William: Hello and welcome to The English We Speak, I'm William Kremer.
威廉:大家好,欢迎收听地道
英语节目,我是威廉·克莱默。
Wang Fei: And I'm Wang Fei. So how are you today?
王飞:我是王飞。你今天怎么样?
William: Two ticks...
威廉:稍等一下……
Wang Fei: What?
王飞:什么?
William: Give me two shakes, Wang Fei, I just need to...
威廉:王飞,给我点儿时间,我只是要……
Wang Fei: Eh? What's that?
王飞:什么?那是什么?
William: I'll be with you
in a jiffy...
威廉:我马上就和你一起主持……
Wang Fei: In a jiffy. What's a jiffy? William, what are you talking about?
王飞:In a jiffy。jiffy是什么?威廉,你在说什么?
William: There, done now. I just needed to send a text.
威廉:好了,搞定了。我只是要发个短信。
Wang Fei: But what were all those ticks and jiffys?
王飞:不过刚才你说的那ticks和jiffys都是什么啊?
William: Ahh, and shakes?
威廉:还有shakes是吗?
Wang Fei: Yes.
王飞:对。
William: Well they're all expressions of time, Wang Fei. So they're ways of saying
'just a moment', or
'just a minute'.
威廉:嗯,这些都是有关时间的表达方式,王飞。这些都是“稍等一下”、“马上”的表达方式。
Wang Fei: I see.
王飞:我明白了。
Can you come and help me lift this sofa?
你能来帮我搬下这个沙发吗?
Yeah, I'll be with you in two ticks.
好的,我马上就过去帮你。
William: Two ticks. In English, we say clocks make this noise: tick tock, tick tock. So two ticks is just like saying two seconds.
威廉:two ticks。在
英语中,我们说钟表会发出这样的声音:滴答,滴答。所以two ticks就相当于两秒钟。
I said, can you come and help me here? It's too heavy for me.
我说,你能不能过来帮帮我?这个沙发对我来说太重了。
Yes, yes. I'll be there in two shakes.
好,好的。我马上就来帮你。
Wang Fei: Hmm. Two shakes?
王飞:嗯。Two shakes?
William: Yeah, the full phrase here is 'two shakes of a lamb's tail', but we shorten this to 'two shakes'.
威廉:对,完整的短语是“小羊摇两下尾巴的时间”,不过我们会缩短成two shakes。
Wang Fei: Oh I see. Two shakes of a lamb's tail. English can be a very weird language!
王飞:哦,我明白了。“小羊摇两下尾巴的时间”。
英语还真是奇怪的语言!
William: Yes, it can be! I guess that this is because lambs' tails shake very fast, so two shakes is a short time! And finally...
威廉:对,是这样!我想这是因为小羊的尾巴摇的非常快,所以摇两下只用很短的时间!最后……
Look Neil, this sofa isn't going to lift itself.
Get a move on!
看,尼尔,沙发是不会自己长腿走的。快点过来!
I know, I know. I said I'll be with you in a jiffy.
我知道,我知道。我说过我马上就会去帮你的。
Wang Fei: In a jiffy. So in a jiffy also means 'in
a short
space of time'. But what's a jiffy?
王飞:In a jiffy,这也是“短时间”的意思。不过jiffy是什么?
William: Well, you know what, Wang Fei? Nobody
is completely
sure of the origin of this word. But it has been in use for over 200 years!
威廉:嗯,王飞,你知道吗?没人准确地知道这个词的来源。不过这个词已经用了200多年了!
Wang Fei: 200 years! That's quite a long time. More than a jiffy!
王飞:200年!那真是很长时间了。比短时间可长多了。
William: Yes, and that's several billion shakes of a lamb's tail.
威廉:对,那可是小羊摇了几十亿次尾巴的时间啊。
Wang Fei: Yes and all those ticks of a clock! Bye for now.
王飞:对啊,还有那些时钟的滴答声。现在该说再见了。
William: Bye bye.
威廉:再见。
Are you going to help me with sofa or not?!
你到底要不要帮我搬沙发?
What sofa? You need help with a sofa?
什么沙发?你需要帮忙搬沙发吗?
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