________________________________

Giving Toys a New Life

What do you do when your toys break? Do you throw them away? Wait! Too many
toys are thrown away. Take them to a toy hospital! That is better for the
Earth!
壞掉的玩具，先不要急著丟！你可以把它帶去玩具醫院修復，對地球也比較友善！

In Taoyuan, Zhongpu Elementary School has a toy hospital. The toy doctors
wear white coats with small cute toys on them!
桃園的中埔國小有一間玩具醫院。玩具醫生穿著白色工作服，上面有可愛的小玩具。

Kids bring a toy to fix. They get a paper. They write their name on it. They
write what the toy is made of: plastic, wood, or something else. They write
what needs to be fixed. Then the toy goes into a waiting room. This is like
hospitals for people!
小朋友會把壞掉的玩具拿來修。他們在一張紙上寫下自己的名字，還有玩具的材質跟需要修理的地方。寫好後，玩具就會被送到等候區，就像真的醫院一樣。

Many of the toy doctors are older adults. They like working with kids and
helping the Earth.
很多玩具醫生是年紀比較大的長輩，他們喜歡跟小朋友相處，也想要幫助地球。

Some of the toy doctors are kids! Some like taking toys apart. Now they can!
And no one gets mad!
也有小朋友當玩具醫生！在玩具醫院，他們可以把玩具拆開來，不會有人生氣！

In four months, the toy doctors fixed 200 toys! They use parts from toys that
cannot be fixed.
玩具醫生們只用了四個月，就修好了兩百個玩具！

Older adults and kids give toys a new life at Zhongpu Elementary School's toy
hospital. That is good for the Earth!

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Vocabulary

玩具醫生讓壞掉的玩具起死回生，不需要扔掉。

1. cute 可愛的。
What a cute choo-choo train! 好可愛的小火車! A gift for someone?
送什麼人的禮物嗎?
Yep, a very important someone: me! 對，很重要的人，我。

2. toy 玩具。
Ohh! Still young at heart, I see. 還很有童心呢，我懂了。
Toys don't have an age limit. 玩具又沒有年齡限制。

3. take apart 拆開。
And this one isn't just for looking at. 而且這個不是光用來看的。I can take it
apart and build it again. 我可以把它拆開再組裝起來。

4. fix 修理。
Wow! I also admire people who can fix broken toys.
我也很佩服會修理壞掉玩具的人。

Well, you're talking to one. 你正在跟這樣一個人講話呢。

你有心愛的玩具嗎? 來讀一遍單字。cute可愛的 toy玩具 take apart拆開
fix修理

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Quiz

1. Where is the toy hospital?
a. Taipei
b. Taoyuan
c. Taichung

2. What do kids write on the paper they get?
a. Who the toy maker is
b. How old the toy is
c. What the toy is made of

3. Who are some of the toy doctors?
a. Kids
b. Doctors for people
c. Teachers











Answers

1. b
2. c
3. a
 

________________________________

Hi there, it's time for an all-new episode of News Bites.

I'm Jeffrey Mo.

And I'm Jacob Ingram.

In this episode, we'll be talking about the Taiwanese athletes at the Winter
Olympics …

… and about a man who's saving the lives of people with heart problems, with
the doctor who once saved his own life!

And in this episode's News Flash, catastrophe.

________________________________

八名台灣運動員 正在冬季奧運會比賽
Eight athletes from Taiwan competing at the Winter Olympics!

The Winter Olympics take place every four years, and they're happening right
now in northern Italy.

The sports in the Winter Olympics take place either on the ice or in the snow.

Unless it's manmade (人造的), Taiwan has very little ice and very little snow.

But there are still some Taiwanese athletes representing our country in Italy!

For example, 19-year-old Li Yu-hsiang (李宇翔) is a figure skater
(花式滑冰選手).

Figure skaters jump (跳), spin (旋轉), and dance on ice skates.
花式滑冰選手要在冰上起跳，旋轉，舞蹈。

It's called figure skating because in the past, skaters had to show that they
could make clean, perfectly circular turns (做乾淨俐落的正圓形旋轉) on the
ice.

These turns were called "figures" - a figure is another word for a shape
(形狀).

Li Yu-hsiang won the men's singles title (單人組冠軍) at the Chinese Taipei
Figure Skating Championships (台灣花式滑冰錦標賽) last year.

A Taiwanese woman is also competing in speed skating (競速滑冰).

Speed skating is a competition to see who can skate the fastest.

