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.
The Millennium Bridge
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.
发表于 2011-6-27 18:47
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发表于 2011-7-8 00:49
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