Pre-reading

Question: When did Robinson arrive on the island?

Intensive Reading

I was sad sometimes. I thought about my wife. I missed her a lot. I thought about my friends in Brazil. I thought about my parents.

有时我很悲伤。我想到我的妻子。我很想她。我想到我在巴西的朋友们。我想到我的父母。

I thought that living on this island alone was without meaning. I knew that travelling by sea could change your life completely. It could be great but it could be horrible too. I knew that my friends from the ship were dead. I knew that I was the only person alive. I was lucky to be alive. I was also lucky because I had all the things like food, guns and clothes. I couldn’t survive without these things.

我想到独自生活在这个岛上没有意义。我知道航海旅行可能会完全改变你的生活。它可能很棒，但也可能很可怕。我知道我船上的朋友们都死了。我知道我是唯一活着的人。能活下来我是幸运的。我是幸运的还因为我拥有食物、枪和衣服等所有这些东西。没有这些东西我无法活下来。

I decided to make a big cross. I put it on the beach. It was near the place of my arrival to the island.

我决定做一个大十字架。我把它放在海滩上。它靠近我到达这座岛的地方。

I wrote on it the date of my arrival. It was the 30th of September, 1659. I wanted to keep information about time. The cross was my calendar. I made a small cut in the cross every day. The seventh cut was longer. It marked the end of the week. The beginning of each month was also a longer cut.

我在上面写下我到达的日期。是1659年9月30日。我想要记录下时间。十字架是我的日历。我每天在十字架上凿一个口子。第七个口子长一些。它代表一周过去了。每个月开始也是一个长一些的口子。

Notes:

1. horrible: 可怕的，令人讨厌的。注意下horrible和terrible的区别在于，horrible强调令人震惊或者可怕，terrible则强调的是非常糟糕。

2. survive: （从危险或艰难的事情中）存活，活下来。

3. cross: 这里是“十字架”的意思，“叉形记号”，批改作业时打的“叉”也是cross，“十字路口”英文为crossing。

4. mark: 标记，做记号，“用……标记……”表达为mark sth.with sth.。

Exercise:

How did Robinson keep information about time?