现在我们都是正在经历着卡片时代.买电要用卡,取钱要用卡,坐公交车要用卡,就连医院看病也要用卡.我的钱包里现金少的可怜,卡倒是一堆,什么积分卡,打折卡之类,却很少有几张有用的卡.呵呵.上班至少要带两张卡,一张门禁卡,一张餐卡.看来我们和卡片真的走的很近.

Most British telephone cards are just plain green, but card collecting is becoming a popular hobby in Britain and collectors even have their own magazine, International Telephone Cards. One reason for their interest is that cards from around the world come in a wide variety of different and often very attractive designs. There are 100,000 different cards in Japan alone, and there you can put your own design onto a blank card simply by using a photograph or a business card.
The first telephone card, produced in 1976, were Italian. Five years later the first British card appeared, and now you can buy cards in more than hundred countries. People usually start collecting cards because the are small and light and you do not need much space for them. It is also a cheap hobby for beginners ,although for some people it becomes a serious business. In Paris, for example, there is a market where you can only buy telephone cards, and some French cards cost up to 4000 pounds. The first Japanese card has a value fo about 28000 pounds. Most people only see cards with prices like these in their collectors' magazine.

　　在英国，多数的电话卡只不过是很平常的绿色，但是收藏卡片渐渐成为一种流行的业余爱好，收藏者甚至有自己的杂志，《国际电话卡》。他们着迷的原因之一是世界各地的卡片有着五花八门、很多还很吸引人的图案。单单在日本就有十万张不同的卡片，在那儿你只要拿一张照片或者名片就可以作为自己的图案放在一张空白的卡片上。
　　第一张电话卡于1976年诞生于意大利。五年之后英国有了第一张电话卡，而现在你可以在上百个国家购买电话卡。人们通常因为它们小巧轻便，又占不了多少地方而开始收集卡片。对新手来说这还是一种廉价的爱好，但对有些人来说，这就成了一门像样的生意。举例来说，巴黎有一个市场，在那儿你只能买到电话卡，而有些法国卡要花上4000英镑。日本的第一张电话卡价值大约28000英镑。多数人仅仅在收藏者杂志上面上见过这么贵的。