Life Lesson101||人大网红老师带你聊英国文化

大家好，欢迎收听人大HND Radio, 这里是Life Lesson 101，我是记者谢红果。本期节目中我们很荣幸地邀请到了一位著名网红音乐人。我先卖个关子，让我们一起来听声辨人吧！

相信有些同学已经听出来啦！没错，他就是在唱吧上拥有万千粉丝的佛系音乐人——Matthew老师！

话说最近啊，英国刚颁布了一个最佳笑话奖给一个中国人。这个中国人开了新发行的一英镑的玩笑，然后征服了所有英国人。然而，大多数中国网民觉得脑洞不够大get不了笑点——“我不喜欢新发行的一元英镑，再说了，我也不喜欢所有的零钱。”emmmm… 所以笑点在哪里呀笑点在哪里？

Recently, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival just announced the best joke award. A young Chinese man conquered British by joking the newly issued one pound coin. However, most Chinese netizens did not get what’s funny. So here’s the joke. “I’m not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change.” 

“I think it will be difficult for the second language learners to understand because it’s a pun. A lot of humor in general uses puns. So when you say one thing, it could actually mean something else, which makes people laugh. The word “change” can mean money, or it can mean variations. British humor is kind of self-deprecating, which means we like to make fun of ourselves. I think that’s the major difference between British humor and American humor. We are also very sarcastic, like dry sarcasm. Whereas I think in American humor they tend to be louder, or more physical comedy.”

我认为这对于英语是第二语言的学生来讲可能有些难以理解，因为这包含了一个双关语。许多幽默通常都采用双关语的表达。当你说一件事时，人们可以理解为你在说另一件事，这就比较好笑了。“change”这个词呢可以指零钱，它还可以指变化。英国人呢喜欢自嘲。我认为这是它区别于美式幽默最大的一点。我们同样非常喜欢挖苦人。而美式幽默更吵闹，更偏向于身体上的夸张喜剧。

“ Firstly, the weather. The reason English people always talk about it is not that it’s horrible, but because England is an island, and on the island, the weather is not very stable. From one day to the next it can change quickly. Or in one day we can have four seasons. It could snow in the morning and then rain a bit later. And then in the afternoon, the clouds could disappear. And there’s blue sky and sun. It might not be very warm, but warmer. 

Besides weather, work would be a big topic. Sports, especially football. And maybe TV shows as well. 

首先，一定是天气。英国人总是谈论天气的原因不是它有多糟糕，但因为它不是很稳定。一天内有时会有四个季节出现。比如早上可能会下雪，然后下一点雨。在中午的时候云可能都消失了，留下蓝天和太阳。可能不会太热，但总是暖和一些了。

“I’d say that English people, especially English students are also renowned for drinking a lot, especially at universities. When I was at University, I always go out with my friends to the bars and clubs to socialize. But some people didn’t drink, especially if they are religious, Muslim, for example. And they can’t even go somewhere that sells alcohol. So it’s difficult for them to socialize with us. But yeah, I agree that drinking is the best way to socialize. But I wouldn’t say that you have to drink a lot. You just socialize at the bar and you can order something like orange juice or lemonade, and just pretend it has alcohol in it. 

英国人，尤其是英国学生以能喝闻名世界。当我在大学里的时候，我总是和朋友一起到酒吧或者俱乐部里去社交。但有些人不喝酒，尤其是穆斯林信徒。他们甚至都不能到卖酒的地方去。所以他们跟我们社交很困难。我也承认，喝酒的确是在英国社交的最好的方式。但我并不是指你必须要喝酒，你可以在酒吧里社交，然后点一些橘汁啊，柠檬水啊什么的。

“We don’t really have taboos for sending gifts in England. We are not very superstitious, and we don’t attach any bad meaning to objects. So anything that would offend a person would probably be a taboo. For example, if you give someone deodorant, they might think, “oh, does he think I smell?”. So that could be offensive. We have unlucky numbers such as 13 or 666 because they are associated with the devil. But to be honest, no one really cares if you give them something that has the number 666 or 13. Because most people don’t really believe that, so they probably don’t care. 

我们英国人送礼没有什么禁忌，因为我们不是非常迷信，而且我们也不常把不好的含义与物体相关联。所以任何可能冒犯到别人的物品都可以成为禁忌。比如，如果你送别人除臭剂，别人可能认为，“噢，是不是因为我身上有异味？”所以这就非常冒犯别人了。我们也有不幸运的数字比如666和13，因为它们和恶魔相关。但说实话，没几个人真正在意这些数，如果你给他们与这些数有关的东西的话他们也不会太在意。

好啦，今天的节目就到这里了，

你对英国文化是否更了解了呢？

感谢你的收听，

这里是Life Lesson101，

我们下期节目再见！

策划&记者：谢红果

技术：雷京凡