d赖世雄高级美语第2课

Welcome back to Radio English on Sunday. Today we have unit two for you, beginning on page ten of your book, we're going to take another look at the United States, but today a very different look from that of last week. Last week we visited the largest city and the most cosmopolitan city in the United States, of course, New York. But today we are going to look at an ethnic groups, which is really quite different from all the others living in the US. Today, then, we are looking at the Amish.

---关于Amish, 在中级美语讲座第75，76讲也有提到过。

Ok, let's take a look at our first paragraph.

In the land of Rock'n'roll, the space shuttle and computerized living, who could imagine that about fifty thousand Americans do not use telephones, electric lights or cars? Not because they are poor but our of choice. As hard as this may be to imagine, the Amish, or more properly, the Amish Mennonites, still live a traditional rural lifestyle, direct from seventeen century Europe.

When we think of the US, we often think of rock'n'roll music, space shuttle and space (sexproration), and of course, all those computers. But today, right now, there're about fifty thousand Americans who don't dance to rock'n'roll, don't know much about the space shuttle, and don't use computers. They don't even use telephones or electric lights. And they don't do this because they are poor or because they jsut don't want them. These people are following a particular lifestyle which is actually not American. It's European, and it's about four hundred years old and in the rest of the article, we'll find out more about these interesting people. / These people are unique, in a sense, that they choose to lead a very simple lifestyle.

/ Very simple.

/ If you were on of them, then you will drop there, is this all right?

/ Probably I cannot imagine life without a refrigerator. haha.

dance to music, 不要说dance with music, 这在中级美语讲座中讲了不知几遍了。

dance with + 人。

out of choice, 出自选择，

out of curiosity, 出于好奇心，

out of sympathy, 出于同情。

/Out of sympathy, I gave the beggar some change. ---beggar->pauper, 见中级

As hard as this may be to imagine, ----> Hard as it may be to imagine,

Odd as it may be, ...见中级部分。这种句构后面绝不要再加but, 英语里不用两个连词的。

Though she is beautiful, I don't like her.

Beautiful as she is, I don't like her.

To understand these unique Americans better, it is necessary to understand their history.

Beginning with the revolution started by (Marton Loser 人名），leader of the Protestant Reformation in Germany in the sixteen century, Europe was wracked by religious wars for several hundred years. Modern Europe is a product of these wars, and of the political and religious philosophies of those times.

The main figures in this tragic period were the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestants, those who rebelled against papal rule from Rome. Among the thousands of splinter groups formed outside of Rome's religious rule were the Mennonites, a group of particularly conservative, rural Christians situated in what is today Switzerland, part of eastern France, and southern Germany.

papal: 罗马教皇的，－－－这种鸟字好象一般也碰不到。

---6:42----Pan: What makes Peter Lai's sound boring like this? It's probably because that they talked too much about the American culture. Like this lesson, until now I know almost nothing about the Amish and I never think I have any interest in this race.

What's another factor? To learn about their culture, you've got to learn a lot of meaningless names of persons and places, which always makes things like a language more boring and dull to death. Gosh! Do I have to learn these goddamn names? I am not at all interested in how they came to be and where they hailed from.

Well, people say, to learn a language well, to learn their culture well! Isn't it something of Americanization? I am sick of that, but do I have alternative?

So, let me just set my teeth and go ahead!

Ok. Summary of this paragraph would be what we see in the first sentence, the key word, history. That is if you want to understand today's Amish, we have to go back to Europe, where they, or their ideas came from, and goes all the way back to the sixteen century.

Well, to make a long story short, we can say that because of all the religious wars in Europe, first, the Rome Catholic Church was the only Christian church in Europe, but during the sixteen century, the other northern and western groups of Europeans rebelled against, or broke away from, rule in Rome for (the catholic church ,) and set up hundreds and even thousands of small churches, which we called Protestants. One of these was the Mennonites, and they used to live in Switzerland 瑞士, part of eastern France and southern Germany.

/ Well, this paragraph in terms of (..) usage, plicated, however, we do have very beautiful translation.

to be wracked by religious wars...what does this "wracked" mean?

/Well, let me give you another example I think you can get the idea, we say that a person has