South for the Winter--One Way Ticket (Oxford Bookworms)

{Updated November 3, 2014}

"South for the Winter" is a story about con artists (confidence tricksters) on a train. These are people who use clever talk to gain your confidence (make you trust them). All of this talk is a lot of con tricks, or confidence tricks (詐騙手法). Here are two kinds of con tricks:

1) Get rich quickly tricks, such as the Airplane Game:

The OFFICIAL rules (not the REAL rules) are like this: the "captain" (the captain flies the "airplane") asks 2 people to pay him $1000. These people are the "copilots" (copilots help the captain to fly the airplane). The 2 copilots each ask two more people for $1000; These 4 people are the "crew" (the crew work on the airplane, but don't fly it. They take care of the passengers). The 4 people on the crew each ask two more people for $1000 each.

With the official rules, each person gets $2000. This doesn't seem like a lot of money. But if you know the real rules, the picture changes.

Night Train--One Way Ticket & 熱愛火車的加拿大人 A Canadian Who Loves Trains 熱愛火車的加拿大人人

{Updated November 21, 2014}

One Way Ticket is about people taking long distance trains. "Night Train" begins in an interesting way: a man of fifty who likes trains. Does that sound strange to you?

Mr Harris liked trains. ... When he was a boy of ten, he liked trains. Now he was a man of fifty, and he still liked trains. 

In Europe and North America, many boys enjoy playing with trains  (Your teacher was one of them). Some people build model trains and train stations in their basements. Playing with trains is great fun! 歐美許多男生小時候都很喜歡玩火車 （筆者也是其中之一）。有些人在家裡的地下室鋪蓋模型鐵路、火車站。玩火車非常有趣！

If you have the book, remember to study the pictures. They definitely help you understand the story.

Here is one more picture and two short videos:

Lego trains are cheap, but some model trains cost much more money!

Spotting Mr. Freeze in front of the Lego Apple store ( flickr photo CC--BY JD Hancock)
http://flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/2952792290/

In Western countries, some people continue playing with trains after they grow up. In the daytime, they are teachers, doctors, lawyers etc, but at night they build model train tracks, add buildings and trees and play with their trains. Below is a YouTube video of a man in Canada who built a life-size train in his basement. Is he crazy? Maybe he's a bit crazy (he says he's insane), but so what! Actually, I'm a little bit jealous. 

在西方國家有些人長大以後還是一樣繼續玩火車。白天呢，他們當老師、醫生、律師等等，而晚上他們模型鋪鐵路、蓋房屋、種樹，玩起火車來了。加拿大有一位熱愛火車的人在自家的地下室造了一輛全尺寸模型火車廂。或許有人會說他有一點神經不正常，可是那又怎麼樣！他好像玩得自得其樂。其實我多少有一點羨慕他呢！

Penn Treebank II tag set (English & Chinese) 英文詞類:現代語言學的詞類標記

傳統拉丁式文法沒有顧到英文的特色（如：限定詞、英文的兩種時態、to和there的特殊用法等等），現代語言學的詞類標記取決於單詞在句中所扮演的角色，所以英文詞類不止八種：verbs動詞 (VB), nouns名詞 (NN), pronouns代名詞 (PR), adjective形容詞 (JJ), adverbs副詞 (RB), prepositions介詞 (IN), conjunctions連詞 (CC), interjections感嘆詞 (UH)。以下是現代語言學界廣泛採用的 Penn Treebank Tagset（30+ 詞類）

標記	英文	中文	例子
1CC	conjunction, coordinating (1, 6)	並列連詞	and, or, but
2CD	cardinal number	基數	five, three, 13%
3DT	determiner (3, 16, 19, 33, 35)	限定詞	the, a, these
4EX	existential there	表示存在的there	there were six boys
5FW	foreign word	外來語	tzonqtz (zongzi)
6IN	conjunction, subordinating or preposition	從屬連詞或介詞	in, of, on, before, unless
7JJ	adjective	形容詞	nice, easy
8JJR	adjective, comparative	形容詞比較級	nicer, easier
9JJS	adjective, superlative	形容詞最高級	nicest, easiest
10LS	list item marker	名單標記
11MD	verb, modal auxiliary	情態動詞	may, should
12NN	noun, singular or mass	單數名詞	tiger, chair, laughter
13NNS	noun, plural	複數名詞	tigers, chairs, insects
14NNP	noun, proper singular	單數專業名詞	Germany, God, Alice
15NNPS	noun, proper plural	複數專業名詞	we met two Christmases ago
16PDT	Predeterminer (DT 3)	前限定詞	both his children
17POS	possessive ending	所有格詞尾	's
18PRP	pronoun, personal	人稱代詞	me, you, it
19PRP$	pronoun, possessive (DT 3)	物主代詞	my, your, our
20RB	adverb	副詞	extremely, loudly, hard
21RBR	adverb, comparative	副詞比較級	better
22RBS	adverb, superlative	副詞最高級	best
23RP	adverb, particle	副詞、分詞	about, off, up
24SYM	symbol	符號	%
25TO	infinitival to	表示動詞原形to	what to do?
26UH	interjection	感嘆詞	uh, oh, oops, gosh
27VB	verb, base form	動詞，基本形式	think
28VBZ	verb, 3rd person singular present /-z/	動詞第三人稱單數現在式	she thinks
29VBP	verb, non-3rd person singular present	動詞，非第三人稱單數現在式	I think
30VBD	verb, past tense (-ed)	動詞過去式（-ed）	they thought
31VBN	verb, past participle (-en)	動詞，過去分詞（-en）	a sunken ship
32VBG	verb, gerund or present participle (-ing)	動名詞和現在分詞（-ing）	thinking is fun
33WDT	wh-determiner (DT 3)	wh-限定詞	which, whatever, whichever
34WP	wh-pronoun, personal	wh-人稱代詞	what, who, whom
35WP$	wh-pronoun, possessive (DT 3)	wh-物主代詞	whose, whosever
36WRB	wh-adverb	wh-副詞	where, when