一分鐘英語 第42期:A Piece of Cake 小菜一碟

Welcome to English in a Minute.

歡迎收聽《 一分鐘英語》。

Do you find American idioms hard to understand?

你覺得美式俚語很難理解麼？

It's our goal to make learning them "a piece of cake."

我們的目標就是讓你覺得學習它們就是“a piece of cake”（非常容易的事）。

Everyone in America knows this idiom because it's so easy.

美國人都明白這個短語，因爲這很容易。

Hey! How did you do on the exam?

嘿！考試怎麼樣啊？

I got an A. The exam was a piece of cake.

我得了A，考試很容易。（a piece of cake）

In American English, when you say something is a "piece of cake," it means it is very easy to do.

在美語中，當你說某事是“piece of cake（一片蛋糕）”，意思是它很容易。

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, African Americans started "cake walks."

在十九世紀和二十世紀初，非裔美國人開始走“蛋糕步”（cake walks）。

They walked or danced around a cake in pairs, and the best couple won the cake.

他們成雙結對地圍着蛋糕走或者跳舞，跳的最棒的一對贏得蛋糕獎勵。

This is how the idioms "cake walk" and "piece of cake" came about -- both meaning that something is very easy to do.

這就是“cake walk（蛋糕步）”和“piece of cake（一片蛋糕）”的來源——它們都是指某事很容易。

And that's English in a Minute.

以上就是本期的《一分鐘英語》。