英语访谈对话 491 Life in England

 　　Todd: Hello! Can you introduce yourself please.

　　Steven: Sure, my name is Steven Patterson and I'm from a small town called Brentwood in Essex which is in England.

　　Todd: OK. Essex. What part of England is that?

　　Steven: That's in the southeast.

　　Todd: Southeast.

　　Steven: Yeah, yeah. It's attached to London, just next to London.

　　Todd: Oh, OK, but you said it's a small town.

　　Steven: It's quite small, well, relatively¹ small. The populations about 50,000.

　　Todd: OK, well what kind of place is your town where you grew up?

　　Steven: Um, it's actually a very nice town. People often move into Brentwood from the surrounding towns, or from the east end of London. Um, it's quite prosperous. Well, you could, in some respects, it's a dormant² town. People often travel out from Brentwood into London and they work in the city, but it's a pleasant place to live. It has lots of countryside around it. There's a very large country park. Ah, it's quite a small town but it's, at the high street it's quite small but it's quite a pleasant town to shop in.

　　Todd: Oh, it sounds nice. Well, now if you live in a little town that's near London is it really expensive?

　　Steven: Well, Brentwood is particularly expensive just because it's a desirable place to live and it's proximity³ to London also makes it, the housing is quite expensive, even a town next to it would have much cheaper housing.

　　Todd: Oh, really, cause when I think of a small British village, you know, I think of really old houses, and nothing's changed, so do you have modern stuff, like do you have a health club and a movie theater and things like that?

　　Steven: Uh, I think the cinema in Brentwood actually closed down, with the advent⁴ of out of town shopping centers they always have their multiplex cinemas with six or eight screens and the cinema in Brentwood only had two screens and it couldn't really compete for everyone has cars these days so they can easily travel to big shopping centers, so that closed down however, yeah, it have a very nice health center and as I said lots of parks to play. There's lots of opportunity to exercise and do various forms of recreation.

　　Todd: Wow, sounds like a nice place to live.

1 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。

2 dormant   

adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的

参考例句：

• Many animals are in a dormant state during winter.在冬天许多动物都处于睡眠状态。
• This dormant volcano suddenly fired up.这座休眠火山突然爆发了。

3 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。

4 advent   

n.(重要事件等的)到来，来临

参考例句：

• Swallows come by groups at the advent of spring. 春天来临时燕子成群飞来。
• The advent of the Euro will redefine Europe.欧元的出现将重新定义欧洲。