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1 .ROSIE: Colin, I’m really struggling to think of a topic for our human geography assignment.
罗茜：科林，我真的想不出我们的人文地理作业该写什么题目。
2 .COLIN: Me too, Rosie. I’ll tell you what, let’s think about the different aspects of human geography, and see if we can narrow the topic down a bit to help us decide.
科林：我也是，罗茜。要不这样，咱们先想想人文地理的不同方面，看能不能缩小一下范围，帮助我们做出决定。
3 .ROSIE: OK. So one aspect is population. That would be all about population density and migration and so on. Lots of facts and statistics … Maybe a bit boring?
罗茜：好啊。比如一个方面是人口问题，这主要涉及人口密度、迁徙等等，有很多事实和数据……会不会有点枯燥？
4 .COLIN: Yeah, but quite straightforward to find on the internet.
是啊，不过这些资料在网上挺容易找到的。
5 .ROSIE: Suppose so. How about health? I’d never thought about the links between that and geography until Professor Lee gave us that lecture on cholera. How in the nineteenth century a physician used street plans and plans of water supplies to find the source of a cholera epidemic.
罗茜：也许吧。那健康方面怎么样？在李教授给我们讲霍乱疫情之前，我从没想到它和地理还能有关系呢——他是怎么用街道图和供水系统图找到那次疫情源头的。
6 .COLIN: Yes – fascinating, wasn’t it? Or we could do something more general – like economies.
科林：对，那个讲座真的很吸引人，不是吗？或者我们也可以选更广泛一点的话题，比如经济。
7 .ROSIE: So how financial and commercial factors are linked to the physical environment?
罗茜：你是说金融和商业因素如何与自然环境联系起来？
8 .COLIN: Yeah.
科林：没错。
9 .ROSIE: I thought that had been taken off the syllabus for this year.
罗茜：我记得今年这个话题好像已经不在课程大纲里了。
10 .COLIN: Has it?
科林：是吗？
11 .ROSIE: I’m not sure. But it might be best to avoid it.
罗茜：我不太确定。不过可能最好还是避开这个主题。
12 .COLIN: OK. Maybe we could do something on culture. We had that lecture about culture and geography last week.
科林：好吧。那我们可以考虑文化方面的内容。上周还有一节关于文化与地理关系的讲座呢。
13 .ROSIE: I didn’t get much out of that. It was all so general and the lecturer didn’t give any useful examples.
罗茜：我对那节课没什么收获。内容太泛泛了，而且讲课老师也没举什么有用的例子。
14 .COLIN: Yeah, I hardly took any notes, it didn’t seem worth it.
科林：是啊，我几乎没怎么记笔记，感觉没什么可写的。
15 .ROSIE: Me neither.
罗茜：我也是。
16 .COLIN: We could focus on poverty. That’s something that’s a global problem …
科林：那我们可以做有关贫困的研究。这是一个全球性的问题……
17 .ROSIE: The trouble is, Dr Lee was saying, that you have to be careful with some of the figures relating to poverty – they’re sometimes deliberately manipulated.
罗茜：问题是，李博士说过，在处理一些与贫困相关的数据时要特别小心，因为有些数字可能是被人为操控过的。
18 .COLIN: You mean the information gets changed for political reasons?
科林：你的意思是这些信息会被出于政治目的而篡改？
19 .ROSIE: That sort of thing, yes.
罗茜：差不多就是这种意思。
20 .ROSIE: So what are we going to do our assignment on? I’ll tell you what, one of the possibilities we haven’t discussed is urbanisation. And now over half the world’s population lives in cities, that’s really important.
罗茜：那我们现在到底写什么作为我们的作业呢？我想到了，还有一个我们还没讨论过的选择，就是城市化。如今全球超过一半的人口都生活在城市中，这个问题真的很重要。
21 .COLIN: OK, good idea, Rosie. Let’s do that.
科林：嗯，好主意，罗茜。我们就定这个吧。
22 .ROSIE: I love living in a big city, but of course there are problems.
罗茜：我很喜欢住在大城市，但当然也存在不少问题。
23 .COLIN: Things like theft and robbery?
