新世纪大学英语系列教材综合教程3第二单元讲义

Unit 2 Book 3

Love

I. Difficult Sentences

1. Given the busy nature of our lives, it’s to be appreciated that we even find

the time to indulge in matters of the heart.

(1) What does “matters of the heart” mean?

(=something spiritual and emotional like love.)

(2) Paraphrase this sentence.

(=Taking into account that we are all busy satisfying our material needs, we should feel grateful that we still have the time to enjoy the feeling of\ loving and being loved.)

2. Harmless puppy loves that are as brief as soap bubbles.

(1) What are puppy loves?

(=Puppy loves happen to people too young to understand true love.) (2) What are the same characteristics that puppy loves and soap bubbles

share according to the sentence?

(=They are both short in existence and won’t produce too much influence on people nor will they do harm to people.)

3. …nothing could be more serious an affair for me.

(1) What does this sentence imply?

(= To me, a love affair was the most serious thing.)

(2) Analyze this sentence grammatically.

(=The structure “nothing can be more (+adj.) than sth.” means sth. is the most (=adj.). When the comparative degree is used in a negative sentence, most often it means the superlative degree.

More examples:

*Nobody can do the job better than he can.

*It can’t be worse.)

4. Those three hours of unhesitant attention by a group of well-groomed young

gentlemen provided with enough content to talk and feel excited about

for the next four weeks.

(1) What usually would happen at the social?

(=Those neatly dressed boys would never hesitate to pay attention to the girls or to attract the girls’ attention.)

(2) What usually would happen to the girls after the social?

(=They always felt excited and would keep on talking about the

social experience for weeks.)

5. And it has to be distinguished from the intense but short-lived love or the

pleasures of the flesh.

(1) What’s the difference between true love and the intense but short-lived

love or the pleasures of the flesh?

(=True love develops slowly but lasts long, and it needs more sharing,

caring and mutual understanding than the intense but short-lived love or the pleasures of the flesh.)

(2) Translate this sentence into Chinese.

(=我们必须把爱情同强烈而短暂的激情或身体的愉悦区别开来。)

6. An age when the distance between the sexes somehow managed to help

preserve the holiness of love and relationships.

What can we infer from this sentence?

(=Distance between sexes in some way contributes to the holiness of love and relationships between men and women.)

7. What we have been exposed to via the media have fast paced our

sensibilities so much that taking things slow requires effort on our

parts.

(1) What is the influence of media on us according to the author?

(=It makes us mentally and emotionally respond to love more quickly.)

(2) Translate this sentence into Chinese.

(=我们从媒体中接触到的人和事，使我们的感情历程大大加速，要想慢慢体会自己的感受，确实需要付出努力。)

8. There is more of closeness and less of intimacy.

(1) What is the difference between closeness and intimacy?

(=Closeness is meant in a physical sense, while intimacy is in the spiritual sense.)

(2) What does this sentence imply?

(= People in love can contact each other more easily, but they aren’t as spiritually close to each other as before.)

9. In short, there is more of ME and less of US.

What does this sentence mean?

(=Today young people handle love in a more self-centered way, only concerned with their own feelings and even interests in an affair, forgetting that love also needs sharing and giving.)

10. What about trying to be self-sufficient emotionally before letting ourselves

loose?

(1) What can we infer from this sentence?

(=Only when we become emotionally mature can we start a relationship and indulge in love.)