美語情景對話 第171期:對祖父的記憶 Memories of Grandfather

One of my earliest memories involves my granddad and his garden. He had a huge garden when I was growing up. It was, I mean, it was more of a field than a garden really it was so big. He had lots of fruit trees, like fruit bushes, like elder berries, black berries, raspberries. He had strawberries as well, gooseberries, so every berry you could think of. He also had, let me see, apple trees and cooking apple trees, and he had lots of vegetables too as well like rhubarb, onions and lettuce, anything you could think of. When I was a little girl I didn't really like vegetables all that much to be honest, but I did love helping him pick his strawberries when they came in the summer. Strawberries always taste better when they are warm and from the sun, and you can pick them and put them straight in your mouth, beautiful. One of my funniest memories, though, well when I look back on it now, it's funny, is of helping my granddad when he was planting his onions one year, so I was staying with him for awhile and he said, "OK Marion today we're going to go and we're going to plant some onions," in the spring. So I went out and I was only I think about 5 years old, but I wanted to help so both of us went out and we planted two rows of onions, so he planted one row and I planted the other, or he really planted most of them I think. But I tried to help anyway, even though I was quite small, so then we did our job that day and I didn't really think anymore of it, until the onions started to grow and then suddenly they were ready to be harvested, or whatever, to be picked from the ground, and you could see that the stalks were growing nice and tall. We were out in the garden one day, my granddad and I again so it must have been a good few months later, further towards autumn, and my granddad came over and showed me the onion stalks and he said, "Look Marion! The ones you planted are way bigger than the ones that I planted." And I was so happy with myself. So happy that the job that I had done was better than even my granddad, who was a great gardener and now when I look back I realize, you know that wasn't really the case. That he was just saying it to make me feel better, and to make me proud of the work I'd done with him, but at the time it really worked. I was really, really so proud to have helped my granddad, the gardener, and to have done a better job than he did. I still wouldn't eat the onions though.

我最早的記憶是有關祖父和他的花園的。在我小時候，他有一個巨大的花園。我的意思是，比起花園，它更像是一塊田地，它真的很大。他種了許多果樹，像果木灌木，接骨木，黑漿果，覆盆子。他還種了草莓和醋栗，他種了你能想到的所有漿果類。讓我想想，他還有蘋果樹和酸蘋果樹，當然他還種了好多蔬菜，比如大黃、洋蔥和萵苣，任何你能想到的蔬菜。我還是個小女孩的時候，說實話我非常不喜歡蔬菜，到夏天的時候，我非常喜歡幫爺爺一起摘草莓。草莓在太陽曬過並帶點溫度的時候，總是格外好吃，你可以摘下來之後直接放進嘴裏，很美好。我記憶中最有意思的一件事，即使我現在想起來也很有趣，有一年我幫爺爺種洋蔥，我和他待了一段時間，他說，“好了，瑪麗恩，我們要走了，今天我們要開始種洋蔥了。”那是春天。所以我出去了，我想我當時只有5歲吧，但是我想幫忙，所以我們倆去種了兩排洋蔥，他種了一排，而我則種了剩下的一排，或者我想是他種了大部分吧。但是不管怎樣，我試圖幫他忙，即使我當時年紀很小，當時我們只是做我們的事情，我沒有想太多，後來洋蔥開始生長，很快就到了收穫季節，把洋蔥從地裏取出來，你就會看見它的莖長得又高又好。有一天，我爺爺和我又一次去了花園，那應該是好幾個月以後的事情了，可能是快到秋天的時候，我爺爺過來給我看洋蔥的莖，他說：“看，瑪麗恩！你種的那些洋蔥比我種的要好。”我當時非常高興。我太高興了，我比爺爺做的好，我爺爺可是一個偉大的園丁啊，現在當我回想的時候我意識到，你知道那其實根本不算什麼。他那麼說只是讓我感到愉悅，讓我爲我和他一起做的事情感到自豪，但是當時那麼說真的很有用。我真的真的對幫助爺爺這個園丁感到非常自豪，也對比他做的更好這件事感到自豪。雖然我還是不吃洋蔥。

重點講解：
1. ...
更像（前者）地；與其說（是）…，倒不如說（是）
eg. He's more like a film star than a lifeguard, really.
真的，與其說他像救生員，不如說他更像電影明星。
eg. She looked more sad than in pain.
她看起來更多的是悲傷，而不是疼痛。
2. to be honest
老實說；說實在的
eg. To be honest the house is not quite our style.
說實話，這所房子不太適合我們。
eg. I'd rather get it out the way, to be honest.
老實說，我情願把它處理掉。
3. look back on
回顧；回憶起
eg. I like to look back on my high-school days, which were the happiest in my life.
我喜歡回顧我的中學時代，那是我生命中最快樂的時光。
eg. I still shudder when I look back on the past.
想起過去，我仍然不寒而粟。