At high school, mike’s homespun humour was the cause of much laughter. If truth be known, though, many of his oft repeated stories soon began to ring a little hollow. Still, the lack of respect shown by his classmates did not hinder mike from persisting with telling his woeful tales. He was one of those people who simply cannot take a hint and would often go on talking until he was hoarse. What the rest of us found quite boring, mike thought hilariously funny.
高中時(shí),邁克樸素的幽默引起了很多笑聲。然而,要是天機(jī)泄露,那么很多他經(jīng)常重復(fù)的故事很快聽起來就有點(diǎn)空洞了。但是,他的同學(xué)對他不夠尊重這個(gè)事實(shí)并沒有阻止邁克堅(jiān)持講他悲哀的故事。他是那種不會接受暗示的人。經(jīng)常一直講到聲音嘶啞為止。我們認(rèn)為很無聊的東西。邁克覺得非常有趣。
Mike was different from the rest of our fairly homogeneous group in more ways than one. Born to a poor family, he would turn up to school in a suit of homespun cloth and consume his lunch of homemade pretzels, washed down with a bottle of homogenized milk. Rumour said that his father had died in the holocaust —as so many other victims of mass homicide, this was probably true, as mike was fond of paying homage to his ancestors in a little town in central europe.
邁克和我們這組大致相同的人在很多方面有所區(qū)別。他生在一個(gè)貧困的家庭,到學(xué)校來會穿著用家里紡織的布做的衣服,吃的午飯是自制的松脆椒鹽餅干,就著喝一瓶均質(zhì)牛奶。有謠言說,他的爸爸和其他許多大屠殺的受害者一樣死于那場浩劫。這可能是真的,因?yàn)檫~克喜歡向中歐的一個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)的祖先表示敬意。
One day in the second grade, our class went on a weekend ramble in the countryside. Hitherto, we had never been on such a long excursion, and we were all very much excited as we set out for the hilly expanse of the hinterland behind the river, up and down we walked all day, from hill to hollow. Pleasant as the scenery was, the area was economically backward, with nothing more than little homesteads, where small-time farmers would still be doing things like mend the hinges on their barn doors, hoe the soil, hollow out some piece of wood to make a simple tool or hoist the hay onto their carts by hand.
讀二年級時(shí),有一天,我們班到鄉(xiāng)村進(jìn)行周末漫步。那之前,我們從來沒有進(jìn)行過如此長距離的遠(yuǎn)足,我們向河后面的內(nèi)陸多山的廣袤地域出發(fā)時(shí),都非常激動。一整天,我們在山峰和山谷之間上上下下。雖然這個(gè)地區(qū)景色宜人,但經(jīng)濟(jì)落后,除了小農(nóng)舍外沒有別的,那里面,尚未脫貧的農(nóng)民可能還在做著修畜棚上的鉸鏈、鋤地、挖空木頭做簡易的工具或徒手把干草吊到馬車上之類的事情。
Words:
Hilly adj.多小山的,多坡的
Hinder vt.阻礙,妨礙
Hinge n.合面,鉸鏈
Hint n.提示,線索
Hinterland n.內(nèi)地,內(nèi)陸
Hitherto adv.迄今,至今
Hoarse adj.嘶啞的,沙啞的
Hoe vt.用鋤耕地,鋤
Hollow adj.空心的,凹隱的 空洞的。Vt.形成空洞,挖空 n.洞,山谷
Holocaust n.大毀滅,大屠殺,浩劫
Homage n.敬意
Homemade adj.自制的,家里做的
Homespun adj.樸素的,家里紡織的
Homicide n.殺人
Homogeneous adj.同類的,均勻的,同質(zhì)的,
Homogenize vt.使均勻。