【新唐人2013年08月16日訊】 (美国之音電)
- 禮節美語-259 Bullet Trains 1
Lewis 在走廊上遇到同事 Jay.
Lewis: Hi, Jay!
J: Hi, Lewis. Are you ready for your big trip to Chicago?
L: Oh, yeah! I’m gonna nail the presentation.
J: I’m sure you will. Hey, I thought I remembered from an earlier conversation that you have relatives in the states, right? Any chance you’ll get to see them?
L: I’d like to, but they’re not in Chicago. My uncle moved to LA five years ago. I was thinking about going over to visit him but I don’t have a lot of time…maybe I could just hop on a bullet train from Chicago.
Lewis要到美國芝加哥出差，對完成任務信心滿滿，說自己一定會 nail the presentation 出色完成演示任務。在英語裡，to nail something 意思是出色完成某事。比如，父母問你考試考得好不好，你就可以回答說，I nailed it. 我考得好極了。Jay問Lewis是否準備順便去看望一下自己在美國的親戚。Lewis說，叔叔五年前搬去洛杉磯，離芝加哥很遠，他時間有限，準備 hop on a bullet train from Chicago. bullet train 子彈頭列車，相當於高鐵。 Jay說,
J: That’s not going to be possible.
L: Why not? It’s probably only a few hours ride.
J: America doesn’t have any bullet trains.
L: Really? You’re kidding me!
J: No, actually I’m quite serious. The fastest train we have is called the Amtrak Acela Express. It goes from Boston to Washington DC, via Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City. But it’s not really a bullet train….The Acela Express generally runs at not much more than 130 kilometers an hour.
L: One hundred and 30 kilometers an hour? That’s not a high-speed train.
Jay說，美國沒有高鐵，最快的列車是 Amtrak Acela Express, 從波士頓到華盛頓特區，途經過巴爾迪摩，費城和紐約。可即便是這趟列車，一般時速也就是130多公里。Lewis說，Really? You’re kidding me! 表示難以置信。
J: Sometimes the Amtrak train can push speeds up to over 240 kilometers per hour, but most of the time it cruises at only around 130.
L: Wow! I thought America was more advanced than that. We have trains that can easily run at 300 kilometers an hour! Japanese bullet trains run at about 260 and the Europe super fast trains travel at almost 300 kilometers an hour!
J: Yeah I know. Even Taiwan has a high-speed rail that goes at least 200 kilometers an hour. But America is a very large country, and for the last several decades flying has been cheap and easy.
Amtrak雖然最快也能飆到時速240公里，但一般情況下，只保持在130公里左右勻速行駛，這裡用的動詞 cruise, cruise is spelled c-r-u-i-s-e, cruise 意思是不緊不慢地勻速前進。Jay說，美國地域遼闊，坐飛機方便便宜，這也許是鐵路不發達的原因之一。
