实战口语情景对话 第843期:Paul Bunyan 保罗·班扬

Shirley: Hi Jake, how are you today?
雪莉：你好，杰克，你今天怎么样？

Jake: Good. How are you Shirley?
杰克：我很好。你呢，雪莉？

Shirley: Not too bad thanks. I thought we might talk about folk heroes today. I don't really know much about American folk heroes, are there any that you have a favorite or...?
雪莉：还不错，谢谢你。我们今天来谈谈民间英雄。我不太了解美国民间英雄，你们有喜欢的……？

Jake: Actually my hometown in the United States happens to be known as one of the hometowns for Paul Bunyan.
杰克：在我的家乡美国有一个英雄——保罗·班扬。

Shirley: I think I've heard of that name but I don't know anything about him.
雪莉：我听过这个名字，不过我对他的故事一无所知。

Jake: Paul Bunyan was a lumberjack. Like, he would cut down trees and he was supposedly a very giant man. He was huge. And I don't know if he ever actually lived sometime in the past, but maybe he was just a very large man but somehow the stories have been passed down to say that he was as large as a house or as large as a skyscraper. It completely depends on who you ask.
杰克：保罗·班扬是名伐木工。他的工作是伐木，他是一名巨人。他非常高大。我不知道他在过去是否真实存在，也许他只是一名身材高大的人，不过流传的故事中说他有一座房子那么高，像摩天大楼一样高。我认为你问不同的人会得到不同的描述。

Shirley: Wow, so not sure whether he's a mythical character or a real character.
雪莉：哇，所以你不能确定他是神话人物还是真实存在的人物。

Jake: No one really knows for sure.
杰克：没有人确切知道。

Shirley: What did he do?
雪莉：他做了什么？

Jake: Well, some people say that he took his ax and he dragged it behind his back across the United States and he made the Mississippi river.
杰克：有些人说他拿着斧头，在背后拖着斧子穿越了美国，而且创造出了密西西比河。

Shirley: So it's a kind of story to explain why something exists.
雪莉：可以说这是解释某事存在原因的一个故事。

Jake: That's part of it. And also, he had a pet too. His pet is very famous.
杰克：这是其中一部分。他还有一个宠物。他的宠物非常有名。

Shirley: And what kind of pet?
雪莉：是什么宠物？

Jake: His pet was an ox, but it wasn't just an ordinary ox. It was a blue ox. And it was also oversized to fit with his size.
杰克：他的宠物是头公牛，但不是一头普通的公牛。那是一头蓝色的公牛。而且那头蓝色的公牛体型也非常庞大，和他很相配。

Shirley: What did his pet do?
雪莉：他的宠物做了什么？

Jake: Well his pet I think would just carry lumber for him or something...
杰克：我想他的宠物只是帮他拿木材之类的……

Shirley: So about when did this story start? When did Paul Bunyan become famous? Or when did people know about that story?
雪莉：那这个故事是什么时候开始流传的？保罗·班扬是什么时候开始出名的？或者说人们是什么时候知道的这个故事？

Jake: Well, I'm not exactly sure, but like your country, the United States is a very young country and has a very young history since the European settlers came there so I think it's maybe from a couple hundred years ago, maybe at the most.
杰克：我也不太清楚，和你的国家一样，美国也是一个非常年轻的国家，美国历史从欧洲定居者到来以后开始，历史并不长，所以我认为那个故事最多源自几百年前。

Shirley: Hmm. Ok.
雪莉：嗯，好。