听力文本

Most of these castles are now in ruins, because it is too hard to get to them and to keep them in repair, and no longer can any one treat the poor people the way the barons did.

Cologne is a kind of strong perfume. It is named for a city on the Rhine called Cologne. Cologne means colony, for it was once a colony of Rome. The house in which I live took seven months to build, but there is a Cathedral in Cologne that took seven hundred years to build!—the longest time of any building in the World.

Cologne is a city famous for its Cathedral but the most famous German city is Berlin Before World War II Berlin was one of the finest and cleanest cities in the world. It had broad tree-lined avenues, great handsome stone buildings, parks and statues. It was also the capital of Germany. But by the time World War II was over, much of Berlin was a wreck. Many of its finest buildings were in ruins, destroyed by bombs dropped from airplanes during the war. Berlin is in Eastern Germany, the part of Germany ruled by the Russians after the War, but the United States, Great Britain, and France as well as Russia govern Berlin. The Russians had fought on our side during World War II, but after the War was over they became very unfriendly to the United States and Great Britain. They even said that the countries ruling Western Germany could not use the railroad or auto roads to Berlin. The people of Berlin had to be fed, so the United States and Great Britain flew tons and tons of food and coal into the city by airplanes day after day for a year and a half. Finally the Russians realized they could not keep out the Americans and British and opened the railroad again. This carrying of supplies to Berlin was called the Berlin Airlift because the supplies were lifted through the air from Western Germany to Berlin.

Sticking up off the map of Germany like a thumb is a little country called Denmark. On one side of it is the North Sea; on the other side is another sea called the Baltic. Germany fronts on the North Sea and on the Baltic Sea too, but this little thumb of land does not belong to Germany. The Germans had to go all around this country in order to get from the cities on the North Sea to the cities on the Baltic Sea, so they cut off the thumb by digging a canal across the bottom of it.It is called the Kiel Canal.

参考译文

现在，这些城堡大部分已经成为废墟，因为很难再到城堡对它们进行维修，此外，也不再有人能像那些强盗贵族那样虐待穷人了。

科隆香水是一种气味浓烈的香水，它是以莱茵河畔的一座叫科隆的城市来命名的。“科隆”的意思是“殖民地”，因为它曾是古罗马的殖民地。我居住的房子花了七个月的时间修建好，但是在科隆，有一个大教堂却花了七百年的时间才完工——是世界上建造时间最长的建筑物。

科隆是以大教堂而闻名的城市，而德国最著名的城市是柏林。第二次世界大战之前，柏林是世界上最美丽、最干净的城市之一。有宽阔的、绿树成荫的街道，漂亮的石头房屋、公园，还有雕像。柏林也是德国的首都。但是到第二次世界大战结束的时候，柏林的大部分地方都被毁了。多数最漂亮的建筑物被战时飞机投下的炸弹炸毁了，成了一片废墟。柏林位于德国东部，而德国的这部分战后由俄罗斯统治。但是，美国、英国，还有法国和俄罗斯一起掌管柏林。“二战”期间，俄罗斯是站在美国一方的，可战争结束后，俄罗斯对美国和英国非常不友好。他们甚至说，统治德国西部的国家不可以使用通往柏林的铁路和公路。但是柏林人极需要生活援助，于是，美国和英国不得不每天用飞机将成吨成吨的食物和煤空运到柏林，这种情况维持了一年半的时间。最后俄罗斯意识到很难将美国人和英国人挡在柏林城外，就重新开放了通往柏林的铁路。这种提供生活物资的方式被称作“柏林空运”，因为物资是通过飞机从德国西部运到柏林的。

伸出德国地图像拇指一样的小国家是丹麦。在丹麦的一边是北海，另一边是波罗的海。德国也面向北海和波罗的海，但拇指般小的这块地并不属于德国。德国人从北海岸边的城市到波罗的海的海滨城市去，不得不绕过丹麦这个国家，为此他们就将大拇指切断，在它的底部挖了一条运河。人们称之为基尔运河。