“玩”可得小心

　　又到了盼望已久的春节了，可以好好玩一玩啦。除了除夕之夜可以放焰火之外，还可以和朋友们玩个昏天黑地。玩的时候可得小心，别惹出麻烦来哦。

　　我们知道，“放焰火”是play with fireworks；但是，play with fire可就危险了，有句古话“玩火者必自焚”你应该知道吧？！那可不是闹着玩儿的。你也许会问，那我和朋友们出去玩，总不会有问题罢。当然，汉语中我们常说“跟谁出去玩”，这句话完全正确。但是，你知道用英语怎么表达类似的含义吗？比如说，“她上个星期天和他一块出去，玩得很开心。”该怎么把它翻译成英语？假如你把它译成：Last Sunday she went out and played with him happily.用到了这个play with的话，那我觉得你就需要好好看看这篇文章了，以免不小心闹出一些尴尬来。

　　在英语中，表达“玩”可不都是像上面句中的play。有一点我们应该清楚：Children play and all children love to play, but adults do not play。成年人可以play cards（玩牌），play football，play golf（打高尔夫球）或其他games；同样，可以说Children play with each other/ together，但换了adults就不行了。用正确的英语表达上面那句话的意思可以是She went out with him last Sunday and they enjoyed themselves或…they had a good/ wonderful/ marvelous time.另外，你想邀请别人“这个周末你愿意来我家玩吗？”决不是Would you like to come to my house and play this weekend? 可以这么说：Would you like to spend this weekend with my family/ in my house? 要是你和朋友们利用假期去昆明玩了几天，回来后碰到你的一个外国朋友，你忍不住想把你的兴奋和他分享分享，你该怎么用英语表达呢？对，We spent a few days enjoying ourselves in Kunming. 也可以说We spent a few days in Kunming and we had a great fun there. 总之，千万不要直译。

　　我有一个学生，学了play之后，觉得play真是神通广大，因为我们除了可以play basketball(打篮球)，play chess（下棋）外，还可以play piano（弹钢琴），play violin（拉小提琴）等等，看来，一切和玩啊娱乐啊有关的都可用play了。于是，他说：Both my parents were away on a business trip. I was left alone at home, so I could only play with myself. 很清楚，他想说“没人在家，只有自己跟自己玩。”可是外教听了却表情尴尬，说native speakers会把play with oneself理解为masturbate，并让学生自己去查。由此可见，play with不能随便用，“玩”时可得小心。