評論
打印
William: Hello and welcome to Authentic Real English, I'm William Kremer.
Wang Fei: And I'm Wang Fei. So how are you today?
你今天如何？
William: Two ticks...
稍等
Wang Fei: What?
什么？
William: Give me two shakes, Wang Fei, I just need to...
稍等下，Wang Fei，我只是需要……
Wang Fei: Eh? What's that?
William: I'll be with you in a jiffy...
Wang Fei: Jiffy. 什么是一個 jiffy? William, what are you talking about?
William: There, done now. I just needed to send a text.
做完了，我只是需要發條短信。
Wang Fei: But what were all those ticks and jiffys?
William: Ahh, and shakes?
Wang Fei: Yes.
William: Well they're all expressions of time, Wang Fei. So they're ways of saying 'just a moment', or 'just a minute'.
Wang Fei: I see. 這都是說“一會兒”“稍等”的意思。我們下面聽幾個例子。
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Example
A: Can you come and help me lift this sofa?
你能過來幫我抬下這個沙發嗎？
B: Yeah, I'll be with you in two ticks.
好的，我馬上就來。
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William: Two ticks. In English, we say clocks make this noise: tick tock, tick tock. So two ticks is just like saying two seconds.
稍等，在英語中，我們說鐘表發出聲音：滴答-滴答。所以2下滴答也就是2秒鐘。
Wang Fei: 哦！我明白了，two ticks 字面意思也就是說兩秒鐘。
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Example
A: I said, can you come and help me here? It's too heavy for me.
你能過來幫我嗎？沙發太重了。
B: Yes, yes. I'll be there in two shakes.
好的，我馬上到。
Wang Fei: Two shakes 搖兩下?
William: Yeah, the full phrase here is 'two shakes of a lamb's tail', but we shorten this to 'two shakes'.
Wang Fei: 搖兩下羊的尾巴? 有時候英語的表達真是很奇怪！是不是？！
William: Yes, it can be! I guess that this is because lambs' tails shake very fast, so two shakes is a short time! And finally...
