點滴英語天天學第29期:Tim想套磁沒成功(詞彙詳解9)

各位親愛的聽衆朋友，歡迎來到Juliet的《每日原味美語》課堂！Juliet將帶您體驗美國哈弗大學，美國紐約大學的口語課堂的學習內容。

Let's go. 首先，我們還是來回顧一下Jack對自己經歷的事情的描述：

Jack: Oh! No. There's Bonnie Margolin. A year ago, some mutual friends of ours fixed us up because they thought we would hit it off. Unfortunately, she was on the rebound, so I didn't want to get involved. I tried to let her down easy but she got furious and started screaming at me. Oh, no! She's coming this way. Run!

Jack說到的“let her down easy”是什麼意思呢？今天，我們就來學習這個原味表述：let someone down easy. To let someone down easy means convey bad or disappointing news in a considerate way, so as to spare the person's self-respect. 用中文來說是“婉言拒絕”的意思。我們通過下面的例句來熟悉它的意思和運用：

E.g. The boss tried to let Tim down easy when he had to tell him he was too young for the job.（老闆試圖婉言告訴Tim，他太小，不能做這項工作。）

Ps: too young for the job = too young to the job

E.g. Dick started to apologize and George, who has had much practice in these matters, let him down easy. （Dick開始道歉，Gorge在這些事情上很有經驗，就給他留了面子。）

Ps: have much practice in...

E.g. When I told him I wanted to borrow some money, he let me down easy.（我告訴他我想借些錢，他婉言謝絕了。）

在此，Juliet想說：To let someone down easy是一個idiom，那麼文中的“I tried to let her down easy.”用標準書面英語如何來說則是：I tried to reject her gently.

Juliet先前只能聽懂慢速VOA，但經常跟Robert老師學打交道之後，竟然完全能聽懂常速VOA了。這需要我們去研究美國人是如何發音的，掌握一些規律，反覆模仿朗讀。在明天的學習中，由Robert老師帶您操練real speak。咱們明天再見！