名词解释:守岁是汉族民间在除夕的习俗，又称照虚耗、熬年、熬夜。指在除夕夜一家人团聚，熬夜迎接农历新年的到来。你知道怎么用英语表达吗?
The tradition of staying up late on New Year's Eve is originated from an interesting folk tale.
In ancient China, there lived a monster named Year, who was very ferocious. Year always went out from its burrow on New Year's Eve to devour people.
Therefore, on every New Year's Eve, every household would have supper together. After dinner, no one dared go to sleep and all the family members would sit together, chatting and emboldening each other.
Gradually, the habit of staying up late on New Year's Eve is formed. Thus in China, "celebrating the Spring Festival" is also called "passing over the year (guo nian)".
守岁的传统源自于一个有趣的民间故事。
在中国古代有一个叫作“年”的凶猛怪物，在除夕夜，“年”会从地洞里出来吃人。
因此在除夕夜，每家每户都会一起吃晚饭，晚饭以后没人敢睡觉，所有的家庭成员会坐在一起聊天互相壮胆。
逐渐的，在除夕夜守岁的习惯形成了，因此在中国，庆祝春节也被叫作过年。
【讲解】
文中的staying up late on New Year's Eve就是“守岁”的意思，其中eve是名词，意为“(重大节日的)前夜，前夕”，New Year's Eve即为“除夕”，Christmas Eve在美国指“圣诞节前夕”，eve通常和介词on搭配，如：have a party on New Year's Eve(在除夕举行晚会)，而常用词汇evening多指从日落至就寝前的一段时间，如：summer evening(夏夜)
第一段中的tale作名词，意为“故事，传说”，含荒.唐不可信的意味，而legend 指民间传说或传奇故事，多含虚幻成分，如：Greek legend(希腊传说)