Learn English with Conversation: Mega Cities 大都市

Goron: Hello, my name is Goron. I’m from Italy.

高伦:大家好,我是高伦。我来自意大利。

Win: My name is Win. I’m from Vietnam.

温:我是温。我来自越南。

Michael: My name is Michael. I’m from Norway.

迈克尔:我是迈克尔。我来自挪威。

Goron: So today, we’re going to discuss about mega cities. So do you have mega cities in your countries?

高伦:今天,我们要来讨论一下特大城市。你们国家有特大城市吗?

Win: Well, Vietnam is still a developing country, but we have several big city. The city I’m from, Ho Chi Minh City is – I think it’s the biggest city in Vietnam. And we have people flocking from the countryside to the city every year. And the population keeps growing but infrastructure is not capable of keeping up with the population, so we kind of have some problem right there.

温:越南现在还是发展中国家,不过我们有几座大城市。我来自胡志明市,那是越南最大的城市。每年都有很多人从乡村前往胡志明市。城市人口持续增长,但是基础设施建设没能跟上人口的增长幅度,因此引发了一些问题。

Michael: No. Norway does not have any mega city. But even so, we have problems with infrastructure. We have a huge car queues but they’re actually right now, they are doing everything they can to develop that infrastructure. And most of our capital, Oslo, is actually planned – well, it plans for the roads to all be sub-terrestrial.

迈克尔:没有。挪威没有特大城市。不过即使这样,我们的基础设施也存在问题。我们的交通拥堵特别严重,现在他们正尽一切努力发展基础设施。我们的首都奥斯陆在规划地下线路。

Goron: Okay. In Italy, the biggest city is Rome. It’s a really ancient city, as you know. And so for this reason, it was built for horses, for a really small amount of people, not five million as, I think, we have today. So the biggest problem in Rome is the traffic jam. Sometimes, it could be terrible, terrible. You can be stuck in the traffic for hours. And you just start to think, “Oh well, I want to get out of here.”

高伦:好。意大利最大的城市是罗马。如你们所知,罗马是一座古老的城市。也正因如此,这座城市建立时还是马匹盛行的时代,当时的人口很少,不像现在有500万人。所以,罗马最大的问题就是交通拥堵。有时,交通状况非常非常糟糕。你可能在路上堵好几个小时。这时,人们就会想:“哦,我想离开这里。”

Michael: Have you – do you have any kinds of rules or like there’s days, specific days where you cannot drive if your sign has this specific number or something like that?

迈克尔:你们有没有特殊的规定,比如在特定的日子里,哪些车牌不能上路行驶之类的?

Goron: They tried to do that, but the drivers in Rome are really famous. They didn’t follow the rules. It’s really hard to have a car incident there. They’re driving like crazy. They are really stressed out about traffic jam and so they’re screaming. They’re horning. So it could be stressful.

高伦:他们曾试图制定这样的规定,不过罗马司机非常出名。他们根本不遵守这些规定。所以在这里发生交通事故非常麻烦。罗马司机开车非常疯狂。他们对交通拥堵感到焦虑,所以他们会大声喊叫。他们还会一直按喇叭。所以,令人非常有压力。

Win: Does the government try to renovate infrastructure of the city?

温:政府有更新城市的基础设施吗?

Goron: The problem is like it’s really interesting because when they’re trying to dig into Rome, they find something, some monuments or something that’s from the Roman Empire. And they have to stop everything. So they cannot just destroy, you know, the columns or that they maybe, they find some new houses under the ground, then the…

高伦:问题是,他们曾试图在罗马修建地下线路,可是他们在挖掘的过程中发现了遗迹或是来自罗马帝国的文物,所以他们不得不停止挖掘工作。他们不能破坏他们发现的古老石柱等遗迹,他们还在地下发现了一些建筑,还有……

Michael: Or catacombs.

迈克尔:地下墓穴。

Goron: Catacombs, yeah. So really, it’s – and so this one, it’s really difficult to dig into Rome and build new metros for example.

高伦:对,地下墓穴。所以很难在罗马修建地下线路和地铁。

Michael: So maybe for Italy, it would be better to create like a new capital, like political capital like in Brazil where they have Brasilia which was specifically built only for the politicians.

迈克尔:就意大利来说,建造一个新首都更合适,就像巴西那样,巴西利亚是专门为了政治家而建造的政治首都。

Goron: It will be much better to move the capital of Milan actually. I think that, but it’s too much history in Rome to just say, “Oh well, let’s move it out somewhere else.”

高伦:其实将首都迁至米兰会好很多。不过罗马的历史非常悠久,不能简单地说:“嗯,我们把首都迁去其他地方吧”。

Win: I mean, I think…

温:我的意思是……

Michael: Would you say that urbanization is a problem in Rome that more and more people are coming to Rome from other places? And what would you think is the reason for that?

迈克尔:你认为城市化是罗马面临的问题吗?因为从其他地方前往罗马的人越来越多。你认为导致这种现象的原因是什么?

Goron: Not really. It was a problem some decades ago, but not now. Not really. If you can avoid the big city, you do. But as we know, the biggest opportunities that you have for work, for everything are in the big cities. So this is the main reason.

高伦:不完全是。这是数十年前就已经产生的问题,不是现在出现的新问题。不完全是。如果可以避开大城市,那尽量避开。但是我们知道,大城市拥有最多的工作机会和其他各种机会。所以,这是主要原因。