HPDBC Chapter 3374 English Team Training Camp
Chapter 3374 English Team Training Camp
Chapter 3374 English Team Training Camp
It's five o'clock in the afternoon in the courtyard of Little Red Horse Academy. The sun is still high in the sky, shining brightly. Summer days are long and it gets dark late.
Xiaobai and Liuliu sat side by side on a chair, with a brand-new notebook open in front of them. Next to them sat their instructor, Xier, and Robin, a bystander. The atmosphere was serious yet slightly comical.
"Let's start writing the script!"
Xiao Bai picked up a pen and wrote the title on the notebook: "Shining Moments on the International Film Festival Award Stage".
Liu Liu excitedly pointed out: "Here you should write, 'I, Shen Liu Liu Da Yan Yan, wearing a floor-length gown studded with diamonds, floated onto the stage like a fairy, and the spotlights suddenly shone on me! The audience was filled with exclamations of "Wow!"'"
While taking notes, Xiaobai complained, "Even with diamonds, aren't you afraid of collapsing the stage? Besides, this is a dialogue, not a fashion show! The focus is on what we're saying!"
"I know I know!"
Liu Liu snatched the pen and drew a stick figure crookedly on the notebook, writing "Shen Liu Liu" next to it. Then she drew an arrow pointing to another stick figure, "Xiao Bai," and said, "You say first: 'Please welcome Ms. Shen Liu Liu, the Best Actress, to the stage to accept the award!' Then I will walk up gracefully and slowly, accept the trophy, and begin my acceptance speech."
Xi'er rested her chin on her hand, blinked her big eyes, and asked, "Liuliu, what are you going to say in your acceptance speech?"
Liuliu immediately straightened her back, cleared her throat, and began her Chinese recitation in what she considered her most heartfelt and international tone: "First of all, I want to thank myself for my hard work, intelligence, and wit. I also want to thank my mother Zhu, my fans, Dudu, director Xiaobai, all the staff... and my father. This award doesn't belong to me alone; it belongs to our entire team! Film is art, and art originates from life but transcends it... (300 words omitted here) Finally, I want to say that love and dreams are the greatest forces in the world! Thank you everyone!"
Robin's heartfelt performance made Xiaobai roll her eyes, but she clapped her hands enthusiastically: "Liuliu, you're amazing! You said so much!"
This child is a classic example of blind worship.
"That is!"
Liu Liu triumphantly tossed her non-existent flowing long hair: "This is more befitting of my status as Da Yan Yan! Xiao Bai, quick, write it all down! This is the core of our script!"
Suppressing the urge to complain, Xiaobai simplifies Liuliu's long and exaggerated remarks, and finally manages to put together a relatively normal Chinese dialogue script.
"Alright, the script is done!"
Xiao Bai put down her pen, breathed a sigh of relief, handed the notebook to Xi'er, and said with a smile, "Xi'er, it's up to you now! Translate it into English for us, the kind that sounds impressive and formal!"
Xi'er took the notebook, looked at it carefully, puffed out her cheeks like a little bun, nodded and said, "Leave it to me! I'll look up anything I don't understand in the English dictionary!"
Xi'er took out a pencil and eraser and began translating the script word by word, referring to the Chinese script.
She would sometimes frown in thought, sometimes write quickly, muttering to herself: "Thank you... team... dream... art..."
Robin curiously peered over and pointed to the long word Xi'er had written, asking, "Sister Xi'er, what is this really long word?"
Xi'er looked up and saw Robin's humble learning attitude, so she patiently explained, "This is 'international,' and this is 'cinematography'... Liuliu mentioned a lot of advanced words in her remarks."
During this time, Xi'er was unsure about several words and had to ask her godfather for help. Finally, after more than half an hour, a "deluxe bilingual (Chinese and English) situational drama script" was freshly produced.
Xiaobai and Liuliu took a look and were immediately dumbfounded.
The script was filled with English sentences, far longer than they had expected. What was worse, it was full of long words they had never seen before.
Liuliu pointed to one of the lines and asked, "Xier, how do you pronounce 'unprecedented'? And 'extraordinary'? And 'collaboration'?"
Xi'er read them aloud to her one by one, and Liu Liu followed along, but her pronunciation was strange, like a robot chanting scriptures, or a dog barking, or a cat walking around the house at night and meowing incessantly.
"Liuliu, when you pronounce 'unprecedented,' it sounds like you're saying 'I don't eat celery!'" Xiaobai ruthlessly complained.
Xi'er laughed out loud; Xiaobai's Chinese translation had hit her Schrödinger's funny bone.
"If you're so good, then you do it!" Liu Liu retorted.
Xiao Bai laughed and said, "You're the one who said you wanted to play the award accepting guest, those are your lines! What does it have to do with me?!"
Liu Liu was secretly annoyed; she seemed to have miscalculated! Although the award presenter was more in the limelight, they also had more to say, and she had forgotten that the entire presentation had to be in English!!
She chuckled and said, "Xiao Bai, how about we switch? I'll present you with the award and you'll win it! It's an international award!! It's called the Best Director Award in the World!"
Xiao Bai wouldn't fall for it. If she had been given the role when the skit was being written, she might have been tempted, but now that she knows the difficulty of having a lot of lines, she won't jump into the fire for the sake of so-called glory.
If you can't speak on stage tomorrow and get stuck, it's not a matter of being glorious or not, it's a matter of losing face and dignity.
