【大紀元6月30日訊】
Larry的車子正在廠裡修理。今天李華陪他去取車。李華會學到兩個常用語：grease monkey和fender bender。
LL: I hope my car is ready. The grease monkey said it would be fixed by 3:00 this afternoon.
LH: The grease monkey? Larry，你的車不是送到修車廠了嗎？修車廠怎麼會有猴子呢？
LL: （Laugh） No, there aren’t any monkeys like the monkeys in the zoo. Grease monkey is a slang term for auto mechanic.
LH: 你們把汽車修理工叫grease monkey？真有意思。所以你是說，修車的工人告訴你，車子在3點以前會修好。
LL: Right, but I doubt it will be ready. Every time a grease monkey tells my car will be ready, he’s wrong.
LH: 你不相信那修車的人？為甚麼每次他們說的時間都是錯的？
LL: Well, last time I had my car fixed. The mechanic said it would be ready the next day. As it turned out, my car wasn’t ready until three days later.
LH: 原來上回修車你就受騙過。說好第二天可以取車，結果拖了三天才修好。怪不得你不相信他們了。對了，Larry，我們可以當著修車工的面叫他們grease monkey嗎？
LL: Some mechanics wouldn’t care, but others might not like being called a grease monkey. If I mean it as a joke, it’s okay; however, it can also be used negatively.
LH: 有些人不在乎，有的人會不高興。這也是很自然的。要是叫他們grease monkey是開玩笑的話，我想應該不會有甚麼問題。
LL: Yeah, but it can be an insult.
LH: 那麼到底怎麼樣才算是開玩笑呢？
LL: Well, my sister tried to fix her car and got covered in grease. After that, my father jokingly called her his little grease monkey.
LH: 哈哈，你妹妹自己想修車，結果搞的全身油污，你爸爸叫她my grease monkey。那你呢？你有沒有自己修過車？
LL: No, I’m not very good at fixing cars. I would be a lousy grease monkey.
*****
LH: Larry, 你還沒告訴我，為甚麼你的車要送去修啊？
LL: I was in a little fender bender the other day and my tail light needed to be fixed.
LH: 你的車怎麼啦? A fender bender? 那是甚麼東西啊？
LL: A fender bender is a minor car accident. Usually, no one is seriously hurt in a fender bender and the cars are not damaged too badly.
LH: A fender bender就是小事故。Larry你撞車啦，怎麼都沒有告訴我呢？
LL: It was just a fender bender, so I didn’t think it was important enough to tell you about.
LH: 小事故也可能會受傷啊。你怎麼樣？你沒甚麼事吧？
LL: I’m fine. I didn’t even get a scratch.
LH: 你沒事就好。對了，你怎麼會和別的車擦撞呢？
LL: The girl in the car behind me was talking on her cell phone and she wasn’t paying attention. She drove into the back of my car.
LH: 一面開車一面打手機真的很危險的。那個從後面撞上你的女孩，如果開車速度再快一些，你們都有可能受傷呢！
LL: Fortunately, she wasn’t driving very fast, so it turned out to be just a minor fender bender.
今天李華學到兩個常用語。一個是grease monkey, 是指修理汽車的工人。另一個常用語是fender bender, 這是指小車禍，通常沒有人受傷的事故。
轉自《美國之音》(http://www.dajiyuan.com)
