朋友们大家好！在账号刚刚创建的时候，我建立了一个外语学习的交流群，还请来了我之前的外教Ericka老师，完全免费的提供给各位朋友英语学习环境，我们第一季的6期内容已经全部完毕。
很多同学提出想要重复听力练习，为了响应广大朋友的号召，我们将在每周五为大家带来英语俱乐部栏目。天石和澳洲老师Ericka用语音的方式，跟大家聊一聊澳洲的一些文化，希望能够对你有所帮助！另外感兴趣的同学可以加入我们的微信群（），申请时请注明“英语学习”~
特别注意:
内文的音频请在公众号文章末尾的阅读原文收听！
Hello everybody. Welcome to another week’s course. It’s been two weeks since our last course together, how are you all? Unfortunately, Ericka is still in America so she can’t be with us for this week, so I will be doing this week’s course.
各位朋友们大家好，欢迎来到本周的课程。距离我们上次的课程已经有两周的时间了，大家还好吗？很可惜，Ericka老师现在还在美国进修，今天不能为我们上这次课程，所以我来临时带个课。
As some of you might know from my videos, I had a great time with my friends travelling around Melbourne, Sydney and Cairns. If you can remember, those are the cities we talked about in our previous courses. I hope all of you can travel there and experience the city yourselves.
相信很多朋友都看了我的视频节目，我在悉尼、墨尔本和凯恩斯度过了一个非常有意思的假期。如果大家还记得的话，这些城市就是我们之前上课讨论过的地方，希望大家都能有机会到这些城市去旅行。
What should we talk about in today’s class? As I’m sure many of you know, it is world cup season now! So, I figured we should talked about football in Australia.
那么我们今天的课程来聊聊什么呢？相信很多人都知道，现在正在举办世界杯（而且马上就要是法国对比利时的决赛了哦），所以我想今天我们就来聊聊澳洲的足球。
But first of all, we need to clarify a few things. We know the term ‘football’ as the sport played in the FIFA World Cup. But actually, if you say football in many English-speaking country, it will mean different sports!
但是在我们开始之前，我们先来解释几个概念。我们都知道football这个词是足球的意思，也就是世界杯里踢的那种足球，但事实上，在很多英语国家里说“football”其实指的是完全不同的运动。
For example, if you say football in America, then it’ll mean American football, the sport they played with helmet and armour, officially called “Grid Iron”.
举个例子，如果你在美国说football，那么他们会认为是在说美式足球（美式橄榄球），就是戴头盔和护具打的橄榄球。这项运动的官方名称叫做Gridiron（烤盘足球）。
If you say football in the UK, they’ll think you’re talking about British football, where they call it Rugby in Australia.
如果你在英国说football，那么英国人会觉得你在说英式橄榄球，也就是不带护具进行的橄榄球，官方名称叫Rugby。
Australia has its own type of football, called Australian Rules, or sometimes called Aussie rules. And the one played in the WC is normally referred as ‘soccer’ in Australia.
即使在澳洲也是有自己的football，官方名称叫澳洲足球（Australian Rules）。我们在世界杯上看到的足球，则在这些英语国家统称为Soccer。
Australians loves playing soccer. Soccer might be one of the most common sports to play.
澳洲人非常喜欢踢足球（soccer），足球可能是澳洲人进行的最为普通的一项体育活动。
Because Australian cities have less people living in them, they have more space for soccer pitches, and most of them are natural grass pitch, unlike many pitches in China which are built from artificial grasses. University of Queensland alone has 5 natural grass soccer pitches and 2 artificial ones!
由于澳洲的大部分城市居住人口比较少，就留出了很多地方建设足球场，而且大部分的足球场都是天然草地的，而不像国内的很多球场是人造草。光是昆士兰大学就有5个天然草整场和两个人造球场呢！
Apart from soccer facilities in Universities, many Australian cities has their own soccer tournament leagues for soccer enthusiasts in all ages and skill levels. Brisbane for example has what’s called a Brisbane Premiere league. Every district and neighbourhood of Brisbane can apply and form a local team to compete against each other. Even I was a player in one of those teams. Every team has their own coach, training sessions and official refereed games once per week, it was a fun experience.
除了在大学里的体育设施之外，很多澳洲城市都举办当地的业余足球联赛，提供各年龄段和技术水平的人享受足球的乐趣。比如说，布里斯班就有举办布里斯班超级联赛。每个区都会组成自己的球队参加比赛，我都曾经参加过布超的球队。球队的组成比较正式，每个队都有自己的教练，训练日和有主裁执法的主客场比赛 。
If you are a soccer enthusiast, joining a team in your local neighbourhood is defiantly a good idea.
如果你是个足球爱好者，参加布里斯班超级联赛是非常好的经历和体验。
Australia is also quite well known in professional soccer.
澳洲的职业足球也相当有名。
One interesting trivia is that Australia is actually a member of the Asian Football Confederation. Some disputes that Australia shouldn’t be included as Asian since they have a physique advantage, but since Oceania doesn’t have much countries that are competitive in soccer apart from Australia and New Zealand, Aussies stayed in AFC anyway.
