今天咱們來學兩個關于“虛偽”的表達~
1. two-faced
大家都知道咱們常說的“二皮臉”的意思是“臉皮厚”,我發現英語中有一個表達字面意思與“二皮臉”很像:two-faced。
如果有人說She is a two-faced person.你會不會就想當然理解為“她臉皮很厚。”呢?
這是不對的哦~
Two-faced其實指的是“兩面派;偽君子”,英文解釋為:Duplicitous; habitually presenting a different version of oneself at different times, especially in the presence of different people.
(duplicitous [djuː'plɪsɪtəs; djʊ-] adj.奸詐的;雙重的;搞兩面派的)
所以:She is a two-faced person.意思是“她很虛偽。”
咱們再來看一個例子:
John is not as nice as he pretends to be. He is really two-faced.
約翰根本不是他裝出來的那么好,他真是個兩面派。
2. hypocrite ['hɪpəkrɪt] n.偽君子,偽善者
這個表達大家可能更加熟悉,美劇中也經常出現,比如《生活大爆炸》里Leonard曾說:
What are you looking at? You’ve never seen a hypocrite before?
看什么看,沒見過偽君子嗎?
引申:
這個單詞有一個變形:hypocrisy [hɪ'pɒkrɪsɪ] n.虛偽,偽善
出現在報刊中的次數比較多,比如:
Through them I discovered that thought is often full of unconscious prejudice, ignorance, and hypocrisy.
通過他們我發現思考通常是充滿了無意識的偏見、無知和虛偽的。
Most of us are good at detecting hypocritical behavior in others, but we don't always see it so easily in ourselves.
我們大多數人都善于察覺別人的偽善行為,但是對自身卻不易察覺。
(來源:聽力課堂)