Friends,中文译名为《六人行》或《老友记》是美国正在热播的一个sitcom (即situation comedy)也就是我们所说的情景喜剧。它之所以这么受欢迎，是因为其内容轻松，语言幽默，每每令人捧腹不已。对于英语学习者来说，我们更能从中学到不少地道的口语。现在就请大家和我一起感受其中的乐趣吧！

　　这一天大伙又像往常一样坐在一个名叫Central Perk的咖啡屋里闲聊，Phoebe刚约会回来：

　　语音讲解：
　　　(点击右键“另存为”可下载语音)

　　Phoebe: (entering) Hi guys!

　　All: Hey, Pheebs! Hi!

　　Ross: Hey. Oh, oh, how'd it go?

　　Phoebe: Um, not so good. He walked me to the subway and said 'We should do this again!'

　　All: Ohh. Ouch.

　　Rachel: What? He said 'we should do it again', that's good, right?

　　Monica: Uh, no. Loosely translated 'We should do this again' means 'You will never see me naked'.

　　Rachel: Since when?

　　Joey: Since always. It's like dating language. Y'know, like 'It's not you' means 'It is you'.

　　Chandler: Or 'You're such a nice guy' means 'I'm gonna be dating leather-wearing alcoholics and complaining about them to you'.

　　Phoebe: Or, or, y'know, um, 'I think we should see other people' means 'Ha, ha, I already am'.

　　Rachel: And everybody knows this?

　　Joey: Yeah. Cushions the blow.

　　【世博视角】

　　Ross问Phoebe她的约会(date)怎么样(how did it go?)，Phoebe回答说不怎么好，那人送她到地铁(subway)后说了句( We should do this again!)就结束了。大伙听到这都心知肚明了，只有不谙世事的Rachel还转不过弯来，于是大伙便给Rachel补习了一下“约会语言(dating language)”，比如刚才的这一句We should do this again.就可以理解为You will never see me naked. (我们永远不会"赤诚"相对啦！)。Rachel显然还不太相信每个人都知道这种约会语言的弦外之音，Joey给了肯定的答复，并说了句Cushions the blow.要理解这句话什么意思，还得先来看看cushion这个词，作为名词,它就是我们日常用的“靠垫”。大家平时肯定有过和朋友或兄弟姐妹在家打打闹闹的经历，虽是闹着玩，但有些人的手脚特别重，这时我们就会随手抓起一个靠垫去遮挡一下，这就是cushion the blow,其引申出来的含义就是"减少(不愉快事物)影响"，例如：He has lost his job, but he's got a lot of money in the bank, so that will cushion the blow.当然cushion也可单独做动词用，表示"减缓…冲力、效力"，如：They had put mattresses on the ground to cushion his fall.

　　相信那些有过恋爱或相亲经历的人都用过所谓的dating language,其目的只是为了不使对方太过难堪而已(cushion the blow)。

　　本栏目是由世博英语(360abc.com)Starry_Night原创编写！让我们通过电影轻松学英语！未经书面授权，请勿转载！