英語動物小故事帶翻譯（英語趣聞精選九）
2023-11-04 01:59:07 6
首先我想重申一下這個英文趣聞精選系列的初衷，學習英語的過程本身是很枯燥的，為了激發我們的興趣和放鬆我們的大腦，我們應該有意識地尋找一些有意思的題材，就能達到調節節奏和「苦中作樂」的目的。並且能夠深刻的理解和消化我們讀過的東西並學以致用，這也是很有成就感的事情，因此我會進行朗讀和簡單的解析而不是囫圇吞棗地一帶而過。
很多人家裡都養貓貓或者狗狗，即使沒有養過，相信大家也都看到過貓貓或者狗狗喝水。不知道大家有沒注意過他們到底是怎麼把水送到口中的。最近有一項研究詳細展示了貓貓和狗狗喝水的過程，原來他們喝水的方式竟然完全不同，讓人大開眼界。
在這裡，我會對這篇英文研究文章進行朗讀和簡單的解析，感興趣的讀者可以閱讀並點擊收聽。
以下是原文以及解析。
Even if you don't own a cat you've probably seen one lap up a bowl of milk. Exactly how our feline friends go about doing it has been a scientific mystery, until now: The journal Science has published the conclusive study of how cats drink.Lap up: 你熟悉的lap的意思，是不是跑圈兒的「圈兒」？或者是laptop的「lap」？然而這段話裡的lap卻是「用舌頭汲取液體」的意思。我會在明天的《英語詞彙專題系列》裡對lap著重進行介紹，敬請關注。Feline：貓科動物或者是像貓的，這裡的「-ine」是一個非常常用的後綴（suffix），我也會專門在《英語詞彙專題系列》裡進行歸納總結，敬請關注。Go about doing something: 「go about」本身也有很多意思，本文裡它指的是「to begin to do something or deal with something」，也就是「著手做，開始處理」的意思。比如：How can we go about solving this problem?
It turns out that trying to capture cat-drinking on film is a bit harder than you might expect."You don't induce the cat to drink; you just wait until the cat decides to drink," says Roman Stocker, an author of the study and an associate professor at MIT who specializes in fluid mechanics. Stocker and his colleagues spent hours filming -- or trying to film -- cats lapping.Induce：to persuade someone to do something，也就是「誘使，勸說」的意思。它的名詞形式induction經常被用在職場英語中，表示「a formal introduction or entry into an office or position」，也就是「正式入職介紹」的意思。
"The nice thing about it is that the cat laps with an impressive frequency of four times per second, so if you catch only a few seconds of lapping you have many laps," Stocker explains.Watching in slow motion reveals that cats of all sizes, from tabbies to tigers, have a very elaborate way of drinking. First, they move the tip of their tongue onto the surface of the water to flick the water up so that a little jet of liquid flies into the air. Then, in a flash, they catch the jet in their mouth.Tabby: (a cat) having dark-coloured marks on grey or brown fur，如圖：Elaborate：注意這個單詞在作為形容詞和作為動詞的時侯發音是不同的。形容詞時：/ɪˈlæbərɪt/，指的是detailed，這也是本文裡的意思。請仔細留意音頻裡我的讀法。動詞時：/ɪˈlæbəˌreɪt /，指的是to work out carefully or minutely（這裡的「minute」跟你印象中的「分鐘」不論是從發音上來講，還是從意義上來講都是不一樣的喲，詳細解釋請關注我之後的《英語發音系列》）Jet: 本文中的意思是「A rapid stream of liquid or gas forced through a small opening or nozzle under pressure.」，也就是貓貓通過用舌頭快速彈射液體激起的液流。（關於jet的多種意思請關注我之後的《英語詞彙系列》
What's more, when the researchers crunched the numbers, they found the cats had it down.Crunch numbers: 意思是「Perform numerous calculations or process a large amount of numerical data」，也就是進行了大量的計算或者數據分析。Have it down: 指的是have (something) mastered。還有一個比較常用的俚語是「down pat」，意思是「Thoroughly practiced, rehearsed, or understood; mastered.」，比如：My son is a piano prodigy who gets all of his scales and arpeggios down pat.
(跟之前的jet一樣，pat也有很多意思，敬請關注我之後的《英語詞彙系列)
"They really know how to do it perfectly, almost as if they're doing the equations in their head," says Pedro Reis, a co-author of the study and assistant professor at MIT.The whole system is much more elaborate than that of dogs, who simply scoop up the water with their tongues.這裡還有一個簡短的視頻可以讓我們更清晰地看出他們的不同。
"I have no idea why cats don't just do it the ordinary way, but you know that's the weird, interesting thing about biology: What nature does is not necessarily the best way to do things," says David Hu, a researcher at Georgia Tech. "I think that dogs generally have a better way to do it."
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