英語播客初級版 第187期(外教講解):夏令時間

A:Did you set your clock forward for daylight savings time?
B: What? Why do we have to do that?
A: Well, at the start of the spring we usually have more daylight in the mornings and less in the afternoon. This is basically due to our position on the planet and the rotation of the earth. In any case, to take better advantage of the daylight available, we compensate by moving our clocks forward one hour.
B: I see. That’s convenient! I never understood things like this, such as GMT. I never know what time zone we are in or when to change my clock!
A: That just stands for Greenwich Mean Time. Here in California, we are in Pacific Standard Time, that is eight time zones west of Greenwich. Remember when we were in Beijing? Well, then we were in China Standard Time, and that’s eight time zones east of Greenwich!
B: That’s why it was so weird traveling from Beijing to LA! Because of the huge time difference, even though we left Beijing at noon and flew for more than eight hours, we still arrived in LA the same day at noon! It’s like we went back in time!
daylight savings time 夏令時間
daylight n.白晝
due to 應為
rotation n. 自轉(zhuǎn)
compensate v. 補償
convenient adj. 方便的, 合宜的
time zone 時區(qū)
go back in time 回到過去的時間
A:你將時鐘調(diào)成夏令時間了嗎?
B: 什么?我們?yōu)槭裁匆敲醋?
A: 因為在春天開始的時候，上午的白晝時間要長些，而下午的白晝時間要短些。 這是因為我們在地球上的位置以及地球自轉(zhuǎn)。無論如何，我們要利用好白天的時間，將時鐘往前撥一個小時來補償時間。
B: 我明白了，那樣做很合適。我從來不明白像” GMT”這類的事。我一直不知道我們在什么時區(qū)，以及什么時候來往前撥一個小時。
A: GMT是“格林尼治標準時間”的縮寫。我們在太平洋標準時區(qū)，在格林尼治時區(qū)以西的第八時區(qū)。記得我們在北京的時間嗎?那時我們就在中國標準時間，也就是格林尼治時區(qū)以東的第八個時區(qū)。
B:難怪從北京到洛杉磯旅行這么奇怪，是因為時區(qū)差異，即使我們中午從北京出發(fā)，飛行旅途超過8小時，到達洛杉磯時仍是同一天的中午。就像我們回到了過去。