【英语趣味课堂】关于运动-About Sports

Yuri: Shirley, one question. I'm a bit confused now. One thing, about sports. Sometimes, I can see U.K. play something with a team. Sometimes you're all divided. Why is that?

Shirley: So, we are essentially¹ still four countries, four separate countries in a united kingdom, so yeah, basically² each country just wanted to keep their national team.

 

In the case of the olympics, for some reason, and I'm not sure of the exact reason, but the olympics committee didn't want four divided teams from Great Britain. They wanted a representative of the United Kingdom, so they basically made the rule that Great Britain had to send a team and not teams from the four individual countries.

 

So, yeah, so we are United Kingdom but we're still very much four independent countries and each country is very proud of their own national teams for football and for rugby and things like that.

 

But, yeah, it's good that we get together for the olympics and we can perform as one united country.

 

Yuri: OK, thank you very much.

1 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

2 basically   

adv.基本上，从根本上说

参考例句：

• His heart is basically sound.他的心脏基本上健康。
• Basically I agree with your plan.我基本上同意你的计划。