在本课中我们将学习一篇温馨而美丽的小小说《When Your Greatest Romance is Friendship》（当你遇见的最美情感是友谊的时候）。
我们将分三段将这部小小说的音频和中英文内容分享给大家。
我们许多的成人英语学习者在英语学习的各方面相比较，也许阅读能力是最强的，因为成人的阅读理解能力最强。
除非是考试，我们阅读理解通常没有时间的压力，还可以采用词典辅助理解。
然而我们多数英语学习者在英语阅读方面又是有恐惧症的，我们恐惧大段的没有中文没有翻译的英语。
这与我们的英语学习经历有关。
回想一下我们学校里学英语的解剖式学习法就知道了，读一段文字，先讲解单词，再讲解时态，从句以及一些词为什么这么用。
我们是在真正的“研究”（study）人家的英语。
即便是网络上的一些学习，大家依旧在研究“为什么英语要这么说”。
我所见到过的英语教学最长的句子基本就是俚语和名人名言了。
久而久之，我们对英语阅读学习养成了难以承受超过一句话的无中文辅助的英语。
改变这一点，其实是一个习惯的改变。
刘博士会陪伴大家一起经历这场改变。
其次，我之前说过，英语语言之所以能够在世界上普及，一个主要的原因就是近代英语大众文学的兴起。
然而，英语的大众文学在中国，除了中文译本之外，我们不仅在英语学习中没有见到过，在市面上也是难觅其踪影的。
其实，我们或多或少都对英语大众文学有一些体验。
许多年前，国内有一本杂志叫做《读者文摘》，其中许多内容来自英语的“Reader’s Digest”。
相信记得《读者文摘》的人不在少数。
为了让大家能够承受并慢慢养成阅读较长英语文章的习惯，我会在课文的前半部分讲解中附上中文的概括翻译，并在需要时讲解一些主要词汇。
中间为故事的音频。
音频后面是故事的英语原文。
每节课的阅读内容的听力部分限制在5分钟（正常阅读其实也在3-5分钟时间，但是初始学习则可能花更长的时间）。
只要大家坚持下去，慢慢积累，就能够完成长篇的阅读了。
你会慢慢感觉到：中文是很美的文字语言，你不需要写一手好字也能够写一个好故事；英语是很美的声音语言，你不需要说一口标准的英音或是美音，也能够讲述一个好故事。
还有，为了陪伴大家一起克服英语难题，刘博士已经推出了#刘博士突破英语问答#。你有问题，可以这样向我提问。我很高兴能对你有所帮助。
【刘博士译文】：
《When Your Greatest Romance is Friendship》（当你遇见的最美情感是友谊的时候）
“这是你的孙子吗？”Austin和我出去时，人们有时会问她。
我喜欢看到她那虚荣心高涨的样子。她歪着她那满是白发的小脑袋，用南方口音纠正着他们：“不，亲爱的。他是我的朋友。”
听到这儿，人们通常会不自然地笑着转身离去，也许在猜想，一个老太太和一个比她年轻许多的男人坐在酒吧里或逛着超市，还像年青人一样窃笑着，这可不仅仅是友谊那么简单。
我们为什么会这样笑，我给你说不清楚。通常我们的欢笑似乎是因为在一起的时候一种深深的喜悦带来的。友谊这东西，就像它那更花俏的姊妹“爱”一样，可以完全是一种化学反应，在瞬间就能发生。
当我初遇Austin时，我并没有找个朋友的打算。我独自来到这个小镇只是为了写完一本书。所以，当一个瘦骨嶙峋、蓝眼睛的陌生人敲我的房门，介绍自己是住在对过的女士，并问我是否愿意参观一下她的花园时——也许再喝上一杯杜松子酒——我礼貌地拒绝了。
可是，看着她走开的时候，她穿着天鹅绒便鞋和皱巴巴的衬衫时，我突然有一种奇怪的痛楚，一种缓慢的针扎般的悲伤。我想用孤独来形容这个感觉最合适不过了。突然，我冲到了土路上，对她说我很抱歉，她找我那会我正在工作。不过，是的，我很愿意去参观一下她的花园。
“那你不喝杜松子酒啦？”
“当然，那也是要的，”我回答到，脸红了。我还没来得及建议说下周去怎么样时，她说到：“那我几个小时后见。你说四点半怎么样？”
我不得不佩服她的时间意识。“下周”是为那些有条件推迟事情的人准备的。而80多岁的奥斯汀肯定觉得自己没有这样奢侈的条件。
“我喜欢你的长相，”她后来承认到，并告诉我她在我站在邮箱边时看见我的。
当她为我倒上杜松子酒的时候，我也告诉她我站在邮箱边时也看见她了，我也喜欢她的长相。
“我希望我的眉毛能更好看一点就好了，”她说，我的眉毛以前可漂亮啦。”
她的花园美得让我震惊，仿佛是来自于梦里而不是种出来的，那是一个哥特式高帽子一样的花园，里面弥漫着一片杂乱无章的优雅。
暮色时分，一只鹿跑来了，它小口嚼着野苹果花。
我们一聊就是几个小时，都有几分醉醉意。
然后我们一起去厨房做晚饭。
Austin原来是一名心理学家，已经退休了。
以前她曾游历甚广。
她能说糟糕的西班牙语，她的法语就更差劲了。
现在她爱上了画画。
她前后结过两次婚，她的第二任丈夫就是在这所房子里客厅的一张小床上去世的。
“我死的时候也要呆在这儿，”Austin告诉我，“这个房间光线最好。”
当我们转身看窗户外面时，光线已经消失不见了。我们一下子就安静了下来，呆在一起，没有压力，这种感觉很幸运。
“这么说你从家里跑出来啦？”她半中间问道。
从一开始，我们的交往就让我想起了儿童的那种友谊。在这种友谊里，没有什么话是不能说不能问的。Austin似乎无所畏惧的样子，更不要说怕死了。我告诉她我现在仍旧怕黑。
“一个人住吧，”她说，“能把你变得怪怪的。”
我哈哈一笑，转换了话题，告诉她我想看看她画的画。
后来，当我穿过土路回到我租的小屋时，我都说不清我在干嘛。我提醒自己，我出来是有目的的：躲到外边去，坚持我的出书之梦。我可不是来社交的。我在这一个写书项目上已经花了几年时间了，现在是最后冲刺阶段。再过几个月我就可以完成初稿，然后就能打道回府了。
而且，在我隐居期间，我如果想找一个朋友的话，我会找一个和我同龄的人一起拿着瓶子
吹喝啤酒的。和一位老太太在她的花园里喝杜松子酒？那我可没想过。
Audio Transcript: When Your Greatest Romance Is a Friendship
“Is this your grandson?” people sometimes ask Austin when she’s out with me.
I love watching her vanity prick up, the way she tilts her small white head and brings out her southern accent to correct them. “No, honey. He’s my friend.”
At this point, folks usually smile tightly and turn away, perhaps worried there is more than friendship going on between the old lady and the younger man seated at the bar or strolling through the supermarket, giggling like teenagers.
