实战口语情景对话 第304期:Myths 神话人物

 　　OK. Growing up in America, in the United States, as a young child, we have three special people, mythical¹ 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 works² 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 Christian³ 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 hollow⁴ 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.

　　作为在美国长大的孩子，我们有三个特殊的人物，神话人物，我们相信他们，而且我们也非常喜欢他们，因为他们会给我们礼物或是钱财。第一个特殊的人物是牙仙子，牙仙子会拿走你的牙齿，然后给你钱，事情是这样的：你小的时候会换掉所有的牙，通常会一个接一个地换牙，每次你掉颗牙，就把它放在枕头下面，然后第二天你醒来以后，会发生神奇的事情，你枕头下面会有钱，通常是一块钱，你得到这笔钱会非常的兴奋，这很酷，因为你知道掉牙的时候很高兴，你一生中可能只有这种时候你会为掉牙感到高兴。另一个我们相信的特殊人物是复活节兔子，复活节兔子会在复活节那天把复活节彩蛋藏起来。复活节兔子是一只兔子。Bunny一是兔子的意思，复活节是一个基督教节日，三月和四月的时候我们会拿着篮子外出寻找复活节兔子藏在花园或是后院的彩蛋，彩蛋有两种：一种是真的鸡蛋，在水煮蛋上涂上颜色，通常孩子们会自己描绘，还有一种是塑料彩蛋，里面是空心的，你可以打开它，打开以后里面会有糖果和钱，这是孩子们真正想得到的彩蛋。实际上，这很有趣，有时孩子们甚至不会去拿真正的彩蛋，因为他们只想要里面有钱和糖果的彩蛋。

　　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 chimney⁵ 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 fireplace⁶ 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. 接下来，当然我们还有一个特殊人物，那就是圣诞老人，全世界所有人都知道圣诞老人，圣诞老人会在12月24日圣诞前夜从烟囱下来，他会把礼物放进你的长筒袜里。stocking就是大袜子，为圣诞节准备的大红袜子，你把这只长筒袜挂在壁炉旁边，然后圣诞老人会为全世界的好孩子放进玩具和礼物，传说是这样的，圣诞老人一整年都在工作，他会为孩子们，当然只为好孩子们制作玩具和礼物，所以你一定要做好孩子。如果你是坏孩子，那你就不会得到礼物，不过通常事情不会这样发展，所以第二天你去看长筒袜的时候会非常高兴，因为圣诞老人来过了。还有一件有关圣诞老人的事，通常孩子们会在壁炉旁边准备饼干和牛奶给圣诞老人享用，对收到圣诞老人的礼物表示感谢，这很有趣，因为第二天你醒来以后饼干和牛奶就都没了，所以我想你可以猜到到底是谁吃了饼干喝了牛奶，不过这还挺好的，这就是我们美国儿童相信的三个特殊人物。

1 mythical   

adj.神话的；虚构的；想像的

参考例句：

• Undeniably,he is a man of mythical status.不可否认，他是一个神话般的人物。
• Their wealth is merely mythical.他们的财富完全是虚构的。

2 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

3 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

4 hollow   

adj.空的，中空的，空心的；空洞的，无价值的

参考例句：

• The boys scraped out a hollow place for planting trees.那些孩子挖了个坑准备栽树。
• Bamboo is a sort of hollow plant.竹子是一种中空的植物。

5 chimney   

n.烟囱，烟筒；玻璃罩

参考例句：

• The chimney blew out a cloud of black smoke.烟囱里喷出一团黑烟。
• His father is a chimney sweeper.他的父亲是一位扫烟囱的工人。

6 fireplace   

n.壁炉，炉灶

参考例句：

• The fireplace smokes badly.这壁炉冒烟太多。
• I think we should wall up the fireplace.我想应该封住壁炉。