美語情景對話 第255期:Elephants 大象

Adrienne: So, Rob, tell me why you don't like elephants!

艾德麗安：羅布，跟我說說你爲什麼不喜歡大象吧。

Rob: Why don't I like elephants? It's a long story. I was traveling in India with a friend of mine and one night we decided to spent the night in a national park, looking at wildlife, and we were staying in a small hut, and to get to the hut we had to walk across a swamp, and we had to take a boat, then we had to walk across another swamp, and after walking for about half an hour we reached the hut, all upon big lakes about 20 meters up in the air, and I climbed the steps and when I got to the top of the steps, on the other side of the hut there was a huge snake, about 3 or 4 meters long, a cobra.

羅布：我爲什麼不喜歡大象？這是一個很長的故事。以前我和一個朋友去印度旅行，一天晚上我們決定在國家公園裏過一晚，觀賞野生動物，我們要住在一個小茅屋裏，我們要穿過一片沼澤地才能到達那個小茅屋，所以我們不得不划船去，之後我們還要穿過另一片沼澤，然後兩走大概半個小時就到小茅屋了，那個茅屋在大型湖泊的上方，大概有20米高，我得爬臺階上去，當我爬到頂以後，我看到茅屋的另一面有隻巨大的蛇，是一隻大約有3、4米長的眼鏡蛇。

Adrienne: Wow!

艾德麗安：哇！

Rob: I hate snakes. I absolutely hate snakes. So I ran down the steps and said to my friend, "I am not staying here. I can not sleep in this place" And we thought about what to do, and there was a village maybe two kilometers away, so my friend walked to the village to find out whether someone could come and scare away the snake and she came back and said, the people said there is no way, we can not scare the snake off. Do you think we're crazy? We are not fighting the snake, but you can stay in our huts. You can stay in the village, so we started walking back to the village, and this was about half past six, seven o'clock in the evening and the sun was going down and as we were walking through the jungle we heard all sorts of noises from other parts of the forest and there was lots of rustling noises, and oh look, there must be some other animals, wow, cool, some animals and then after a little while a big pig appeared in the middle of the path (Wow) and we thought, "Oh, it's a pig" Pigs are not very exciting but it seemed exciting at the time and then the pig went walking off in the opposite directions and after about 2 minutes the same pig "bang" came running back in front us. We didn't know what had happened, but we could still hear the noises coming slowly, and slowly towards us, and after a little while the noises started getting louder and louder and louder and then we stopped and at the side of the path in front of us we saw a trunk appear, just one trunk appear, only the trunk, off to the side of the path, and then another trunk, and then another trunk, so there were three trunks and I was like "Wow, elephants, great" and then one of the elephants came out onto the path and looked right at us and then we were not so happy, but we thought we're unyielding, we're tourist, so we took photos of the elephants but unfortunately my camera flashed and the elephant was very unhappy, "RRRR" but he did nothing. He just stood, but we knew he was angry so we ran and hid behind a tree and after about ten minutes we thought, OK, the elephants will have gone so we started walking down the path again, and all the bushes and the grass was above our heads and then we suddenly came to an area where the grass was only two or three feet high, so we could see big area again and we looked over to our left and there were three elephants staring right at us, waiting for us, maybe about 30 meters away, and unfortunately at school in England they don't tell you what to do if you see an elephant, so we didn't know, should we walk past, should we run, should we make lots of noise, so we decided to walk, do nothing, don't do anything suddenly, just walk, and we walked about two or three steps and there was this sudden "RRRRRRRRRRR" Boom, boom, boom, boom.

