雅思精读：《孤独星球》有关哥伦比亚的描述
雅思精读：《孤独星球》有关哥伦比亚的描述，以下内容节选自《孤独星球》月刊中一段有关哥伦比亚的描述：
Colombia is a verdant wonderland
Soaring[高耸的] Andean summits, unspoiled Caribbean coast, enigmatic[神秘的，难以捉摸的] Amazon jungle, cryptic[神秘的] archaeological ruins and cobbled colonial communities. Colombia boasts all of South America's allure[魅力], and more.
Colombia's equatorial position affords it a diversity of landscapes matched by few countries. A slight tinkering in altitude takes you from sun-toasted Caribbean sands to coffee-strewn, emerald-green hilltops in the Zona Cafetera. Continue to climb and there's Bogotá, the bustling cradle[摇篮] of Colombia and third-highest capital city in the world.
verdant 这个词一般在较正式的行文或修辞中用得比较多；verdant形容（草、田野、树木等）青翠、绿油油的，葱葱郁郁的；所以当大家想要替换green（绿色）这个词时，就可以用verdant，还有点文艺范儿呢，比如：
It’s ancient dwellings in a verdant valley and above it are the Atlas Mountains.
The dining room features hardwood floors and views of the verdantsurroundings.
What surprised us was that a flamingo took flight across the verdantrainforest.
unspoiled spoil这个词很多小伙伴应该都比较熟悉了。在我们表达宠溺、宠坏小孩时，就可以用这个词，比如：
Nowadays, many little kids are terribly spoilt by their parents and grandparents.
另外spoil这个词本身还可以用来表达“破坏，糟蹋，扫兴”的含义。比如我们经常说“好好的假期都被坏天气破坏了”：
Our holidays were spoilt by bad weather, and we stayed at hotel for a whole week!
再比如：
The bad news that we would move to the new office building on the outskirtspoilt my day.
那么unspoiled大家应该比较能联想到了，un这个词根表示“无，没有，不”，unspoiled也就是还未被破坏的，也就是我们常说的尚未被开发、破坏的，。比如：
I visited Poda Island several years ago and it was still unspoiled and stunning at the time.
The environment is largely unspoiled but global warming is having a rapid impact on it.
With booming tourism, there’re few unspoiled landscapes in the country.
afford afford这个词大家特别熟悉的一个含义是“负担得起，有足够的钱、时间或地方做某事”；但在原文这里用这个含义来理解显然不太通了。afford在较为正式的书面用语中可以用来表示提供，或使某事物可能发生。在对应的中文释义上，会根据原文的语境较灵活地翻译。比如原文这里Colombia's equatorial position affords it a diversity of landscapes matched by few countries.则是指“哥伦比亚地处赤道附近，这使得它有着多样的地貌，这是少有国家能够匹敌的。”
再比如：
New technologies such as VR have afforded pleasure to many.
We stayed in a beachfront house and it afforded us a stunning view of the sea.
sun-toasted 在英文中，“名词+过去分词”的这种合成词形式是十分常见的；这种合成词言简意赅，比如这里的sun-toasted; toast作动词时表示“烤（黄/脆），加热”，那么把它的过去分词和sun结合在一起，所表达的意思就十分形象了“被太阳烤过的”，其实就是形容阳光明媚的沙滩且沙滩的颜色比较偏“烤焦，烤黄”的那种感觉；类似的表达还有sun-kissed beach(被太阳亲吻过的沙滩）sun-drenched beach (被阳光渗透的沙滩）等等，都可以用来指阳光明媚的沙滩。
coffee-strewn 这个词和sun-toasted有异曲同工之处，都是名词+过去分词构成；strewn是strew的过去分词；strew原本表示散播，撒满；那这里笔者说coffee-strewn无非就是形容这里的咖啡很多（因为我们都知道，南美其实是盛产咖啡豆）。
再比如我们形容某个地方的沙滩很脏，有很多垃圾，你完全可以说：
We were disappointed when we arrived - what we saw was just a litter-strewn beach with few palm trees.
