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[00:00.00]2018年5月20日VOA慢速英語
[00:00.10]This is What's Trending Today…
[00:02.83]The question seems simple enough.
[00:06.54]What word do you hear in the audio --
[00:10.25]「Yanny」 or 「Laurel?」
[00:13.75]The answer, as it turns out, is not so simple.
[00:21.67]And a four-second recording is dividing --
[00:26.28]and confusing --
[00:27.85]internet users around the world.
[00:31.13]Late Monday night,
[00:34.02]a Twitter user named Cloe Feldman posted the short recording on social media.
[00:41.30]She wrote, 「What do you hear?! Yanny or Laurel?」
[00:46.15]People answered quickly.
[00:48.70]Most were sure that they were correct.
[00:52.01]Those who heard differently, many said, were either crazy or seeking attention.
[00:59.03]One Twitter user answered, 「Is this a joke? It very clearly says 「yanny」
[01:07.47]and in no way could it possibly be misheard as 「laurel」...am I losing my mind?
[01:14.78]Yet, another wrote, 「Laurel! How is anyone hearing Yanny?」
[01:19.89]Some said they could hear
[01:22.11]both words, including American politician Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
[01:28.25]In a Twitter video, he said he first heard Yanny, but later heard Laurel.
[01:35.52]He joked that he is 「always willing to hear both sides of an issue.」
[01:41.83]Many are comparing "Yanny vs Laurel"
[01:45.38] to the debate in 2015 about 「The Dress.」 You might remember it.
[01:52.52]A woman posted a photo of a dress she liked on social media.
[01:58.44]She asked whether the dress was blue and black or white and gold.
[02:04.66]And so began a viral discussion about a piece clothing.
[02:10.51]Cloe Feldman has a popular YouTube
[02:14.37] account and over 200,000 followers on Twitter.
[02:19.15]That helped the Yanny vs.
[02:21.94]Laurel debate spread on social media.
[02:24.35]It soon became a trending topic on Twitter and Facebook.
[02:30.54]As of Wednesday, Feldman's audio file has over 12 million views on Twitter.
[02:37.50]But Feldman herself did not create the audio, or even start the debate.
[02:43.57]Wired.com reports that it began in a high school literature class.
[02:50.85]A student in Georgia named Katie Hetzel
[02:54.79] was studying the word 「laurel」 for a class assignment.
[02:59.49]She looked up the word on the website Vocabulary.com
[03:05.76]She played the site's pronunciation audio file for the word.
[03:11.76]But, instead of hearing 「laurel,」 she heard 「yanny.」
[03:15.17]Hetzel asked her classmates what they heard and
[03:21.43]「we all heard mixed things,」 she told Wired.
[03:23.45]She decided to post the audio file on her Instagram.
[03:29.45]Later, another student put it on the social news site Reddit, according to Wired.
[03:36.53]From there, it seems, Cloe Feldman took it to Twitter.
[03:42.52]So, the reason for the confusion between Laurel and Yanny?
[03:46.30]I'll let my Learning English co-host and audio expert Jonathan Evans explain:
[03:53.03]Ashley: Jonathan,
[03:56.04]you might have heard the internet has lost its mind about this Yanny vs Laurel debate.
[04:02.74]Can you help us out?
[04:04.07]Jonathan: I hope I can.
[04:06.30]So, there are a number of frequencies at play.
[04:10.14]The higher frequency --
[04:11.96]at the higher frequency --
[04:14.70]you will hear the word 「Yanny.」
[04:16.26]At the lower frequency, you will hear the word 「Laurel.」
[04:20.95]Ashley: So, what is frequency?
[04:24.09]Jonathan: So, frequency is the number
[04:26.59] of sound waves per second produced by any piece of sound.
[04:32.79]Ashley: So, why are some people
[04:35.26]hearing the higher frequency and some are hearing the lower frequency?
[04:41.84]Jonathan: It all depends.
[04:42.96]It depends on, on how you're listening to the piece of audio.
[04:46.13]Because it will sound different if you're listening on your phone versus
[04:51.85] whether it's coming through your car
[04:54.54] stereo or whether it's coming through your home computer.
[04:56.58]And it is a low-quality audio file.
[04:58.76]It's actually "Yammy." Not "Yanny." It's "Yammy." It's an "mm."
[05:05.29]It's "Yammy." If you're going to hear anything that begins with a Ya.
[05:09.34]Ashley: So you're adding a new possibility to the debate?
[05:13.24]Jonathan: Yes.
[05:14.11]Ashley: Great!
[05:14.66]Jonathan: It's definitely "Yammy."
[05:16.40]Ashley: Alright.
[05:17.26]Jonathan: But it's not.
[05:18.32]It's "Laurel." It is "Laurel." It's "Laurel." But you can pick out a "Yammy."
[05:24.05]And that's What's Trending Today.
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Words in This Story
confuse - v. to make (someone) uncertain or unable to understand something
crazy - adj. unable to think in a clear or sensible way
dress - n. a piece of clothing for a woman or a girl that has a top part that covers the upper body and a skirt that hangs down to cover the legs
laurel - n. a crown made from laurel* leaves that was awarded and worn around the head as a symbol of honor in ancient Greece // *laurel - n. an evergreen tree or bush with shiny pointed leaves)
post - v. to add (a message) to an online message board