Jerry跟同事Paula和Will打招呼，聊聊彼此週末都幹了些什麼。
Jerry: Hey, Paula. Hi, Will. Did you have a good weekend?
Paula: Yeah… I checked out that new 3D movie. It's amazing what they can do with technologies these days!
Will: I went mountain biking with a couple of friends. We worked up a good sweat and had a good time. How about you, Jerry?
J: Actually, I spent most of the weekend looking at travel brochures.
Paula週末去看了新出的三維電影，3D movie. Will跟幾個朋友一起去騎山地車，山地車在英語裏叫 mountain bike，在上面那段話裏是做動詞用，Will went mountain biking. Will還說，他們出了一身汗，玩得特別開心。work up a sweat是一種習慣用法，指鍛鍊身體或從事體力活動很投入，可以是真的出了一身汗，也可以形容特別賣力。Jerry呢，一個週末大部分時間都在看旅遊宣傳材料travel brochures. 看來他是要休假嘍？Paula問：
P: Really? Are you going somewhere?
J: Well, starting on the 20th of this month, I'm taking a fiveweek vacation.
W: Five weeks!! No way!
P: Get out of here! How did you swing that?
J: Actually, the company owes me about four months' worth of vacation time. I've been working here since 2002 and haven't taken a vacation yet. I've got oodles of comp time as well.
W: Sorry, what's comp time?
Jerry要休五個星期的假，Will和Paula都不敢相信，問Jerry, How did you swing that? to swing it是一種口語裏非正式的說法，意思是說服別人，達到自己的目的。Jerry解釋說，他從2002年來這家公司工作，就一直沒休過假，現在公司欠他四個月的假期，Jerry說，免費學習英語的網站，另外，I've got oodles of comp time as well. oodles of something也是一種非正式的說法，免費學習英語的網站，相當於a lot of something，Jerry說自己除了四個月的.假期，還攢了很多comp time. Will是新畢業的大學生，不知道什麼是comp time. Paula解釋說，
P: The “comp” is short for compensation. Basically he means overtime pay.
J: Yeah, but some companies like ours don't really pay overtime… they give you extra vacation hours instead. If you add up all the vacation time and comp hours I have, I have a lot of time.
P: When I was working for a company in Germany they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules.
Paula解釋說，comp是compensation的簡寫，其實就是overtime加班，有些公司不發加班費，而是把員工加班的時間摺合成假期，補償給員工。另外，歐洲和美國的情況也有很大的區別，Paula說，學習英語的網站，她以前曾經在德國的一家公司工作過，they had super short work weeks and very liberal overtime rules. 那家公司不僅工作時間短，而且加班的規定也very liberal，很鬆。
J: I have to say I'm looking forward to my long vacation. I think you need at least three or four weeks of doing nothing before you can truly relax.
W: I thought you said you had months and months of vacation time available. Why are you only taking five weeks off?
J: Five weeks was the best I could negotiate with my boss. She says she knows I've earned the time, but she begged me not to take more than five weeks.
P: Five weeks should be long enough! Who knows? Maybe you'll get bored and come back early!
J: （laugh） I doubt it.
Jerry雖然有好幾月的假期，但老闆最多隻讓他休五個星期， 看來他一定是很能幹。Paula開玩笑說，五個星期也足夠了，搞不好用不了五個星期Jerry就覺得實在無聊，提前回來上班了呢！
