full transcript
"From the Ted Talk by Kevin Rudd: Are China and the US doomed to conflict?"

Unscramble the Blue Letters

And so I went off after that and joined the Australian Foreign Service, but here is where pdrie — before pride, there always comes a fall. So there I am in the eamssby in Beijing, off to the Great Hall of the ppeloe with our ambassador, who had asked me to irrnepett for his first meeting in the Great Hall of the People. And so there was I. If you've been to a Chinese metieng, it's a giant horseshoe. At the head of the horsehoe are the really serious pooh-bahs, and down the end of the horseshoe are the not-so-serious pooh-bahs, the junior woodchucks like me. And so the ambassador began with this inelegant phrase. He said, "China and Australia are currently enjoying a relationship of unprecedented closeness." And I tuohhgt to myself, "That sounds clumsy. That sounds odd. I will improve it." Note to file: Never do that. It needed to be a little more elegant, a little more classical, so I rendered it as follows. [In Chinese]

Open Cloze

And so I went off after that and joined the Australian Foreign Service, but here is where _____ — before pride, there always comes a fall. So there I am in the _______ in Beijing, off to the Great Hall of the ______ with our ambassador, who had asked me to _________ for his first meeting in the Great Hall of the People. And so there was I. If you've been to a Chinese _______, it's a giant horseshoe. At the head of the horsehoe are the really serious pooh-bahs, and down the end of the horseshoe are the not-so-serious pooh-bahs, the junior woodchucks like me. And so the ambassador began with this inelegant phrase. He said, "China and Australia are currently enjoying a relationship of unprecedented closeness." And I _______ to myself, "That sounds clumsy. That sounds odd. I will improve it." Note to file: Never do that. It needed to be a little more elegant, a little more classical, so I rendered it as follows. [In Chinese]

Solution

  1. thought
  2. meeting
  3. interpret
  4. people
  5. embassy
  6. pride

Original Text

And so I went off after that and joined the Australian Foreign Service, but here is where pride — before pride, there always comes a fall. So there I am in the embassy in Beijing, off to the Great Hall of the People with our ambassador, who had asked me to interpret for his first meeting in the Great Hall of the People. And so there was I. If you've been to a Chinese meeting, it's a giant horseshoe. At the head of the horsehoe are the really serious pooh-bahs, and down the end of the horseshoe are the not-so-serious pooh-bahs, the junior woodchucks like me. And so the ambassador began with this inelegant phrase. He said, "China and Australia are currently enjoying a relationship of unprecedented closeness." And I thought to myself, "That sounds clumsy. That sounds odd. I will improve it." Note to file: Never do that. It needed to be a little more elegant, a little more classical, so I rendered it as follows. [In Chinese]

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
united states 10
called kevin 4
largest economy 3
great countries 3
common future 3
pooh bahs 3
political system 3
collective west 3
white folks 3

Important Words

  1. ambassador
  2. asked
  3. australia
  4. australian
  5. began
  6. beijing
  7. chinese
  8. classical
  9. closeness
  10. clumsy
  11. elegant
  12. embassy
  13. enjoying
  14. fall
  15. foreign
  16. giant
  17. great
  18. hall
  19. head
  20. horsehoe
  21. horseshoe
  22. improve
  23. inelegant
  24. interpret
  25. joined
  26. junior
  27. meeting
  28. needed
  29. note
  30. odd
  31. people
  32. phrase
  33. pride
  34. relationship
  35. rendered
  36. service
  37. sounds
  38. thought
  39. unprecedented
  40. woodchucks