Jerry跟同事Paula和Will打招呼,注意聽他們?nèi)酥苣┒几闪诵┦裁础?/p>
Jerry: Hey, Paula. Hi, Will. Did you have a good weekend?
Paula: Yeah... I checked out that new 3-D movie. It's amazing what they can do with technologies these days!
Will: I went mountain biking with a couple of friends. We worked up a good sweat and had a good time. How about you, Jerry?
J: Actually, I spent most of the weekend looking at travel brochures.
Paula 周末去看了新出的三維電影,3-D movie. Will 跟幾個朋友一起去騎山地車,山地車在英語里叫 mountain bike,可以是名詞,在上面那段話里是做動詞用,Will went mountain biking. Will 還說,他們出了一身汗,玩得特別開心。work up a sweat 是一種習慣用法,指鍛煉身體或從事體力活動很投入,可以是真的出了一身汗,也可以形容特別賣力。Jerry呢,一個周末大部分時間都在看旅游宣傳材料 travel brochures. 看來他是要休假嘍?Paula問:
P: Really? Are you going somewhere?
J: Well, starting on the 20th of this month, I'm taking a five-week vacation.
W: Five weeks!! No way!
P: Get out of here! How did you swing that?
J: Actually, the company owes me about four months' worth of vacation time. I've been working here since 2002 and haven't taken a vacation yet. I've got oodles of comp time as well.
W: Sorry, what's comp time?
Jerry 要休五個星期的假,Will和Paula都不敢相信,問Jerry, How did you swing that? to swing it 是一種口語里非正式的說法,意思是說服別人,達到自己的目的。Jerry解釋說,他從2002年來這家公司工作,就一直沒休過假,現(xiàn)在公司欠他四個月的假期,Jerry說,另外,I've got oodles of comp time as well. oodles is spelled o-o-d-l-e-s, oodles, oodles of something 也是一種非正式的說法,相當于 a lot of something 很多,Jerry說自己除了四個月的假期,還攢了很多 comp time. Will是新畢業(yè)的大學生,不知道什么是comp time. Paula解釋說,
P: The "comp" is short for compensation. Basically he means overtime pay.
J: Yeah, but some companies - like ours - don't really pay overtime.... they give you extra vacation hours instead. If you add up all the vacation time and comp hours I have, I have a lot of time.
P: When I was working for a company in Germany they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules.
Paula 解釋說,comp, c-o-m-p, comp 是 compensation的簡寫,其實就是 overtime 加班,有些公司不發(fā)加班費,而是把員工加班的時間折合成假期,補償給員工。另外,歐洲和美國的情況也有很大的區(qū)別,Paula說,她以前曾經(jīng)在德國的一家公司工作過,they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules. 那家公司不僅工作時間短,而且加班的規(guī)定也 very liberal, 很松。