英語情景對話口語練習

　　英語情景對話對於把英語作為外語來學習的學生，扮演著非常重要的角色。下面小編為大家帶來，歡迎大家練習!

　　1

　　Todd: So Greg, we're talking about controversial issues and one of the issues in your book isincome disparity. So, what do you think about minimum wage?

　　託德：格雷格，我們來談談備受爭議的問題，你書中提到的其中一個問題是收入差距。你怎麼看最低工資?

　　Greg: Minimum wage. Minimum wage I think is very important to have otherwise employersare going to take advantage of people; pay them too little. The society, society itself mustdecide what is the proper minimum wage and that in itself is an issue. What should it be?

　　格雷格：最低工資。我認為制定最低工資標準非常重要，否則僱主就會佔僱員的便宜;支付僱員過少的薪水。社會必須決定適當的最低工資標準，這是社會問題。應該怎麼做?

　　Todd: You know, actually I disagree. I am actually against a minimum wage. I think that youknow, basically all markets find equilibrium and that the wage goes too low people just won'tdo the job, and so basically, if you don't have a minimum wage eventually the society willcome to a wage where people fell comfortable doing that work. That basically things will workout.

　　託德：我並不同意你的觀點。我反對制定最低工資。我認為所有市場都在尋找平衡，如果工資太低，那人們就不會去做那份工作，基本上來說，如果沒有最低工資標準，那最終工資會達到人們滿意的水平。基本上來說事情會順利解決的。

　　Greg: In theory maybe you're right, but in reality you're really wrong. I mean take a look atsome of these countries around the world where there are sweat shops, where you havechildren, cause there are no rules regulating labor, and you have children who have never beeneducated, spend their entire lives working almost like slaves in unhealthy conditions. That'swhat happens when there are no rules to protect workers.

　　格雷格：從理論上說，你是對的，不過實際上，你的想法是錯的。看看世界上那些有血汗工廠、僱童工的國家，因為這些國家沒有規範勞動力的規定，一些孩子從來沒有接受過教育，他們一直像奴隸一樣在不健康的環境下工作。因為沒有保護工人的規定，情況就會演變成這樣。

　　Todd: But I think that's somewhat true but you said the key word that they're not educated. Ithink the problem there is that people aren't educated and that's what leads the abjectpoverty that they might do a job like that. So don't you think that if people were educatedmore, they would not be willing to work such meaningless jobs, such jobs that pay so little.

　　託德：從某種程度上來說可能是這樣，不過你剛才的關鍵詞是沒有受過教育。我認為問題是這些人沒有接受過教育，這是導致赤貧境地的原因，因為這樣他們才會去做那種工作。你不認為如果人們受教育程度更高，他們是不會願意去做那種沒有意義、工資那麼少的工作的。

　　Greg: Many of those people, those children, who are working like slaves, don't have a chance foran education and often maybe they're being exploited, not always but sometimes, by peoplewho've had good education.

　　格雷格：這些人、這些兒童中的很多人，他們像奴隸一樣工作是因為他們沒有機會接受教育，雖然不是通常情況，不過一般來說剝削他們的是受過良好教育的人。

　　Todd: Right.

　　託德：對。

　　Greg: Take a child in some very poor country has to work just to find food.

　　格雷格：一些極度貧窮國家的孩子只有工作，才有吃的東西。

　　Todd: So basically, you're saying they should have a living wage. That they should makeenough money that they can have a decent standard of living.

　　託德：你的意思是他們應該有生活保障。他們要掙足夠的錢，這樣他們才能維持像樣的生活標準。

　　Greg: Everybody should have a decent standard of living I believe.

　　格雷格：我認為所有人都應該有像樣的生活標準。

　　Todd: I just think that it's really hard to arbitrarily set a price. I mean that number is alwaysgoing to go up and down. That even a minimum wage is somewhat skews the reality that ifyou just let markets take their natural course eventually people won't be willing to work.

　　託德：我只是覺得很難去隨意設定價格水平。因為價格經常上下波動。甚至最低工資可能會扭曲現實，如果讓市場順其自然地發展，那最終人們就不願意去工作了。

　　Greg: It doesn't work that way because when you just have a complete free market, you havecorrupt people who take advantage of other people.

　　格雷格：事態不會這麼發展，因為當自由市場完備時，會有腐敗的人去利用其他人。

　　Todd: Well, you know, that actually I do agree with but I think ... I do believe in a free marketsbut one thing that is true is that free markets cannot work where's there's corruption. I doagree with that. So we agree about something.

　　託德：我同意這個觀點，我相信自由市場，不過我認為如果存在腐敗，那自由市場就無法運作。我同意這個觀點。我們終於達成一致觀點了。

　　Greg: Yes. Good thing.

