听力文本

Besides Death Valley, California has another valley—but this is one of the loveliest valleys. It is called the Yosemite. It is a very deep trough, and streams of water fall over the edge into the trough from many high places. One of these falls turns to mist before it reaches the ground and looks like a huge veil of a bride, so it is called Bridal Veil Falls. Half a dozen of these waterfalls in the Yosemite Valley are higher than Niagara, and two of them tumble headlong a quarter of a mile from the top to the bottom of the valley, the highest falls in America—loveliest valley, highest falls; that makes two more ’ests .

California has, beside these ’ests, the sweetest oranges, the sourest lemons, the biggest grape-fruit, so they say, but they didn’t come from California; they went there. There were no oranges and no lemons growing in America at all before white men came to this country. The first white people to settle in California came from the country of Spain on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In Spain oranges and lemons grew, and the people from Spain, called Spaniards, brought over orange and lemon plants and started them growing in California and also in Florida.

The Spaniards built houses like those back in Spain, with white stucco walls and red tile roofs and with the “back yards” in the center of the house. They gave their cities Spanish names—Los Angeles, which means The Angels; and they named many of their cities after saints—San Francisco after St.Francis, Santa Barbara after St. Barbara—for many of the Spaniards were priests, who built mission churches up and down the land.

The City of the Angels is now the largest city on the Pacific coast. Near the City of the Angels is Hollywood, the greatest (another ’est) moving-picture place i. t. w. W. There are 365 days in the year, as you know, but in Hollywood they say the sun shines on 400 days a year—fairy-tale land! At any rate, the weather is fine most of the time for taking moving pictures. This is one reason why it is such a good place for making movies, but another is that there are so many different kinds of natural scenery near-by. If they want to make a picture of a ship scene or shipwreck, there is the ocean. If they want to make a picture of the desert with camels and Arabs, there is the seashore. If they want to make a picture in the hot countries, there are palms and flowers. If they want to make pictures of winter scenes, all they have to do is to go to the mountains near-by and there is snow and ice all the year round.

参考译文

除了死亡谷，加利福尼亚还有一个山谷——但这个是“最”美丽的山谷之一，叫做约塞米蒂谷。它是一个非常深的谷槽，股股溪流从很高处流过谷顶边缘直落下去，形成瀑布。其中一个瀑布落地之前就变成了薄雾，看起来就像新娘巨大的面纱，因此被叫做“新娘面纱瀑布”。约塞米蒂谷有六处瀑布都比尼亚加拉瀑布还要高，其中有两处从谷顶一泻而下直到谷底，高达四分之一英里，是美国最高的瀑布——最美的山谷，最高的瀑布；这样又有了两个“之最”。

除了这些“之最”外，加利福尼亚据说还有最甜的柑橘、最酸的柠檬和最大的葡萄柚，但这些水果原产地不是加利福尼亚；他们是“移居”到那儿去的。白人来美国定居前美国根本没有这几种水果。第一批到加利福尼亚定居的人来自于大西洋对岸的西班牙。西班牙盛产柑橘和柠檬，西班牙来的人，也就是西班牙人，带来了柑橘和柠檬的植株，开始在加利福尼亚州和佛罗里达州种植这两种水果。

西班牙人建造的房屋和西班牙国内的风格相似，有着白色拉毛粉饰的外墙和红瓦的屋顶，房屋中间还有“后院”。他们给他们建造的许多城市取了西班牙名——如“洛杉矶”市，意思是“天使之城”；他们还以圣人的名字给许多城市命名——如以圣弗朗西斯命名的圣弗朗西斯科市（旧金山），以圣巴巴拉命名的圣巴巴拉市——因为当时来美国的很多西班牙人是牧师，他们在这片土地上建造了很多教堂，进行传教活动。

“天使之城”现在是太平洋沿岸最大的城市，附近就是好莱坞，世界上最大的（又一个“之最”）电影制作地。你知道一年有365天，但是在好莱坞人们说一年有400天阳光照耀的日子——童话世界！不管怎么说，当地大多数时间天气都很好，适宜拍摄电影。这就是“天使之城”是拍电影的好地方的一个原因，但是另一个原因是好莱坞附近有各种各样的自然风景。如果他们想拍一个航海镜头或海滩的场景，这里有海洋；如果他们想拍一个有骆驼和阿拉伯人的沙漠影片，这里有海滩；如果他们想拍一个热带地区的电影，这里有棕榈树和鲜花；如果他们想拍冬天场景的影片，他们只要爬到附近的山上，那里一年四季都是冰天雪地。