明天就是“六一兒童節”了，網絡上各種各樣回憶兒時時光的帖子又開始泛濫了。其中最受人追捧的就是關于兒時游戲的回憶，丟沙包、跳房子、跳皮筋、拍畫片，等等。咱們今天就應應景，說說“跳房子”這個游戲的英文說法吧。

Hopscotch is a children's game in which players toss a small object into the numbered spaces of a pattern of rectangles outlined on the ground and then hop or jump through the spaces to retrieve the object.

“跳房子”是一種兒童游戲，玩家將一個小物件投擲到畫在地面上有編號的長方形框框里面，然后用單腳或者雙腳跳過去取回那個物件。

There are apocryphal stories of hopscotch being invented by Romans or Chinese, but the first recorded reference to hopscotch dates back to 1677. In an entry of Poor Robin’s Almanack for that year, the game is referred to as "Scotch-hoppers."

有人猜測說“跳房子”的游戲是由羅馬人或者中國人發明的，不過最早關于這個游戲的記錄可以追溯到1677年。在《窮羅賓列傳》一書1677年的記載中，這個游戲被稱為Scotch-hoppers。

Since the game was known and popular in the seventeenth century, it is logical to assume that it existed at least a few decades (or perhaps even many centuries) before 1677.

既然這個游戲在17世紀就已經廣為人知，那么從邏輯上來說，這個游戲可能在1677年之前的幾十年（甚至幾百年）就已經存在了。

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（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

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