明天就是“六一儿童节”了，网络上各种各样回忆儿时时光的帖子又开始泛滥了。其中最受人追捧的就是关于儿时游戏的回忆，丢沙包、跳房子、跳皮筋、拍画片，等等。咱们今天就应应景，说说“跳房子”这个游戏的英文说法吧。

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”是一种儿童游戏，玩家将一个小物件投掷到画在地面上有编号的长方形框框里面，然后用单脚或者双脚跳过去取回那个物件。

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."

有人猜测说“跳房子”的游戏是由罗马人或者中国人发明的，不过最早关于这个游戏的记录可以追溯到1677年。在《穷罗宾列传》一书1677年的记载中，这个游戏被称为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.

既然这个游戏在17世纪就已经广为人知，那么从逻辑上来说，这个游戏可能在1677年之前的几十年（甚至几百年）就已经存在了。

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（中国日报网英语点津 Helen 编辑）

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