美語情景對話 第338期:Life History 生活經歷

Todd: Miki, where did you go to university?

託德：美琪，你在哪兒上的大學？

Miki: I went to university in California, at a school called the University of California at Berkeley.

美琪：我在加利福尼亞上的大學，我上的是加州大學伯克利分校。

Todd: And where is that in California?

託德：那所學校位於加州的什麼地方？

Miki: It's in the Bay Area, which is in the northern half of California, right across the bay from San Francisco.

美琪：學校在海灣地區，位於北加州，就在舊金山海灣。

Todd: OK, and what did you study?

託德：好，那你學了什麼？

Miki: I studied many things, but I majored in Japanese.

美琪：我學了很多，不過我的專業是日語。

Todd: Oh, really!

託德：哦，真的嗎？

Miki: I did.

美琪：沒錯。

Todd: Oh, wow. Now you are of Japanese ancestry.

託德：哇！你有日本血統。

Miki: My mother is. My father is from Kansas.

美琪：我媽媽是日本人。我父親來自堪薩斯。

Todd: Oh, really.

託德：真的啊。

Miki: His family is from the South, Kansas, Arkansas, Texas. My mother is from Japan. She grew up in Nagasaki and moved to Yokohama when she was young so most of my family is there, Yokohama and the South.

美琪：他的家人來自南部地區，堪薩斯州、阿肯色州和得克薩斯州。我母親來自日本。她在長崎長大，年輕時搬去了橫濱，所以我的大部分家人都在橫濱和美國南部。

Todd: Oh, wow! What a combo.

託德：哇！這組合真棒。

Miki: Yeah, I guess so.

美琪：嗯，我也這麼想。

Todd: Now were you already fluent in Japanese before you started university?

託德：那你上大學前就能說流利的日語嗎？

Miki: I was but it wasn't a standard Japanese. It was very familial. It was Japanese that was spoken within the family, between parent and child, and so it was very casual, and conversational.

美琪：可以，不過並不是標準日語。那只是家庭用語，我說的是家人之間說的日語，是父母和孩子之間的用語，是非正式的用語，非常口語化。

Todd: OK. Is it difficult for you to comprehend people sometimes in Japan or is it just like home?

託德：好。你理解日本人說的話很難嗎，還是你覺得就跟在家一樣？

Miki: Oh, it's absolutely difficult because there, well first of all, they're dialects and then of course there are different levels of politeness and conversationalist, I guess, and especially once I get into a classroom with other professors, and other students, colleagues my age, it's quite difficult to follow the language, but if it's street talk it's much easier.

美琪：非常難，因爲，首先，他們會說方言，而且敬語有不同的等級，和談話專家……尤其是有一次我和其他教授、以及學生們以及和我同齡的同事一起進入教室，我很難理解他們說的話，不過要是街頭閒談就要容易多了。

Todd: Oh, really! OK, so at university, did you study just to learn Japanese as a language or did you study literature?

託德：真的啊。那你在大學的時候，是隻把日語當作一門語言來學習，還是你也學習文學？

Miki: I'll be honest. I studied to get an easy degree, and frankly it was quite easy, but then I had a very good professor in classical Japanese and that's when my interest in literature and history actually was born and I ended up becoming a researcher in medieval history, medieval literature.

美琪：說實話，我學習的東西很容易獲得學位，實話實說，我學的東西非常簡單，不過之後我在學習古典日語的時候遇到了一位非常好的教授，正是那時我開始對文學和歷史感興趣，最終我成爲了中世紀史和中世紀文學的研究員。

Todd: Wow, that must be really difficult though cause that's old, old style of language, it's an old text. (Yes) Like Shakespeare is difficult for me.

託德：哇，那一定非常難，因爲那是語言的古典體，是舊體文字。（沒錯）就像我覺得莎士比亞很難理解。

Miki: That's actual, well, that's actually an interesting comparison cause Shakespeare is actually just a little bit easier for us modern Americans to comprehend than classical Japanese is for a modern Japanese person to comprehend because the language, actually, Shakespearean English is actually much closer to modern English than classical Japanese is to modern Japanese, but

it's not spoken, so if one has a dictionary, then one can do research.

美琪：那真是……那真是很有意思的比較，因爲實際上我們現代美國人理解莎士比亞要比現代日本人理解古典日語要容易，因爲實際上，莎士比亞風格的英語和現代英語很相似，可是古典日語離現代日本人就比較久遠了，不過那並不是口語，所以如果你有字典，那你就能進行研究。

Todd: Alright! Well, thanks a lot Miki.

託德：沒錯！好，美琪，非常感謝你。

Miki: You're welcome.

美琪：不客氣。

重點講解：
1. grow up
長大成人；
eg. The children are then more likely to grow up bright and intelligent.
這樣孩子們長大後纔有可能變得聰明智慧。
eg. Many young rock hounds grow up to be geologists.
許許多多愛好收集岩石的少年，長大後成了地質學家。
2. first of all
首先；第一；
eg. First of all, you should know what profession suits you.
首先，你該知道什麼職業適合你。
eg. First of all, to try to keep calm at the interview.
首先，面試時要保持鎮靜。
3. end up (in) sth./doing sth.
最終；結果；到頭來；
eg. Don't loaf away your time, or you'll end up in failure.
別消磨時光，否則你最終會失敗的。
eg. They end up accepting the unacceptable.
他們最終接受了無法接受的條件。