VOA流行美語 Unit 228:sick和souped up
Larry和李華今天去看賽車。 李華會學到兩個常用語sick和souped up。
LH: Larry，你看， 每輛賽車都不一樣，各有獨特之處，真有意思。
LL: That car over there is totally sick. Look at the paint and the tires. That is so cool. I'd love to have a car like that.
LH: That car over there is totally sick？ 你說那輛車有病，可你又說它很酷。有病是壞事， 很酷是好事。你究竟在說什麼呀？
LL: Cool means I like that car, sick means I like the car too. If I say something is sick, that means it's really good, I like it, it's special.
LH: 原來sick 和cool是一樣的意思，都是指很好，很特別。這裏的sick跟生病毫無關。那我可以說，you are neat Larry, you're special, you are so sick.
LL: Hmm. You shouldn't use sick in that way! I would never say my friend is sick or that pretty girl over there is sick.
LH: 你的意思是sick只用來形容一樣東西？
LL: That's right. That car over there is sick, those sunglasses you are wearing are sick, that new hat I bought you is sick too.
LH: 我的太陽鏡的確很酷，可是你給我買的帽子就很難說了。 Larry你看我的新鞋好看嗎？
LL: Totally sick，very nice. Where did you get them?
LH: 特別酷吧。這雙鞋是我在學校附近新開的大商場裏買的。那商場的建築很特別 - The structure of that shopping center is very lly sick!
LL: The company that developed that shopping center is owned by a friend of my Dad's, his company is opening new shopping centers every other week.
LH: 那購物中心是你父親的朋友建的呀？ 而且每兩個星期就開一個新的購物中心！他肯定很有錢了。
LL: That's for sure. Their revenue is pretty sick。 With company growth like that, I bet my Dad's friend's net worth is pretty sick too.
LH：那是肯定的。收入那麼多，家產當然是驚人的。我們中國人就說：家產萬貫。
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LH: Larry, 看賽車真有意思。你看，賽車奔馳而過， 人羣不斷地吶喊助威，多熱鬧啊。
LL: A lot of people come to car races for the excitement but a lot just come to see the souped up cars.
LH: See the souped up cars? Soup不是湯嗎？Souped up cars是什麼呀？
LL: Souped up means changed or altered to go faster.
LH: 噢，souped up的意思是經過改裝，速度加快了。這裏的賽車一定都經過改裝。它們的速度比普通汽車要快得多。
LL: That's right. If someone takes an ordinary bicycle and changes the wheels so it can go faster, we can say it was souped up.
LH: 自行車也能改裝加速嗎？那我的自行車也該換換車胎了。
LL: One time I had a skateboard, but it wasn't very fast. My Dad helped me soup it up with some new parts. After that my skateboard was one of the fastest in the neighborhood.
LH: 滑板也能改裝，讓它加快速度呀？ 你可要注意安全啊。對了，我以前也改裝過電腦。我的朋友幫我安裝了一些新的電腦軟件，那電腦一下子快了不少。我用了好多年，直到沒法再加快了。後來我只好再買一個新的。
LL: Souped up is also often used with the Internet. When Google or Yahoo makes an improvement in their search engine, they'll often say that a certain type of search has been souped up.
LH: 對了，上回我看到Google和Yahoo的廣告，說它們的搜索引擎速度加快，當時我也不懂什麼是souped up。今天才弄清楚，souped up就是爲了加快速度而改裝。
LL：For some people, souping up motorcycles or cars is their hobby. I knew a guy who was always souping up something in his spare time.
LH：還有人把改裝東西作爲嗜好？真是難以想象。我要有空就去購物中心。
LL: Well, looks like the red car has won the race, let's go home.
LH: 我就說嘛， 那輛紅車一定會贏。我們走吧。
LL: Too bad we can't take one of these souped up cars and quickly get home for dinner. I'm hungry.
今天李華學到了兩個常用語。一個是sick，意思是很棒、很酷。 還有一個是souped up， 意思是爲了加快速度而改裝某樣東西。
