【英语趣味课堂】简陋的小屋-The Shack

Yuri: So Shirley, you were talking about the shack¹. Can you tell me some more about it?

Shirley: OK, well, the shack - not as horrible² as it might sound. I was actually born in the city, and yeah, grew up on the edge³ of the city of Glasgow, and my parents ... maybe I was about seven or eight years old ... my parents decided⁴ they would buy this little wooden house in the country side, only about forty-five minutes drive from where we lived, but right in the countryside, and it was really basic. It was huge. It looked like a barn⁵, and my parents wanted to try and make it into something livable like a holiday house that we could go to on the weekends and summer holidays and stuff⁶, so anyway we went there ... for the first time we went, it still looked like a barn, and had some beds in it and stuff like that, but no running water, no electricity, no toilet, no bath, no shower. It was like a barn in the middle of nowhere, so as you know, me and my brothers, we are kind of raised in the city, and although, you know we were kids way before video games and iPods and things like that, there was no TV. That was the biggest tragedy⁷. There was no TV, and we though what on earth can we do up here? It's like we're in the middle of nowhere, how boring this summer holiday's gonna be, so we just had to you know, try and figure out how we we're gonna enjoy this holiday and what could we do with no television.

 

Yuri: Yes, exactly, what did you do? How did you spend you days?

 

Shirley: We were out in the country side. I mean, you just need to go out and look, and there's so many possibilities to have fun: making tree houses, making dens⁸ out of the woodland ferns and things like that, going on searches for frogs. We seemed to do that a lot. Poor frogs. We made like a tennis court out in the front of the ... we called it the hut⁹. Right, I keep calling it a barn or a shack, but actually what we called it was a hut, although it was a really huge kind of wooden house, and so yeah, we made up a kind of a tennis court and when it wasn't raining we could play tennis.

 

We had to go collect water from a well near like, I don't know, maybe four hundred meters away, and we'd always have to go in twos because of course there's always an argument with kids. I did it last time. He has to do it this time. So we always had to go in pairs to get the water. For lights we'd just use a gas lamps. For cooking it was a kind of two stove ... two ring stove, connected to a gas bottle. We did have television, which was powered by a car battery¹⁰, so we would save that until Saturday night, because always on a Saturday night there was a movie, so we would save the car battery power for the Saturday night movie, and it would usually last until the end of the movie.

 

Yuri: So it was a bit like camping.

 

Shirley: Yeah, yeah, I suppose but like camping, only thankfully we didn't get wet when it rained.

 

重点词汇：

 

Learn Vocabulary from the lesson

shack

 

You were talking about the shack.

 

A shack is a small house cheaply¹¹ made from tin, wood, and other materials, usually with no toilet, electricity or running water. Notice the following:

 

He grew up poor in a one room shack just outside the city.

The shack was easily destroyed by the winds and heavy rain.

not as horrible as it sound

 

The shack was not as horrible as it might sound.

 

We use the phrase¹² ‘not as horrible as it might sound’ to talk about a negative situation that is really not so bad. Notice the following:

 

Staying at a hostel¹³ isn’t as horrible as it might sound.

It rained everyday of our Hawaiian vacation, but it wasn’t as horrible as it might sound.

the edge of the city

 

I grew up on the edge of the city.

 

The edge of the city is the area where the city ends and the suburbs¹⁴ or countryside begin. Notice the following.

 

It’s about 10 kilometers from downtown to the edge of the city.

The trains run from one edge of the city to the other.

something livable

 

 

We made it into something livable like a holiday house.

 

When we make something livable that means¹⁵ clean and comfortable. Notice the following:

 

She made her small apartment into something livable.

It will take a lot of time and money to make the old house into something livable.

what on earth can we do

 

We were thinking,what on earth can we do up here?

 

We use the phrase ‘what on earth can we do’ when we have a problem or situation but can’t think of a solution. Notice the following:

 

We’ve lost our money and credit¹⁶ cards. What on earth can we do?

The power is out - no TV, no lights, no computer. What on earth can we do?

1 shack   

adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚

参考例句：

• He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前，他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
• The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。

2 horrible   

adj.可怕的，极可憎的，极可厌的

参考例句：

• This is a horrible monster.这是一个可怕的怪物。
• That is a horrible accident.那是一次可怕的事故。

3 edge   

n.边(缘)；刃；优势；v.侧着移动，徐徐移动

参考例句：

• Sight along the edge to see if it's straight.顺着边目测，看看直不直。
• She lived on the extreme edge of the forest.她住在森林的最边缘。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 barn   

n.谷仓，饲料仓，牲口棚

参考例句：

• That big building is a barn for keeping the grain.那幢大房子是存放粮食的谷仓。
• The cows were driven into the barn.牛被赶进了牲口棚。

6 stuff   

n.原料，材料，东西；vt.填满；吃饱

参考例句：

• We could supply you with the stuff in the raw tomorrow.明天我们可以供应你原材料。
• He is not the stuff.他不是这个材料。

7 tragedy   

n.悲剧；惨事，惨案，灾难

参考例句：

• The news of the tragedy really knocked us out.关于这一惨案的消息确实使我们感到震惊。
• The play was a tragedy,but the acting was laughable.戏是悲剧，可是演得却令人发笑。

8 dens   

n.牙齿，齿状部分；兽窝( den的名词复数 )；窝点；休息室；书斋

参考例句：

• Female bears tend to line their dens with leaves or grass. 母熊往往会在洞穴里垫些树叶或草。 来自辞典例句
• In winter bears usually hibernate in their dens. 冬天熊通常在穴里冬眠。 来自辞典例句

9 hut   

n.棚子；简陋的小房子

参考例句：

• The hut is in the midst of the forest.小屋在森林深处。
• The poor old man lived in a little wooden hut.那个贫穷的老人住在一间小木屋内。

10 battery   

n.电池；一批；金属物件；群；【律】殴打

参考例句：

• He is charging a storage battery.他在为蓄电池充电。
• The battery has run down.电池用完了。

11 cheaply   

adv.廉价地；粗俗地

参考例句：

• Old bikes can be bought quite cheaply.旧自行车很便宜就能买到。
• This apartment rents cheaply.这套公寓租价便宜。

12 phrase   

n.短语，词组；成语，习语

参考例句：

• The phrase was caught on and immediately became popular.这个短语被采用后很快就流行了。
• That's exactly the phrase I was looking for.这就是我一直找的那个短语。

13 hostel   

n.（学生）宿舍，招待所

参考例句：

• I lived in a hostel while I was a student.我求学期间住在青年招待所里。
• He says he's staying at a Youth Hostel.他说他现住在一家青年招待所。

14 suburbs   

n.郊区，城郊( suburb的名词复数 )；四乡；隧；四郊

参考例句：

• The poor suburbs traditionally formed the bedrock of the party's support. 贫穷的郊区在传统上构成了支持该党的牢固基础。
• The new college will be located in the suburbs. 这所新建的学院将设在郊区。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 means   

n.方法，手段，折中点，物质财富

参考例句：

• That man used artful means to find out secrets.那人使用狡猾的手段获取机密。
• We must get it done by some means or other.我们总得想办法把它干完。

16 credit   

n.信用，荣誉，贷款，学分；v.归功于，赞颂，信任

参考例句：

• I credit him with a certain amount of sense.我认为他有一定的见识。
• He got the credit,and we did the dirty work.他得荣誉，我们做不讨好的工作。