公館學英文 │ Hello Kitty is not a cat - she's a British school kid！什麼？Hello Kitty是個英國「人」？！ @ TOEIC,TOEFL,IELTS,全民英檢,SAT,菁英英日語-公館分校

Hello Kitty是許多大小朋友的最愛，有 Hello Kitty 餐廳、Hello Kitty飯店，還有Hello Kitty特展，連航空公司都把它拿來當作機艙主題，可見她魅力無窮!可是….粉絲們知道Hello Kitty 其實是「人」而不是「貓」嗎

You would be forgiven for having thought for your entire life that Hello Kitty was a cat. After all, she does kind of look like one - and she is called Kitty. But her creators Sanrio are adamant. She is a British school kid called Kitty White and she lives just outside London (although no-one is saying exactly where).

粉絲們這輩子都覺得Kitty是貓嗎?都誤會了也沒有關係，其實大部分人都誤會了! 畢竟她的長相和她的名字都暗示著她是一隻貓阿… 但是她的創作者日本的Sanrio (三麗鷗公司)堅定的表示Hello Kitty是一個英國的小孩，她的名字是Kitty White，而且她就住在倫敦的郊外，雖然沒有人明確地說出到底是哪裡。

*adamant ( adj. ) 堅定的

In fact, she has a whole life story and a family that includes a twin sister called Mimmy. Although Sanrio has a whole website dedicated to Kitty's biography, her appearance has suggested that she is animal rather than human - an assumption that also fooled Christine R Yano. "That's one correction Sanrio made for my script for the show. Hello Kitty is not a cat," she told the LA Times.

事實上，她也有自己家族的故事，她有個雙胞胎叫做Mimmy，雖然 Sanior (三麗鷗公司)努力的在網站上架構她家裡的故事和自傳，可是她的外表就是一隻貓咪阿! 而一位人類學家Christine R Yano 也一直認為Kitty是一隻貓，她也表示 Sanrio (三麗鷗公司) 因此請她修正她為 Hello Kitty 秀準備的草稿，而且還有許多要修正的地方。

*dedicate to 致力於…

"She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat.

"She's never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature.

"She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it's called Charmmy Kitty."

Yano claims a lot of people don't know Kitty's really a person and that many of her fans who are aware "don't care".

Sanrio (三麗鷗公司) 表示 :

1. Hello Kitty 是一個小女孩，也是大家的朋友，但她不是一隻貓。

2. Hello Kitty 一直都是兩隻腳走路，和人類一樣，從來沒有和貓咪一樣四隻腳在地上走。

3. Hello Kitty 自己有養一隻貓，貓的名字是Charmmy Kitty。

然而 Christine R Yano 表示很多人並不知道 Kitty是人類，她許多的粉絲也好像不太在意這種說法。

And the reason Kitty is British? Kitty 為什麼是英國人?!

"Hello Kitty emerged in the 1970s, when the Japanese and Japanese women were into Britain," said Yano.

"They loved the idea of Britain. It represented the quintessential idealized childhood, almost like a white picket fence. So the biography was created exactly for the tastes of that time."

Yano表示 : 「Hello Kitty出現的時間是1970年代，是日本人很瘋英國文化的年代。」「他們喜歡這個關於英國的說法，它代表了當年許多人認為的理想型童年，是很多人夢寐以求的童年和生活形式。所以 Hello Kitty 的自傳是完全符合那個年代的想法。」

*be into … 對…非常有興趣

*quintessential ( adj. ) 經典的

* white picket fence 理想型的 ; 舊式的

So now you know - Hello Kitty lives in the suburbs of London, is approximately five apples tall and was born on 1 November. And she's certainly not a cat.