ESL露西的一天 第69期:工作与午餐讲解(6)

 Lucy says that she has "a conference¹ call at the end of the day,"  露西说她在这天结束时有一个电话会议。

meaning during the last part of the day, "with the head office."  意思是说，在这天的最后一段时间，“与总部。”

The head office is the main office. 总部是指主办公室。

It's the headquarters² for your company.  这是你们公司的总部。

It's the most important office, the biggest office, usually.  这是最重要的办公室，最大的办公室，通常。

She does not work at the head office, we can guess,  她不在总部工作，我们可以猜到，

she probably works³ at what we would call a branch of the company, "branch," a branch.  她可能在我们会称为公司分支机构的地方工作，“分支”，一个分支。

The word branch is the same word we use for a tree -  “分支”这个词和我们用在树上的词一样——

the different parts of the tree - the arms of the tree we call the branches. 树的不同部分——树的臂膀，我们称为树枝。

They're smaller parts of the bigger tree.  它们是较大的树的较小部分。

This is a branch office; it's a smaller office, part of a larger company. 这是一个分公司，它是一个较小的办公室，是大公司的一部分。

Lucy says that "Before long, it was the lunch hour."  露西说：“不一会儿，就到午饭时间了。”

Before long means⁴ very soon afterwards. 不一会儿，意味着之后很快就要到了。

Before long, it was the lunch hour,  不一会儿，就到午饭时间了。

and the lunch hour is the time that you eat your middle of the day meal - your lunch.  午餐时间是你中午吃午餐的时候。

Some companies have a thirty minute lunch hour. Some companies have an hour lunch hour. 有些公司午餐时间为30分钟。有些公司有一小时的午餐时间。

Some companies don't have a set lunch hour for the more important bosses,  有些公司对于级别较高的管理者，没有固定的午餐时间，

they may go on a long lunch, especially if it is a meeting - a business lunch we would call it. 他们可能会花很长时间来吃午餐，特别如果那是一个会议——我们称之为商务午餐。

1 conference   

n.（正式的）会议；讨论

参考例句：

• We're having a conference and we'd like you to sit in.我们将举行一次会议，希望你来旁听。
• The conference will come to a close this afternoon.今天下午会议闭幕。

2 headquarters   

n.司令部，指挥部；总部，总店

参考例句：

• Several great guns from the headquarters are coming to see us today.总部的几个大人物今天要来看我们。
• The bank has its headquarters in Pairs.这家银行的总行在巴黎。

3 works   

n.作品，著作；工厂，活动部件，机件

参考例句：

• We expect writers to produce more and better works.我们期望作家们写出更多更好的作品。
• The novel is regarded as one of the classic works.这篇小说被公认为是最优秀的作品之一。

4 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。