• 字體:

COFFEE, TEA OR SOFT-DRINK ?
( 2012-07-20 )



      喝茶的習慣,一如英語的accent口音各異。英國人與印度人在茶裡加糖。西方人在茶裡加薄荷。澳洲人喜歡將茶浸泡brew很多時間。愛爾蘭人只喝濃茶strong  tea。有人在茶中放檸檬,有人在茶中放鹽和黃油,還是中國人和日本人最懂茶道,只喝“天然”的茶。
      喝的方法,sipping是小口地喝, drinking very slowly, in very small amount; a gulp是一口氣的喝下,drinking quickly in large mouthfuls; slurp是喝東西時發出嘖嘖的聲音,drinking liquid while making a noisy sucking sound; swig是大口地喝, drinking quickly, especially from a bottle, taking large mouthfuls。
      英國人特別喜歡喝茶,英文中和茶有關的IDIOMS成語很流行,當他們不喜歡某些事情,不合胃口,就說This is not my cup of tea (不是我那杯茶)。另一個流行的常用語not for all the tea in China,指無論報酬多高,有天大好處,我也不會接受,例如說: I  wouldn't marry him for all the tea in China 。至於A storm in a teacup (茶杯裏的風波),意思是小事情惹起的軒然大波,美國人則習慣說   a  tempest  in  a  teapot,  大驚小怪,小題大作,這兩個成語,沒有分別。例如說:Don't worry. It is a storm in a teacup. Everyone will have forgotten it by tomorrow。
      語言習慣,往往反映不同國家的飲食文化。澳洲人eat tea means to eat dinner, tea time時,他們說: I have to go home and eat tea。英國人的TEA,可以是meal (用膳),下午茶afternoon tea is a small meal you can have in the afternoon. It includes a cup of tea and food such as sandwiches and cakes。 Some English people have a meal called high tea傍晚茶 in the late afternoon instead of having dinner or supper later in the evening。英國貴族的boarding school寄宿學校,週末流行high tea這種便餐或晚點。另一種流行的special meal:cream tea is an afternoon meal that consists of tea to drink and small cakes called scones to be eaten with jam and thick cream. Cream teas are served in places such as tea shops。
      文法方面,英語美語有時也有分別。例如:英國人A cup of tea can be referred to as a tea。 Individual servings of tea or coffee are countable nouns可數名詞 in British English。美國人Would you like a cup of tea? 或者Would you like some tea/coffee? 才算正規說法。Tea and coffee are usually treated in American English as mass nouns不可數名詞。
      COFFEE是加拿大人的至愛。法國人和意大利人對喝咖啡更講究。咖啡從亞拉伯南部,經土耳其傳入歐洲,衍生了很多飲咖啡方式和品類的詞彙,從多個歐洲國家的語言反映出來。CAFE 是COFFEE的法文,CAFFE是意大利文。cafe au lait (coffee with milk) 是法式的咖啡加奶,caffe latte (milk coffee)是意式的caffe espresso(蒸餾咖啡)加多量的frothy steamed milk。Cappuccino 和Americano是意式飲法,cafe mocha 則是咖啡和巧克力的混合飲料, a fine –quality coffee named after Mocha, port on the Red Sea where coffee was first shipped to Europe。Real coffee是鮮咖啡,ground coffee是現磨即喝的咖啡。Black coffee不加奶,white coffee加奶。至於double double,兩份奶,兩份糖,則只有加拿大人才明白。
      美國人的速食文化fast food culture如麥當勞,不含酒精飲料non-alcoholic beverages 如可口可樂,征服全世界。
      講到DRINKS飲料的collocations詞語搭配,根據word corpus of modern English科學化的用法出現頻率調查結果 ,佔首位的是soft drink(軟飲料)。Adjectives that collocate with DRINK ( Sorted by collocation rank ),依次如下:soft (89), cold (73), hot (72), diet (65), long (57), cool (55), welcome (54), strong (52), non-alcoholic (52), warm (46), refreshing (39), alcoholic (38), fizzy (37), quiet (36), quick (27), early-evening (26), stiff (23), iced (20), low-calorie (11), milky (10)。
學習流暢、自然的英文,不妨從habitual collocations常用搭配入手。

      文:文世昌
      電郵 : [email protected]
      網址 : english6p.com