Developing ideas课文翻译
Misadventures in English
学英语的不幸经历
Last week, our forum asked if you had any funny or strange stroies about using English. We didn’t expect to get so many posts! Here are some of our favourites, to remind us that some of the English we learn in the classroom is rather different from the English in the outside world!
366个赞
325条评价
分享
喜欢
Yancy:
People say that the British always play safe with what they eat. Not true! I went to a summer school in Manchester and my English teacher was called Maggie. One day, a different teacher took our class. He told us that Maggie couldn’t teach that day COZ she had a frog in her throat. Poor Maggie-but why did she try to eat such a big frog?
人们说英国人对于吃的东西总是安全至上。(事实)并非如此!我曾参加过曼彻斯特的一个暑期班,当时我的英语老师叫Maggie。一天,另一个老师代我们课。他告诉我们说Maggie那天不能教课,因为她喉咙里有一只青蛙(had a frog in her throat表示因喉咙疼导致说话困难)。可怜的Maggie,但是她为什么要吃一个这么大的青蛙吗?
Sophie:
When I first visited New York, I went to a downtown shopping centre to buy some winter boots. At the information desk at the entrance, I asked a lady where the shoe section was. She said that it was on the first floor. So I went to up to the first floor, but couldn’t find any shoes. I decided to leave. When I was looking for the exit, I saw that shoes were actually sold downstairs on the ground floor, not the first floor. Why did she give me the wrong information?
当我在纽约游览时,我去了一个闹市的商业中心买冬鞋。在入口的咨询台,我问一位女士鞋区在哪里。她说在一楼。所以我就去了一楼,但是却没有看到任何鞋子。我决定离开。当我找出口时,看到鞋区实际上是在底层而不是一楼。她为什么要给我假信息呢?(备注:美国first floor指在地面的楼层,和中国的一楼一样,而英国则用ground floor表示一楼,用first floor表示地面上边的一层,即我们所说的二楼。)
Julien
I’ve got an English penfriend, who I finally got to meet in London this summer. He had told me that his grandfather was “really wicked”. But when I met his grandfather, I liked hime a lot. I found it very odd. Why did my friend use a negative word about such a nice man?
我有一个英国笔友,这个暑假我在伦敦见到了他。他告诉我说他的爷爷“really wicked”(真的很邪恶)。但是当我见到他爷爷时,我非常喜欢他。我感觉很奇怪。我的朋友为什么要用一个贬义词来形容他爷爷呢?
(备注:wicked在非正式场合还可以表示极好的)
Zheng Xu
The British must have really high standards. I was part of a student exchange programme between a univeristy in England and my university in China. I spent days preparing and writing my first English paper. I knew I had done a good job and was looking forward to getting a positive comment. When I got the paper back, I found my teacher had written the comment “Not bad!” Not bad? But there weren’t any errors in my paper.
英国人的标准肯定很高。我曾是一所英国大学和我的中国大学一个交流项目的参与者。我花了数天时间准备英语论文。我知道我做的很好,期望能得到积极的评价。当我拿回论文时,却发现老师给我的评价是“不坏!” (仅仅是)不坏?但是我的论文没有任何错误。