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Competitiveness
简体
Competitiveness
竞争力

Learn the Zero Conditional

Date: Aug 03 2012

Themes: Sports

Grammar: Zero Conditional

Intro

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In order to win a gold medal at the Olympics, you must have the competitive spirit. In other parts of life, too, a little healthy competition can make us try harder to succeed. At work or at school, the desire to get ahead can be a powerful source of motivation.

But sometimes, it is difficult to know where exactly the line between healthy and unhealthy competition lies. Nobody likes a person who is overly aggressive, or who treats every little thing like a serious competition. Find out who wins the competition for Most Competitive, Mason or Jason.

若要在奥运会上赢得金牌,就必须具有竞争精神。生活中的其他方面也一样,一些良性竞争可使我们更加努力去获得成功。无论是工作还是学习,获得成功的渴望可以成为最强大的动力。

但是有时候,人们很难确定良性竞争和恶性竞争的分界线。大家都不喜欢太争强好胜,或将每一件小事都当做极其严肃的竞争来对待的人。看看在这场“最具竞争力”的比赛中,谁是赢家,梅森还是詹森。

Dialog

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2. Study - Read the dialog again to see how the vocab words are used.

Jason

Jason

Mason

Mason

Jason:  Are you the kind of person that turns everything into a competition?

Mason:  No, not really. It’s funny, I generally associate competitiveness with sports, which I…really don’t play, sports. But I’m pretty competitive when it comes to ideas.

Jason:  What do you mean?

Mason:  Well, I mean because, like, for my job, it’s mostly based on who can come up with the best idea or concept or whatever.

Jason:  OK.

Mason:  And I most of the time think mine is the best.

Jason:  I see.

Mason:  Which is not to say that I’m not open to having other people’s ideas be better, I just am really hard to please when it comes to me thinking your idea is better than mine.

Jason:  I think that’s just pride.

Mason:  That’s the nice way to put it, maybe.

Jason:  You’re not necessarily looking to dominate the others just for the sake of it.

Mason:  It is kind of aggressive though, like, “You just try and top my idea.”

Jason:  Where does that come from? Why do we do that?

Mason:  Man, in my case I think it’s pure ego.

Jason:  I mean, I guess it has like a biological root. Life is sort of, on a scientific level, about competition, and eating things rather than getting eaten.

Mason:  There’s a healthy amount of competition. I don’t know what it is.

Jason:  You can get lazy if there’s not someone there to push you to keep getting better.

 

Grammar Point

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Lesson MP3

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Discussion

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Jason asks Mason if he is competitive. Mason says that he is generally not a very competitive person. But he does sometimes get competitive at work. He always thinks he has the best ideas. It’s hard for him to accept that someone else’s ideas are better.

Jason wonders why people are competitive. Mason thinks it has to do with having a big ego, or a lot of pride. Jason points out that competition is a part of nature. He also thinks that there is a good side to being competitive. Wanting to be the best pushes you to try harder.

Are you a competitive person? Do you think it is good to be competitive, or do you dislike competitive people?

 

Comments

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julywidiawati

Indonesia

I’m not a competitive person, competition makes me nervous, cause from the beginning of my carrier competition and dead line are things I facing everyday. I think it is good to be competitive, but it’s stressing up sometimes.

12:47 AM Aug 03 2012 |

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