Describe a friend from your childhood.

You should say:

how you met him/her

how long you are friends & what you did together

What made you like him/ her

and explain your friendship.

I am going to tell you about my first ‘best friend’ from childhood. I’ll explain how we met, how long we were friends, what we got up to and why I liked her so much, and I’ll try and explain our friendship so you can understand why we were so close.

我要告诉你我童年时的第一个“好朋友”。我会解释我们是怎么认识的，我们做了多久的朋友，我们做了什么，为什么我这么喜欢她，我会试着解释我们的友谊，这样你就能理解我们为什么这么亲密。

I first met my friend Tracey when I went to junior school. We were sat next to each other in class, I don’t think we chose to do that particularly, we probably just sat where we were told to on our first day of the school year, but we got on straight away and were firm friends from the age of about 8 until we left school to go to senior school aged about eleven. We happened to go to different schools at that point, and sadly our friendship drifted apart, when we were younger though, we were inseparable.

我第一次见到我的朋友特蕾西是在我上初中的时候。我们并肩而坐,在课堂上,我不认为我们选择这样做特别,我们可能只是坐在被告知要在我们学校的第一天,但我们立刻上了,是公司的朋友从8岁开始,直到我们离开学校去高级学校大约11岁。那时我们碰巧去了不同的学校，不幸的是，我们的友谊渐渐疏远了。

Tracey and I had similar interests. We liked being outside, we liked horses (although neither of us went riding or had access to ponies back then), we enjoyed doing craft type activities (although she was really talented creating amazing pictures and artwork, whilst I just got stuck at the stage of coloring in! My main memory is of us heading off together on our bikes for hours and hours at a time. She lived quite near a large park, so I used to cycle to her house, and then we’d go to the park together with a picnic lunch and spend all day playing games together. I’m embarrassed now to think how we galloped around pretending to be horses or whatever the game of the day was, but it was fun at the time. We used to try hula hooping and skipping too, seeing who could hold up a hoop for the longest of skip without stopping using a rope. I have a feeling she was more accomplished than me at both these activities too. Sometimes we would try to find and catch grasshoppers (we always let them go) or we would just laze in the sun until it was time to go home. It was very different then. There were no mobile phones, and people were much more relaxed about letting their children go off and play all day, I’m not sure if you could still do that. Still, we were very happy, and used to come back to her house tired and hot and sunburnt, and if we were lucky her mum would give us lemonade to drink and sometimes cheese salad rolls for tea. Happy memories indeed!

特蕾西和我有相似的兴趣。我们喜欢待在户外，我们喜欢马(虽然当时我们俩都不骑马，也没有办法骑小马)，我们喜欢做手工制作的活动(虽然她真的很有才华，能创作出令人惊叹的图画和艺术品，而我却被困在了着色的舞台上!)我的主要记忆是我们一起骑着自行车一骑就是几个小时。她住在一个很大的公园附近，所以我经常骑自行车去她家，然后我们一起去公园野餐，一起玩一整天的游戏。现在我很尴尬地想起我们是如何假装成马或其他什么游戏，但它在当时很有趣。我们以前也试过呼啦圈和跳绳，看看谁能在不停止使用绳子的情况下，举起一个呼啦圈最长时间。我觉得她在这两方面都比我更有成就。有时我们会去找蚱蜢(我们总是让它们离开)，或者在太阳下懒洋洋地躺着，直到该回家的时候。那是非常不同的。当时没有手机，人们对让孩子出去玩一整天都很放松，我不确定你还能不能这样做。尽管如此，我们还是很开心，常常回到她的家里，又累又热，皮肤晒得黝黑。如果幸运的话，她妈妈会给我们喝柠檬水，有时还会给我们吃奶酪沙拉卷。记忆真的快乐!

In terms of why we liked each other, well we just did! We enjoyed doing the same things, we could talk about anything to each other – complaining about school work or annoying parents and other such troublesome worries of the time. She had pet rabbits, and I had pet guinea pigs, so looking after our pets was a shared interest too. It probably helped that we lived quite close to each other and both had bikes too. We also both had a vivid imagination, it meant we could have remarkable adventures together pretending to inhabit whole new worlds that we had invented for ourselves.

至于我们为什么喜欢对方，我们就是喜欢!我们喜欢做同样的事情，我们可以互相谈论任何事情——抱怨学校的功课，或者惹恼父母，或者其他当时的烦恼。她有宠物兔子，我有宠物豚鼠，所以照顾我们的宠物也是一个共同的兴趣。我们住得很近，而且两人都有自行车，这可能对我们有帮助。我们都有一个生动的想象力，这意味着我们可以一起有非凡的冒险，假装住在一个全新的世界，我们自己发明的。

We kept in touch for a while, but both eventually moved on. I think she went on to become an artist of some renown, which was not surprising given her early talent for art. Whatever she does and wherever she ended up I hope she is happy and successful too, and I will always remember her as a brilliant companion from when I was young, I wonder if she remembers me too.