Madame Wang's English, spoken choppily and with the hint of a French accent, is less than perfect, though it is leagues ahead of my terrible Chinese. She speaks with little concession to English grammar, omitting pronouns, tenses and even verbs and nouns. Gaps are filled with the most splendid mimes.
是否也是我们说英语的写照？
leagues ahead of - 第一次见到这个用法，就是比。。。优胜多了
mime 是“手势动作”

She's off on a tangent, telling a story about when Jackie Chan annoyed the Taiwanese government ...
“离题”原来是这样说的：go/fly off on/at a tangent

这样形容“鸡蛋馅饼”（即“蛋挞”）挺有趣：
The egg tart, with divinely crumbly pastry, is the best I've tasted.

“提出一个问题”可以说：broach the subject
I nervously broach the subject of who should pay for this feast.
字典的例句是：
She broached the subject of a picnic to her mother. 她向母亲提起野餐的问题。

August 大写是“八月”，却原来小写 august 是个形容词：
... George Buchanan ... remains skeptical, allowing his Macbeth only a dream of "three women, whose beauty was more august and surprising than bare women's useth to be ...
august (adjective) = impressive and respected e.g. an august institution
威严的; 令人敬畏的; 尊严的
the august presence of a monarch 帝王的威严样子

形容一个人“健壮的/结实的”通常会用什么单词？Strong？Well-built？Sturdy？
今天学会了两个新的：burly，heavyet
The burly 59-year-old is, after all, the man who turned independent cinema into a thriving global business ...
burly：
魁梧的; 强壮的
a big burly construction worker 高大结实的建筑工人
Roy, heavyset with a ready smile but a piercing look in his eye, is one of the lead lawyers ...
heavyset:
体格魁伟的
a heavyset, bull-necked man wearing a T-shirt that revealed his powerful musculature（肌肉组织）

有一个单词可以指“搞大了别人的肚子”：impregnate /ˈɪm.preg.neɪt/ （美式的重音放在第二个音节）
Nathan confronts David after he has impregnated Bathsheba and had her husband killed and is able to trick David into indicting himself for this blatant misuse of royal power.

拒绝是 refuse？reject？decline？原来还有 rebuff！
European leaders shift their focus this week to bolstering the euro region’s debt-crisis firewall after the Group of 20 nations rebuffed their call for help. The decision by G-20 finance ministers to fend off （挡开; 避开）pleas（请求, 恳求）for assistance pending an increase in the euro-area backstop puts the onus（负担; 义务; 责任）on Germany, the biggest national contributor to bailouts, to overcome its resistance to doing more.
rebuff 是种不客气的“No”（断然拒绝, 回绝）：
- to refuse to accept a helpful suggestion or offer from someone, often by answering in an unfriendly way
e.g. She rebuffed all suggestions that she should resign.
backstop 本来是棒球术语【挡球网】，这里是引申义：
an emergency precaution or last resort:
e.g. The human operator has to act as the ultimate backstop when things go badly wrong.

一直只知道 couch 是“沙发”，原来还是个动词！（就像 coach，可以是“公车”，也可以是动词 -- 训练、指导）。
For obvious reasons, most references to prophets for gods other than Yahweh are couched in polemical tone, just as are references to the veneration （尊敬）of those gods.
couch：
表达[(+in)]
His criticism was couched in very tactful language. 他的批评措辞很圆滑。
- to express something in a particular way [often passive]
e.g. I don't understand this form - it's all couched in legal terminology.

我们说“午夜”是“midnight”，那么凌晨一两点钟（凌晨时分）是什么呢？昨天读到的：
Time is relative anyway, and the "wee hours of the morning" can be the longest hours of the day if you lie awake and cannot sleep.
好像是美国人说“wee hours”，而英国人则说“small hours”：
The party continued into the wee hours.
She returned in the small hours.
She was up until the small hours of the morning trying to finish her
essay.

今天晚上在电视新闻上听到后任澳大利亚外长说的话，记录一下。怎么样说“内心挣扎”呢？怎样说“把你叫醒”呢？
There were warring emotions in my thoughts. But in the end when the distinctive voice of Prime Minister Gillard rouses you from your slumber and says, "Will you be foreign minister of Australia?" I couldn't have found it in me to have said no.

She was a stylish woman right into old age, with her long white hair wound neatly into a bun, her plain suits - usually a trouser suit - offset by a splash of colour from an Indian silk scarf or a Chinese shirt. And most memorable of all: her voice, that deep mannish growl that never lost its American drawl (拖长声调说话, 慢声慢气地讲话), often filled with warmth and humour but able to deliver a curse more readily than a compliment.

总有学不完的生词！
He was concerned about the media lampooning contemporary art.
lampoon - 汉语的解释是“挖苦”，但英语的解释更详尽：
verb - publicly criticize (someone or something) by using ridicule, irony, or sarcasm: e.g. The actor was lampooned by the press.
noun - a piece of writing, a drawing, etc. which criticizes in a humorous way a famous person or a public organization, allowing their bad qualities to be seen and making them seem stupid: e.g. The magazine is famed for its merciless political lampoons.

英语的游记：有多少是客观描写？有多少是主观感受？
挪威罗弗敦群岛（Lofoten Islands）的点滴：
... this otherworldly archipelago in the far reaches of northern Norway revealed itself to be a place of improbably jagged, snow-capped mountains surrounded by sea as clear and sparkly as liquid diamonds.
...
Driving between them on the islands' single, gracefully sweeping road, we had to keep pulling over to gawp（张口凝视）at waterfalls or marvel at the clouds spilling over ragged mountaintops. Had a flock of pterodactyls（翼手龙）emerged from behind a ridge I wouldn't have been the least surprised.
...
Bright yellow marigolds（万寿菊）and the creamy beads of cow parsley nod in the breeze by the roadside, birds chirrup incessantly, either confused or invigorated by the 24-hour sunlight, and the fields and mountains are carpeted with wild flowers and bright green ferns.