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本帖最后由 wyd2008 于 2010-3-20 23:09 编辑
The plains and prairies 平原和草原
"Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam, Where the deer and the antelope play…"
Every American child knows this song called "Home on the Range".
It describes a cowboy's love for the wide, flat prairie grasslands which cover the central area of North America.
哦, 给我一个家园---水牛可以到处游走,鹿和羚羊可以玩耍的家园.
每个美国孩子都知道这首名叫" 家园"的歌曲.
它描述了一个牛仔对这片北美中部广漠平坦的大草原的爱.
Today, the plains and prairies are mostly farming country.
But only a little more than 1,000 years ago, these wide open spaces were covered with tall grass and colourful wild flowers.
今天, 这些大草原大多是农业国
但是只有在一千多年前, 这些广漠的大草原上长满了草丛和色彩艳丽的野花.
Thousands of buffalo fed on the green grass.
Small animals called prairie dogs lived under the ground.
Great birds such as hawks and eagles flew in the skies above.
成千上万的水牛以绿草为食.
草原土拨鼠这些小动物生活在地下.
大型的鸟类如各种鹰类动物在大草原的上方盘桓.
This land was the home of several groups of Native Americans, including the Sioux,Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes.
这片陆地是美洲土著人的家园:包括苏人,夏安族人,和阿拉伯霍人的部落
They hunted the buffalo, deer, elk, rabbits and many other animals which lived in the grasslands.
They lived in buffalo-skin tents called teepees. They often moved their camps from one place to another.
他们射猎水牛,鹿,麋鹿,兔子和许多其他的动物,并生活在这片大草原上.
他们住在用水牛皮做的叫teepees的帐篷里,经常从一个营地转移到另一个营地.
When European settlers moved west across America, they found that the prairies made excellent farmland.
当欧洲殖民者迁移到美国的西部,他们发现这片大草原可以变成良田.
The pairies of the Midwest became the "breadbasket" of America and the world.
Food crops that grow here are used to make bread in the Soviet Union, bean curb and cooking oil in Japan.
中西部的草原成了美国和世界的粮仓.
生长在这儿的粮食在苏联被用来做面包,在日本被用来做豆制品和食油.
After World War I, it did not rain much on the prairies for several years.
The land became a "dust bowl."
Clouds of earth blew across the dry land and the crops did not grow well.
第一次世界大战后, 这些草原连年干旱.
陆地变成了"风沙中心"
云朵飞越这片干旱土地,庄稼长势很差.
Many farmers had to leave their land and homes.
But they also learned an important lesson. Now farmers try to protect the land.
They plant trees to break the wind, and they plow in curves, not in straight lines.
许多农民不得不离开他们的家园.
但是他们吸取了教训,现在农民们正在尽力地保护着这块土地.
他们种植树木,破坏风沙,他们犁出曲线而不是直线.
The drier grasslands of the western plains are cowboy country.
From Montana and Wyoming in the north to Texas in the south, there are now beef cattle on the land where buffalo once lived.
在西部平原,这些干燥的大草原成了牛仔的王国.
从北部的蒙大纳州和怀俄明州到南部的德克萨斯州, 在这片水牛曾经生活过的土地,现在仍然生活着菜牛
But at Wind Cave National Park and Badlands National Park in South Dakota you can see areas of the old grassland where buffalo still roam freely.
但是在南达科塔地区的风洞国家公园和恶地国家公园,你还能够看到一些旧草原,水牛仍然在自由的生活.
请看到这片翻译的童鞋给评判下, 看看有没有翻译错的地方.
谢谢!
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