Roland Buerk, BBC News, Tokyo

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

Background: 一条蓝翅金枪鱼在东京拍卖市场以70多万美元的天价成交，打破了历史纪录。一家饭店的老板买走了这条269公斤重的金枪鱼。

The first auction of the New Year at Tokyo's Tsukiji fish market is always closely watched - high prices are a tradition.

But when the bidding was over the bluefin tuna had become the most expensive fish in history - 56.49m yen, nearly three-quarters of a million dollars.

It smashed the previous record set last year of 32.49m yen.

The buyer was the owner of a chain of sushi restaurants. He said he wanted to liven up Japan and help the nation recover from last year's earthquake and tsunami.

The fish was caught off Aomori, just north of the coast battered by the disaster.

At 269kg it's a giant. But even so when cut up into sushi each mouthful works out at 5,000 yen, more than $65.

The restaurant chain though will sell it for its usual tuna prices, between $1.60 and $5.40 per piece, depending on the cut.

• expensive [ik´spensiv]   a.费钱的，昂贵的   (初中英语单词)
• previous [´pri:viəs]   a.先，前，以前的   (初中英语单词)
• restaurant [´restərɔnt]   n.饭店，菜馆   (初中英语单词)
• earthquake [´ə:θkweik]   n.地震；大变动   (高中英语单词)
• auction [´ɔ:kʃən]   n.&vt.拍卖   (英语四级单词)
• mouthful [´mauθful]   n.一口；少量   (英语四级单词)