John: June 2000, and London saw the opening of its first pedestrian-only bridge, the Millennium Bridge, between St Paul's Cathedral and the Tate Modern art gallery.

It was quite a day and within minutes hundreds of people had come to see the new bridge and to walk across it.

Oliver: I'm Oliver.

John: And I'm John, and in this edition of On the Town, we're investigating the Millennium Bridge.

Oliver: 千禧桥。

John: It was designed by the architect Lord Norman Foster, and has a very sleek, silvery appearance.

Oliver: 桥梁的设计者是一名建筑师 an architect. 银色的桥梁呈现出圆滑的造型。 A sleek and silvery appearance.

John: It has a very modern look, and it's also a suspension bridge.

Oliver: 吊桥 a suspension bridge.

Oliver: Now, I hear that there was a problem when the bridge opened to the public in 2000.

John: There was, yes. A big problem!

Oliver: What was it?

John: The bridge wobbled!

Oliver: It wobbled, 桥是晃动的!

John: The day the bridge opened, hundreds of people walked across it and it started to sway in a disconcerting way! It took two years for the bridge to be secured and made rigid.

Oliver: 工程师们不得不给桥梁重新加固 rigid. 两年之后，千禧桥才得以再次向公众开放。接下来我们会听到桥梁设计者、建筑师 Norman Foster 接受BBC采访时的录音。

John: Did the architect find it frustrating that the bridge had to be closed for two years?

Challenging I would say, but of course, if you measure the life of this structure in hundreds of years, it will be around as long as it has a useful life. It's not made of materials which are going to corrode, so if you measure that period that we’re talking about in the wider perspective, it's a blip. A pretty harrowing blip, but a blip.

Lord Norman Foster

John: Lord Norman Foster said it was challenging to have to keep the bridge closed for two years of repairs.

Oliver: 是具有挑战性的 challenging.

John: He said the bridge is not made of materials that are going to corrode.

Oliver: 千禧桥不会被腐蚀 to corrode.

John: So the length of closure is only a blip in the life of the bridge. A blip is a very short period of time.

Oliver: 建筑师说对于将长时间存在的千禧桥来讲，关闭整修的两年是非常短的，仅仅是一个微不足道的小点儿 a blip.

John: Now that the bridge has been made rigid, what do the pedestrians who walk across it think of it?

Man: It's like a carnival, everybody is just talking about the bridge, and the construction and the wind. We’ve not had a wobble yet, it doesn’t feel like jelly.



Girl: It doesn’t wobble anymore.



Older Woman: Well, I'm a bridge freak, and having not seen it before I came down especially to see it, and walking over, I thought it was rather beautiful to look at. It’s a bicycle-friendly, pedestrian-friendly bridge. There is, I'm afraid, in the wind, a slight vibration. But as somebody pointed out to me, if there weren’t a vibration at all we’d have to worry. Walking over it, it looks rather beautiful.



French Man: Well it's absolutely terrific. It’s my last day in London. I've been here in May last year, when it couldn't open, and I couldn't cross it. And today's the last day. Look at that!

Visitors at the Millennium Bridge

John: So now people seem to like the Millennium Bridge. One woman said she was a bridge freak.

Oliver: 那位年纪大的女性说她自己是一个桥梁迷，a bridge freak 意思是说她是一个桥梁爱好者。

John: She said it was bicycle and pedestrian friendly.

Oliver: 方便步行和骑自行车。

John: She felt some light vibration when she was walking on the bridge.

Oliver: 轻微振动 light vibration.

John: But with a suspension bridge there has to be some movement.

Oliver: But not so much that it wobbles!

John: Exactly. Well, we’ll be talking to you about more interesting places in the UK in the next On the Town, so listen out for that.

Oliver: 记住，你可以登陆我们的网页，了解更多信息网址是 www.bbcchina.com.cn, 然后，点击 Learning English.

John: See you next time.

Oliver: Bye.