In part one of the interview on my blog I posted yesterday, I mentioned how my mother supported me to pursue my interest in art in my early years. I'm forever grateful to her. This is a portrait that I did for her in Hong Kong and below is an introduction of the painting and my mother in an oil painting collection to be published in China in the near future.

***
Mother 75x47cm 1982 Hong Kong
母親 75X47CM 1982 香港

In 1960, during my second year at the Affiliated High School of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts while I was home for the winter break, I made an oil painting of my mother. That painting was unfortunately lost during the Cultural Revolution. After my graduation, I was assigned to Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province, which was very far away from my hometown in Hunan. I only received 12 days a year for family leave including the travel time, so my trips home to Hunan were always rushed affairs with little time for painting. It was not until the 1980s that my mother, siblings, and I were all finally reunited one by one in Hong Kong. By that time, my mother was 72 years old. Two years later, we moved to slightly larger rental accommodations and I found time to paint this portrait of my mother.

1960年冬，我正在廣州美術學院附中二年級的寒假吧，趁假回家時為母親畫過一幅油畫像，可惜文革中丟失了。畢業後工作分配在廣東省的肇慶市，離湖南老家太遠，每年探親假連路程也才12天，因而，回湖南探親都是行色匆匆，少有時間作畫。直到1980年，母親與我們兄弟姊妹先後抵港，重新團聚。此時母親已高齡72歲了。再過兩年，我們搬租到稍大的房子，我才抽空為母親作了這幅畫像。

After I came to Taiwan, I happened to mention the tragedy of my parents caused by the cross-strait standoff to Mr. Liu Shaotang, the president of Bibliographies Publishing. Liu expressed his sympathies as well as his admiration for my mother because she managed to raise us all by herself despite everything that she went through.

我到台灣後，有一次與「傳記文學」社長劉紹唐先生談起父母在這海峽兩岸對峙中的悲慘遭遇時他深表同情與感嘆。並直說你母親真是了不起，經歷那麼多苦難，獨力將你們撫養大，真是很偉大。

My mother was born in Taoyuan County, Hunan. She attended the Zhounan Women's School in Changsha and, to escape from an arranged marriage, fled to Shanghai where she enrolled in the Daxia University. After that, she married, had children, and suffered through China's modern history. It was not until the mid-1980s that she was finally able to travel to Taiwan to sweep my father's tomb. When she passed away in 1994, we fulfilled her final wish by laying her to rest alongside my father.

母親，湖南桃源縣人，早年去長沙念「周南女校」，之後為逃婚獨赴上海唸「大夏大學」，結婚、生子，經歷中國現代史中一切苦厄。直到八十年代中才得以到台灣為父親掃墓。1994年，她老仙逝，我們將她與父親合葬，完成她老最後的願望。

My mother was a good and honest woman filled with compassion. She often taught her children that "integrity is the foundation of personal character." She was well-versed in ancient literature and wrote with a neat, beautiful hand. She frequently reminded me of the need to re-read my letters to ensure that they were "fluent and made sense", and to use well-accepted phrases rather than making up unfamiliar terms. How I miss her!

母親善良、誠實，富于同情心，經常教育子女：忠厚為人之本。她古文好，字端正、秀麗。常告誡我寫信要複讀一遍，要『文從字順』。遣詞造句不要自己生造，要約定從俗……啊，我的母親。

In part one of the interview on my blog I posted yesterday, I mentioned how my mother supported me to pursue my interest in art in my early years. I'm forever grateful to her. This is a portrait that I did for her in Hong Kong and below is an introduction of the painting and my mother in an oil painting collection to be published in China in the near future.

***
Mother 75x47cm 1982 Hong Kong
母親 75X47CM 1982 香港

In 1960, during my second year at the Affiliated High School of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts while I was home for the winter break, I made an oil painting of my mother. That painting was unfortunately lost during the Cultural Revolution. After my graduation, I was assigned to Zhaoqing City in Guangdong Province, which was very far away from my hometown in Hunan. I only received 12 days a year for family leave including the travel time, so my trips home to Hunan were always rushed affairs with little time for painting. It was not until the 1980s that my mother, siblings, and I were all finally reunited one by one in Hong Kong. By that time, my mother was 72 years old. Two years later, we moved to slightly larger rental accommodations and I found time to paint this portrait of my mother.

