Y:大家好, 我是楊晨! 歡迎您到美語咖啡屋!
J: Hello and welcome to American Cafe! I'm Jody. Here, Yang Chen. I bought you something. An instant Lottery Ticket. See, you scratch off the surface to see if you have won. Let me do mine first. (scratch, scratch) Come on Lady Luck! Make me a winner! (scratch, scratch) Damn! Nothing.
Y: Hmm, 好象幸運女神不太喜歡你。
J: I guess not. Well, you try yours and see how you do.
Y: 好,我來試試我的運氣。(scratch, scratch) 哇! 我贏了五塊錢!
J: What! Let me see that. You won five bucks! I think I gave you the wrong ticket. I think I gave you mine. Can I have it back?
Y: No way!
J: Now, what would really be exciting is if you won the BIG Lottery.
Y: 你說的好多州一起辦的那個超級樂透獎,對不對?
J: Yes. That's right! The POWERBALL!
(Enter sharp lightning crack)
Y: 這個聲音好恐怖啊!
J: What our listeners may not know but a well-timed lightning bolt sound is meant to signify the mysterious, the awesome, like the POWERBALL!!!
(Enter sharp lightning crack)
Y:好了,好了,我現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)感受到超級樂透的威力了?,F(xiàn)在你這個音響效果可不可以停止了呢?
J: Okay. No more lightning bolts. For a while.
Y: 可是,我們是不是先來解釋lottery這個詞,然后再發(fā)揮你的音響效果。
J: Let's do. The Lottery is gambling. It's a drawing of numbers. And you have to get all six numbers right AND pick the right number as the Powerball to win.
Y: 噢,對,Lottery是以買彩票或獎券的方式進行賭博。
J: The jackpot recently is really high: $210 million!
Y: 哇! 兩億一千萬美元!! 啊,我要昏倒了。
J: That's right, Sister! You go ahead and faint. The night before the drawing, I stopped at my neighborhood store and there was a line of about 50 people waiting to buy their lottery tickets. Here's some on-site interviews of people actually buying their lottery tickets.
Here's Carl from Miami...
實錄1 Carl: Lottery ticket is a gambling format for a winning of a ticket for $210 million.
J: $ 250 million. What are the odds that you can win?
Carl: one in 250 million, I think.
J: So why are you here?
Carl: Someone's gotta win, that's basically it. The chances are low, but someone does have to win.
Y: 他剛才提到一個詞“odds”,我看我們需要先給大家解釋一下。
J: Sure. O-D-D-S. You know, your chances of winning. What are your odds of winning? But for this lottery, the odds were 1 in 250 million.
Y: 那么這里就是說贏得機律是1比2億5千萬。
J: So the odds are very low. And this woman Susan had a very funny way of describing how she views her odds and why she still plays.
Y: 好,我們聽聽Susan的見解。
實錄2 Susan: Your have a better chance of getting hit by lightning than you do of winning the lottery. However, people do get hit by lightning. So it does make sense to give it a try.
J: So, you're willing to risk a couple of dollars and see if you can win the jackpot.
Susan: Yes!
J: See! She mentioned the word "lightning!"
(Enter sharp lightning crack)
Y: 你知道嗎,你聽起來象個巫婆一樣。
J: Okay. Now, get serious, Yang Chen. You know, after I started interviewing people they all started talking about the big "what if?" You know what if I win?
Y: 就是,我都替他們發(fā)愁。如果贏了,那么多錢怎么花呀?
J: Here's what Susan had to say.
Y: 好吧, 我們來聽聽Susan的宏偉計劃。
實錄3 Susan: Well, that's what everyone always thinks as they're waiting in line ... "What would they do if they won." And of course, the first thing you think is quit your job and buy all those things that are on your list, that you wanted to get...you know...
J: Another woman, Olivia from New Orleans, Louisiana, said that after she paid off her and her family's debt she would give some of her winnings to charities.
實錄4 Olivia: I would definitely donate some to charity, because there are a lot of good courses. And pay off all my debts, my mother's debts, my sister's debts and travel.
Y: 每個人都那么說。如果贏了以后先把工作辭了,然后買下所有以前買不起的東西,還要捐一部份給慈善機構(gòu)。
J: Well, that's what they say before they win. I don't know what they say after they win.
Y: 好,我們的時間到了。謝謝大家收聽美語咖啡屋。
J: Yeah! Thanks for joining us today at American Cafe. I certainly enjoyed talking with you about the American tradition of the...
Y: Stop it, Jody! 如果你再讓我聽到...
J: ...POWERBALL!!
(Enter sharp lightning crack)