Have you been reading lots of children's stories, to help you decide whether to take the course?
你有读儿童的故事来帮你决定要不要上这门课程吗？
Yeah. I've gone as far back as the late seventeenth century, though I know there were earlier children's stories.
是的。我读到了十七世纪晚期的书，尽管我知道有更早的儿童故事。
So does that mean you've read Perrault's fairy tales? Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, and so on.
那是不是意味着你读了佩罗的童话故事啦？辛德瑞拉，睡美人啦。
Yes. They must be important, because no stories of that type had been written before, these were the first. Then there's The Swiss Family Robinson.
是的。它们非常重要，因为之前都没有过那种类型的故事，这是首创。然后还有《来自瑞士的鲁滨逊一家》。
I haven't read that.
我没看过那个故事呢。
The English name makes it sound as though Robinson is the family's surname, but a more accurate translation would be The Swiss Robinsons, because it's about a Swiss family who are shipwrecked, like Robinson Crusoe in the novel of a century earlier.
英文名字听起来鲁滨逊是这个家庭的姓氏，但是更准确的翻译应该是《瑞士的鲁滨逊》，因为这是关于一个遭遇海难的瑞士家庭的故事，就像一个世纪之前的小说《鲁宾逊漂流记》一样。
Well I never knew that!
呃，我都不知道呢！
Have you read Hoffmann's The Nutcracker and the Mouse King?
你读过霍夫曼的《胡桃夹子和老鼠王》吗？
Wasn't that the basis for Tchaikovsky's ballet The Nutcracker?
那不是柴可夫斯基的芭蕾舞《胡桃夹子》的创作原型吗？
That's right. It has some quite bizarre elements.
是的。里面有一些很奇异的元素。
I hope you've read Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince. It's probably my favourite children's story of all time.
希望你读过王尔德的《快乐王子》。这可能是我最喜欢的儿童故事。
Mine too! And it's so surprising, because Wilde is best known for his plays, and most of them are very witty, but The Happy Prince is really moving. I struggled with Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings -- three long books, and I gave up after one.
我也是！而是这非常令人惊喜，因为王尔德最出名的是他的戏剧，很多都写得非常妙趣横生，但是《快乐王子》却写得很动人。看托尔金的《魔戒》我看的很挣扎，三本大部头，看了一部之后就放弃了。
It's extremely popular, though.
但是它很受欢迎。
Yeah, but whereas something like The Happy Prince just carried me along with it, The Lord of the Rings took more effort than I was prepared to give it.
是的，像《快乐王子》对我而言就非常引人入胜，而读《魔戒》却是一件非常需要努力的事情。
I didn't find that -- I love it.
我倒没那么觉得--我很喜欢呢。
Another one I've read is War Horse.
我读过的另外一个是《战马》。
Oh yes. It's about the First World War, isn't it? Hardly what you'd expect for a children's story.
是的。是关于一战的，对吗？一般来说并不会觉得那会和儿童故事有关系。
Exactly, but it's been very successful. Have you read any...
是的，但是它写的非常成功。你读过什么...