2013年ESL之餐饮娱乐 08 Buying Electronic Books

 

Buying Electronic Books 

Kindo: What’s that? 

Nookie: It’s my new e-book reader. I’m just downloading some new books onto it. 

Kindo: I haven’t bought one yet. I’m old school. I still prefer a printed book. 

Nookie: But if you haven’t tried it yet, how do you know you wouldn’t like it better? This e-book reader can store over 10,000 digital books and it’s easily portable. Imagine trying to carry an entire library from place to place. 

Kindo: I don’t usually read 10,000 books all at once and I hear that there are a lot of incompatible¹ formats³ out there. Each company is trying to edge out the others by establishing their format² as the format. I think I’ll just wait until the dust settles. 

Nookie: The different formats aren’t that big a deal. You can easily convert a book in one format to another. 

Kindo: I like the look of text on a printed page. 

Nookie: You mean that faded text on that yellowed page? On an e-book reader, you can adjust the text size, font, and even line spacing. 

Kindo: Can I get all of the out-of-print books on my shelves in digital format? 

Nookie: Well, I’m not sure. 

Kindo: Until I can, I’ll stick to my low-tech books. 

 

Script by Dr. Lucy Tse 

1 incompatible   

adj.不相容的，不协调的，不相配的

参考例句：

• His plan is incompatible with my intent.他的计划与我的意图不相符。
• Speed and safety are not necessarily incompatible.速度和安全未必不相容。

2 format   

n.设计，版式；[计算机]格式，DOS命令:格式化(磁盘)，用于空盘或使用过的磁盘建立新空盘来存储数据；v.使格式化，设计，安排

参考例句：

• Please format this floppy disc.请将这张软盘格式化。
• The format of the figure is very tasteful.该图表的格式很雅致。

3 formats   

n.（出版物的）版式( format的名词复数 )；[电视]电视节目的总安排（或计划）

参考例句：

• They are producing books in all kinds of different formats. 他们出版各种不同开本的书籍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• A true GUI includes standard formats for representing text and graphics. 真正的图形用户界面包括表示文字和图形的标准格式。 来自互联网