美语咖啡屋 Lesson 37: Jeannie Spinning Wool[2]

Y: 各位听众好，我是杨晨。欢迎到美语咖啡屋！

J: Hello I'm Jody, welcome to American Cafe! On this edition of American Cafe we are going to talk to our friend Jeannie from West Virginia.

Y: 好香啊。你是在煮汤吗？

J: No, I am boiling soup. I am boiling brown.

Y: Brown？ 你说的颜色里的brown, 棕色吗？

J: That is right. I am boiling the color brown.

Y: Jody, 你真是越来越可爱了。 颜色也能煮吗？

J: Of course, you can boil a color. I got the idea from Jeannie, the woman artist we met who raises sheep and then uses their wool to make stuff.

Y: 对。我认识Jeannie。她非常特别。为什么说她特别呢？ 因为她不但自己养羊，还会剪羊毛，织毛衣。 她织的每一件毛衣都是艺术品。

J: That is right. She also dyes the wool herself.

But Yang Chen, you forgot a part of the process.

Y: 她还会给羊毛染色啊？

J: People who dye wool naturally use by-products found in nature like fruit, leaves and bark from trees, vegetables, even bugs³!

Y: Bugs? 虫子，我最怕那些小虫子。 你刚才提到的by-product²，能不能给大家解释一下？

J: By-product, spelled B-Y-P-R-O-D-U-C-T. A by-product is something that is left over from a process.

Y：对， By-product就是副产品的意思。

J: Jeannie is going to tell us how she is going to use by-product from trees like yellow boxwood elder, osage orange wood and walnut⁴ tress to get completely natural color.

Y: 你刚才提到的yellow boxwood elder或者是osage orange wood...

J: Those are just types of trees.

Y: 好。我们就听听Jeannie是利用那些by-products来作染料。

实录1: Jeannie: And in this case I've dyed with yellow box elder to get this nice green-yellow color. And I've got some dyed with osage orange wood and the boxwood was given to me by another friend as a by-product of something he was making.

Y: 我还是不太明白，她到底是用什么方法把这些东西制作出各种颜色的染料呢？

J: The process involves cocking the ingratiates over an open fire like a big pot of soup. Jeannie says that she dyed her wool over an open fire with friends. Doesn't that sound fun?

Y: 嗯...

J: Don't answer that. I had the feeling that boiling bugs over an open flame is not your idea of fun, but for Jeannie...

实录2: Jeannie: Well, we did this outside over an open fire and it took a couple of hours. It was a lot of fun.

Y: 不过我还有一个疑问，如果是利用这些自然界的这些东西来制作颜色，那么颜色的种类是不是很有限呢？

J: Jeannie said that you can get almost any color you want from nature; you can have the whole color span.

Y: 那你这里说的whole color span就是所有的颜色都包括在内。

J: Exactly, and according to Jeannie people who are really into dying wool naturally can get any color they want.

Y: 等一等，我想提醒大家当你说一个人“really into something"就是说这个人某件事特别认真，特别投入。

J: Oh, good point. If you are really into something, you have been doing something for a long time and you really like it. But enough from us, Yang Chen, let's hear how Jeannie uses the expression "really into it" and words like "span..."

实录3: Jeannie: Yeah, there's natural colors you can get almost anything you want. And people who are really into it -- which I'm not, I'm just a beginner, but with the natural colors -- but you can get browns from walnut. You can get blue from indigo⁵. So you can have the whole span.

J: Jeannie says she is just a beginner, but to me she sounds like a pro¹.

Y: 没错，我也觉得她听起来很老练。你有没有闻到什么东西煮糊了？

Y: 我知道这种来自大自然的颜色一定有很多好处，但是它们会不会很容易退色呢？

J: Oh, no it's my color brown. It's burning, it is all boiled over. Oh, man, my color brown it the color black. I guess I am the real beginner here. Well, anyway, thanks for joining us on American Cafe...See you next time.

Y: 谢谢大家收听美语咖啡屋。我们下次再见。

J: Where is Jeannie when we need her?

1 pro   

n.赞成，赞成的意见，赞成者

参考例句：

• The two debating teams argued the question pro and con.辩论的两组从赞成与反对两方面辩这一问题。
• Are you pro or con nuclear disarmament?你是赞成还是反对核裁军？

2 by-product   

n.副产品，附带产生的结果

参考例句：

• Freedom is the by-product of economic surplus.自由是经济盈余的副产品。
• The raw material for the tyre is a by-product of petrol refining.制造轮胎的原材料是提炼汽油时产生的一种副产品。

3 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 walnut   

n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色

参考例句：

• Walnut is a local specialty here.核桃是此地的土特产。
• The stool comes in several sizes in walnut or mahogany.凳子有几种尺寸，材质分胡桃木和红木两种。

5 indigo   

n.靛青，靛蓝

参考例句：

• The sky was indigo blue,and a great many stars were shining.天空一片深蓝，闪烁着点点繁星。
• He slipped into an indigo tank.他滑落到蓝靛桶中。