一个非常有意思的冷知识是，澳洲事实上属于亚足联的成员国。有的人认为澳洲人属于欧洲人，在亚洲占了很大的身体优势，但是因为大洋洲除了澳新两国之外实在没有什么职业足球有竞争力的国家，所以就不再单独开设足球联盟了。
Australia national teams played quite well in many tournaments and is often referred as the ‘Socceroos’, referencing their iconic animal that is Kangaroo. The Socceroos have qualified every WC since 2006 and 1974, and has reached stage of 16 once in 2006. Also Australia won the AFC Asian cup once in 2015, came second in the same tournament in 2011 and finished 3rd place in FIFA confederation cup in 2001.
澳大利亚国家队在很多大赛中都有不错的成绩，绰号“足球袋鼠”。澳洲国家队打进了1974年，以及从2006年起的每一届世界杯，最好成绩是2006年创造的16强。除此之外，澳洲还在2015年成功赢得亚洲杯一次，在2011年获得了第二名，在2001的联合会杯上获得了第三名的好成绩。
Many of the Australia players are quite famous even in international clubs. Their most famous player is probably Tim Cahill, who has played for Chinese Super League teams ShangHai Shenhua and Hangzhou Greentown, also he’s one of the most famous players in British Premiere League club Everton. Many Australian players is playing, or have played for Chinese Super League teams, so you might know some of them. Their Goal Keeper Matthew Ryan is a player for Premiere League team Brighton & Hove Albion.
很多澳洲球员都在国际知名的球队踢球。澳洲当家球星当属前锋卡希尔，他也在中超球队杭州绿城和上海申花踢过球，他也是英超球队艾佛顿的前主力前锋。很多澳洲球员都在，或者曾经在中超效力，大家可能也有所耳闻。澳洲的主力门将马修莱恩在英超的布莱顿队效力。
Apart from soccer, Australian also plays British football, or Rugby.
除了足球之外，澳洲人也很喜欢玩英式橄榄球Rugby。
Australians are very good at Rugby. Their national Rugby team ranked world’s 4th, after New Zealand, England and Ireland. Like the soccer WC, there’s also a WC for rugby held once every 4 years. Australians have participated every single rugby WC since 1987, and have won twice in the 90s.
澳洲人橄榄球打的非常好，澳洲橄榄球国家队是排名世界第四的队伍，仅排在新西兰、英格兰和爱尔兰之后。就像足球世界杯一样，橄榄球每四年也有世界杯。澳洲参加了每一届的橄榄球世界杯，而且还在90年代获得两次胜利。
Probably many people have seen Rugby games in TV. Many people see it as the “American football without the protection helmet”. There are actually many differences between the two sports, although the ball they use looks alike. However, there’s no denying that Rugby is a contact sport, and it is easy to get injured if you don’t train yourself properly.
很多在电视上看过英式橄榄球的人都觉得英式橄榄球就是不带护具的美式橄榄球，这是不太准确的。事实上英式橄榄球和美式橄榄球是有很多区别的，虽然他们用的球很相似。无论如何，英式橄榄球还是一项对抗性运动，不经过系统的训练是非常容易受伤的。
What if I want to participate in the sport? You may ask. Like soccer, Australians likes to play rugby in their free time. Because you can play it at any nearby park, even in your own backyard, as long as there’s a place with grass, you can play it. It’s likely that you’ll see people of all ages play it everywhere.
有的人会问“那么我应该怎么参与到英式橄榄球中呢？”这是个好问题，澳洲人非常喜欢在业余时间打英式橄榄球，因为它对场地要求非常简单，有一片草坪就可以玩了。
If you are new to the sport, fear not, because there is a trimmed down version called touch football. The rules are more or less the same, but instead of tackling your opponent till he or she is completely grounded, in touch football, you only need to touch your opponent as a tackle. When your opponent is touched, he will have to put down the ball and organise another attack. This makes the sport much safer for people to play in a daily basis.
如果你是新人的话也不用害怕，因为rugby有一个简易版本叫做touch football。规则大致相同，但是在touch football里面，你只需要摸到对手就可以算作一次阻截，而不像在英式橄榄球里需要完全将将对手制服。这使得touch football日常进行起来安全得多。
There’s also a sport called Australian football.
除了上述两个运动之外，还有一项运动叫做澳式橄榄球。
To be honest, I’ve never played Australian football, nor do I fully understand the rules. Most people who play this sport is native Australians. Regardless, this is still a major sport in Australia. There’s also a tournament called AFL, Australian Football League. The season starts at March and ends at August, its grand finale, the super bowl, attracks tens of thousands of Australians every year.
实话实说，我从未玩过澳式橄榄，也从来没有完全明白它的规则，玩这项运动的人绝大部分是土生土长的澳洲人。虽然如此，这项运动在澳洲依旧是一项重要运动。澳式橄榄球的联赛叫做AFL，赛季从每年3月开始到8月结束。澳式橄榄球决赛“超级碗”的比赛每年都吸引成千上万的观众前去观战。
This brief introduction of football sports in Australia concludes today’s class, thank you for looking, and please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions! Till next time class, have a great weekend!
以上就是今天的全部内容，非常感谢大家的阅读，如果各位有什么问题，欢迎在评论区留言给我。祝大家有个美好的周末，我们下期再见！