Dec. 1-2 Charles Dickens

Main idea:

Charles Dicken's bitter childhood experience made him an accomplished writer who was able to give observation and depiction of the working class.  For example, readers can see his memories of working in a factory come to life in his famous masterpieces such as Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Great Expectation, the latter two generally considered autobiographical.

Grammatical points to pay special attention to:

p. 12

line 11 handle處理=cope with=deal with

line 13 put in prison入獄= put behind bars

特別注意in prison因為是抽象意義（表示入獄行刑而非進入某特定監獄），因此不加the喔！

line 19 polish這邊是名詞，表示「鞋油」

若polish當動詞，意思則是擦亮或潤飾的意思，例如：
He polished the glass vase.
The speaker polished her language in her speech.

line 22 find himself feeling是以前學過的find + O + OC(翻譯作「發現...」)的句型喔！

還記得嗎？主動用V-ing，被動用p.p.
例如：
The ower found the boy stealing money from the shop.

p. 13

line 3 slave away

slave本來的意思就是奴隸，
因此在這邊當動詞就是很辛苦賣命工作的意思

line 2 As his writing skills developed

as是「隨著」的意思，
我們也可以用with來表示「隨著」，
但as和with後面接的不太一樣，請看看下面的兩個句子，自己歸納出原則喔！
As Christmas approaches, department stores are getting new decorations to celebrate the holiday.
With the approaching of Christmas, department stores are getting new decorations to celebrate the holiday.

line 7 as a novelist 

這邊的as就和第二行的as a newspaper reporter一樣都是「作為」「以...身份」的意思，
跟上面的as意思並不相同。

p. 14

line 2 monthly：每月的

首先，monthly是形容詞，並非副詞喔！
我們學過名詞後加上ly之後會便形容詞喔，對吧？
例如有friendly, leisurely等等。
再來，每天的叫做daily（例如daily routine每天的例行公事)、
每週的weekly（例如weekly journal）還有每年的就叫做yearly或是annual唷！

line 4 run from 1837 to 1839

這邊的run是連續刊載的意思。

line 10 autobiographical：自傳的

biography傳記  (biology生物學)
automatic自動的 (ATM: Automatic Teller Machine自動櫃員機)
autocracy專制的
autopilot自動駕駛的
因此，綜合以上的，你發現auto在字根裡是什麼意思了嗎？

Extention:

Charles Dickens' Life (強烈推薦這個！BBC製作的傳記式動畫，非常可愛！順便練一下英國口音的英文聽力吧！)
A Christmas Carol
A Christmas Carol Animation (Part 1)

A Christmas Carol Animation (Part 2)

A Christmas Carol Animation (Part 3)

A Christmas Carol Animation (Part 4)