美語情景對話 第358期:The Injury 受傷

I ended up in the hospital once after a baseball practice. What happened was, I was on first base trying to run to second base, as you might know in baseball that's called stealing a base, so as I was stealing second base I tried to slide and rather than putting my hands up to protect them I landed on my arm and as soon as my arm hit the ground, everyone could hear a large "snap". It was like somoeone snapping their fingers really loud, and it was so loud that my dad, who was playing catcher asked me, "Did you break your arm?" and I took a look at my arm and it was completely out of shape.

有一次我在練習棒球之後受傷進了醫院。當時我正試圖從一壘跑向二壘，你知道，那在棒球中稱作盜壘，當時我在盜二壘，我試圖滑向二壘，而沒有把手舉起來進行保護，然後我的手臂着地了，在我的手臂撞到地面上時，所有人都聽到了巨大的咔嚓聲。就像大聲打響指的聲音一樣，當時那個聲音太大了，以至於擔任接球手的爸爸問我，“你的手臂斷了嗎？”我看了看我的手臂，它已經完全變形了。

It wasn't straight anymore. It was bent and I was actually very calm. I answered him, "Yeah, I broke my arm, so instead of crying or panicing, I was very calm about it, and he took me to the hospital. The doctor put my arm back in its normal place, put a cast on it, and that was that.

當時我的手臂已經不是直的了。它已經彎曲了，而我其實非常平靜。我回答爸爸說，“對，我的手臂斷了”，我並沒有哭，也沒有驚慌，我當時非常的冷靜，然後我爸爸把我送去了醫院。醫生把我的手臂復位，然後給我打了石膏，就是這樣。

重點講解：
1. rather than
而非；勝於；而不是；
eg. The effect is soft and pretty rather than drop-dead sexy.
給人的印象是柔和俏麗而不是吸人眼球的性感。
eg. It was an embryo idea rather than a fully worked proposal.
這只是初步的想法，並非成形的提議。
2. as soon as
一…就…；
eg. As soon as his father went out, the boy ran to the cinema.
爸爸剛出門，那男孩就跑向電影院。
eg. I'll telephone you as soon as I get home.
我一到家就給你打電話。
3. out of shape
變形的，走樣的；
eg. Once most wires are bent out of shape, they don't return to the original position.
大多數金屬絲一旦彎曲變形就無法恢復原狀。
eg. The box was crushed out of shape.
這箱子被壓得不成型了。
4. instead of
代替…；而不是…；
eg. Instead of complaining about what's wrong, be grateful for what's right.
別抱怨不好的事，要對好的事心存感恩。
eg. Instead of rushing at life, I wanted something more meaningful.
我不想混日子，我想做點更有意義的事情。