托德:邁克,我在想,你來自加拿大,而且你在美國生活過,現(xiàn)在我們一起工作,在我們公司除了你都是美國人,你覺得加拿大人和美國人有什么不同呢?
Mike: Well, first of all, I'll just, to be honest, just to start, I'll say that Canadians and Americans I think share a lot more similar qualities than they do differences, I mean, I think Canadians have a lot more in common with Americans than they do with even with English people who are like from Britain who were the original sort of Canadians, I suppose, a few hundred years ago, so in that way I think that like again, just to preempt it by saying we're very similar, however, there's definitely some differences I think between Americans and Canadians. First of all, I think Canadians in general are maybe a little bit more humble. Not to put this in a negative way, but they just, they're not as willing to engage in an argument, or to argue over a point, I think, as you know, as most, at least, most of my American friends, who’ll want to debate and get to the bottom of a topic. Canadians would rather just sort of back off and say, you know, "That's, you're right. That's fine. Great" but again, and I can't speak for all Canadians because it depends on your personality too, but just to generalize, that's one difference. Also, I would say that Americans in general tend to be a lot more businesslike and maybe even a little more conservative in, just in the way they, in the way that they, I guess, view, relations, or view discussions with people, but Canadians tend to be a little bit more liberal, a little bit more free and easy-going, again, I'll preempt that by saying all of the Americans that I work with I think are quite liberal and not conservative thinking at all, but if you want to generalize, yeah, culturally, then I think those are probably a couple of differences between the two cultures, or people in the cultures.
邁克:嗯,首先,說實話,相比于不同點,我覺得加拿大人和美國人有很多相似的特質,我的意思是我認為加拿大人和美國人有很多共同點,我想大概是幾百年前,英國人原來是加拿大人的一部分,所以首先我們非常相似,不過美國人和加拿大人之間當然有一些不同點。首先,總的來說,加拿大人可能要更謙卑一些。不要用消極的方式來理解,加拿大人不太愿意牽涉進爭論中,或者是不愿意就某一觀點進行爭論。我想,正如你知道的那樣,至少我的大部分美國朋友想?yún)⑴c到爭論中,他們想弄清論題的真相。加拿大更愿意避讓,他們會說“嗯,你是對的。那很好。很棒。”不過,我不能代表所有加拿大人,因為這也要取決于你的個性,不過總的來說,這是一個不同點。而且,我認為美男人一般來說效率更高,而且他們和別人的關系以及在和別人進行討論方面要更保守,而加拿大人則更開放,更自由,更隨和,而和我一起工作的美國人,我認為他們的想法很開放,一點也不保守,不過如果從總體來說,從文化上來說,我想兩種文化或者說受這些文化影響的人們有一些不同點。
Todd: Yeah, anything else, any other differences?
托德:沒錯,那有嗎,還有其他不同點嗎?
Mike: Well, I think, one thing that Americans tend to point to with Canadians, and it is true to some extent, other than our love of hockey, is sense of humor. I think Canadians in general tend to have a, I wouldn't say unique, but they just tend to look at I guess, look at things with a little bit more of, a bit of humor, too it, and I think the main reason for that is cause it's so bloody cold in Canada.
邁克:我想,美國人和加拿大人其中一個需要指出的不同點是,除了我們對冰球的喜愛,從某種程度上來說應該是不同的幽默感。我認為總體來說,我不認為他們的幽默感很獨特,不過加拿大人以更幽默的方式來看待事物,我想主要原因是加拿大太冷了。
Todd: Fair enough. Thanks Mike.
托德:有道理。謝謝你,邁克。