1960年冬，我正在廣州美術學院附中二年級的寒假吧，趁假回家時為母親畫過一幅油畫像，可惜文革中丟失了。畢業後工作分配在廣東省的肇慶市，離湖南老家太遠，每年探親假連路程也才12天，因而，回湖南探親都是行色匆匆，少有時間作畫。直到1980年，母親與我們兄弟姊妹先後抵港，重新團聚。此時母親已高齡72歲了。再過兩年，我們搬租到稍大的房子，我才抽空為母親作了這幅畫像。

After I came to Taiwan, I happened to mention the tragedy of my parents caused by the cross-strait standoff to Mr. Liu Shaotang, the president of Bibliographies Publishing. Liu expressed his sympathies as well as his admiration for my mother because she managed to raise us all by herself despite everything that she went through.

我到台灣後，有一次與「傳記文學」社長劉紹唐先生談起父母在這海峽兩岸對峙中的悲慘遭遇時他深表同情與感嘆。並直說你母親真是了不起，經歷那麼多苦難，獨力將你們撫養大，真是很偉大。

My mother was born in Taoyuan County, Hunan. She attended the Zhounan Women's School in Changsha and, to escape from an arranged marriage, fled to Shanghai where she enrolled in the Daxia University. After that, she married, had children, and suffered through China's modern history. It was not until the mid-1980s that she was finally able to travel to Taiwan to sweep my father's tomb. When she passed away in 1994, we fulfilled her final wish by laying her to rest alongside my father.

母親，湖南桃源縣人，早年去長沙念「周南女校」，之後為逃婚獨赴上海唸「大夏大學」，結婚、生子，經歷中國現代史中一切苦厄。直到八十年代中才得以到台灣為父親掃墓。1994年，她老仙逝，我們將她與父親合葬，完成她老最後的願望。

My mother was a good and honest woman filled with compassion. She often taught her children that "integrity is the foundation of personal character." She was well-versed in ancient literature and wrote with a neat, beautiful hand. She frequently reminded me of the need to re-read my letters to ensure that they were "fluent and made sense", and to use well-accepted phrases rather than making up unfamiliar terms. How I miss her!

母親善良、誠實，富于同情心，經常教育子女：忠厚為人之本。她古文好，字端正、秀麗。常告誡我寫信要複讀一遍，要『文從字順』。遣詞造句不要自己生造，要約定從俗……啊，我的母親。

你們有認真上課嗎？XD

[English Time] "hang" 和 "word" 的用法
hang這個單字本是「懸吊、掛上」的意思，但口語中(最常見的是Hang in there!) ，卻有很多運用跳脫了它的本意，形成相當有趣的句子。

例： How's it hanging? (最近過得如何？) / What's up?
解說： hang這個字用在問候時，可以表達出雙方的親近，最常見的句型就是How's it hanging?。
例：Can you hang on the phone? (可以請您稍等一下嗎？)

例: Can you hang on for just a minute?
解說： 在電話交談中，請對方稍等一下，通常會說 hang on a minute。hang on本身也有「緊緊抓住」的意思，所以若說hang on the phone，容易解釋為「緊抓住電話」。

例：I hung out with my friends, Jessie, Helen and Zoey last night. (昨晚我和我的朋友－潔西、海倫和柔依在一起。)
解說： hang out 是一個很口語的用法，指單純跟幾個朋友在一起「廝混、閒聊」。請注意hang的變化形為 hang-hung-hung。（但hang 解作「被吊死、施以絞刑」時，變化形為hang-hanged-hanged）

例：You’re getting the hang of it! (你抓到訣竅了！)
解說： 當你學習某樣技巧，感覺自己抓到要領時，可以用get the hang of something來表達。 容易出錯之處是誤把 hang 寫成hand（手）。

