新概念美音版第三冊 Lesson 33 A day t remember 難忘的一天

 
Lesson 33 A day t remember 難忘的一天
         
Listen to the tape then answer the question below.

聽錄音，然後回答以下問題。

What incident began the series of traffic accidents?

    We have all experienced days when everything goes wrong. A day may begin well enough, but suddenly everything seems to get out of control. What invariably happens is that a great number of things choose to go wrong at precisely the same moment. It is as if a single unimportant event set up a chain of reactions. Let us suppose that you are preparing a meal and keeping an eye on the baby at the same time. The telephone rings and this marks the prelude to an unforeseen series of catastrophes. While you are on the phone, the baby pulls the tablecloth off the table, smashing half your best crockery and cutting himself in the process. You hang up hurriedly and attend to baby, crockery, etc. Meanwhile, the meal gets burnt. As if this were not enough to reduce you to tears, your husband arrives, unexpectedly bringing three guests to dinner.

    Things can go wrong on a big scale, as a number of people recently discovered in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney. During the rush hour one evening two cars collided and both drivers began to argue. The woman immediately behind the two cars happened to be a learner. She suddenly got into a panic and stopped her car. This made the driver following her brake hard. His wife was sitting beside him holding a large cake. As she was thrown forward, the cake went right through the windscreen and landed on the road. Seeing a cake flying through the air, a lorry driver who was drawing up alongside the car, pulled up all of a sudden. The lorry was loaded with empty beer bottles and hundreds of them slid off the back of the vehicle and on to the road. This led to yet another angry argument. Meanwhile, the traffic piled up behind. It took the police nearly an hour to get the traffic on the move again. In the meantime, the lorry driver had to sweep up hundreds of broken bottles. Only two stray dogs benefited from all this confusion, for they greedily devoured what was left of the cake. It was just one of those days!

New words and expressions 生詞和短語

     prelude
n.   序幕，前奏

     unforeseen
adj. 意料之外的

     series
n.   係列

     catastrophe
n.   大禍，災難

     crockery
n.   陶器，瓦器

     suburb
n.   郊區

     collide
v.   猛撞

     learner
n.   初學者

     panic
n.   驚慌，恐慌

     windscreen
n.   （汽車的）擋風玻璃

     alongside
prep.在……的旁邊，與……並排

     slide (slid, slid)
v.   滑

     stray
adj. 迷失的，離群的

     confusion
n.   混亂

     greedily
adv. 貪婪地

     devour
v.   狼吞虎咽地吃

參考譯文

    我們大家都有過事事不順心的日子。一天開始時，可能還不錯，但突然間似乎一切都失去了控製。情況經常是這樣的，許許多多的事情都偏偏趕在同一時刻出問題，好像是一件無關緊要的小事引起了一連串的連鎖反應。假設你在做飯，同時又在照看孩子。這時電話鈴響了。它預示著一連串意想不到的災難的來臨。就在你接電話時，孩子把桌布從桌子上扯下來，將家中最好的陶瓷餐具半數摔碎，同時也弄傷了他自己。你急急忙忙掛上電話，趕去照看孩子和餐具。這時，飯又燒糊了。好像這一切還不足以使你急得掉淚，你的丈夫接著回來了，事先沒打招呼就帶來3個客人吃飯。

    就像許多人最近在悉尼郊區帕拉馬塔發現的那樣，有時亂子會鬧得很大。一天傍晚交通最擁擠時，一輛汽車撞上前麵一輛汽車，兩個司機爭吵起來。緊跟其後的一輛車上的司機碰巧是個初學者，她一驚之下突然把車停了下來。她這一停使得跟在後頭的司機也來個急刹車。司機妻子正坐在他身邊，手裏托著塊大蛋糕。她往前一衝，蛋糕從擋風玻璃飛了出去掉到馬路上。此時，一輛卡車正好從後邊開到那輛汽車邊上，司機看見一塊蛋糕從天而降，緊急刹車。卡車上裝著空啤酒瓶。成百隻瓶子順勢從卡車後麵滑出車外落在馬路上。這又引起一場唇槍舌劍的爭吵。與此同時，後麵的車輛排成了長龍，警察花了將近一個小時才使車輛又開起來。在這段時間裏，卡車司機不得不清掃那幾百隻破瓶子。隻有兩隻野狗從這一片混亂中得到好處，它們貪婪地吃掉了剩下的蛋糕。這就是事事不順心的那麽一天！