美語情景對話 第484期:Cork 科克

Todd: Eucharia, can you.talk about where you are from?

託德：尤查里亞，你來自哪裏？

Eucharia: I'm from Ireland and I'm from the second biggest city in Ireland which is Cork. Now the name 'Cork' doesn't come from wine bottle cork, it comes from the irish word 'kirkig' which is 'marsh' so you can imagine how wet Cork is. We have a lot of rain.

尤查里亞：我來自愛爾蘭，愛爾蘭的第二大城市科克。科克這個名字並不是來自紅酒瓶的那個木塞，而是來自愛爾蘭單詞“kirkig”，是溼地的意思，所以你可以想象得到科克有多溼潤。那裏雨水豐富。

Todd: And is Cork a big city?

託德：科克是大城市嗎？

Eucharia: It's a sprawling city. Most people live outside of the city and commute and my parents live about a 25 minute walk to the city centre and that's quite normal, so most of the city spreads outwards and the surburbs tend to be quite big and you can get lost quite easily!

尤查里亞：是個不斷擴張的城市。大多數人住在市郊，我父母住在離市中心步行約25分鐘的地方，大部分城市都會向外擴張，這很正常，所以市郊的範圍非常大，很容易就會迷路！

Todd: What are the people in Cork like?

託德：科克人有什麼特點？

Eucharia: Well when I go home its really strange for me because the men in my city speak with a very high pitched accent voice so it sounds very strange to me, and girls tend to speak in a lower voice because a lower voice in Ireland usually means intelligent and most people would like to seem intelligent. However, most people love to laugh in Cork so there is a really good sense of humour: you just walk on the streets and you hear people laughing all of the time. It's great.

尤查里亞：我回家的時候會覺得很怪，因爲科克市的人說話帶有口音而且聲音很大，對我來說聽起來很怪，女孩們會用小聲說話，因爲愛爾蘭認爲小聲說話表示智慧，所以大部分人想看起來有智慧。科克人喜歡笑，所以他們有很強的幽默感：你在街上會聽到周圍的人們一直在笑。這感覺很好。

Todd: Oh that's nice. And what would you say is the best thing about your city?

託德：是很好。你認爲你的家鄉城市最好的事情是什麼？

Eucharia: The best thing are the people of course, but also the food. The entertainment is just fantastic. Every night you can go out, you can have dinner. After you can go to the theatre, you can go to classical music concerts, you can go to pop concerts, rock concerts. You can go dancing, different types of dancing. Oh I miss dancing! You can do Irish dancing, more Hip hop dancing, disco dancing. Anything is possible any night of the week.

尤查里亞：最好的當然是科克人，還有食物。科克的娛樂產業很豐富。每天晚上都有精彩活動，你可以外出吃飯，去劇院，去古典音樂會，流行音樂會，搖滾演唱會等等。你也可以去跳舞，有各種不同種類的舞蹈。哦，我忘了提舞蹈了！你可以去跳愛爾蘭舞，街舞，迪斯科舞等等。每天晚上都可以。

Todd: Ok and what's the worst thing about your city?

託德：好，那科克最糟糕的事情是什麼？

Eucharia: The worst thing has to be rain because Cork is such a wet place. We don't have a lot of snow in Cork because when it snows the snow quickly fades away because the ground is made of limestone so I've never seen real snow before, but getting back to the rain, it rains almost non stop from autumn until spring.

尤查里亞：最糟糕的就是雨水，因爲科克非常溼潤。可是冬天的時候科克卻不會有很多積雪，下雪的時候雪會很快融化掉，因爲地面採用的原料是石灰石，所以我以前從來沒有見過真正的雪，接着說雨水，從秋天到春天雨水幾乎就沒停過。

Todd: Wow, that's a long time!

託德：哇，那真是很長時間啊！

Eucharia: So it's a long time having a grey sky over you.

尤查里亞：的確是很長時間，而且天空都是灰色的。

Todd: Still it sounds like a nice place.

託德：不過聽起來那還是個不錯的地方。

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重點講解：
1. fade away
（所注視之物）逐漸暗淡，逐漸模糊直至消失；
eg. The colour of the cloth will fade away little by little.
這布的顏色會一點一點褪掉的。
eg. We watched the harbour and then the coastline fade away into the morning mist.
我們凝望着港口，只見海岸線漸漸隱於晨霧之中。
2. be made of
用…造成（用於原材料顯而易見的場合）；
eg. Many items in daily use are made of plastic.
很多日常生活用品是用塑料製成的。
eg. The beautiful curtain is made of remnant materials.
這個漂亮的窗簾是用零頭布做的。
3. get back to
回到，重提（原來的話題）；
eg. It wasn't until we had sat down to eat that we got back to the subject of Tom Halliday.
我們直到坐下來吃飯時才又提起湯姆·哈利迪這個話題。
eg. We are away from our topic. Let's get back to our discussion.
我們離題了，讓咱們重新開始討論議題吧。