例： Students are hanging on the teacher's lips. 學生們正全神貫注地聽著老師的每一句話。
解說：由於hang on有「緊抓、握住不放」之意，因此衍生出 hang on somebody's every word/lips這個慣用語，指「仔細專注地聆聽某人的每一句話」。
----------------------------
和老外聊天時，聽到他回"Word"，別再傻問什麼字！因為......
James星期天去參加同事的Party，星期一和他和外籍同事聊起來：I was happy yesterday evening on Mary's party.（昨天晚上瑪麗的聚會上很開心。）
"Word." 外籍同事說了一個字就停住。
一時以為自己沒聽清楚是什麼「字」，James還想問"What word?"同事繼續了："I haven't had so much fun in a while."很久沒這麼開心了。
原來這個word並不是指什麼字，而是"You're so right."，「對極了」的意思。
當別人說了一個想法，你完全同意，就可以用單一個字"word"或是片語 "word up"，表示完全同意。用法很簡單又有新鮮感。例如：
A：The meeting was so well run that I did not hear of any glitches.（會議進行的很順利，完全沒有瑕疵。）
B：Word up！（完全同意。）
"Word up" 除了當完全同意之外，也有人用來打招呼，相當於"What's the word?"或"What's happening?"
和word相關的道地用法，大家較熟悉的有eat one's words（承認錯誤、收回前言）和 break one's word（不守承諾），再來看幾個相關的表達。記得要和一個字「混熟」，多讀幾次後試著造句，想辦法讓這幾個片語融入你的口語中：
1. put in a good word for 幫人說情、美言
If my client puts in a good word for me, the boss may decide to give me another chance.（要是我客戶為我說情，老闆可能會決定再給我一次機會。）
2.Word for word 一字不差地
This is, word for word, the message he gave me.（這就是他叫我帶的口信，一個字也不差。）
3.….the word for it 不足以形容
Angry is not the word for it, I was furious. （豈只是生氣，我是氣瘋了。）
4.From the word go 一開始
The project had problems with funding right from the word go.（這個計劃一開始就有資金的問題。）

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https://www.facebook.com/wordsgo/

**********************
聯絡吉娜：
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基礎英文從頭學起
學好英文諮詢
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webmaster@wordsgo.com

**********************
影片內容：
May I see your passport, please?
Sure, here you go.
請給我看你的護照？
好的，拿去。

Could you hand me that pen?
Here you go.
你可以把那支筆給我嗎？
拿去。

Where are my headphones?
Sorry, I forgot to give them back
to you. Here you go.
我的耳機在哪裡？
很抱歉，我忘記要還給你。拿去。

------------------------------
我是Gina，我來自台灣，我是一位英文老師，我喜歡學習英文和教英文。我的職業生涯大部分都在教授文法，但是當我真正想要說英文時，問題來了，我不太能自然表達自己。我開始改變自己的教學和學習目標，我想說英文，這時我才知道文法閱讀與聽說可是很大的不同。我發現口說卡住的是自然造句的能力以及口語發音。我慢慢研究口說語音的變化，透過外師的幫助，我的口說和聽力都變好了！：)

我的影片課程，是我對於英文教學的熱情與成果，我的目標並不是幫助你發音跟美國人一樣，我自己也做不到，因為區域性的口音就不同，每個人都帶著自己母語的影響在說英文，這很棒，這是我們的identity(身分認同)，不要不敢開口。我的課程目標是幫助我自己以及大家，可以輕鬆的發音。了解口語的語音變化，學習時會踏實有力量，開口說英文就會有信心！

加入吉娜英文FB 粉絲頁
學習更多美式口語英文
https://www.facebook.com/wordsgo/

影片中的句子：
Leave me alone.
I don't want to talk to you right. now.
不要打擾我。
我現在不想跟你說話。

Give me a hug.
I missed you so much.
給我一個擁抱。
我非常想念你。

A: Can you give me a hand?
B: Sure. What do you need me to do?
你可以幫忙我一下嗎？
可以。你需要我做什麼呢？

------------------------------
我是Gina，我來自台灣，我是一位英文老師，我喜歡學習英文和教英文。我的職業生涯大部分都在教授文法，但是當我真正想要說英文時，問題來了，我不太能自然表達自己。我開始改變自己的教學和學習目標，我想說英文，這時我才知道文法閱讀與聽說可是很大的不同。我發現口說卡住的是自然造句的能力以及口語發音。我慢慢研究口說語音的變化，透過外師的幫助，我的口說和聽力都變好了！：)

我的影片課程，是我對於英文教學的熱情與成果，我的目標並不是幫助你發音跟美國人一樣，我自己也做不到，因為區域性的口音就不同，每個人都帶著自己母語的影響在說英文，這很棒，這是我們的identity(身分認同)，不要不敢開口。我的課程目標是幫助我自己以及大家，可以輕鬆的發音。了解口語的語音變化，學習時會踏實有力量，開口說英文就會有信心！