美語情景對話 第312期:Wishes

OK, I'm going to talk about my one wish. I think everybody has one or two things they wish they could change about themselves and for me I really wish I could sing. Unfortunately I have a terrible voice. I cannot sing at all, and in Japan, this is very embarrassing because Japanese people love to go to karaoke, and karaoke is when you go with a bunch of friends to a place, a karaoke bar, I guess, or center, and you get a small room and inside the room there are TV's and songs are on the TV's. You can choose what songs to watch and then one person sings the song and everyone listens and it's very popular in Japan and it's a lot of fun but it's really embarrassing because I can't sing and everybody always says, " No, no, no, you sing. Oh, no, it's OK. It's OK. Don't worry. Don't be embarrassed," but after I sing, my singing is so bad that everybody doesn't want me to sing anymore, so it's also really hard for me because I teach children and I love teaching children and when you teach children you need to teach songs, and so I sing many, many songs with my students, for example, "Itsy-Bitsy Spider" or "Row-Row-Row your boat!" or many many songs, but I can't sing and so luckily the kids really don't care so usually it's alright that my voice is really bad but sometimes they tell me, they say, "Sensei, Sensei!" in Japanese, "You're singing is terrible!" so it's really embarrassing but I have to do it. Songs are very important for children when they're little. I think the reason I cannot sing is because unfortunately in my country we don't sing as children and I really would like this to change. It really bothers me. I've noticed in Thailand, in Japan, in other countries that I have taught, children sing in elementary school a lot and in the United States you don't do this and I think's it's terrible because you need to sing when you're little to train your voice so it can learn tones and so it can learn how to sing properly and because I never learned to sing when I was little it's almost impossible to learn how to sing when you're older, so yeah, I really wish I could sing but I just don't think that it's ever going to be a reality.

我要談談我的一個願望。我想所有人都會有一兩個他們希望改變自己的地方，而我就希望我能唱歌。不幸的是，我的聲音非常糟糕。我完全不會唱歌，在日本這是一件非常令人尷尬的事情，因爲日本人喜歡去卡拉OK，卡拉OK就是你可以和一些朋友一起去玩的地方，我想就是卡拉OK酒吧或卡拉OK中心這種地方，你會有一個小房間，裏面有電視，電視上會播放歌曲。你可以選擇要唱的歌曲，一個人隨着伴奏唱歌，其他人會聽他唱，這在日本非常受歡迎，而且也很有趣，但是這真的讓人非常尷尬，因爲我不能唱歌，所有人都會說，“不，不，不，你唱吧。哦不，這沒什麼啦，沒什麼的。別擔心，不要不好意思。”可是在我唱歌之後，我唱的非常糟，而所有人就不想再讓我唱下去了，所以這對我來說很難，因爲我教孩子們，我喜歡給孩子們上課，而你在教孩子們的時候，你要教他們唱歌，所以我會和學生們一起唱很多歌曲，比如我們唱過《小小蜘蛛》和《划船歌》，當然還有其他很多歌曲，但是我不會唱歌，不過幸運的是孩子們並不關心這點，所以通常很順利，我的聲音很糟，孩子們有時會用日語跟我說，“老師，老師！你唱得太差了！”所以這真令人難堪，可是我必須要教歌曲。在孩子們小的時候，歌曲對他們非常重要。我認爲我不會唱歌的原因是，很不幸我們國家在孩子小時候不教授歌曲，而我真的希望這點可以改變。這真的讓我很擔心。我注意到，泰國、日本還有我教學過的其他國家，孩子們在小學都會唱很多歌曲，而在美國卻不會這麼做，我認爲這很糟糕，因爲你要在小時候通過唱歌來訓練你的聲音，這樣就可以學習音調，學習如何正確地歌唱，因爲我小時候從來沒學過唱歌，所以在長大以後要學習唱歌幾乎不可能，所以我真的很希望我可以唱歌，但是我認爲這永遠不會成爲現實了。

重點講解：
1. not at all
完全不；一點兒也不；
eg. This tune is not at all pleasing to the ear.
這個曲子真難聽。
eg. The pilots respectfully represented that they were not at all tired.
飛行員鄭重表示他們一點也不累。
2. a bunch of
一夥，一羣（人）；
eg. My neighbours are a bunch of busybodies.
我的鄰居們是一羣愛管閒事的人。
eg. We were a pretty inexperienced bunch of people really.
我們事實上是一些相當沒有經驗的人。
3.
如此…（以致…）；到…的程度（以致…）；
eg. Frescoes are so familiar a feature of Italian churches that it is easy to take them for granted.
壁畫在意大利教堂裏是司空見慣的，以至於人們往往會視而不見。
eg. He did the work so badly that I had to do it all over again myself.
他乾的太差勁了，我只好親自重做。
4. learn to do sth.
學會（以某種方式行事或反應）做某事；
eg. He needs to learn to curb his temper.
他得學着控制自己的脾氣。
eg. When you learn to ride a bicycle you must learn to balance.
你學騎腳踏車時必須學會保持平衡。