Classic Stories: A Tale of Two Cities

经典故事:双城记

Learning English Stories

语言学习

2025-05-09

5 分钟
PDF

单集简介 ...

Enjoy a classic story in English, and learn 15 uses of 'time'. FIND BBC LEARNING ENGLISH HERE: Visit our website ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish Follow us https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/followus SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER: ✔️ https://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/newsletters LIKE PODCASTS? Try some of our other popular podcasts including: ✔️ 6 Minute English ✔️ Learning English from the News ✔️ Learning English Conversations They're all available by searching in your podcast app
更多

单集文稿 ...

  • Hello, my name's Tim. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

  • Today's story has one of the most famous opening lines of all time.

  • It's an epic tale of terrible cruelty and terrific courage, set around the French Revolution.

  • We begin in 1775.

  • The time is ten past eleven at night, and Jarvis Lorry, manager of Telson's Bank,

  • is given a message asking him to meet a young woman, Lucie Manette, at Dover.

  • Lorry tells her some astonishing news.

  • Her father, who has spent eighteen years falsely imprisoned in the Bastille,

  • an infamous Parisian prison, has just been released.

  • They travel to France and find him living above a wine shop owned by his former servants,

  • Ernest and Thérèse Defarge.

  • He has been in prison for such a long time that he's gone mad and spends his time obsessively making shoes.

  • Laurie reassures Lucy that with love and care he will recover in no time.

  • and they all return home.

  • Five years later, the French émigré Charles Darnay is on trial in London for treason.

  • He has been framed by two spies, Cly and Bassard, who claim that they would recognise him anywhere.

  • Darnay's lawyer points out that his colleague, Sidney Carton, looks almost identical to Darnay.

  • so they can't possibly be sure that Darnay is the right man.

  • The tactic works.

  • Darnay is acquitted.