托福口语与老友记
老友记大家都看过吗？对于英专的同学来说，可能比较熟悉，今天小编来给大家讲讲老友记中的一些地道台词，这些表达都是最纯正的英文表达法，大家可以选择背诵哟。
第四季第9集
Allesandro: (entering) I want a retraction! Our food is not inedible swill!
Monica: I couldn’t eat it! I had five friends who couldn’t eat it, and one of them eats books.
Allesandro: Well our service is not grossly incompetent.
Monica: The waiter carried the breadsticks in his pants!
Allesandro: Well, you said that we except the Discover Card, which we do not!
Monica: All right, that I’ll retract. But I stand by my review, I know food and that wasn’t it. You’re marinara sauce tasted like tomato juice! You should serve it with vodka and a piece of celery.
Allesandro: Hey! I’m proud of that sauce, it’s delicious.
Monica: Oh my God! You own an Italian restaurant and you think that tastes good?! Where are you even from?
Allesandro: (shyly) Lebanon.
Monica: Hand me those tomatoes, I’m gonna show you what it should taste like! Come on, hand me them.
Allesandro: How long is this gonna take? ‘Cause I got another critic to go yell at.
Background:
Monica写的一家Restaurant的食物review（托福考试中是颇为重要的一个词，表示评论、评价）登载在当地的报纸上，她写道“Would I go back to Allesandro’s? Sure, but I’d have to order two meals, one for me and one for the guy pointing the gun to my head." 大致意思是如果她再走进这家饭店，她一定会点两份餐，一份给自己，一份给拿枪抵着自己头的人，标准的satire调调（satire, 讽刺，托福、GRE中都是超级高频的词汇，如果大家看过Friends的话，对这个词应该会很熟悉，主角之一Chandler有事没事就喜欢用satire的方式说冷笑话）。
Key word in the dialog
重头戏来啦，请注意Allesandro开场白中的retraction, 字典释义“撤销，收回”。这其实是非常容易记忆的一个单词，来自词根“tract”, 表示“拉”，同词根的词有：
attract: 典型的axx型词，有练习词根意思的作用，一再地拉，所以是吸引
distract: 前缀dis表示“分开”，拉开来，所以是“使分神”
tractor: or词尾表示人或物，所以是“拖拉机”
retraction一词在TPO22的第二篇conversation中以几乎与这篇对话中一样的用法出现过：
Student: Hi, I am sorry to bother you, but…
Faculty advisor: Yes?
Student: This is about the newspaper.
Faculty Advisor: Oh, Ok. Well. I am only the advisor; the newspaper office is off campus on Pine Street. Eh…what was it? Did you want to work for the paper? We are always looking for writers.
Student: Well, my problem was with the writing actually, with an article that was published in yesterday’s newspaper.
Faculty Advisor: Oh? Which one?
Student: The one about the student government and its president Sally Smith.
Faculty Advisor: Is this something to do with what the editor wrote about the statue? Eh, the statue at the main entrance of the university?
Student: Well, that’s part of it. But you know, the editor used the situation to say some really unfair things, about the student government, and the president Sally Smith in particular. I think the paper should publish a retraction, or at the very least an apology to Sally.
大家知道托福conversation的开头一般是学生有问题去找老师或其他教职员工解决（也有老师有事情找学生的对话），这篇也不例外。学生对于校报上一篇写学生会的文章很不满，去校报找相关工作人员，希望他们能够对这篇文章作出撤回，见上文最后一句“I think the paper should publish a retraction, or at the very least an apology to Sally.”。是不是和我们的Friends里面的用法一模一样。
将这段conversation接着听下去，大家会听到校报员工对这篇文章的解释，他是这么说的“And the piece, well, yeah, it had a bit of an exaggerated tone. It was satirical, or at least it was meant to be. It wasn’t just poking fun at Sally, but the whole idea that our school is sort of rural, and you know, not cosmopolitan.”有没有看到“satirical”, 这就是之前说到的satire的形容词形式。
第八季第13集
P: Sounds like you need to think about what you want and talk to Gavin.
M: And you definitely should talk to Ross. - Or.
R: I could call in sick and not deal with it at all.
P: Wow! Five months maternity leave, you're back for four days… kiss a co-worker and call in sick. They are lucky to have you.
在该场景中Rachel因为吻了同事而不想去上班，她的朋友Phoebe对她的评价让我回想起了TPO17的第二篇conversation中的一段对话，我们一起来阅读一下。
Manager
Well, if you don’t mind working in the kitchen, we’ve got some pretty flexible hours for students doing food-prep work, anything from early morning to late afternoon.
Student
What’s prep work?
Manager
You prepare food for the cooks. You know, like cutting up vegetables for soup, or cleaning greens for salads.
Student
Oh, that doesn’t sound, I mean... Being a waiter, I get to see a lot of the professors, like in a different light, we joke around a little you know. In the classroom, they always have to be pretty formal, but ...
Manager
Well, the money is no different since we pay students the same amount for any of the jobs here in food service, so it’s up to you.
Student Oh, man. I always thought that sacrificing for my art, that’d mean working long hours as a musician for, like, no money. I didn’t think it’d mean, peeling carrots.
Manager
Let me see, I am offering you something that has the hours you want, it is right here on campus, and you make as much money as you did being a waiter, quite a sacrifice.
学生去找老师申请换工作时间，然而老师给他推荐了厨房的工作。学生对于该工作种种不满，觉得自己作出的牺牲太大。题目中就对老师说的“quite a sacrifice”进行了发问。考生一定要注意老师说这句话的context。她是在列举了自己给学生提供的种种便利后说的这句话，当然是在暗示“The man does not appreciate the opportunity she is offering him”。与老友记中Pheobe对Rachel的评价是不是有异曲同工之妙。
