【佩戴耳機收聽,效果更佳】
文本:
今天我們要聊的這個英語表達叫white elephant,那么什么是“白色大象”呢?在回答這個問題之前,一如既往,讓我們先來看一個英文例句:
Jack: Hey! Mary. Did you buy a new car?
Mary: Yes, I did. I brought it last week.
Jack: But you already have a nice one and the car you brought is really expensive. It will become a white elephant !
大家可以先猜一下這句話里面的white elephant是什么意思。
經(jīng)過查證,根據(jù)柯林斯英漢雙解字典的解釋,我們可以用英文來表述。white elephant: If you describe something as a white elephant, you mean that it is a waste of money because it is completely useless. 它的意思就是我們中文里說的:昂貴卻無用的東西。
另外,除了用white elephant來表達昂貴卻無用的東西。我們還可以說useless, unnecessary, bootless或者futile,這些都是可以的。
Tommy建議根據(jù)實際情況來選擇詞匯,如果是比較正式、非朋友間的談話,就不要用white elephant了,但如果聽到別說white elephant,你也不要反應不過來喔!
那么我們該如何來理解這個詞組呢?用英文來說就是:The origin of “white elephant” is from the story that the kings of Siam暹羅(泰國 Thailand 的舊稱)) gave such animals as a gift to courtiers they disliked, in order to ruin the recipient by the great expense incurred in maintaining the animal.
用中文來說就是:暹羅(泰國 Thailand 的舊稱)的國王把大象送給敵國,因為大象吃得多很難飼養(yǎng),所以他想通過大象吃垮這個國家。
這也太天真了吧!
總結,a white elephant=useless and expensive or unnecessary stuff 表示無用卻昂貴。
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