新概念英语第二册Lesson 5
Mr. James Scott has a garage in Silbury and now he has just bought another garage in Pinhurst. Pinhurst is only five miles from Silbury, but Mr. Scott cannot get a telephone for his new garage, so he has just bought twelve pigeons2. Yesterday, a pigeon1 carried the first message from Pinhurst to Silbury. The bird covered the distance in three minutes. Up to now, Mr. Scott has sent a great manyrequests4 for spare parts and other urgent5 messages from one garage to the other. In this way, he has begun his own private‘telephone’service.
Notes on the text
课文注释
1 from Silbury：介词from作“距……”“离……”讲，常与away连用。如：It is far (away) from here. 离这里很远。
2 up to now (=up till now), 到现在为止；作时间状语，句子的时态多用现在完成时。
3 a great many, 许多的，其中great表示数量很大；只能同可数名词的复数连用。
参考译文
詹姆斯·斯科特先生在锡尔伯里有一个汽车修理部，现在他刚在平赫斯特买了另一个汽车修理部。平赫斯特离锡尔伯里只有5英里，但詹姆斯·斯科特先生未能为他新的汽车修理部搞到一部电话机，所以他买了12只鸽子。昨天，一只鸽子把第一封信从平赫斯特带到锡尔伯里。这只鸟只用了3分钟就飞完了全程。到目前为止，斯科特先生从一个汽车修理部向另一个发送了大量索取备件的信件和其他紧急函件。就这样，他开始了自己的私人“电话”业务。