美語情景對話 第304期:Myths 神話人物

OK. Growing up in America, in the United States, as a young child, we have three special people, mythical people, we believe in and we really like because they give us gifts or money. The first special person is the tooth fairy, and the tooth fairy gives you money for your teeth, so it works like this: when you're very young you lose all your teeth, usually one by one, so every time you lose a tooth you put your tooth under your pillow and when you wake up the next day, magically there is money under your pillow, usually it's a silver dollar, and so you're always very excited to get the money and it's kind of cool because, you know you're happy to lose teeth, maybe the only time you're happy to lose teeth you're entire life. The other special character we believe in is the Easter Bunny and the Easter Bunny hides Easter eggs on Easter Sunday. The Easter Bunny is a rabbit. Bunny means rabbit, and on Easter Sunday, a Christian holiday in March and April we go outside with a basket and we look for eggs the Easter bunny hid in the garden or backyard or something like that and there are two types of eggs: there are real eggs, hard-boiled eggs that are painted on the outside and often the children decorate those themselves and there are plastic eggs and plastic eggs are hollow on the inside and you can open them, and when you open them, there is candy or money, so those are the ones the kids really want to get. Actually, it's funny, sometimes kids won't even pick up the real eggs because they just want the eggs with money or candy in them.

作爲在美國長大的孩子，我們有三個特殊的人物，神話人物，我們相信他們，而且我們也非常喜歡他們，因爲他們會給我們禮物或是錢財。第一個特殊的人物是牙仙子，牙仙子會拿走你的牙齒，然後給你錢，事情是這樣的：你小的時候會換掉所有的牙，通常會一個接一個地換牙，每次你掉顆牙，就把它放在枕頭下面，然後第二天你醒來以後，會發生神奇的事情，你枕頭下面會有錢，通常是一塊錢，你得到這筆錢會非常的興奮，這很酷，因爲你知道掉牙的時候很高興，你一生中可能只有這種時候你會爲掉牙感到高興。另一個我們相信的特殊人物是復活節兔子，復活節兔子會在復活節那天把復活節彩蛋藏起來。復活節兔子是一隻兔子。Bunny一是兔子的意思，復活節是一個基督教節日，三月和四月的時候我們會拿着籃子外出尋找復活節兔子藏在花園或是後院的彩蛋，彩蛋有兩種：一種是真的雞蛋，在水煮蛋上塗上顏色，通常孩子們會自己描繪，還有一種是塑料彩蛋，裏面是空心的，你可以打開它，打開以後裏面會有糖果和錢，這是孩子們真正想得到的彩蛋。實際上，這很有趣，有時孩子們甚至不會去拿真正的彩蛋，因爲他們只想要裏面有錢和糖果的彩蛋。

And then, actually, I'm sorry we have one more person of course, and that is Santa, and everybody knows about Santa around the world, and Santa comes down your chimney on Christmas Eve Night, Dec 24th, and he puts gifts in your stocking. A stocking is a big sock, a big red sock for Christmas, and you hang it on your fireplace and then Santa puts toys and gifts inside for the good little children around the world, so the story goes, that Santa works all year to make toys and gifts for children but only for the good children, so you have to be good. If you're a bad child then you don't get any gifts but it usually doesn't work that way, so you come down the next day, and you go to your stocking and you're very happy because Santa had come. One other thing about Santa is usually as children we leave cookies and milk by the fireplace for Santa to eat as like a thank-you gift, and it's interesting because when you go down the next morning, of course the cookies and the milk is always gone and so I think you can guess who actually ate the cookie and drank the milk, but yeah, it's kind of nice, so those are our three special people that we believe in as children in the United States.

接下來，當然我們還有一個特殊人物，那就是聖誕老人，全世界所有人都知道聖誕老人，聖誕老人會在12月24日聖誕前夜從煙囪下來，他會把禮物放進你的長筒襪裏。stocking就是大襪子，爲聖誕節準備的大紅襪子，你把這隻長筒襪掛在壁爐旁邊，然後聖誕老人會爲全世界的好孩子放進玩具和禮物，傳說是這樣的，聖誕老人一整年都在工作，他會爲孩子們，當然只爲好孩子們製作玩具和禮物，所以你一定要做好孩子。如果你是壞孩子，那你就不會得到禮物，不過通常事情不會這樣發展，所以第二天你去看長筒襪的時候會非常高興，因爲聖誕老人來過了。還有一件有關聖誕老人的事，通常孩子們會在壁爐旁邊準備餅乾和牛奶給聖誕老人享用，對收到聖誕老人的禮物表示感謝，這很有趣，因爲第二天你醒來以後餅乾和牛奶就都沒了，所以我想你可以猜到到底是誰吃了餅乾喝了牛奶，不過這還挺好的，這就是我們美國兒童相信的三個特殊人物。

重點講解：
1. one by one
逐個地；依次地；
eg. All the applicants were interviewed one by one.
所有的申請者一個接着一個參加面試。
eg. He shot arrows one by one, but each missed.
他射了一箭又一箭，但都未能射中。
2. hard-boiled
（蛋）煮得老的，煮硬的；
eg. Each of us was offered hard boiled eggs to eat.
我們每人得到一個水煮蛋。
eg. Stock your pantry with protein snacks hard - boiled eggs - fat cheese.
在你食品櫃中儲躲富含蛋白質的零食——熟蛋，瘦肉，和低脂芝士。
3. thank-you
adj. 感謝的；
eg. He sees the link between the thank-you notes and his business thriving again.
他看到了感謝信和生意再次興隆起來的聯繫。
eg. Smaller groups and organizations will often provide a meal and a small token thank-you gift.
一些很小的團體或者是機構會請你吃飯或送你些小禮物來表示感謝。