Larry和李華今天去看賽車。 李華會學到兩個常用語sick和souped up。
LH: Larry,你看, 每輛賽車都不一樣,各有獨特之處,真有意思。
LL: That car over there is totally sick. Look at the paint and the tires. That is so cool. I'd love to have a car like that.
LH: That car over there is totally sick? 你說那輛車有病,可你又說它很酷。有病是壞事, 很酷是好事。你究竟在說什么呀?
LL: Cool means I like that car, sick means I like the car too. If I say something is sick, that means it's really good, I like it, it's special.
LH: 原來sick 和cool是一樣的意思,都是指很好,很特別。這里的sick跟生病毫無關。那我可以說,you are neat Larry, you're special, you are so sick.
LL: Hmm. You shouldn't use sick in that way! I would never say my friend is sick or that pretty girl over there is sick.
LH: 你的意思是sick只用來形容一樣東西?
LL: That's right. That car over there is sick, those sunglasses you are wearing are sick, that new hat I bought you is sick too.
LH: 我的太陽鏡的確很酷,可是你給我買的帽子就很難說了。 Larry你看我的新鞋好看嗎?
LL: Totally sick,very nice. Where did you get them?
LH: 特別酷吧。這雙鞋是我在學校附近新開的大商場里買的。那商場的建筑很特別 - The structure of that shopping center is very unique...totally sick!
LL: The company that developed that shopping center is owned by a friend of my Dad's, his company is opening new shopping centers every other week.
LH: 那購物中心是你父親的朋友建的呀? 而且每兩個星期就開一個新的購物中心!他肯定很有錢了。
LL: That's for sure. Their revenue is pretty sick。 With company growth like that, I bet my Dad's friend's net worth is pretty sick too.
LH:那是肯定的。收入那么多,家產當然是驚人的。我們中國人就說:家產萬貫。
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LH: Larry, 看賽車真有意思。你看,賽車奔馳而過, 人群不斷地吶喊助威,多熱鬧啊。
LL: A lot of people come to car races for the excitement but a lot just come to see the souped up cars.
LH: See the souped up cars? Soup不是湯嗎?Souped up cars是什么呀?
LL: Souped up means changed or altered to go faster.
LH: 噢,souped up的意思是經過改裝,速度加快了。這里的賽車一定都經過改裝。它們的速度比普通汽車要快得多。
LL: That's right. If someone takes an ordinary bicycle and changes the wheels so it can go faster, we can say it was souped up.
LH: 自行車也能改裝加速嗎?那我的自行車也該換換車胎了。
LL: One time I had a skateboard, but it wasn't very fast. My Dad helped me soup it up with some new parts. After that my skateboard was one of the fastest in the neighborhood.
LH: 滑板也能改裝,讓它加快速度呀? 你可要注意安全啊。對了,我以前也改裝過電腦。我的朋友幫我安裝了一些新的電腦軟件,那電腦一下子快了不少。我用了好多年,直到沒法再加快了。后來我只好再買一個新的。
LL: Souped up is also often used with the Internet. When Google or Yahoo makes an improvement in their search engine, they'll often say that a certain type of search has been souped up.
LH: 對了,上回我看到Google和Yahoo的廣告,說它們的搜索引擎速度加快,當時我也不懂什么是souped up。今天才弄清楚,souped up就是為了加快速度而改裝。
LL:For some people, souping up motorcycles or cars is their hobby. I knew a guy who was always souping up something in his spare time.
LH:還有人把改裝東西作為嗜好?真是難以想象。我要有空就去購物中心。
LL: Well, looks like the red car has won the race, let's go home.
LH: 我就說嘛, 那輛紅車一定會贏。我們走吧。
LL: Too bad we can't take one of these souped up cars and quickly get home for dinner. I'm hungry.
今天李華學到了兩個常用語。一個是sick,意思是很棒、很酷。 還有一個是souped up, 意思是為了加快速度而改裝某樣東西。