Xiaobai refused, and Liuliu slumped on the stool like a fish out of water: "I can't take it anymore... Xier, your translation is too advanced! I've never seen these words before, how am I supposed to memorize them! Five minutes! We only have five minutes! I could memorize this all night!"
Xiaobai also said, "Yeah, Xiwawa, can you make it simpler? Like the kind of English we usually speak? Like 'Hello,' 'Thank you,' 'Good job,' and the like?"
Xi'er glanced at the script, then at their dejected faces, and smiled sheepishly: "I was so focused on making the translation formal and elegant that I forgot your English isn't very good, you don't know many words, and you might not be able to remember them. So let's simplify it!"
Xiaobai and Liuliu were both speechless. The doll was too sincere when it spoke. The more sincere it was, the more lethal it became. The doll's throwing knife was truly deadly!
Just then, Xiaomi walked into the courtyard and, seeing the scene, asked with concern, "What's wrong? Is the script not going well?"
Xiao Bai, as if seeing a savior, handed over the script: "Xiao Mi, look! Xi'er's translation is too difficult, we can't handle it at all!"
Xiaomi took the script and quickly skimmed through it, then couldn't help but laugh: "This is indeed very difficult; there's a lot I don't understand either. However, the dialogue in a sitcom doesn't need to be so formal; simple everyday language will suffice. The key is fluency and naturalness."
At Xiaomi's suggestion, everyone sat down together and began to drastically revise the script. Xiaomi was responsible for simplifying the sentence structure, while Xi'er was responsible for replacing the sentences with simpler vocabulary.
"The award speech will be simple: 'The winner is... Liuliu Shen! Congratulations!'" Xiaomi said as she wrote.
“When Liuliu goes on stage, she should first say, ‘Thank you! Thank you very much!’” Xi’er suggested.
Liu Liu asked, "Should I just say 'Thank you'? Shouldn't I say something else? Like my understanding of acting, or my lifelong pursuit of art?"
Xiao Bai mocked, "Even if I wrote it down for you, you wouldn't remember it. It would be funny if you stuttered on the podium. Someone would post it online and say that you, Da Yan Yan, are actually a poor student."
Liuliu stared at Xiaohuahua with resentment.
Ignoring their bickering, Xi'er continued, "Then Liuliu can say, 'I am so happy! My team is the best!'"
“Let me say it again: ‘We love movies! We love stories!’” Xiaomi finally made the decision.
The script was shortened from a full page to just seven or eight sentences, using only the most basic vocabulary.
Xiaobai and Liuliu breathed a sigh of relief as they looked at the new script.
"This is great! I can do this!"
Liuliu regained her confidence.
"Then let's get back to practicing!" Xiaobai perked up again.
The two began to repeat after each other, sentence by sentence.
Xi'er and Xiaomi took turns demonstrating and correcting pronunciation.
“Liuliu, it’s ‘happy,’ not ‘hap-pee’!” Xi’er repeated patiently.
“Xiaobai, the ‘m’ in ‘team’ should be pronounced with your mouth closed, not ‘tean’,” Xiaomi corrected.
Robin sat to the side, holding a bag of potato chips, eating them with great relish. Weiwei watched with great interest, occasionally imitating the phrase "happi~ timu~", his pronunciation even more accurate than Liuliu's, earning praise from Xier and Xiaomi from time to time.
After practicing more than ten times, they were finally able to stammer out those few words, but when it came to adding gestures and expressions, they became flustered again.
When Liuliu got nervous, she said "Thank you" as "Sankeyou" and added a fist-and-palm gesture, which was completely inappropriate.
Xiao Bai wasn't much better. When she spoke her lines, it sounded like she was reading a textbook. When she said "Congratulations," it sounded like she was saying "Bring a donkey leg up."
"No, no!"
Xiaomi stopped them and patiently corrected them: "Xiaobai, when you say congratulations, you should smile at Liuliu and make a gesture of handing over the trophy. Liuliu, when you receive the trophy, you should use both hands to show respect, then turn to face the audience and be sincere when you say your thanks. These are all things you are best at, how could you forget them now?! Relax, don't be nervous."
Liuliu said, "Actually, I think we should prepare props. Xiaobai, go and get the golden bear you won last time. Take it to school tomorrow."
Xiaobai thought it was a good idea and agreed.
After practicing countless times, the two were finally able to make their conversation coherent, although their pronunciation still carried a strong Sichuan accent and a slightly exaggerated and comical style, but at least they had the basic structure.
As dusk fell completely, the lights of Little Red Pony Academy came on.
Xiao Bai wiped the sweat from his forehead, looked at Liu Liu who was also panting heavily and exaggeratedly, and said, "Liu Liu, I think when we go up tomorrow, the students might not be there to listen to English, but to watch a comedy show."
Liuliu slumped in her chair, listless but still stubborn: "Nonsense! We're... a fusion of East and West! Humorous and witty! They don't understand how to appreciate it!"
"No matter what," Xiaobai put away the script, his eyes rekindling with fighting spirit, "I've practiced this much, I have to grit my teeth and go tomorrow! I can't just hand in a blank paper!"
"Right! Xiaobai, for tomorrow's victory, shouldn't we replenish our energy? We haven't had dinner yet. If we're not enthusiastic about eating, we won't have the energy to do anything!"