a smoker.You don't want to be left out and it would be rude not to join them.I can hear your breeze. It's about the entire time and this is getting louder and louder. All right. I’m sensing the American side might just tell them to cut it, to stop it.Americans would freak out. It's like, what are you doing? You're going to get a shutdown. You want the health inspectors to come here. They will shut us down. Put that out.Is it completely smoke free, sort of thing.Oh, yeah, workplaces are completely smoke free like you'll get into serious trouble.Like being taken to court serious?Like you'll be fired. Companies can get their business license suspended.That sounds pretty...Yeah, it is a no go, it does just no go.One annoying colleague down, the next one. So this one starts using the office microwave to heat up fish every morning. It makes the whole building smell like cat’s breath. So what would you do?Let's start with the American side.Not naming names, Pam, the microwave is not for heating up fish, Pam. It is for non-offensive odors, Pam.Do you work with a Pam?Everyone works whit a Pam.Would you actually say that or would you leave it like...It would be a note.Okay.The other thing is people...your lunch box in the company fridge might magically disappear.Do you actually label it?If it's a communal fridge, label your food?You should, but I didn't see a label on that fish.Don’t touch my fish. And 安澜?I would get in even earlier and cut the wire that's attached the electricity.So a mild electric shock just to prevent that fish smell?It is a very, very bad smell. I really don't like fish smells.That's okay. I need to keep my distance from you.Who microwaves fish? Fish should not be microwaved.I’ve microwaved fish before, leftover fish, you microwave it.Yeah, but not in an office microwave.I don't know, some people don't mind it, but then we digress coming back.I don't even know if this actually happens in both of your cultures. You stand up to tell your colleagues that you're just popping out for lunch,说我出去吃饭了. Does anyone need anything, you ask politely.你们要不要给你们带点什么 and one colleague had the audacity to actually say to you. Yes. And handed you a list of things that he or she needs, being American.That was a rookie mistake, you offered, American culture, you offer, you are obligated. So you can’t just do a polite offering.No, you don't, because you don't have to offer it at all, like I’m going to go out to get lunch. If I say if I’m going to go out to get lunch, anyone want anything? I'm actually offering to buy them something or not buy them but pick it up for them.So if you actually offered, but just thinking that you wanted to, for example, in the same restaurant you pack me a sandwich, but I actually handed you a list and say, James, can you get me this this this?I’m going to McDonald's and I will buy you a big Mac or a Filet-O-Fish.

May 30, 202310 min

《英美大不同》-演讲途中“屎意”来了绷不住,英美人的迷惑反应令人捧腹。

英文小酒馆致力于打造沉浸式英语学习社群,无论是微信社群、有声节目、线上活动和课程,我们都全心全意为爱好英语的你带去一份专属于英语的快乐。关注公号: 【璐璐的英文小酒馆】 查音频节目文稿,了解广阔的世界。跟随我们的脚步,体会英语的温度。Hi, everyone and welcome back to your favorite segment Across the Pond. 欢迎你们回来, 你最喜欢的, 并且一直要求回来的这么一个板块, 叫做【英美大不同】. We have in our studio James. Hi, everyone And 安澜. Hello. I'm going to give them some really awkward questions in like social settings, so that they are going to give their answers as American and British and see if they have any differences in their opinions. I'm sure we do. Are you guys ready?Oh, yes.Why not?The topic we're going to do is work.Pass. Question number one, there's a new guy at work and he asks you, what is the best thing about working for this company or this organization, being British or being American?What would you do?Let's start with James. It really depends on whether you like or not like it. Maybe if you don't like it, it would be like coffee is good. And if you do like it, you're going to be honest like we have great benefits. Boss is super approachable. He's a cool dude. Okay. So if you don't like working there, would you not come out and directly say run? Or you might say something like keep your resume updated. Subtle. And 安澜? I would think about ways I can give my work to that person. That's very sneaky. It is very sneaky, but I’m being honest here I would think it's a new guy. He'll say yes to anything. So let's see how much work of mine I can give him. But would you not tell him exactly what is good about this about working here? Absolutely. I’ll tell him about the workload. Okay. Remind me not to ask you to be the poster child for the company. Probably best not. All right. Question number two, a visitor, this is a visitor at work, goes on your work computer before you've had a chance to clear your internet search history, what is he or she likely to find and also how would you respond, 安澜 first?I was going on YouTube to do some company research and also the news BBC, those things I bought on eBay were completely necessary for my project. Would you feel offended that someone goes on just without your permission?To be honest, a work computer, they would have to have your permission because you have to have passwords and things like that. So probably I would have given permission for them to use my computer and then suddenly thought my God, they're going to find what I bought on eBay and Amazon. OK, and James. I’m going to guess they're system administrator because they got into my computer. Second, I got nothing to hide to work computer. I’m not going to put all that stuff on my work computer. That's what personal computers are for. But are you saying that when you are at work, everything you do on the internet is completely about work. So no eBay, no any of that?Usually at work, yes, on our work computers, yes, because many companies in America track what you do online. Scary. Next question, you have a half-day holiday already booked in. But after working your morning, your boss asks you, if you're all set for the afternoon’s big meeting, what would you do in this situation, James?Yeah, I’m heading up to the car now. See you on Monday. Would that not make you a… I don't know, unfavorable person in the eyes of the boss?No, because he's already approved my time off. So...

May 28, 202310 min