科林：比如说盗窃和抢劫？
24 .ROSIE: Yes, but where I come from, that’s linked to another more serious issue, which is that a lot of people don’t have jobs. That’s getting worse and worse. And we also still have quite a lot of people who are homeless, though that’s not quite so bad as it was.
罗茜：是的，不过在我家乡，这些问题其实还跟另一个更严重的问题相关——很多人没有工作，而且情况越来越糟。另外，我们还有不少人无家可归，虽然现在比以前好多了。
25 .COLIN: It’d be nice to talk about some positive developments. Like some of the new developments on the outskirts of cities.
科林：我们可以也谈谈一些积极的发展。比如城市外围的一些新建项目。
26 .ROSIE: Yeah. They’ve opened some massive new shopping centres outside my city.
罗茜：对，我家那边的城市外缘就建了好几个大型购物中心。
27 .COLIN: Yeah, the same with mine – but it’s meant a lot of the shops in the city centre are closing down. But the outskirts are ideal for buildings that need a lot of space, like for conferences. They’ve opened a couple of big ones.
科林：我家那边也是。不过这也导致市中心很多商铺不得不关门。但城郊适合那些需要大面积场地的设施，比如会议中心，那边已经开了好几个。
28 .ROSIE: Yes, we’ve got some too. It’d be nicer to have more facilities for things like football too. But that’s not happening where I live.
罗茜：是的，我们也有。如果能多建些足球等公共设施就更好了。不过在我住的地方还没有这样的发展。
29 .COLIN: Same in my area.
科林：我这边也一样。
30 .ROSIE: We could include something about developing disused industrial sites. It seems like a good idea, because you’re not doing any harm to the natural environment.
罗茜：我们还可以提到开发废弃工业用地。我觉得这是个不错的做法，不会破坏自然环境。
31 .COLIN: Yeah, but aren’t the buildings architecturally significant?
科林：是啊，不过那些建筑本身有没有什么建筑价值？
32 .ROSIE: Not really. And what people forget is that they often used quite dangerous materials – chemicals and things – which haven’t been properly cleared away, so the whole site has to be made safe.
罗茜：其实并没有。而且人们常常忘记的是，许多旧工厂使用过有害材料，比如化学品之类的东西，还没有妥善清理，所以整个场地都需要进行安全处理。
33 .COLIN: Mm. That can’t be cheap. And I bet it’s often not budgeted for.
科林：嗯，那肯定不便宜。而且我猜很多时候预算里根本没考虑到这部分。
34 .ROSIE: You’re right.
罗茜：你说得对。
35 .COLIN: Have you read about Masdar City?
科林：你有没有听说过马斯达尔城？
36 .ROSIE: In Abu Dhabi? Yes, it was designed to be a green city, wasn’t it? That might be a good example of a city which set out to depend entirely on renewable energy.
罗茜：是在阿布扎比的那个吗？有看过，它是被设计成一座绿色城市的，对吧？可以作为一个完全依靠可再生能源的城市范例。
37 .COLIN: Yes, we should say something about that. It was designed to be totally pedestrianised too, wasn’t it, with the transport underground.
科林：没错，我们应该提一下。据说它还是一座完全步行化的城市，交通系统都在地下。
38 .ROSIE: Yes, and they had big plans for recycling to reduce waste to the lowest possible level. But let’s stick to talking about power sources.
罗茜：是的，他们还在垃圾回收方面做了很多规划，以尽量减少废弃物产生。不过我们还是聚焦在能源来源方面谈吧。
39 .COLIN: Then there’s that ecotown in England, Greenhill Abbots. It set out to conform to the usual principles – sustainability and so on. A lot of people were against it at first; they said the plans were unrealistic. I’m not sure how far they’ve got with it – I’ll check.
科林：还有英国的生态小镇格林希尔·阿博茨。它的建设目标是遵循可持续发展的原则。一开始很多人反对，说计划太过理想化。我不太清楚他们现在进展到哪一步了，等回去我查一下。
40 .ROSIE: Right. So it looks as …
好的。看来我们可以开始……