实战口语情景对话 第1250期:Giving Gifts 送礼物

Todd: Do you feel pressure to get certain gifts for your kids?
托德：你在给孩子买礼物时会感到压力吗？

Aimee: I ... sometimes. Sometimes. Thankfully they ... it's not ... there's not too much pressure where we live right now, so I don't feel too much pressure and I also work hard to fight against it. Yeah. Every year I tell myself, "OK, they're so young. We have so much stuff already. We don't need to go crazy with gifts. Just get one or two" and we do that and then last minute is like "Oh, no! We don't have many gifts" and then we end up buying a few more, so... We're not as bad as we could be. There's not as much pressure as there could be.
艾米：有时。有时会有压力。幸运的是，他们……我们现在生活的地方没有太大压力，所以我没有感受到太大压力，我也在努力对抗压力。每年我都跟自己说，“好，他们还小。我们已经有很多东西了。我们不必执着于礼物。只要买一两个就好了”，我们会这样去做，可是下一秒我们又会想，“哦不！我们没有太多礼物”，最后我们会再买几个礼物。我们没有使情况变得很糟糕。我们没有太大的压力。

Todd: Yeah. I'm lucky in that I live in Japan. You know, we both teach in Japan. So my family's in America, so Christmas usually always falls like the day after we finish school, so I can't actually make it home in time for Christmas, which is awesome because then I don't have to buy gifts for everybody. And I don't mind ... its not the money. I don't mind spending the money, but I really don't like shopping, and I hate having ... I have a huge family. Huge!
托德：嗯。我很幸运我生活在日本。我们两个人都在日本教书。我的家人在美国，圣诞节通常在学期结束后的那天，所以我不能赶回家过圣诞节，这其实很不错，因为我不用给所有人买礼物。我不是介意钱的问题，钱倒是无所谓。我不介意花钱，不过我很不喜欢购物，而且我有个庞大的家庭。非常大！

Aimee: Right.
艾米：好。

Todd: So the thought of having to buy 20 different gifts!
托德：所以我要买20个不同的礼物！

Aimee: It's a lot of gifts.
艾米：那真是很多礼物了。

Todd: Oh, really it's not the cost either, it's just I'm too lazy to think of "Oh, what sweater can I buy this person or ..." it's not my thing. And I don't want gifts and I don't want to give gifts.
托德：哦，真的和花钱无关，我只是太懒了，不想去考虑“哦，我能给这个人买哪件毛衣或是其他的”，那不是我擅长的事情。我不想要礼物，也不想送礼物。

Aimee: Well, you know that's fair.
艾米：嗯，那很公平。

Todd: How about you? Are gifts still something special for you?
托德：你呢？你擅长挑礼物吗？

Aimee: I'm not ... I'm not very good at it. I'm trying to improve cause I know a well-thought-out gift can mean the world to someone, so I'm trying to improve. Yeah, but I'm not the best. I don't mind, I'm not like. I won't fall out with someone if they don't get me a present. I'm not like that.
艾米：我也不太擅长。我在努力改进，因为我知道精心考虑的礼物对某人来说可能有非凡的意义，所以我在努力提高挑选礼物的能力。不过我还没有做到最好。我不太介意那种事情，如果有人没送我礼物，我不会和他们吵架。我不会那样做。

Todd: Well, like, I like getting people birthday gifts, I have to admit that. Birthday gifts I like. It's just having to buy twenty, thirty gifts within a one-month period to me just seems obscene.
托德：我得承认，我喜欢送生日礼物。我喜欢生日礼物。可是在一个月的时间内要买好20或30件礼物，我认为那太可怕了。

Aimee: I know, and that's the pressure people are under cause that's the way it is, isn't it? And it's always ... it's always the mothers of the family that have to do it as well right? They're the ones that have to make sure they buy all the gifts for everyone, so they feel they have so much to do. That mental list of everything, and everyone they have to buy for, of course they have to organize it, so they maybe start earlier, right, and taking advantage of things like Black Friday and Cyber Monday are manageable ways to deal with that load.
艾米：我明白，那就是人们面临的压力，就是那么回事，不是吗？而且准备礼物通常是妈妈要负责的事情，对吧？妈妈要确保买好了所有人的礼物，所以她们感到有很多事情要做。要在头脑里列出每件事情，给每个人买礼物，要安排一切，所以她们会提前准备，利用“黑色星期五”或“网购星期一”来解决那种负担是易管理的方法。

Todd: You've changed my mind. I was very anti- both but now that you put it that way, maybe you're right.
托德：你改变了我的想法。我本来是反对“黑色星期五”和“网购星期一”的，不过既然你这样说了，那也许你是对的。

Aimee: I don't know.
艾米：我也不知道。

Todd: Let's go!
托德：我们走吧！