W: Did you read the letter in the paper about smoking? The person who wrote that must be crazy.
你有看报纸上关于抽烟的信吗？那个写信的人一定是疯了。
M: I don’t think so. I think the government should do everything it can to discourage people from smoking.
我不这样认为。我觉得政府应该尽一切努力阻止人们吸烟。
W: Maybe so. But a law banning cigarettes will do no good.
或许是这样。但是出台禁烟的法律是没好处的。
M: No, you can’t suddenly make smoking illegal, but government could prohibit smoking in public places like movies and theatres.
不，你不能突然让抽烟变成违法，但是政府可以在电影院和戏院这样的公共场所禁烟。
Every year millions of dollars are wasted on cigarettes and every year thousands of people die of lung cancer. At the same time the government spends a huge amount of money trying to make people give up smoking. There is a very simple solution to this problem. Cigarettes should be forbidden by law. The only people who would suffer from such a law would be the tobacco companies’. But we all know that they contribute nothing to society.
每年，有成千上万美元浪费在香烟上，每年，数千人死于肺癌。同时，政府花费了大量的金钱来让人们戒烟。对于这个难题，有一个很简单的解决办法。应该立法禁烟。受这种法律影响的只有那些烟草公司的人。但是我们都知道，他们对社会毫无贡献。