Taiwan won its first ever speed-skating medal at the Asian Winter Games
(亞洲冬季運動會) last year, when Chen Ying-chu (陳映竹) won bronze (銅牌) in
the 100-metre women's speed skating.

Taiwan is also sending skiers (滑雪選手) to Italy.

There are two types of skiing: downhill (高山滑雪), which is down a steep
(陡峭的) hill, and cross-country (越野滑雪), which is across flat land.

Gravity (地心引力) helps you with downhill skiing, but catastrophic
(災難性的) accidents can occur if you can't control your speed.
高山滑雪是利用地心引力，選手如果無法控制速度，就可能發生大災難。

Cross-country skiers need to have big lungs (肺活量要夠大) in order to huff
and puff (不斷喘息) their way across the finish line.

And last but not least, two women are representing Taiwan in the bobsleigh
(大雪橇) competition.

In this sport, athletes ride a sleigh (雪橇) - like the one pulled by
reindeer (馴鹿) that Santa rides in to deliver presents at Christmas - down a
narrow, icy track (賽道).

Drivers have to steer (駕駛) their bobsleighs through all the turns in the
track, as gravity pulls them down to the finish line.

Good luck to Taiwan's athletes in Italy!

________________________________

男子醫治衣索比亞人 跟曾經救他一命的醫生合作！
Man saves lives in Ethiopia - with the doctor who once saved his life!

Mesfin was born in a small village (村) in Ethiopia (衣索匹亞) in 1985.

When he turned ten, he suddenly (突然) couldn't walk to school any longer.

An American doctor listened to Mesfin's heart and lungs through a stethoscope
(聽診器).

He told Mesfin that he would need open-heart surgery (開心手術).

He sent Mesfin to America, where Doctor Jim Kauten repaired one of Mesfin's
heart valves (心臟瓣膜).
醫生把他送去美國，凱頓醫生修復了他的心臟瓣膜。

A heart valve is something that controls the flow (流動) of blood to and from
the heart.

After coming home to Ethiopia, Mesfin developed complications (併發症) and
had to return to America for emergency surgery (緊急手術).

This time, though, he couldn't return home to Ethiopia.

His doctor, Allen Dollar, had completely replaced one of his heart valves
with a mechanical one (用一個小機器取代了他的瓣膜) - in other words, with a
tiny machine!

Mesfin would need to be monitored for life, which wasn't possible in a
village in Ethiopia.
Mesfin一輩子也需要持續觀察，這在衣索比亞辦不到。

So Doctor Dollar called his wife and told her, "I think we're going to have
another kid!"

The Dollars adopted Mesfin!

Mesfin learned English and then went to university to become a heart-lung
machine operator (心肺機操作員).

This machine breathes for patients during open-heart surgery, when their
heart has been cut open and can't send blood and oxygen (氧氣) around the
body.

Mesfin returns to Ethiopia every year and helps with heart surgeries there.

And on his first visit back, he surprised Doctor Kauten, who was also
volunteering (自願做) in Ethiopia!
他第一次回去時，讓多年前首度拯救他的凱頓醫生又驚又喜!
凱頓醫生在衣索比亞當志工。

Mesfin tells patients, who are often scared and crying, that he had surgery
just like theirs and that things are going to be just fine.

________________________________

Recap

So in today's News Bites,

- Eight athletes are representing Taiwan at the Winter Olympics taking place
right now in northern Italy; and
- An Ethiopian teenager who received life-saving heart surgery in the United
States is now giving back to other Ethiopians by helping with their surgeries
- working alongside the same doctor who saved his life!

________________________________

News Flash

In today's News Flash, our vocabulary word is "catastrophe".

Catastrophe is a noun and another way to say "disaster".

But it's a big disaster - maybe a landslide that wipes out thousands of homes
or a war that forces thousands of people to flee.

In today's story, a skier who can't manage his or her speed might crash at
high speed into a tree.

That would be a catastrophe.

You can also use it as an exaggeration.

Maybe your last English test was a catastrophe.

And if you want to say something is a catastrophe, you can use the adjective
"catastrophic".
________________________________

If you have a fun fact or a joke you'd like to share with us, record your
message and send us your Bite-Sized Break to newsbites@icrt.com.tw, and you
might hear it in a future episode!

That was it for this semester of News Bites! We hope you've had fun improving
your English with us this semester. Have a good New Year break and we'll see
you next semester for another exciting new episode of News Bites!