商业报道:世界上生活成本最高的城市

World's costliest¹ cities 世界上生活成本最高的城市

Moscow tops the list, while American cities drop on Mercers' 'Worldwide Cost of Living' survey for 2008.

A new survey finds Moscow is the most expensive city to live in for the third year in a row. This has the ruble strengthen against other currencies. Tokyo, it moved up two spots to second place. That pushed London down to third place and Oslo it jumped six spots to fourth, Seoul South Korea it rounded out the top five. Now the top ten European and Asian cities actually led the pack.

The latest annual survey by research firm Mercer measures the cost of living for expatriates in 143 cities in countries on six continents. The trend this year shows the gap² between the most expensive cities in the world and the least expensive, it actually appears to be widening³. As far as American cities on the list New York is still the most costly⁴ city in the United States, but it comes in at No. 22 on the global list. Los Angeles clocks in at No. 55, Miami No. 75, while Washington D.C. fell a whopping 22 places to 107th.

The soft of US dollar led to an overall⁵ drop in the cost of living in 19 American cities compared to other major cities around the globe. For the six years in a row Asuncion Paraguay, it is the cheapest city to live in.

For CNNMONEY.COM I'm Stephanie Elam.

参考中文翻译：

最新调查显示莫斯科已经连续第三年成为生活成本最高的城市。因为卢布比其他货币更强劲。东京上升两位跃居第二，使得伦敦下滑到第三位。奥斯陆上升六个名次，跃居第四，韩国的首尔进入前五。目前前十位都由欧洲和亚洲的城市领导。

调查公司Mercer根据六大洲143个城市的外国移民的生活成本来进行这个一年一度的调查。几年的数据显示，世界上生活成本最高和最低的城市之间的差距在逐渐加大。但就榜上的美国城市来看，纽约仍然是美国生活成本最高的城市，然而在全球榜上列居22位，洛杉矶第55位，迈阿密第75位，而华盛顿骤降22个名次下滑到第107位。

美元的疲软导致美国19个城市的生活成本相对于世界上其他主要城市普遍下降。六年来，巴拉圭首都Asuncion一直是生活成本最低的城市。

1 costliest   

adj.昂贵的( costly的最高级 )；代价高的；引起困难的；造成损失的

参考例句：

• At 81 billion dollars, Katrina is the costliest natural disaster in American history. “卡特里娜”飓风造成了近810亿美圆的损失，是美国历史上最严重的自然灾难之一。 来自互联网
• Senator John Kerry has proposed a tax on the costliest health plans sold by insurance companies. 参议员约翰？克里(JohnKerry)已经提议对保险公司销售的高价值的保险计划征税。 来自互联网

2 gap   

n.缺口；间隔；差距；不足，缺陷

参考例句：

• We must see that there is no gap in our defence.我们必须确保我们的防御没有漏洞。
• There is a gap of five miles between towns.镇与镇之间相隔五英里。

3 widening   

n.扩展，加宽

参考例句：

• They have ordered the widening of the road where the incident took place.他们已下令拓宽出事路段。

4 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

5 overall   

n.工作服，工装裤；全面的，全体的

参考例句：

• The shop assistant was wearing a white overall.那店员穿着白色的工作服。
• How much will it cost overall?一共多少钱？