自考英语综合二下册课文 lesson 10

　　[00:00.00]Lesson Ten  Text

[00:04.49]On Friendship Margaret Mead 1 and Rhoda Metranx

[00:12.54]Few Americans stay put for a lifetime.

[00:17.50]We move from town to city to suburb,

[00:22.26]from high school to college in a different state,

[00:26.93]from a job in one region to a better job elsewhere,

[00:32.68]from the home where we raise our children

[00:37.15]to the home where we plan to live in retirement 2.

[00:42.29]With each move we are forever making new friends,

[00:47.86]who become part of our new life at that time.

[00:52.61]For many of us the summer is a special time for forming new friendships.

[00:59.45]Today millions of Americans vacation abroad,

[01:04.71]and they go not only to see new sights but also

[01:10.58]in those places where they do not feel too strange

[01:15.83]with the hope of meeting new people.

[01:19.88]No one really expects a vacation trip to produce a close friend.

[01:25.94]But surely the beginning of a friendship is possible?

[01:31.82]Surely in every country people value friendship?

[01:37.28]They do.The difficulty when strangers from two countries meet

[01:43.44]is not a lack of appreciation 3 of friendship,

[01:48.12]but different expectations about what constitutes friendship

[01:54.18]and how it comes into being.

[01:57.63]In those European countries that Americans are most likely to visit,

[02:03.69]friendship is quite sharply distinguished 4 from other,

[02:08.55]more casual relations,and is differently related to family life.

[02:15.21]For a Frenchman, a German or an Englishman friendship is usually more special

[02:23.46]and carries a heavier burden of commitment.

[02:29.03]But as we use the word, "friend" can be applied 5 to a wide range of relationships

[02:36.79]to someone one has known for a few weeks in a new place,

[02:42.43]to a close business associate, to a childhood playmate,

[02:49.20]to a man or woman,to a trusted confidant.

[02:54.52]There are real differences among these relations for Americans

[03:00.19]a friendship may be superficial, casual, situational or deep and enduring.

[03:08.94]But to a European,who sees only our surface behavior,

[03:15.50]the differences are not clear.

[03:19.86]As they see it, people known and accepted temporarily,casually,

[03:26.84]flow in and out of Americans' homes with little ceremony

[03:31.88]and often with little personal commitment.

[03:36.56]They may be parents of the children's friends house guests of neighbors,

[03:43.01]members of a committee business associates from another town

[03:49.46]or even another country.

[03:53.43]Coming as a guest into an American home,

[03:57.98]the European visitor finds no visible landmarks 6.

[04:03.54]The atmosphere is relaxed.

[04:07.61]Most people, old and young, are called by first names.

[04:13.57]Who then is a friend?

[04:17.23]Even simple translation from one language to another is difficult.

[04:24.39]"You see," a Frenchman explains,

[04:28.64]"if I were to say to you in France,'This is my good friend,'

[04:35.49]that person would not be as close to me as someone about whom I said only,

[04:43.53]'This is my friend.' Anyone about whom I have to say more is really less."

[04:53.20]In France, as in many European countries,

[04:58.16]friends generally are of the same sex,

[05:02.71]and friendship is seen as basically a relationship between men.

[05:08.87]Frenchwomen laugh at the idea that "women can't be friends,"

[05:16.24]but they also admit sometimes that for women "it's a different thing."

[05:23.50]And many French people doubt the possibility of a friendship between a man

[05:30.48]and a woman.

[05:33.43]There is also the kind of relationship within a group

[05:38.57]men and women who have worked together for a long time,

[05:44.22]who may be very close,sharing great loyalty 7 and warmth of feeling.

[05:50.67]They may call one another copainsa word that in English becomes "friends"

[05:59.63]but has more the feeling of "pals 8" or "buddies 9".

[06:06.00]In French eyes this is not friendship,

[06:10.44]although two members of such a group may well be friends.

　　[06:17.21]For the French,friendship is a one-to-one relationship

[06:23.76]that demands a keen awareness 10 of the other person's intellect,

[06:29.83]temperament and particular interests.

[06:34.27]A friend is someone who draws out your own best qualities,

[06:40.33]with whom you sparkle and become more of whatever the friendship draws upon.

[06:47.48]Your political philosophy assumes muoe depth,

[06:52.53]appreciation of a play becomes sharper,

[06:57.67]taste in food or wine is enhanced,enjoyment of a sport is intensified 11.

[07:06.21]And French friendships are divided into categories.

[07:12.59]A man may play chess with a friend for thirty years

[07:18.52]without knowing his political opinion,

[07:22.88]or he may talk politics with him for as long a time

[07:28.21]without knowing about his personal life.

[07:32.86]Different friends fill different niches 12 in each person's life.

[07:40.02]These friendships are not made part of family life.

