听力文本

The Father of Waters

THE biggest bay in the United States I told you is called “the Mother of Waters.” The biggest river in the United States is called “the Father of Waters.” Although the river is called a “father,” he is not a Mr. He is a “Miss.” In the Indian language he is Miss—issippi, and is spelled in this jingly way:

which is very easy to learn.

If I asked you to draw a picture of a river, and also of a tree without any leaves on it, you would probably draw the tree this way—a main stem, with big branches, and big branches with little branches, and little branches with tiny branches—like the picture to the left. And you would probably draw the picture of the river as just a wiggly line—now wouldn’t you? As a matter of fact, the picture of a tree and the picture of a river should be drawn exactly the same way, for they each have a main stem with big branches, big branches with little branches, and little branches with tiny branches—although you may not see all the branches in the picture of a river on the map.

But there is this big difference between a tree and a river:

A tree grows from the bottom to the top of its branches.

A river flows from the top of its branches to the bottom. The sap runs up a tree, water runs down a river. If a river were just a single line and had no branches at all, it would be just as big at the finish as at the start. It’s the river’s branches that make it bigger and bigger. The biggest river in the United States, the Mississippi, starts almost at the top of our country, at a little lake called Itasca, in the State of Minnesota, and flows all the way to the bottom of our country, getting bigger and bigger all the time as its branches flow into it, until at last it reaches a corner of the ocean we call the Gulf of Mexico.

参考译文

河流之父

我介绍过美国最大的海湾叫做“众水之母”。美国最大的河叫做“众水之父”。这条河就是密西西比河，虽然它被称为“父亲河”，但是按照印第安语的发音，它却是“西比小姐”，英语拼写出来是：Miss-issippi，你能看出中间哪个部分是对称的吗？

M下面的i后面有一对ss再下面的i后面又有一对ss再下面的i后面有一对pp最后是i这样就好记好学。

如果我让你画一条河，再画一棵没有叶子的树，你或许会这样画这棵树——先画一根树干，然后画上大的树枝，大树枝上再画小树枝，最后在小树枝上加上更细小的树枝——就像左边这幅图一样。而你或许会把一条河就画成一条波浪形的线——是不是？其实，画一棵树和画一条河应该按同样的方法，因为它们同样都有一个主干，上面有大的分支，大分支上有小分支，小分支上还有更细小的分支——不过你可能在地图上看不到一条河流所有的支流。

但是树木和河流还是有很大的区别：

一棵树从下往上长，从树干到树枝。

一条河自上向下流，从支流到干流。树液顺着树干往上升，河水则顺着河道向下流。如果一条河就是一条线的话，没有任何支流，那么从源头到尽头整条河都一样宽了。正是有了支流河才变得越来越宽。美国最大的河流密西西比河起源于明尼苏达州境内一个叫做艾塔斯卡的小湖，几乎就在美国的最北部。密西西比河一路流向美国的最南部，途中随着支流河水的不断注入而变得越来越宽，最后汇入大洋的一角，我们称之为墨西哥湾。