Jerry跟同事Paula和Will打招呼，聊聊彼此周末都干了些什么。

Jerry: Hey, Paula. Hi, Will. Did you have a good weekend?

Paula: Yeah... I checked out that new 3D movie. It's amazing what they can do with technologies these days!

Will: I went mountain biking with a couple of friends. We worked up a good sweat and had a good time. How about you, Jerry?

J: Actually, I spent most of the weekend looking at travel brochures.

Paula周末去看了新出的三維電影，3D movie. Will跟幾個朋友一起去騎山地車，山地車在英語里叫 mountain bike，在上面那段話里是做動詞用，Will went mountain biking. Will還說，他們出了一身汗，玩得特別開心。work up a sweat是一種習慣用法，指鍛煉身體或從事體力活動很投入，可以是真的出了一身汗，也可以形容特別賣力。Jerry呢，一個周末大部分時間都在看旅游宣傳材料travel brochures. 看來他是要休假嘍？Paula問：

P: Really? Are you going somewhere?

J: Well, starting on the 20th of this month, I'm taking a fiveweek vacation.

W: Five weeks!! No way!

P: Get out of here! How did you swing that?

J: Actually, the company owes me about four months' worth of vacation time. I've been working here since 2002 and haven't taken a vacation yet. I've got oodles of comp time as well.

W: Sorry, what's comp time?

Jerry要休五個星期的假，Will和Paula都不敢相信，問Jerry, How did you swing that? to swing it是一種口語里非正式的說法，意思是說服別人，達到自己的目的。Jerry解釋說，他從2002年來這家公司工作，就一直沒休過假，現在公司欠他四個月的假期，Jerry說，另外，I've got oodles of comp time as well. oodles of something也是一種非正式的說法，相當于a lot of something，Jerry說自己除了四個月的假期，還攢了很多comp time. Will是新畢業的大學生，不知道什么是comp time. Paula解釋說，

P: The "comp" is short for compensation. Basically he means overtime pay.

J: Yeah, but some companies like ours don't really pay overtime... they give you extra vacation hours instead. If you add up all the vacation time and comp hours I have, I have a lot of time.

P: When I was working for a company in Germany they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules.

Paula解釋說，comp是compensation的簡寫，其實就是overtime加班，有些公司不發加班費，而是把員工加班的時間折合成假期，補償給員工。另外，歐洲和美國的情況也有很大的區別，Paula說，她以前曾經在德國的一家公司工作過，they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules. 那家公司不僅工作時間短，而且加班的規定也very liberal，很松。

J: I have to say I'm looking forward to my long vacation. I think you need at least three or four weeks of doing nothing before you can truly relax.

W: I thought you said you had months and months of vacation time available. Why are you only taking five weeks off?

J: Five weeks was the best I could negotiate with my boss. She says she knows I've earned the time, but she begged me not to take more than five weeks.

P: Five weeks should be long enough! Who knows? Maybe you'll get bored and come back early!

J: (laugh) I doubt it.

Jerry雖然有好幾月的假期，但老板最多只讓他休五個星期， 看來他一定是很能干。Paula開玩笑說，五個星期也足夠了，搞不好用不了五個星期Jerry就覺得實在無聊，提前回來上班了呢！

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（來源：VOA英語教學 編輯：丹妮）