三角洲通訊公司老板John Smith到銀行申請貸款，接待他的是銀行負責人Ted Johnson。

Ted Johnson: Hello, Mr. Smith. Thanks for stopping by.

Smith: Hello, and call me John.

Ted: Sure...but only if you call me Ted.

J: Done.

T: So you are the CEO of Delta Communications. What exactly does your firm make?

J: We are the leading supplier of walkie-talkie radios and other shortwave communication devices.

John Smith和Ted Johnson相互問候，彼此堅持要對方用first name稱呼自己，以便拉近距離，不會顯得太客氣。史密斯是三角洲通訊公司的CEO, Chief Executive Officer，首席執行官，這家公司主要生產對講機等短波通訊工具。walkie-talkie，是中文里說的對講機。

T: Ah...I see. How's business these days?

J: Actually, not bad. We landed a couple of major contracts in Southeast Asia recently and in spite of the recession, we're humming along quite nicely.

T: That's good to hear. It's been a rough couple of years. I've had to deny hundreds of loan applications and we've had to take legal action to recover loans as well.

史密斯說，他們公司的業務沒有受到經濟危機的影響，剛在東南亞簽了幾個重要合同。We're humming along quite nicely，生意蒸蒸日上，hum is spelled h-u-m, hum，有忙忙碌碌的意思。Ted則抱怨說，最近兩年貸款很不好做It's been a rough couple of years，rough, r-o-u-g-h, rough，在這里是困難的意思。不僅很多貸款申請不符合標準被退回，而且還不得不采取法律手段追繳貸款。

J: That sounds tough.

T: It is! No one wants to be the bad guy and people have a stereotype of bankers as unfeeling and cruel. But contracts are contracts and I have to run my business, right?

J: Yeah. You know what they say: business is business—it's not personal.

T: Well, I do sympathize with people's difficulties. But there's really nothing I can do.

Ted說，No one wants to be the bad guy，誰都不想當惡人，大家對銀行家有成見，成見stereotype is spelled s-t-e-r-e-o-t-y-p-e, stereotype，普遍認為銀行家冷血，不盡人情unfeeling and cruel，但是做生意是為了賺錢，contracts are contracts合同就是合同，或者說，business is business. It's not personal. 這是做生意，不是針對任何人。Ted同時也表示，他很理解和同情大家的難處，但又沒有辦法。這里用的sympathize is spelled s-y-m-p-a-t-h-i-z-e, sympathize，是同情。