Pre-reading

Question: Why did Robinson want a canoe?

Intensive Reading

It was during my third year on the island. The bread wasn’t perfect but I liked it a lot. It was my first bread after a long time.

这是我在岛上的第三年了。面包并不完美，但我很喜欢。这是很长时间以来我的第一个面包。

I thought about travelling around the island by sea. I thought that it was possible to make a canoe from a big tree. I found one big tree. I cut the tree and I started to make a hole in it.

我想在海上绕着岛航行一圈。我想也许可以用一棵大树做一个独木舟。我找到了一颗大树。我把树砍到了，开始在上面挖一个洞。

One day, when I was working on the canoe, I realized that I didn’t know how to move it from the forest to the beach. I tried everything to move the canoe.

有一天，当我在独木舟上工作时，我意识到我不知道怎么把它从森林挪动到海滩。我尝试了一切办法来挪动独木舟。

I even thought about digging a channel, but it was all useless. There was a hill between the forest and the beach. I was really sad that I had to leave the canoe in the forest. Many days of work were lost. I didn’t believe that I could make such a mistake. I had to plan my work better next time.

我甚至想到了挖一个水渠，但都没有用。森林和海滩之间有一座小山。我真的很伤心，只得把独木舟留在森林里。很多天的工作白费了。我无法相信我竟然犯了这样的错误。下一次我必须计划好我的工作。

Notes:

1. canoe: 独木舟。

2. channel:这里指“水渠，沟渠”。channel意思很多，还可以表示“电视台”“途径”“海峡”等。

3. useless: 没用的，反义词为useful，类似的用法还有helpless和helpful，careless和careful等等。

4. make a mistake: 犯错误。

Exercise:

Why was it useless to dig a channel to move the canoe?