自小我們就知道“十二生肖”的故事，可是，如今向老外講什么是“十二生肖”，怎么比登天還難？什么豬啊、狗啊、老虎啊，繞了半天彎兒，越講他越糊涂。別急，下面這段文字或許能幫您解燃眉之急。

It is said Buddha (the ultimate Emperor for the whole universe in Chinese legend) once called together all the animals on the earth for an important meeting. Only twelve animals turned up: the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, the snake, the horse, the sheep, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig. The rat, being the smartest, jumped on top of the ox to be the first one to arrive.

As a reward, the Buddha gave each animal a year in the cycle and declared that anyone born in that year would resemble the animal in some way. In addition, each two hours of the day is also governed by one animal. The hours of 11pm to 1:00 am is by Rat, from 1 am to 3 am by Ox and so on. Six elements of the planet: wood, fire, air, water, gold and earth are also integrated into the animalZodiacsigns.

在上述介紹里，您可能會看到“zodiac”一詞，其實啊，它就是讓老外了解“十二生肖”的契機所在。“十二生肖”相應的英文表達是“the Chinese Zodiac”。

“Zodiac”一詞來自希臘語“zodiakos”（動物園），在希臘人眼中，星座是由各種不同的動物形成，這也是十二個星座名稱的由來。由此，中國本土化的“zodiac”——the Chinese Zodiac——自然就是指“十二生肖”了。

相關鏈接：“站票”怎么說

（英語點津陳蓓編輯）