評論
打印
William: Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, I'm William Kremer.
威廉：大家好，歡迎收聽地道英語節目，我是威廉·克萊默。
Wang Fei: And I'm Wang Fei. So how are you today?
王飛：我是王飛。你今天怎么樣？
William: Two ticks...
威廉：稍等一下……
Wang Fei: What?
王飛：什么？
William: Give me two shakes, Wang Fei, I just need to...
威廉：王飛，給我點兒時間，我只是要……
Wang Fei: Eh? What's that?
王飛：什么？那是什么？
William: I'll be with you in a jiffy...
威廉：我馬上就和你一起主持……
Wang Fei: In a jiffy. What's a jiffy? William, what are you talking about?
王飛：In a jiffy。jiffy是什么？威廉，你在說什么？
William: There, done now. I just needed to send a text.
威廉：好了，搞定了。我只是要發個短信。
Wang Fei: But what were all those ticks and jiffys?
王飛：不過剛才你說的那ticks和jiffys都是什么?。?/div>
William: Ahh, and shakes?
威廉：還有shakes是嗎？
Wang Fei: Yes.
王飛：對。
William: Well they're all expressions of time, Wang Fei. So they're ways of saying 'just a moment', or 'just a minute'.
威廉：嗯，這些都是有關時間的表達方式，王飛。這些都是“稍等一下”、“馬上”的表達方式。
Wang Fei: I see.
王飛：我明白了。
Can you come and help me lift this sofa?
你能來幫我搬下這個沙發嗎？
Yeah, I'll be with you in two ticks.
好的，我馬上就過去幫你。
William: Two ticks. In English, we say clocks make this noise: tick tock, tick tock. So two ticks is just like saying two seconds.
威廉：two ticks。在英語中，我們說鐘表會發出這樣的聲音：滴答，滴答。所以two ticks就相當于兩秒鐘。
I said, can you come and help me here? It's too heavy for me.
我說，你能不能過來幫幫我？這個沙發對我來說太重了。
Yes, yes. I'll be there in two shakes.
好，好的。我馬上就來幫你。
Wang Fei: Hmm. Two shakes?
王飛：嗯。Two shakes？
William: Yeah, the full phrase here is 'two shakes of a lamb's tail', but we shorten this to 'two shakes'.
威廉：對，完整的短語是“小羊搖兩下尾巴的時間”，不過我們會縮短成two shakes。
Wang Fei: Oh I see. Two shakes of a lamb's tail. English can be a very weird language!
王飛：哦，我明白了。“小羊搖兩下尾巴的時間”。英語還真是奇怪的語言！
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...
威廉：對，是這樣！我想這是因為小羊的尾巴搖的非常快，所以搖兩下只用很短的時間！最后……
Look Neil, this sofa isn't going to lift itself. Get a move on!
看，尼爾，沙發是不會自己長腿走的。快點過來！
I know, I know. I said I'll be with you in a jiffy.
我知道，我知道。我說過我馬上就會去幫你的。
Wang Fei: In a jiffy. So in a jiffy also means 'in a short space of time'. But what's a jiffy?
王飛：In a jiffy，這也是“短時間”的意思。不過jiffy是什么？
William: Well, you know what, Wang Fei? Nobody is completely sure of the origin of this word. But it has been in use for over 200 years!
威廉：嗯，王飛，你知道嗎？沒人準確地知道這個詞的來源。不過這個詞已經用了200多年了！
Wang Fei: 200 years! That's quite a long time. More than a jiffy!
王飛：200年！那真是很長時間了。比短時間可長多了。
William: Yes, and that's several billion shakes of a lamb's tail.
威廉：對，那可是小羊搖了幾十億次尾巴的時間啊。
Wang Fei: Yes and all those ticks of a clock! Bye for now.
王飛：對啊，還有那些時鐘的滴答聲?，F在該說再見了。
William: Bye bye.
威廉：再見。
Are you going to help me with sofa or not?!
你到底要不要幫我搬沙發？
What sofa? You need help with a sofa?
什么沙發？你需要幫忙搬沙發嗎？
