ESL杰夫的一天 第78期:开车回家和跑腿讲解(4)

 A hassle, "hassle," is the same as a problem.  “Hassle”就是“麻烦”的意思。

So, it "is always a bit of," meaning a little bit — somewhat¹ of a problem at this hour. 因此，“在这个点时总会有点麻烦”。

"Traffic is stop-and-go all the way from downtown."  “离开市区的路上交通非常缓慢”。

We use that word traffic, "traffic," to mean the cars on the street or the cars on the freeway.  我们使用交通（traffic）这个词，来指街道上或高速公路上的车辆。

You may ask someone, "How was traffic," and they may say, "Oh, it was terrible.  你可能会询问某人，“交通怎么样啊”，然后他们可能会说，“哦，糟透了，

Traffic was really bad on the freeway this afternoon."  今天下午高速公路上的交通非常糟糕”。

So, it refers to the number of cars and how easy it is to move on the freeway or the street.  因此，这个词提到了车子的数量以及在高速公路或街道上行驶的容易程度。

When we say traffic is stop-and-go we mean that cars are stopping then they go forward maybe ten feet, 20 feet, then they stop again.  当我们说“traffic is stop-and-go”的时候，我们是指车子停了下来，接着向前行驶了十至二十英尺，然后又停了下来。

When there are too many cars on the freeway or on a road, you cannot just drive straight through, you have to stop, 高速公路或马路上的车子太多的时候，你就无法一直往前开，你必须停车，

wait for the other car and then go, so stop-and-go traffic means² that the traffic is moving very slowly. 等前面的车子开走后，你再往前开，因此，“stop-and-go traffic”就意味着交通非常缓慢。

1 somewhat   

pron.一些，某物；adv.多少，几分

参考例句：

• The cake we made was somewhat of a failure.我们做的蛋糕不大成功。
• The two office buildings are somewhat alike in appearance.这两座办公楼在外形上有点相似。

2 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。