Finn: Close your eyes and listen…

Sun Chen: It sounds like you are in China…

Finn: But all these sounds are in fact from a sound installation in London.

Sun Chen: 我们在这里听到的声音来自一个声音装置 a sound installation 这个声音装置就在伦敦泰晤士河旁边的一个大厅里面。这项活动也是英国庆祝中国文化的大型活动的一部分。而这项活动叫做 China Now.

Finn: Welcome to On the Town, from BBC Learning English. I'm Finn.

Sun Chen: And I'm Sun Chen.

My name is Matthias; I'm an artist working mainly with sound. I'm particularly interested in soundscapes and city sounds.

Matthias Kispert

Finn: That was Matthias Kispert.

Sun Chen: Matthias 就专门负责这个装置来让人们听到中国艺术家在中国录制的真实声响。 Matthias 要做的工作就是把每天日常生活的声响都收录到声响风景当中去 soundscapes 声响风景。

Finn: Yes you might know the word landscapes.

Sun Chen: 山水风景。

Finn: Well these are like landscapes, but they're for your ears, not for your eyes. They're landscapes made of sound. Let's take a walk around.

So what we hear for example are sounds of markets in China, that then sometimes contrasts with more modern shopping centres and the soundscapes we experience there.

Matthias Kispert

Finn: We hear sounds of the traditional market contrasting with sounds from shopping centres.

Sun Chen: 市场的声响和购物中心声响的对比。

There are things like restaurants; restaurants play a big part in the social life over there in China.

Matthias Kispert

Finn: Sounds of restaurants.

Sun Chen: 餐馆。

People working, you know; we have sounds of factories, sounds of construction, construction is happening loads obviously.

Matthias Kispert

Finn: Factories.

Sun Chen: 工厂。

Finn: Construction.

Sun Chen: 建筑工地。

Sounds of different forms of communication, you know; communication via the computer, via chat, people on the phone.

Matthias Kispert

Finn: And communication.

Sun Chen: 人们之间的相互沟通。

Finn: So, in other words, lots of different everyday sounds from modern Chinese cities. The question is: why put them together into this sound installation?

Sun Chen: 我们还特别向 Matthias 问到了为什么要把这些声响组合在一起的原因。 他在回答我们问题的时候， 提到了这么一个单词要特别注意 incidental 偶然的、不经意的。

The idea comes from the incidental character of urban soundscapes. You know, people living together and the sort of social aspect of the soundscape means that there's a lot of sound happening all around us, and it tells us a lot about how people live together but at the same time it's a thing that just sort of happens, that is very incidental, you know.

Matthias Kispert

Sun Chen: OK 这些表达的都是不经意的声响 incidental 每天围绕在我们生活周围的声响。

Finn: Yes, and he said that these incidental sounds tell us a lot about the way people live together, although we might not normally notice them. He says these sounds "just sort of happen".

Sun Chen: They just sort of happen 这些声响在日常生活中随处发生。 它们也是我们日常生活的一部分。 当然这也就是为什么他对这些声响的社会属性很感兴趣 the social aspects.

Finn: And Matthias thinks that these different urban sounds help reflect the social and economic changes that China is going through at the moment.

Sun Chen: They reflect 反应了 the social and economic changes 社会和经济生活在当今中国的变化。 随着越来越多的英国人对中国越来越感兴趣， 播放这些声响就能够帮助这里的英国人用一种崭新的视角去了解每天中国普通的生活。

Finn: And that's about all we have time for in this edition of On the Town, join us again next time to learn about interesting events and places in Britain, while practising your English.

Sun Chen: 如果你还想反复收听我们的节目， 别忘了我们的网址是 www.bbcukchina.com.

Finn: That's www.bbcukchina.com. Bye for now.

Sun Chen: Bye.