一言难尽

At the best of times and the worst of times,it was hard to tell them apart.

这是最好的时代，还是最坏的时代——也一言难尽

Cary: It's a long story, John, I've heard we would have a new boss.

这可真是一言难尽 John，我听说我们会有个新老板的。

I want to say so much, but I can hardly find the words.

我想说的有很多，但我真的一言难尽。

It's a long story. I'll tell you later.

一言难尽，以后我再告诉你。

I have so much to say and it's not to be expressed in a few words.

我有太多的话要说，真是一言难尽。

Robert Audley waited with consummate patience for a considerable time; but as the express was generally a long train, and as there were a great many passengers from Norfolk carrying guns and pointers, and other paraphernalia of a critical description, it took a long while to make matters agreeable to all claimants, and even the barrister's seraphic indifference to mundane affairs nearly gave way.

罗伯特·奥德利以无比的耐心等待了好久；但由于特别快车通常总是一列长长的客车，有许多旅客来自诺福克，带着猎枪和猎犬，以及其他一言难尽的各式各样的随身用品，得花不少时间才能把事情办得符合大家的各种要求，甚至大律师那种天使般的对尘世俗事无所谓的心情也几乎失控了。

But after innumerable fluttering thoughts, like a man perfectly confused and out of myself, I came home to my fortification, not feeling, as we say, the ground I went on, but terrified to the last degree, looking behind me at every two or three steps, mistaking every bush and tree, and fancying every stump at a distance to be a man; nor is it possible to describe how many various shapes affrighted imagination represented things to me in, how many wild ideas were found every moment in my fancy, and what strange unaccountable whimsies came into my thoughts by the way.

我无法知道，也几乎无法想象。这使我心慌意乱了，于是像一个神经错乱、精神失常的人那样，拔腿跑回自己的堡垒。一路上，惊恐万分，魂不附体，感觉不出自己是在飞跑；但走两、三步就要看看身后，远处的每一颗树、每一处树丛、每一个枯树干，都像人的怪影。当时，想象中出现多少可怕的怪影，幻觉里瞬间出现多少荒诞的想法，进入脑海的这无数的奇思怪想究竟是什么，真是一言难尽，无法形容。

But the big ex-dragoon had survived his affliction by a twelvemonth, and hard as it may be to have to tell it, he did not look much the worse for it.

但这位大个儿退伍龙骑兵熬过了十二个月的痛苦，尽管说起来一言难尽，他看上去倒并不因此更加糟糕。

Untold, there are too many if statements do not know how to go.

一言难尽，有太多的话不知道怎么去表述。

We are simple creatures yet our livers are complicated stories.

我们不过是简单的生物，我们的生命是一言难尽的曲折。

We have no common name for a mime of Sophron or Xenarchus and a Socratic Conversation; and we should still be without one even if the imitation in the two instances were in trimeters or elegiacs or some other kind of verse--though it is the way with people to tack on 'poet' to the name of a metre, and talk of elegiac-poets and epic-poets, thinking that they call them poets not by reason of the imitative nature of their work, but indiscriminately by reason of the metre they write in.

索夫农 、森那库斯和苏格拉底式的对话采用的模仿没有一个公共的名称；三音步诗、挽歌体或其他类型的诗的模仿也没有——人们把&诗人&这一名词和格律名称结合到一起，称之为挽歌体诗人或者史诗诗人，他们被称为诗人，似乎只是因为遵守格律写作，而非他们作品的模仿本质。

The relationship between communicative competence and grammar teaching should be that of the ends and the means.

交际能力和语法的关系应该是目标与途径的关系。