羅布：我討厭蛇。我非常討厭蛇。所以我跑下臺階對我朋友說，“我不要待在這裏。我不能睡在這種地方。”我們想了一下要怎麼做，距離那裏兩公里有個村莊，我朋友走過去看看是否有人能過來把蛇趕走，她回來跟我說，人們說不可能，我們不能把蛇嚇走。你以爲我們瘋了嗎？我們不會攻擊蛇，不過你們可以住在我們的茅屋裏。你們可以住在我們村子裏，於是我們就走去那個村莊，那時大概是晚上六點半，或七點左右，太陽馬上就要下山了，我們穿過叢林的時候聽到了森林其他地方傳來的各種聲音，有許多窸窣聲，看，那一定有其他的動物，哇，好棒，有動物，不久之後就有一頭大山豬出現在路中間，我們當時想“哦，是豬”。當時看到豬並不是很令人興奮，之後那頭豬就往跟我們相反的方向走去，大約兩分鐘以後，那頭豬跑回來來到了我們面前。我們不知道發生了什麼，但是我們能聽到漸漸接近的聲音，慢慢地靠近我們，一會兒之後那個聲音越來越清晰，我們在路邊停了下來，我們前面出現了一隻大象，就在路邊，之後又有兩隻大象出現，那裏有三隻大象，我當時想“哇，大象，真棒”，之後其中一隻大象走出來，直直地看着我們，那時我們就不太高興了，不過我們想我們很英勇，我們是遊客，於是我們給大象拍了照，但是不幸的是我的相機開了閃光燈，大象變得很煩躁，併發出一些聲音，可是它什麼都沒做。它只是站在那裏，不過我們知道它生氣了，所以我們就跑了，躲在一棵樹後面，大約十分鐘以後我們想，“嗯，大象已經走了”，於是我們再次沿着路出發了，所有的灌木和草叢都比我們高，這時我們突然來到了一片區域，這裏的草只有兩三英尺高，我們可以看到一大片區域，我們向左邊望了望，發現那三隻大象就那樣直直地盯着我們，等着我們，它們離我們大概有30米的距離，不幸的是英國的學校並沒有教我們如果看見大象要怎麼做，所以我們不知道，我們是應該往回走，還是應該逃走，還是要發出一些聲響，最終我們決定什麼都不做，繼續走，不做突然的事情，只是走路，我們走了兩三步以後，突然聽到"RRRRRRRRRRR"的轟響。

Adrienne: Oh, my god!

艾德麗安：哦，我的天哪！

Rob: In one second we looked at each other, "Run" I was carrying a rucksack, so I was running very slowly. My friend ran very fast. I was running with the rucksack and then I dropped the rucksack and I jumped into a bush. Unfortunately it was a thorn bush, so I cut myself lots (Oh, know) and three elephants decided I looked, maybe they thought I looked more delicious than my friend, so they came after me and the three elephants came charging over on top of me and I was underneath one of the elephants and it kicked me on the left leg and then I just, and then went past making lots of noise trying to scare us off

羅布：我們互相看了一眼，“跑！”當時我帶了一個旅行包，所以我跑得很慢。我朋友跑得非常快。而我要揹着旅行包，於是我把旅行包扔了，然後跳進了灌木叢。不幸的是，那是一個有刺的灌木衆，所以我身上好多地方都劃傷了，我在想那三隻大象怎麼想，它們可能認爲我看起來比多朋友更好吃，所以它們來追我，那三隻大象已經來到了我的上方，我就在一隻大象的下面，它踢到了我的左腿，然後就走了，發出了許多的聲響想把我們嚇跑。

Adrienne: Were you OK?

艾德麗安：你還好嗎？

Rob: I was OK that night but my leg was completely black the next day cause I had a huge bruise from where the elephant had kicked me and I have lots of cuts and bruises from the bushes and they broke my rucksack which I was very unhappy about and then we continued walking to the village which was only about 50 meters away and there was a large group of other tourists watching the elephants playing in the lane, and "How wonderful! Are they sweet? Aren't they lovely?" No!

羅布：那天晚上還好，不過第二天我的腿就完全烏青了，因爲被大象的踢到的地方有一個很大的傷口，而且我被灌木叢劃傷了許多地方，它們還弄壞了我的揹包，這令我非常不高興，那之後我們我們繼續向村莊走去，村莊離那裏大概只有50米的距離了，那裏有許多遊客在觀看大象在小路上玩耍的景象，他們說“多好啊！它們是不是很可愛？它們可愛吧？”完全不！

Adrienne: Sounds very frightening!

艾德麗安：聽起來非常可怕！

Rob: I don't like elephants!

羅布：我不喜歡大象！

重點講解：
1. scare away/scare off
嚇跑；
eg. Some scarecrows in the fields can scare away birds, and animals.
在田間安放一些草人，可以起到嚇走鳥獸的作用。
eg. The high price scares away any possible buyers.
昂貴的價格把有意光顧的買主嚇跑了。
eg. Keep quiet, or you'll scare off away the bird.
安靜，要不然你就把那隻鳥給嚇跑了。
eg. They lighted a fire to scare off the wolves.
他們點了一堆火來嚇跑狼羣。
2. go down
（太陽）落下；
eg. When the sun started to go down, he stopped and set up a tent.
太陽開始下山了，他停下來，豎起帳篷。
eg. The sun begins to go down.
太陽開始落山了。
3. stare at
凝視；盯着看；
eg. It's rude to stare at people.
盯着看人不禮貌。
eg. They stared at the strange sight in silent wonder.
他們驚訝地默默凝視那奇景。