VOA慢速英语2014 关于足球的不同表达

 

AS IT IS 2014-06-21 Soccer or Football, Is It the Same Game? 关于足球的不同表达

From VOA Learning English, this is As It Is. 

I'm Anna Matteo in Washington!

Children all over the world spend countless¹ hours outside kicking around a ball on the ground.  Soccer is a game beloved from South America to Europe, from Africa to Asia.  At its simplest, it involves a foot and ball.  But in the United States soccer can involve much more than that – parent,  schedules, mini-vans!  Let’s just say … it’s complicated.

Mario Ritter explains. 

For many around the world, playing soccer is as natural as breathing.  The fact that the game is so pure is part of its beauty.  All you need is a ball.  And even that does not stop a child who wants to play.  They will just make one.

Soccer’s free spirit is captured in a new children’s book called, Goal!  The book’s colorful photographs by Caio Vilela show soccer at its simplest and most spontaneous², or unplanned.  All the photographs share two things in common: a soccer ball and big smiles of children.

Arthur Antunes Coimbra (Ar TURR  ANTUNIS  Ko’ IB ra), better known as Zico, is now a soccer coach.  But in the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was one of the world’s top soccer players.

In the introduction to Goal!, Zico says the book reminds him of playing soccer as a child, and how the spontaneous games are where he really learned to play.

“The spontaneous game means everything for a soccer player. That’s where you polish your skills.  You learn to find vacant spaces in the ground, you get to find your place in the game and finally you’re taught how to score the most amazing goals. We played with rubber balls, plastic ones, with balls made of socks.”

Zico says that he believes this is what true soccer is all about—pure spontaneous play.  No commitment, no money.  Yet that is very different from mainstream³ soccer culture in the United States.

Soccer for most children in the U.S. is a planned activity for the whole family.  U.S. kids usually join a soccer league organized by parents or a school.  There are fees to pay and soccer uniforms to buy.  They have planned practice times and a parent, often a mother, takes kids to their practices and games.  Even snacks and drinks are organized by a parent volunteer, sometimes called a “soccer mom.”  

Allison Merten is a soccer mom in Washington, D.C.  She has been the manager of her 7-year-old daughter’s soccer team for the past three years.  She says it is a lot of work.

ALLSION MERTEN:

“I’ve been the team manager for a couple of seasons and I’m now going to hand that off to someone else because it’s a lot of work to organize and get everyone to the games and practices and coordinate⁴ the schedules and make sure everyone knows when their snack day, and drink day is, and organizing the end-of-year party and the coach’s gift and you know … it’s a lot of details and a lot of work that goes into planning soccer for little kids.

The term “soccer mom” is often used in a negatively way to describe a parent who is too controlling and too involved in the lives of their children.  But Ms. Merten sees it differently.

ALLSION MERTEN:

“I think, really, a Soccer Mom just means a mom who is involved with their kids’ activities and who was willing to volunteer and pitch in and try to make their experience positive.”

All this planning and scheduling might be killing⁵ the free spirit of soccer.  But Allison Merten says she feels structured play is normal in the U.S. today. 

ALLSION MERTEN:

“Our kids’ play is a lot more structured nowadays because they are not hanging out after school in the neighborhood unsupervised.  And we have to structure almost all their activities.”

Many parents want their children to have a team sport experience.  Ms. Merten says that some parents even try to bribe⁶ their kids to play. 

ALLSION MERTEN:

“I’ve heard … I’ve heard of parents bribing⁷ their kids to play the game and play it well and they’ll get an ice cream afterward⁸.”

It is unclear if too much organization hurts the true spirit of soccer in the U.S.  That probably does not concern parents.  What does concern parents is that their kids have the opportunity to play outdoors and to play on a team.  And, they will take these experiences any way they can get them. 

This story was written by Anna Matteo.

I’m Mario Ritter.

1 countless   

adj.无数的，多得不计其数的

参考例句：

• In the war countless innocent people lost their lives.在这场战争中无数无辜的人丧失了性命。
• I've told you countless times.我已经告诉你无数遍了。

2 spontaneous   

adj.自发的，不由自主的

参考例句：

• The eruption of a volcano is spontaneous.火山的爆发是自发的。
• Spontaneous applause broke out as soon as she finished speaking.她一讲完，大家不约而同都鼓起掌来。

3 mainstream   

n.（思想或行为的）主流；adj.主流的

参考例句：

• Their views lie outside the mainstream of current medical opinion.他们的观点不属于当今医学界观点的主流。
• Polls are still largely reflects the mainstream sentiment.民调还在很大程度上反映了社会主流情绪。

4 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。

5 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

6 bribe   

n.贿赂；v.向…行贿，买通

参考例句：

• He tried to bribe the policeman not to arrest him.他企图贿赂警察不逮捕他。
• He resolutely refused their bribe.他坚决不接受他们的贿赂。

7 bribing   

贿赂

参考例句：

• He tried to escape by bribing the guard. 他企图贿赂警卫而逃走。
• Always a new way of bribing unknown and maybe nonexistent forces. 总是用诸如此类的新方法来讨好那不知名的、甚或根本不存在的魔力。 来自英汉非文学 - 科幻

8 afterward   

adv.后来；以后

参考例句：

• Let's go to the theatre first and eat afterward. 让我们先去看戏，然后吃饭。
• Afterward,the boy became a very famous artist.后来，这男孩成为一个很有名的艺术家。