[07:45.48]A friend is not expected to spend evenings being nice to

[07:50.94]children or courteous 13 to a deaf grandmother.

[07:55.69]These duties, also serious and required, are primarily for relatives.

[08:03.34]Men who are friends may meet in a cafe.

[08:08.07]Intellectual friends may meet in larger groups for evenings of conversation.

[08:15.05]Working people may meet at the little bistro where they drink and talk,

[08:22.20]far from the family.

[08:25.97]Marriage does not affect such friendships;

[08:30.62]wives do not have to be taken into account.

[08:35.16]In the past in France,

[08:38.82]friendships of this kind seldom were open to any but intellectual women.

[08:45.58]Since most women's lives centered on their homes,

[08:50.55]their warmest relations with other women often went back to their girlhood.

[08:57.31]The special relationship of friendship

[09:01.68]is based on what the French value most on the mind,

[09:07.03]on having the same of outlook,

[09:11.47]on vivid awareness of some chosen area of life.

[09:17.35]In Germany,icontrast with France,

[09:22.81]friendship is much more clearly a matter of feeling.

[09:28.45]Adolescents, boys and girls, form deeply sentimental 14 attachments 15,

[09:35.01]walk and talk together

[09:38.56]not so much to polish their wits as to share their hopes and fears and dreams

[09:45.82]to form a common front against the world of school

[09:51.75]and familyand to join in a kind of mutual 16 discovery of each other's

[09:58.28]and their own inner life.

[10:01.84]Within the family,

[10:04.89]the closest relationship over a lifetime is between brothers and sisters.

[10:11.74]Outside the family,

[10:15.08]men and women find in their closest friends of the same sex

[10:21.56]the devotion of a sister,the loyalty of a brother.

[10:27.20]Appropriately, in Germany friends usually are brought into the family.

[10:34.65]Children call their father's and their mother's friends "uncle" and "aunt".

[10:41.41]Between French friends,

[10:45.17]who have chosen each other for the similarity of their point of view,

[10:51.10]lively disagreement and sharpness of argument are the breath of life.

[10:58.47]But for Germans, whose friendships are based on common feelings,

[11:04.82]deep disagreement on any subject that matters to both is regarded as a tragedy.

[11:13.07]Like ties of kinship, ties of friendship are meant to be absolutely binding 17.

[11:20.73]Young Germans who come to the United States

[11:25.37]have great difficulty in establishing such friendships with Americans.

[11:32.04]We view friendship more tentatively,

[11:36.29]subject to changes in intensity 18 as people move,

[11:42.07]change their jobs, marry,or discover new interests.

[11:48.13]English friendships follow still a different pattern.

[11:53.27]Their basis is shared activity.

[11:58.24]Activities at different stages of life

[12:03.20]may be of very different kinds discovering a common interest in school,

[12:10.57]serving together in the armed forces,taking part in a foreign mission,

[12:17.41]staying in the same country house during a crisis.

[12:21.98]In the midst of the activity, whatever it may be,

　　[12:27.31]people fall into step sometimes two men or two women,

[12:33.68]sometimes two couples, sometimes three people

[12:38.65]and find that they walk or play a game or tell stories

[12:44.60]or serve on a committee with the same easy anticipation 19

[12:50.95]of what each will do day by dayor in some critical situation.

[12:58.19]Americans who have made English friends comment that, even years later,

[13:04.82]"you can take up just where you left off."

[13:09.55]Meeting after a long interval 20,

[13:14.02]friends are like a couple who begin to dance again

[13:19.06]when the orchestra strikes up after a pause.

[13:24.10]English friendships are formed outside the family circle,

[13:29.77]but they are not,as in Germany,

[13:33.71]committed to the family nor are they, as in France,separated from the family.

[13:41.37]And a break in an English friendship

[13:45.81]comes not necessarily as a result of some difference of viewpoint or feeling

[13:53.57]but instead as a result of misjudgment,

[13:58.61]where one friend seriously misjudges how the other will think or feel or act,

[14:05.98]so that suddenly they are out of step.

[14:10.70]What,then,is friendship?

[14:14.36]Looking at these different styles, including our own,

[14:19.82]each of which is related to a whole way of life, are there common elements?

[14:27.08]There is the recognition that friendships are formed,

[14:33.04]in contrast with kinship,through freedom of choice.

[14:38.99]A friend is someone who chooses and is chosen.

[14:44.27]Related to this is the sense each friend gives the other

[14:50.51]of being a special individual,on whatever grounds this recognition is based.

[14:58.06]And between friends there is inevitably 21 a kind of equality of give and take.

[15:05.72]These similarities make the bridge between societies possible,

[15:12.80]and the American's characteristic openness to different styles of relationship

[15:19.88]makes it possible for him to find new friends abroad with whom he feels at home.