英語趣味課堂：開普敦-Capetown

Jana: You must have traveled quite a lot around the country, right?

Peter: Hmm, I think I have especially during my student days. I traveled around a lot because I like hiking and outdoor things. I really enjoy traveling around the country and South Africa is really diverse. As I said, you can travel in one day and find many different spots and different places. If you move towards the southern part of the country closer to Cape Town, you'd find a really mild climate and they grow a lot of fruit and they grow a lot of wine in that area and a lot of people live there because the climate is so mild and really no extreme temperatures so it's a really nice place, easy place to live in that sense.

Jana: OK. So if I want to visit, it sounds like there are so many different places. Which one would you recommend is the best? What's your favorite area?

Peter: I would say my, the best area to live would be the southern part near Cape Town or actually traveling from Cape Town to the eastern seaboard, it's called the Garden Route in South Africa and the name comes from the fact that it looks like a garden almost. It's really, really beautiful. Beautiful plants and trees, forests and it's all, you know, relatively high rainfall so everything grows. It just grows. It's really beautiful and it's not too hot, it never gets too hot in summer and never too cold in winter but recently because of, perhaps because of global warming we have seen quite a lot of changes in South Africa. More snow interestingly enough and I believe some of the hot areas have recorded even hotter temperatures so it becomes even more interesting I guess.

Jana: Great.

Peter: Oh by the way, I forgot to mention if you like to travel around, there's a really beautiful place that you can visit close to Cape Town. It's one of the world's, I think they call it the Floral Kingdom and it's a heritage site that you can visit because of all the different species, different species of plant life. Scientists from all over the world come to study it and many tourists come to see it. I think all the species combined in that tiny area and I think it's not even twenty square kilometres maybe, have more species than the whole of Eurasia combined and it's a fascinating beautiful place to visit because of, you know, the natural occurrence of so many different species.

Jana: Yeah, it sounds great. I hope I can get to visit one day.

Peter: I hope so too. It would be really nice.

重點詞匯：

Learn Vocabulary from the lesson

seaboard

For me, the place to live would be somewhere traveling from Cape Town to the eastern seaboard.

A 'seaboard' is an area of land which is bordered by the water. Notice the following:

Someday, we hope to live on the seaboard.

The western seaboard is great for surfing.

relatively

The Garden Route has a relatively high rainfall, so everything grows.

You use the word 'relatively' to compare what you are talking about to other similar things. Notice the following:

In his family he is relatively tall.

This has been a relatively warm winter.

interestingly enough

Interestingly enough, there has actually been more snow because of global warming.

You can use the phrase 'interestingly enough' to introduce surprising information that may be the opposite of what you would expect. Notice the following:

Interestingly enough, although there was traffic, we actually made it here faster than usual.

I didn't sleep much last night, but, interestingly enough, I feel very rested today.

floral

I think they call it Floral Kingdom.

The word 'floral' shows that this place has something to do with flowers. Notice the following:

Valentine's Day is a big day for floral sales.

What do you think about floral print curtains.

heritage site

It's a heritage site that you can visit near Capetown.

A 'heritage site' is an area which has a large number of man-made or natural things that are important for humans, culturally and historically. Notice the following:

The Taj Mahal, in India, is one of the most visited World Heritage sites.

Italy and Spain have the highest number of World Heritage sites.

species

The amazing thing is the natural occurrence of so many different species in a such a small area.

Here, different 'species' refers to different kinds of plants. Notice the following:

These animals look similar, but they are all members of different species.

How many different species of plants do you have in your gardens?