Why we’re giggling, I couldn’t tell you. Often our mirth seems fueled by some deep delight of being together. Friendship, like its flashier cousin, love, can be wildly chemical and, like love, can happen in an instant.
When I met Austin, I was not looking for a friend. I had come alone to this small town to finish a book. So when a bony, blue-eyed stranger knocked on my door, introducing herself as the lady from across the way and wondering if I might like to come over and see her garden — maybe have a gin and tonic — I politely declined.
Watching her walk away, though, in her velvet slip-ons and wrinkled blouse, I felt a strange pang, a slow pin of sadness that I suppose could best be described as loneliness. Suddenly I was dashing into the dirt road to say that I was sorry, that she had caught me in the middle of work, but that, yes, I would enjoy seeing her garden.
“Not the gin and tonic?”
“Sure, that too,” I answered, blushing. And before I could suggest a visit the next week, she said: “So I’ll see you in a few hours, then. Shall we say 4:30?”
I had to admire her sense of time. Next week is for someone who can afford to put things off. Austin, in her 80s, surely felt no such luxury.
“I liked your face,” she admitted later, telling me she had spotted me at the mailbox.
As she poured the gin, I told her I had also seen her at the mailbox, and liked her face, too.
“I wish I had better eyebrows,” she said. “They used to be fabulous.”
Her garden was astounding, like something dreamed rather than planted, a mad-hatter gothic in which a lawless grace prevailed.
At dusk, the deer arrived, nibbling the crab apple blossoms. We had been talking for hours, slightly tipsy, and then we were in the kitchen cooking dinner. A retired psychologist, Austin had traveled extensively, spoke terrible Spanish and worse French, and was a painter now. She had had two husbands, the second of whom died in this house, in a small bed in the living room.
“That’s what I’ll do,” Austin told me. “This room gets the best light.”
We turned to the windows, but the light was already gone. That we could be quiet together so soon, and without strain, felt auspicious.
“So you’ve run away from home?” she said at one point.
From the beginning, there was something about our interaction that reminded me of friendships from childhood, in which no question was off limits. Austin, seemed afraid of nothing, least of all death. I said I was still afraid of the dark.
“Living alone,” she said. “It can make you funny.”
I laughed but changed the subject, telling her I would like to see her paintings.
Later, crossing the road back to my sublet, I wondered what I was doing. I reminded myself of my plan: hiding out, staying in the dream of the book. I wasn’t here to socialize. After years of work on a single project, I was in the final stretch. I could finish a draft in a few months and head back home.
Besides, if I wanted a friend during my retreat, I would find someone my age to throw back beers with. Gin and tonics with an old lady in her garden? That wasn’t in the plan.
(To be Continued).
语录网网友观点：当你读懂了一篇英语文章的时候，你会发现，听英语还可以是一种享受的。
就像我们听中文的朗读一样。
英语 情感,