听力文本

The Englishman’s Neighbors

HERE is the longest name I know. It has fifty-eight letters. It is LLANFAIRPWLLGWYNGYLLGOGERYCHWYRNDROBWLLLLANTYSILIOGOGOGOCH.It looks as if a child had been playing on a typewriter and had pounded out the letters at random. But it is a real name, the name of a town in Wales—a little country on the same island with England. It means “Church ofSt. Mary, in a hollow of white hazel, near a rapid whirlpool, and near St. Tysilios Church, which is near a red cave.” People who live there or direct letters there usually call this place simply “Llanfairpwll,” forshort—and that’s long enough. I’d rather call it “Gogogoch”! Wales is now a part of England, but once upon a time it was not. The people in Wales spoke a different language—a difficult language with many long nameshard to pronounce, with many “ll’s” and “w’s” and “y’s” all mixed together.

An English king at last conquered Wales, and in order to make the people he had conquered satisfied and happy hetold them he would give them a ruler who was born in Wales and couldn’t even speak a word of English. The people in Wales were pleased at that, for they thought the king would give them one of their own countrymen to ruleover them. But the king’s own son was born in Wales—of course, he was a baby and he couldn’t speak a word of English, nor of any other language either. So the king made him the ruler of Wales and the king called himthe Prince of Wales. Ever since then the King of England’s first-born son, the one who will be king when his father dies, has been called the Prince of Wales. Nowadays few people of Wales can speak their own “mother-tongue,”for all the children learn English in the schools. Many people study other languages besides their own, but it isn’t necessary to know Welsh in order to travel in Wales, for every one speaks English even if he speaks Welshtoo.

The game of golf first started in Scotland, the country north of England, on the same island, and some of the finestgolf-courses are there. Scotland is the land of the Scots and it once had a separate king. The Scotch men used to wear—and some do to-day—shawls of bright-colored squares, and skirts instead of breeches, and stockingsrolled down, leaving their knees bare even in the coldest weather—and they have a great deal of cold weather in Scotland. The Scotch families are called Clans and each Clan has a special design called a plaid in which itsshawls and skirts are woven. A great many Scotch names and words are different from English, and yet similar. They call a baby a bairn, and boys and girls they call lads and lassies, and a pretty girl they call a bonnie lassie.

参考译文

英格兰人的邻居

下面是我所知道的最长的名字，共有58个字母，译成汉语有28个字：兰韦尔普尔古因吉尔戈格里惠尔恩德罗布尔兰蒂西利奥戈戈戈赫。这个名字看起来就像是一个孩子在玩打字机，胡乱地敲出了这些字。但这是一个真的名字，是威尔士一个小镇的名字——威尔士和英格兰位于同一个岛上，以前是独立的国家。小镇名字的意思是“位于长满白榛树山谷中的圣马利亚教堂，附近有一个飞速旋转的漩涡，还有一座靠近红色山洞的圣泰西里奥教堂”。住在小镇的人或者写信到那里的人通常把这个地方简称为“兰韦尔普”，用英文写有12个字母——那也够长的了。我倒愿意叫它“戈戈戈赫”！威尔士现在是英国的一部分，但很久以前并不是。威尔士人说的是另一种语言——一种很难的语言，有很多又长又难念的名词，还有很多字母如“ll’s”、“w’s”、“y’s”，混合在一起，让人困惑。

一位英国国王最终征服了威尔士，为了安抚被征服的人民，他告诉他们他将让一个出生在威尔士，且一句英语也不会说的人当他们的统治者。威尔士人听到后感到十分高兴，因为他们以为国王将让一个威尔士人来统治他们。但是国王自己的儿子在威尔士出生了——当然他是个婴儿，不会说一句英语，也不会说其他任何语言。就这样，国王让自己的儿子成为威尔士的统治者，称他“威尔士亲王”。从那以后，英国国王的长子，也就是王位继承人都被授予“威尔士亲王”这个称号。现在很少有威尔士人会说自己的“母语”，因为所有孩子在学校学的都是英语。很多人除了他们自己的语言之外还学习其他语言，但是到威尔士去旅行没必要懂得威尔士语，因为那里每个人都会说英语，即便他也会说威尔士语。

高尔夫球运动最早起源于苏格兰。苏格兰在英格兰北边，与英格兰同处一个岛，以前是一个独立的国家。苏格兰拥有世界上最好的一些高尔夫球场。苏格兰是苏格兰人的土地，曾经有自己的国王。苏格兰男子过去经常穿着——现在还有人这样穿——颜色鲜艳的方形披风，下身不穿裤子而穿裙子，袜子向下卷起，即使在最寒冷的天气膝盖也是裸露在外——而苏格兰经常有寒冷的天气。苏格兰的家族叫做宗族，各个宗族都穿特定的格子花呢图案的披风和裙子，这种格子花呢叫做彩格呢。苏格兰英语中的很多名称和单词和英语不同，但很相似。他们把“婴儿”称为“小孩”，把“男孩”、“女孩”称为“小伙子”、“小姑娘”。把“漂亮的女孩”称为“好看的姑娘”。