英语口语笔记B1-Unit05.休闲娱乐-04-Going to karaoke

Going to karaoke

词汇语法及实用表达

pop n.流行音乐
no need phr.不需要
private adj.清静的（场所）

对话场景

文化拓展

Who Created Karaoke?

谁发明了卡拉OK？

Karaoke is a combination of the Japanese kara, or empty, and oke, the shortened form of okesutora, or orchestra. The first machines were created by a musician named Daisuke Inoue in 1971. He told a reporter for The Guardian that he was a terrible musician, so he created a machine to play for him when he didn’t want to (or couldn’t).

卡拉OK是由日语的カラ（kara），也就是“空的”，和オーケストラ，也就是orchestra（管弦乐队）的简称オケ（oke）组成。第一台卡拉OK机器是在1971年由音乐家井上大佑创造的。他对《卫报》的记者说，自己是名糟糕的音乐家，所以他创造了一台机器，在自己不想（或不能）演奏的时候替自己出力。

By the '80s, karaoke was all over Japan. According to Forbes, America’s first karaoke bar opened in Los Angeles in 1982. By 2003—the first year of the Karaoke World Championships, which had participants from seven countries—karaoke had become a worldwide phenomenon.

到了80年代，卡拉OK风靡日本。据福布斯报道，美国第一家卡拉OK酒吧于1982年在洛杉矶开业。2003年召开了首届卡拉OK世界锦标赛，选手分别来自七个国家，这标志着卡拉OK已成世界级现象。

Inoue never patented the karaoke machine, and, according to NPR, he earned almost no money from his invention. But what Inoue lacks in wealth, he’s made up in glory: In 1999, Time named him one of the most influential Asians of the century, and in 2004, he received the Ig Nobel Peace Prize, for providing “an entirely new way for people to learn to tolerate each other.”

井上没有为卡拉OK机申请专利，根据NPR的说法，井上几乎没有赚到什么钱。井上虽然没有因为自己的发明而富裕，但是却因此获得无数荣誉：1999年，《时代》杂志称他为20世纪最有影响力的亚洲人之一；2004年，井上因为“让人用全新的方式学会容忍对方”而获得搞笑诺贝尔和平奖。

In his acceptance speech, Inoue said that “One time I had a dream to teach people to sing, so I invented karaoke. I didn’t know it would be the start of something big. Now more than ever, I want to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony.” He received the longest standing ovation the Ig Nobels had ever seen.

井上在获奖感言中说，“曾经我有一个梦想，我想教大家唱歌，所以我发明了卡拉OK。我不知道这只是个开端，不知道这会发展成如此了不起的一件事。现在，我比以往任何时候都希望教这个世界唱歌，教大家用完美的和声共唱一曲。”众人起立，为井上献上搞笑诺贝尔奖史上最经久不息的掌声。

Source: Mental Floss, “Who Created Karaoke?”

思维发散

😳未完待续…