学富五车

我们历史老师读的书特别多，同学们都说他学富五车。

Our history teacher has read an incredible number of books. Classmates all say he's "five carts of books" learned.

学富五车？这是什么意思？读书多，为什么要用车来说呢？

"Five carts of books"? What does that mean? If he's read a lot, why describe it using carts?

这句话是很久以前的说法，那时候还没有纸，写字用的是竹子。

This phrase comes from a very long time ago, from before there was paper, when people wrote on bamboo.

用竹子写字？那不是很难写吗？

Writing on bamboo? Wouldn't that be hard to write on?

是不容易，而且竹子写出来的书很重，也很大。一本书可能要用很多竹子才能写完。

It's not easy, and a book written on bamboo was heavy and big. One book might need a lot of bamboo just to get written.

那如果一个人读了很多这么重的书，家里得有多少竹子啊？

So if someone read a lot of books that heavy, how much bamboo would there be at their house?

对啊，如果一个人读的书多到要用五辆马车才能放得下，大家就说他学富五车。

Exactly. If someone's books needed five horse-carts just to hold them all, people would call him "five carts of books" learned.

五辆马车的书，那得多少人才能搬得动啊，太不方便了。

Five cart-loads of books. How many people would it take to move that? So inconvenient.

然后有了纸，书就不重了，五车书的东西，可能一个小房间就放得下。

Then paper came along, and books stopped being heavy. What once needed five carts might now fit in one small room.

房间还是要花钱买，但是跟五辆马车比，还是好多了。

A room still costs money, sure, but compared to five horse-carts, that's a lot better.

现在呢？现在这些字可能都在一个小小的手机里，你到哪儿都能带着走。

And now? Now those same words might all be inside one tiny phone, one you can carry anywhere.

这么说，学富五车这句话，从竹子，到纸，到手机，说的是两千年的书的故事。

So this phrase, "five carts of books," going from bamboo to paper to phones, is telling the two-thousand-year story of the book.

对，我们刚才就是这样，先想到手机，再想到纸，最后才想到竹子有多重。

Right, that's exactly what we just did. We thought of the phone first, then paper, and only at the end thought about how heavy the bamboo really was.