英語聽力練習:富二代臭名昭著的奢侈生活

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    下面是出國留學網帶來的英語聽力練習:富二代臭名昭著的奢侈生活,歡迎閱讀。
    >>>點擊試聽mp3
    Rich kids: Lifestyles of the rich and infamous
    It’s not easy having it all
    坐擁一切的生活也非易事
    Now decades old, China’s economic boom has brought a better life to hundreds of millions. But it has also created new problems, such as pollution and inequality. And, for the super-rich, a moral conundrum: how, wealthy parents wonder, can they raise children who do not behave like arrogant brats?
    幾十年過去了,中國經濟的蓬勃為幾億人民帶來了更好的生活。但是同時也導致了新問題,比如人口和不平等。而且,對于億萬富翁的一個道德難題是:富有的父母在考慮如何不把孩子培養(yǎng)成“垮二代”?
    China now has an estimated 1.09m people with personal wealth of at least 10m yuan ($1.6m), and 67,000 “super-rich” ones with assets above 100m yuan, including 213 dollar billionaires. Their children, the “second-generation rich”, or fuerdai, are the object of rapt attention in national media and a mixture of envy and revulsion among ordinary folk.
    中國現在有約109萬人個人財富超過至少一千萬人民幣(160萬美元),以及一億以上的超級富豪有6.7萬人,包括213個十億富翁。他們的孩子,所謂富二代,是全國媒體堅持不懈的焦點,以及普通民眾羨慕嫉妒恨的對象。
    詞語解析:rapt attention 往往指的是關注的焦點,因為rapt是專心致志的。
    例句:The new “Jurassic World” trailer has our rapt attention.
    詞組巧記:a mixture of envy and revulsion 這不正說得是我們常用的“羨慕嫉妒恨”嗎。
    They can be seen driving outrageously posh cars which, thanks to stiff import duties, can cost $1m or more. Some of them post ostentatious pictures and vulgar rants about their exploits on social media. Wang Sicong, the son of one of China’s richest tycoons, recently aroused a storm of criticism for saying that his main criterion when selecting a girlfriend was that she must be “buxom”. He also posted snaps of his Alaskan husky wearing two gold Apple Watches, worth tens of thousands of dollars—useful, no doubt, if the dog ever needs to surf the internet.
    人們看見富二代開著極其豪華的轎車,因為嚴格的進口關稅,這些車價超百萬不止。有些富二代在社交媒體上公開炫富照片,粗野不堪地夸耀著自己的壯舉。中國首富的兒子,王思聰,最近因為聲稱女友必須胸大而引起熱議。他還上傳了幾張他家阿拉斯加哈士奇帶著價值幾萬的兩塊蘋果手表的照片。如果狗狗想上網,毋庸置疑,這將會派上用場。
    詞語解析:post ostentatious pictures發(fā)炫富照片。炫富的名詞是ostentation。vulgar是粗野庸俗的,rant是大聲的吆喝,exploits做名詞時意為英雄偉績。
    詞組巧記:a storm of criticism
    In June Xi Jinping, China’s president, told a government meeting that China’s young rich must curb their hedonistic ways. They should be guided, he said, “to think about where their wealth comes from” and be patriotic, law-abiding and hard-working. A week after his remarks were made public, state media reported on a training session in the prosperous coastal province of Fujian for 70 offspring of billionaires, where they were taught “traditional Chinese culture, social responsibility and business knowledge”—and fined 1,000 yuan if they turned up late.
    中國國家主席習近平六月份在一次政府會議中指出,中國富二代必須去除享樂主義。他說,需要指引他們“思考財富是怎么來的”,并且愛國、守法、肯干。習近平的公開發(fā)言一周后,國家媒體報道了在富有的沿海省份福建為70名十億富翁的子女提供的培訓,教育內容為“中國傳統(tǒng)文化,社會責任和經商知識”——遲到者罰款1000元。
    詞語解析:hedonistic享樂主義,hedonism是一個希臘哲學學派,傳說是由亞里士多德創(chuàng)建。
    According to some fuerdai, all this will be an uphill battle. Wang Daqi, a 30-year-old from a monied family, profiled several of his peers in “Burden of Wealth”, a book published in May. It sought to paint a more nuanced portrait of the lives the fuerdai lead, but he acknowledges that ostentation is the only value many of them know. “It’s pretty pathetic, actually,” he says. Among those who do work, he adds, most choose to invest their family wealth in other businesses. “To build a new business of your own takes a lot of work, but if you just seed startups you don’t have to do the hard work or carry too much responsibility.”
    一些富二代稱這將會是一場拉鋸戰(zhàn)。王大騏,家庭富有,三十歲,他在五月份發(fā)布的一本書里將他們這類人描述為“肩負著財富的重擔”。書中以另外的視角描述了富二代的生活,但他也認識到很多富二代知道的唯一的價值觀就是炫富。“其實這很可憐。”他說。他附加說,去工作的富二代往往將家庭財富投資到別的行業(yè)中。“創(chuàng)辦自己的生意需要很多努力,但是只是創(chuàng)業(yè)的話他們不需要怎么努力,也沒什么責任。”
    詞組巧記:uphill battle/fight/struggle指的是由于其他人的阻礙而難以執(zhí)行的事情。
    Another member of the fuerdai, a 26-year-old Beijing native whose father is a self-made investment banker, says some of his friends are from politically well-connected families and probably owe some of their wealth to corrupt dealings. Others have honest family fortunes built from scratch, and many, he reckons, fall somewhere in between. “We don’t talk too much among ourselves about where the money comes from,” he says. “We all understand it can be very sensitive.”
    另外一個富二代,26歲的北京人,父親是自力更生的投資家。他說他的一些朋友家中很有政治人脈,家中的一些財富來自于貪污受賄,另外一些家庭靠勤勤懇懇的努力而白手起家,還有很多是在兩者之間。“我們自己之間從不討論錢是從哪來的,”他說“我們都知道這事很敏感。”
    詞組巧記:self-made自力更生,build from scratch白手起家。
    China’s ongoing anti-corruption campaign, he thinks, is doing more than any training programme to get rich kids to tone things down—at least in public. They still party hard and buy new cars every six months. “But now when they go out, they just take the BMW 7 Series instead of the Aston Martin.”
    他認為,中國正在進行的反貪污是讓富二代低調下來的最有效的手段——起碼在公眾場合是這樣。他們仍然游戲人間,每半年購買新車。“但是他們出去的時候,他們只開寶馬7系,而不是阿斯頓·馬丁。”
    詞組巧記:tone down 使......緩和下來,如:Tone down that aggressive letter. 把咄咄逼人的語氣緩和下來。