表达
This was by far the biggest prayer meeting we’d ever had—the biggest thing that had ever happened in the history of our home, period.
用于大声念出带标点的文字时，表示“句号”，即一句至此完毕。
period 在英美都可以用作“句号”解，但在美国比在英国普通。
也可以用来表示后面没有别的词语了。
【例如】—I cannot wait to return home with the prize.—我巴不得马上拿到奖回家去。
—I cannot wait to return home, period. —我巴不得马上就这样回家去（删去了with the prize，不要得奖了）。
You don’t whip out your smartphone or a newspaper right away.
在这里，是迅速拿出的意思 自己理解--whip的基本意思是“用鞭子打人或动物”,引申为“鞭策或督促(某人快走、努力等)”“激发(情绪、热情等)”“激励”“唤起”。当然还有很多延伸的意思，鞭子打很快，快速引申搅打，迅速拿出等等
例句---I was going to pay but before I knew it he'd whipped out his credit card.本来我打算付帐，可我还没明白过来，他就掏出了他的信用卡。
whip，看了纸牌屋知道有党鞭的意思。
也有甜品的意思。还可以whip the cream搅打奶油
have / hold the whip hand 成为掌权者；处于支配地位。---自己理解就是拿着鞭子，就是掌权者处于支配地位了。
还有好多意思，大多不常见就没必要写了。
Some might say we lived like poor people. I prefer “open plan.”
open-plan does not have walls dividing it into separate rooms
开放式的；敞开式的；未隔间的
»an open-plan office敞开式的办公室
His nickname in the neighborhood was “Tat Shisha,” which translates loosely to “the smokin’ hot grandpa.”
在这里的意思not exact大致地，大概
»to use a term loosely宽泛地使用术语
•This phrase can be loosely translated as 'Go away'.这个片语可以大概翻译为“走开”。
His name was Temperance Noah, which was odd since he was not a man of moderation at all.
外公名字叫 Temperance Noah ，但是他不是a man of moderation一个温和的人
分销一个谚语---Moderation in all things. 凡事适可而止。
想法
In America the dream is to make it out of the ghetto. In Soweto, because there was no leaving the ghetto, the dream was to transform the ghetto.
There is no+doing句型的用法，“there is no”表“不可能”。
在美国，梦想是，走出贫民窟。在这里。梦想是，改变贫民窟。因为这里基本不可能离开贫民窟。
通过对比，很形象的刻画了他们的环境。
There was maybe one car for every thousand people, yet almost everyone had a driveway. It was almost like building the driveway was a way of willing the car to happen. The story of Soweto is the story of the driveways. It’s a hopeful place.
这里有一个停车道的故事，虽然绝大多数人没有车，然而人人有停车道。这是一件很奇怪的事。但是却写道，It’s a hopeful place.多么有意思啊。大家对未来充满希望，或是希望对未来充满希望是有希望的。
Watching those shows, I realized that whenever black people were on-screen speaking in African languages, they felt familiar to me. They sounded like they were supposed to sound. Then I’d listen to them in simulcast on the radio, and they would all have black American accents. My perception of them changed. They didn’t feel familiar. They felt like foreigners.
Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says “We’re the same.” A language barrier says “We’re different.” The architects of apartheid understood this.
作者写完一章故事会在结尾穿插一个当时的背景或是深刻解读，这一章的解读特别有深度。
他通过看电视上的黑人，感觉很熟悉。但是当听同步广播时，他的感觉变了，They felt like foreigners。是共同的语言让人有熟悉的感觉，就比如说我是江西的，当我见到老家的人讲着家乡话就会感到很熟悉。特别记得我高中在惠州读时，全宿舍10个人除了我，都是讲客家话，我感觉每当他们讲着我听不懂的语言时，那一刻，我感觉我和他们隔了一堵墙。现在在大学宿舍呢，则是不懂粤语，不过还好，大家基本讲得不多，有时候听多了也略懂了。
所以学会一门外语，并且练习熟练，真的是一件非常值得的事！
we’d fall into the trap the government had set for us and fight among ourselves
由于白人政府的计策，他们那里的黑人不同族教的讲得还是不同的语言，所以就是这样让他们坚信是不同的，这也导致了后面的黑人上台后的分裂和内乱。