微博：@考蟲Vivian老師
備註：加 * 的單詞是考研詞彙，原文中給出備註的詞彙不需要掌握哦。
說明：本篇文章選自《紐約時報》(The New York Times)。關於排版，我們把重點詞/難詞放在了英文原文後面，輔助大家理解原文。接著才是中文翻譯。避免原先有些同學在自己嘗試翻譯時眼睛老是瞄到中文翻譯的情況~
I got my first iPhone during Chinese New Year in early 2012. It wasn’t anything I』d aspired to own. I wasn’t particularly techy, nor could I afford the brand as a graduate with a starting salary.
*aspire /əˈspaiə(r)/ v.渴望(成就)；有志(成為)
techy (also techie) /ˈteki/ n.科技通；科技迷；(尤指)電腦通，電腦迷
starting salary 起薪；入職薪酬
2012年初的中國春節期間，我得到了我的第一部iPhone。這並不是我特別渴望擁有的東西。我對科技不算特別有熱情，而且作為一名拿著起薪的畢業生，我也負擔不起這個品牌。
But at a dinner with an old friend of my father’s, the friend gave me, along with other knickknacks, an iPhone 4. My gift came with a caveat, however: It wasn’t the sought-after 4S that had caused a frenzy around the country after its release in January. Mine was a simple iPhone 4 — released in 2010, and by then considered already past its prime as a formal gift. That meant I was almost certainly a secondary or even tertiary receiver of the phone — China’s gift-giving culture is all about regifting — but back then, the Apple brand carried enough cachet that my father’s friend still saw it as good enough to give a close friend’s daughter, if not quite prized enough to present to a business partner.
knickknack /ˈnɪknak/ n.小東西，小擺設
caveat /ˈkæviæt/ n.警告；告誡
sought-after adj.爭相獲得的；吃香的；廣受歡迎的
frenzy /ˈfrenzi/ n.瘋狂；狂亂；狂暴
*prime /praim/ n.盛年；鼎盛時期；黃金時期
tertiary /ˈtə:ʃəri/ adj.第三的；第三位的；第三級的
cachet /ˈkæʃei/ n.威信；聲望
prized /praizd/ adj.珍貴的；寶貴的
但在和我父親的一位老友吃晚飯時，他給了我一部iPhone 4和其他小玩意。不過，這禮物也伴隨著一個附帶聲明：它不是當年1月一經發布就備受歡迎，在全國引發狂潮的iPhone 4S。我的禮物只不過是一款2010年發布的iPhone 4，當時人們認為它已經過了作為正式禮物的黃金時期。這意味著我幾乎肯定是這部手機的第二手甚至第三手接受者——轉送是中國送禮文化的重點——但那時，蘋果品牌有足夠的聲望，父親的朋友仍然認為它就算不是足以送給商業夥伴的珍貴禮物，也足以送給好朋友的女兒。
—to be continued...