第十二章:
内容提要:
Brookfield 来了新校长,Chips很喜欢他。但是来年后,Chips患了支气管炎,休息半年后,65岁的Chips退休了,在学期结束的晚宴上,他发做了离职演讲,回忆起之前的种种,用词当然还是那么幽默,引得大家哄堂大笑,还说他要写一本名叫《罚打罚抄回忆录(Memories of Rod and Lines)》的书。虽然退休了,但是他仍然和学校保持着密切的联系。
语言点:
...Recognizing in Chips a Brookfield institution, he courteously and wisely accept the situaiton.
institution这个词,通常见到的意思是“机构”,但是这里是“由来已久的风俗习惯”的意思,指Chips是Brookfield传统的化身。例:the institution of marriage 婚姻制度
After all it was a good, ripe age; and Ralston's straight words had, in same ways, had an effect. He felt that it would not be fair to hang on if he could not decently do his job. Besides, he would not sever himself completely.
ripe age 成熟的年龄,立里有一篇文章,写得很好从Good-bye, Mr.Chips 里学习如何表达“成熟”
have an effect,说明Ralston说的话,Chips往心里去了,take sth to heart
让我想到电视剧里面经常出现“Don't take it personally.” 也是“别往心里去,别觉得是针对你。”可以一起记。
hang on 坚持不放弃,在这里是有种“死皮赖脸不走”的意味。
decent这个词,除了有“体面的”的意思,还有“像样的,相当不错的”的意思、
比如:a decent meal
sever这个词,比较正式,我们日常一般用cut off就可以了。注意不要跟severe搞混了。
At that end-of-term dinner...
又来了,带连字符“-”的词,巩固一下吧!
Staefel was thirty years his junior, but the two men go on excellently.
比谁年轻/年长多少岁,XX years XX‘s junior/senior
There was a lot of war talk.
war talk,关于战争的谈话。还有business talk,girl talk(女孩子聊天),small talk(闲聊),sweet talk(甜言蜜语)
补:
dine and dash 吃霸王餐
语音点:
ripe虽然知道发音,但是经常一不小心读成rape。。这就有点尴尬了
sever/sevə/ 不要跟severe混了。
occasional 注意s是发浊音,规律是-sion在元音后面的发浊音,比如decision,persuasion,-ssion发清音,比如expression。
这里联想到昨天的question,-tion在s后面发音为/tʃ/,比如suggestion。
第十三章
内容提要:
第一次世界大战爆发了,Brookfield的师生纷纷入伍。那些在战争中身亡的人,对Chips来说,并不是一个个名字而已,都是一张张鲜活的脸。而Chatteris因为患糖尿病,不能入伍,被大家看成是懦夫。另外来自各方面的其他压力,让他几近崩溃,所以他请求Chips重新回到Brookfield. Chips答应了。
语言点:
He was, like thousands of others, hopelessly wrong...
用来修饰wrong的词可以学习一下,不要只会用completely和totally啦。dreadfully/terribly/seriously/disastrously/horribly/tragically
But one didn't guess what lay ahead.
“谁也想不到之后会发生什么。” lay ahead这个用法很简洁,要是我说的话
No one could have known what was going to happen in the future.
Strange, in a way, that the sacrifices of one generation should so cancel out those of another.
这里的should又是竟然的意思。复习一下。
He was over worked, and over worried.
over这个前缀很好用,比如东西烧老了,可以说overcooked,飞机总是超卖,可以说overbooked,睡过头了,可以说oversleep.
... but I don't see why I should pin a medical certificate on my front door.
I don't see why,"我认为也没有必要... "很地道的表达,可以用来替换我们常说的I don't think it necessary to...
I have to take classes myself, take prep for fools like that, work till midnight every night, and get cold-shouldered as a slacker on top of everything.
get cold-shouldered 受到冷落
昨天学的slack,今天就来slacker啦!
‘I do sympathize with you,’ Chips said.
sympathize是动词,后面加with再加sb
如果是sympathy的话,是feel sympathy for sb
这句可以改写成I do feel sympathy for you.
查字典的时候,发现sympathize还有“赞同、支持”的意思
例如:I entirely sympathize with this view. 对这个观点我完全同意
... if you felt equal to it and would care to-- how about coming back here for a while? You look pretty fit, and of course, you know all the ropes.
equal to sth能胜任,能应付,一种正式的用法。
I hope that he proves equal to the challenge. 我希望他能应对这一挑战。
know the ropes 知道如何做某事 (口语中的用法)
...you'd help to hold things together if there were any danger of them flying to bits.
to bits 成为碎片,变成小块
例:
The city was bombed to bits during the Second World War.这座城市在二战期间被炸成碎片
If we go through this, we get blown to bits.走过这里会被射成蜂窝。
I’ve only had these shoes a few weeks and they’re already falling to bits.
我几周前新买的这双鞋,现在已经烂得不成样子了。
The vase hit the floor and was smashed to bits. 花瓶掉在地上,摔得粉粉碎。
补充:
hysterical/hɪˈsterɪkl/,名词hysteria/hɪˈstɪəriə/,歇斯底里,这个词很有意思,我曾经一度以为这是个中国的成语,就像“声嘶力竭”的感觉,但其实,这是个外来词哈哈!这两个词元音不同,需要注意一下。