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This is Question and Answer of the Week, where we answer your questions about English language, culture and life.
I'm Bully.
And I'm Phil.
Bully, I heard your train was delayed this morning.
Tell me about it.
My usual service was late by an hour.
Anyway, the question in this episode is also related to train travel.
Let's hear it.
我在英国坐火车的时候发现,英国人在车站和火车上会用来描述列车或者列车线路等概念的单词,除了train,还有诸如route,line,service和track等等,我很想知道这些单词具体都表示什么意思。
Right, this is a question about words that have a general meaning, that become more specific when they're used to talk about a particular thing which, in this case, is rail travel.
Let's get into it.
By the way, Phil, you don't look happy.
What's up?
Well, I'm just trying to work out how I can get home tonight.
The weather's so bad.
My usual train is cancelled because the track has frozen over.
They can't run any trains on it.
Oh, no.
I used to live on that line.
It happens a lot in the winter.
It's so frustrating.
When it works, it's a really good service, but it's just no good in winter.
That's too bad.
But keep checking for updates.
Sometimes they manage to run the service on a different route.
I hope so.
I'm not walking home in this weather.
你正在收听的是BBC英语教学制作的你问我答节目。 在本期节目中,我们正在学习在乘坐火车等轨道交通旅行时常见的词汇。 在说英语的国家,特别是英国,我们可能会遇到许多用来表示一列火车、一趟班列或者一条线路的词汇。 特别是在收听车站广播和报站时,如果搞混了这些单词的含义,就可能做错车。
So in that conversation, you heard all of the words from the question.
The first one is straightforward, track.
We use this to talk about the long pieces of metal on the ground that the train runs along.
It's about the physical infrastructure.
是的,track的意思是火车轨道,特别是指具体的轨道设施。 在某些国家,track还可以用来表示某趟火车停靠的轨道。 比如在美国,你可能就会在车站听到广播说某趟火车会停靠在track 2,2号轨道。 而在英国,人们通常会用platform number,站台号来表示火车停靠的位置。
Phil, what about line?
How is it different from track?
Well, a railway line is literally the track that goes to different places.
But when we talk about the line, we're talking a bit more generally.
We're talking about the fact that you can go between certain places.
For example, there's a new line between my house and the office, or which line do you take to go home?
所以说在讨论火车旅行时,line指的是有固定起点和终点的运行线路。
在英国,地铁或火车线路通常有相应的名称,比如横穿伦敦市中心的Central Line中央线,或者在曼彻斯特和苏格兰之间运行的West Coast Main Line西海岸主线等等。 而和Line不同,Route指的则是旅行路线。
Yes, a line is fixed.
It's always the same.
But there can be different routes.
If one bit of track is blocked, then maybe the train can travel via a different route.
是的,我们可以用route来表示为了到达终点所选择的路线。 它既可以用来表示人出行的路线,也可以表示火车运行的路线。 对于乘客来说,一个route可以通过在interchange换乘站换乘来途经不同的line或者track最终抵达目的地。
Trains run according to a schedule.
So, for example, I get on a train at 730 in the morning to come to work and that train is the 730 service.
So service is used to talk about a train that runs at a particular time.
Yes, and there are different kinds of services.
在英国,你可能会听到stopping service, express service和non-stop service。 他们分别指的是在各站停车的普通班列, 指在主要大站停靠的特快班列和中间不停车的直达专列。 在乘车时,往往需要注意所乘坐的班列是否会在自己的目的地停车。
另外需要注意的是service这个词有时也会被用于表示列车的线路或线路的运行情况,有点类似于line,比如now there's a good service between A and B的意思就是目前在A和B之间的线路运行良好。
Hopefully, that's answered your question.
Remember, if you have a question that you'd like us to answer, you can email us too at questions.chinaelt at bbc.co.uk 你还可以通过微博向我们提问。 我们的微博账号是bbc英语教学。 Bye!
Bye!
This is not the future we were promised.
Like, how about that for a tagline for the show?
From the BBC.
This is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.
And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
