【英语趣味课堂】城市生活成本-City Costs
时间：2016-06-02 07:47:33
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（单词翻译）
Tom: Jess, I love hearing you talk about the different cities, you've been working in. Were they all very expensive places to live?
Jess: No, they weren't all expensive. The first city I lived in when I moved away from Britain was Budapest in Hungary, and when I lived there it was before Hungary had joined the Euro, so the
currency1 was still the Hungarian forint and most things were really cheap compared to Britain.
There were things that were expensive there, I think especially for tourists or for people who the taxi drivers
perceived3 as being tourists. After I had lived there for awhile kind of knew how much certain journeys should cost and I was very surprised at how often the taxi drivers would double that as soon as they realized I wasn't Hungarian, but
overall4 Budapest was a cheap city. I'm not sure if that's the case now. It uses the Euro, but then it was cheap and very good fun. After Budapest, I went to Madrid, and that was a bit more expensive than Budapest,
definitely5. Rent was certainly more expensive and a large
proportion6 on my
monthly7 salary went on rent but other things like eating out, supermarket shopping, clothes shopping, they were still quite a lot of choices that wasn't too expensive. The high street shops were about the same price as in Britain, but eating out there was cheap. Again, beauty services in Madrid -
haircuts8 - I think they must be expensive all over the world cause they were really expensive in Madrid as well.
So, you've told me about Tokyo and Bangkok, where else have you lived Tom?
Tom: I had a short
contract9 working in North Africa in Tripoli in Libya and rent was taken care of and I almost paid nothing while I was there and I was able to send seventy or eighty percent of my salary home to England to my
savings10 account11. Travel around Tripoli by these little minivans was a quarter of a dinar and food was a little bit more expensive but I could live on a very small amount of money each month and of course tripoli is right on the
Mediterranean12 so on my days off I could go to the beach very easily. The weather was always fantastic. It was an interesting place to live and the currency in Libya are these beautiful huge bank notes that you have to fold several times to put into your wallet. It was a really
satisfying13 to have a fist full of those in your pocket.
Jess: Oh, it sounds fantastic. I'd love to go there.
重点词汇：
Learn Vocabulary from the lesson
perceived
The taxi drivers perceived them to be tourists.
When you
perceive2 something, it
means14 you think something is true even though you do not have all the facts or information. Notice the following:
Women are often perceived to be more caring parents than men.
We all perceived him to be happy, but he was actually quite sad.
the case
Budapest was cheap, but I’m not sure if that’s the case now.
In the previous sentence, the word 'case' means situation. It is often used with the word ‘not’. Notice the following:
My class was good today, but that wasn't the case yesterday.
People think I’m rich, but that’s just not the case.
high street shops
The high street shops cost the same in Paris as they do in Britain.
A high street shop is a store usually
located15 in a more expensive part of town. Notice the following:
She is quite rich so he can afford to shop at high street shops.
I can only afford to window shop at the high street shops.
take care of
My rent was taken care of by the school.
In the previous example, the
verb16 'take care of' means the rent was paid by the school. When you take care of something, it means you finish some action that needs to be done. Notice the following:
The clean up after the party was taken care of by Joe.
I can’t pick the kids up from school today. Can you take care of it?
fist full
I had a fist full of money.
A fist is when you make a ball with your hand.
Boxers17 fight with their fists. Here, it just means you have a hand full of some
items18, such as money, paper, etc. Here though, it also means the person had extra money to spend. Notice the following:
My favorite Clint Eastwood movie is a Fist Full of Dollars.
The child stood there looking happy with a fist full of candy.
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