实战口语情景对话：Little Sister 妹妹

Kara: So, you mentioned there's a large gap between the oldest and you being towards the youngest. What do you think the differences growing up were between your life and their life and what were the advantages and disadvantages?

卡拉：你之前提到过，在你的家庭里，最大的孩子和最小的孩子之间有很大的年龄差距。你认为在成长过程中，你的生活和他们的生活之间有什么不同?这种年龄差距又有何利弊?

Lupe: Well, I think for the most part, it was a great advantage to be one of the younger ones. I'm the second youngest, so having ten, you know, ten siblings, ten older than me definitely helped be growing up because I always had a lot of people to look up to and, you know, telling me right from wrong, which was always a great help. Financially, it was the biggest advantage because, you know, I hear stories from my older siblings about them growing up because they didn't have a lot of resources and financially my family wasn't very stable so as they got older, I started working and helping out with, you know, all the expenses. It really helped us little ones to really be, you know, grow up in a better way and have all the things that maybe they didn't. And also, one of the biggest advantages was that once the older, my older siblings started working, making enough money, you know, they raised enough money to move here to the United States, and bring the rest of us here and we had the great advantage of going to school here in the United States and being able tolearn another language, educate ourselves, continue to go onto college, which is something that my older siblings didn't have, so I'm very grateful for that. I think the only disadvantage of being one of the younger ones is a lot of the traditions that were being passed in our family from generations didn't quite make it to us when we moved here to the United States. We weren't able to do many of the things my older siblings got to do when they lived in Mexico, but you know I really can't complain because we have a lot of other things that they didn't have when they were little.

卢佩：我认为，大多数情况下，年龄小的孩子有很大优势。我是家里倒数第二小的孩子，我有十个哥哥和姐姐，10个年纪比我大的哥哥姐姐在我成长过程中会帮我很多，因为他们会为我树立榜样，教我区分对错，这有很大的帮助。当然经济上的优势是最大的，因为我听我的哥哥姐姐们说过他们成长的故事，当时家里没有足够的能力，家里的经济状况也不稳定，所以他们渐渐长大以后，就要工作帮家里分担开支。这使年纪小的我们能更好地成长，我们有的东西他们可能都没有。另外一个大优势就是哥哥姐姐开始工作以后，他们能赚到、攒到足够搬来美国生活的钱，而且还可以把其他家人都带过来，在美国学校上学使我们获得很大的优势，而且还可以学习另一门语言，自我教育，继续上大学，这些都是我的哥哥姐姐们没有享受到的，所以我对此非常感激。我认为作为家里的老小唯一的坏处就是，因为我们搬到了美国，所以家庭里一些代代相传的传统并没有在我们身上延续。我们的哥哥姐姐在墨西哥生活时做过的很多事我们都没能做，不过我不能抱怨什么，因为我们拥有了他们小时候没有的东西。