　　格雷格：對。這是好事。

　　2

　　Todd: So Greg in the last one we were talking about minimum wage, and this is one of thetopics in your book and it's about income disparity. One of the chapters is about incomedisparity. Now the opposite would be should there the a salary cap, which would mean thatbasically you could only earn so much, like let's say you can only earn five million dollars, tenmillion dollars. Nobody could earn more than that. What do you think about that concept?

　　託德：格雷格，上期我們談論了最低工資，你書中提到的一個問題是收入差距。你書中有一章專門講述了收入差距。今天我們要談的是相反的話題，應該設定工資上限嗎?工資上限是指限定人們只能掙這麼多錢，假設說只能掙500萬美元或1000萬美元。沒有人的工資能超過這個限定。你怎麼看這個概念?

　　Greg: I personally agree with a salary cap. I'm not sure how much it should be, but definitelythe discrepancy in wages is way to great. There's too many people who have to ... a husbandand a wife work hard forty hours or more, both of them. They're barely, barely getting by, andthen you got all these other people who are just buying Rolls-Royce cars and Mercedes, andcountry clubs and it's just not fair.

　　格雷格：我個人同意設定工資上限。我不能確定限額應該設定多少，但是我認為工資差異這一問題太嚴重了。有許多人……有的家庭夫妻兩人可能都要工作40個小時以上。這樣他們還只是勉強餬口而已，可是也有人能買得起勞斯萊斯和賓士，去鄉村俱樂部享樂，這太不公平了。

　　Todd: But, well, for one, though I mean, Mercedes and Rolls-Royce and those are products thatprovide jobs, so I would argue with that. Actually, as you can probably tell, I'm against theidea mainly because, you know, I think that hurts innovation. You know, you look at peoplelike the CEO of a very powerful internet company or software company, and you know, takegoogle for example, I'm sure that they make more than ten million, but they're service is usedso much around the world, that they should get that money, and if people couldn't ... hang on... if people couldn't get ... couldn't earn that salary then maybe they wouldn't have the samemotivation and drive to be successful and that people would lose out as a result.

　　託德：首先，賓士和勞斯萊斯是產品，這些產品會提供工作崗位，所以對這個問題持不同看法。實際上，我並不同意這個觀點，因為我認為工資上限會損害創新性。你看，像強大的網際網路公司或軟體公司的執行長，比如谷歌公司吧，我確定他們的工資超過1000萬美元，可是全世界都在使用他們的服務，他們應該得到這筆工資，如果他們不能……等一下，讓我說完，如果他們不能掙到這麼多錢，那他們可能不會這麼有動力，不會成功，他們最終可能會失敗。

　　Greg: I think that there's not proof to say that these people are making these products becausethey're making such tremendous amounts of money. What came first: the product and thenthey got the money in most cases. There's ... these people could be ... society can have allsorts of wonderful products and still have a fair income system, and I have nothing againstpeople becoming rich or making a good salary, a very good salary, but not such an incrediblegap. You have executives of some major international corporations that are making more moneythan millions of people in the world make combined. The opposite side of not having a cap isthat you have people who are making too little, and those people are also working hard. Thosepeople deserve validation. Those people deserve a good life standard which millions of peopleacross the world are not having.

　　格雷格：我認為沒有證據表明因為他們掙的錢很多，就說明是他們製造了這些產品。想一下，是先有的產品還是他們大部分情況下先掙到了錢。這些人……這個社會既可以有各種出色的產品，也可以有公平的工資體系，我並不反對人們變得富有，也不反對他們有不錯的收入，我反對的是如此大的工資差距。主要網際網路公司執行官的工資比世界上數百萬人的工資總合還要多。沒有工資上限就會造成有的人工作非常努力，可是掙得特別少。而這些人值得獲得認可。這些人值得擁有好的生活標準，可是世界上數百萬人都享受不到這種生活標準。

　　Todd: Well, I think ... well, I agree with you about that. I agree with you about that. Thatthere's people who work hard and that they're under compensated, but ... and they're a lot ofpeople that get grossly overpaid but I think that's just a problem of management and that insome cases so people do deserve millions and millions, perhaps billions of dollars if they havereally contributed to the product or the outcome. So, basically we're gonna disagree on thisone.

　　託德：我認為……這方面我同意你的觀點。我同意你的看法。有些人工作努力，可是掙的很少，也有很多人收入過高，不過我認為這只是管理問題，在某些情況下，如果有人對產品或成果的貢獻很大，那他們就值得獲得數百萬美元甚至數十億美元的收入。所以基本上來說，我們兩人在這個問題上持不同看法。

　　Greg: Yeah.

　　格雷格：對。