中级笔译课后作业

Exercise 1

1.As holidays go, Thanksgiving is in some ways the most philosophical.

2.Today we

try not to take for granted the things we almost always take for granted. 3.We try, if only in that brief pause before the eating begins, to see through the well-worn patterns of our lives to what lies behind them. 4.In other words, we try to understand how very rich we are, whether we feel very rich or not. 5.Today is one of the few times most Americans consciously set desire aside, if only because desire is incompatible with the gratitude--- not to mention the abundance--- that Thanksgiving summons.

2.在众多节日中，感恩节是最令人深思的节日。今天，我们会把平时习以为常

的事看得很珍贵。至少会在饭前的片刻，看透一成不变的生活，悟出背后的道理。换句话说，无论我们觉得自己是贫是富，我们总是把自己看得很富有，今天，难得大多数美国人会有意识地把欲望放置一边，至少拥有一颗感恩的心，更不用说是一顿丰盛的晚宴了。这时欲望光临便显得格格不入了。Exercise 2

It should have been easy. They were battle-tested veterans with long ties to Reagan and even longer ties to the Republican party, men who understood presidential politics as well as any in the country. The backdrop of the campaign was hospitable, with lots of good news to work with: America was at peace, and the nation’s economy, a key factor in any election,was rebounding vigorously after recession. Furthermore, the campaign itself was lavishly financed,with plenty of money for a top-flight staff, travel, and television commercials. And, most important, their candidate was Ronald Reagan, a president of tremendous personal popularity and dazzling communication skills. Reagan has succeed more than any president since John F. Kennedy in projecting a broad vision of America –a nation of renewed military strength, individual initiative, and smaller federal government.

这应该是一件容易的事。他们是跟随里根多年，久经沙场的老将，与共和党是有着更深的渊源，是这个国家最熟悉总统政治的人。精选的背景也很有利，有很多的新闻可以炒作。例如：美国上下一片和平，国家经济，竞选的一个关键因素也在经过一段时间的衰退之后进行强有力的反弹。还有，这次竞选本身就收到了慷慨资助，可以比较充裕地培养一流竞选班子，支付巡回演讲以及电视广告的

费用。最重要的是，他们的候选人是罗纳德里根，一个有着极高的个人魅力，精湛的沟通技巧的一位总统，里根是自肯尼迪，F林肯以来的最成功地勾勒出美国蓝图的一位总统——一个军事力量复兴。富有个人创新精神的，联邦政府得以精简的国家。

Exercise 3

Some people insist that only today and tomorrow matter. But how much poorer we would be if we really lived by that rule! So much of what we do today is frivolous and futile and soon forgotten. So much of what we hope to do tomorrow never happens.

我们将变得更加可悲！那我们今天所做的有多少是琐碎无功的，很快就会被遗忘的！有多少我们明天要为之事将化为泡影！

The past is the bank in which we store our most valuable possession: the memories that give meaning and depth to our lives. Those who truly treasure the past will not bemoan the passing of the good old days, because days enshrined in memory are never lost.Death itself is powerless to still a remembered voice or erase a remembered smile.And for one boy who is now a man, there is a pond which neither time nor tide can change, where he can still spend a quiet hour in the sun.

过去是一所银行——存储我们最宝贵的财富：那些赋予我们生命的意义的深度的记忆。那些真正珍惜过去的人不会哀叹流逝的美好时光，因为珍藏于记忆中的时光是永远都不会消失。死亡本身也无法止住记忆中的声音或是擦除记忆中的笑容。对于一个长大成人的小男孩而言在他的心里，总有那么一个池塘，不会因时间和潮汐而改变，可以让他继续在阳光下享受安静的时光。

Exercise 4

The main impression growing out of twelve years on the faculty of a medical school is that the No.1 health problem in the U.S. today, even more than AIDS or cancer, is that Americans don’t know how to think about health and illness. Our reactions are formed on the terror level. We fear the worst, expect the worst, thus invite the worst. The result is that we are becoming a nation of weaklings and hypochondriacs, a self-medicating society incapable of distinguishing between casual, everyday symptoms and those that require professional attention.

在医学院任教十二年来，我获得的最主要的印象就是，当今美国头号健康问

题——一个比艾滋病或者是癌症更为严重的问题——是美国人不知该如何去认识健康与疾病。我们的反应是惊恐万分。我们怕最坏的事，想着最坏的打算，却迎来了最坏的事。结果就是我们变成了一个孱弱不堪的，总是疑心自己有病的民族、一个分不清哪些是日常偶发症状、那些是需要专业治疗，而自己擅自用药的社会。

Early in life, too, we become seized with the bizarre idea that we are constantly assaulted by invisible monsters called germs, and that we have to be on constant alert to protect ourselves against their fury. Equal emphasis, however, is not given to the presiding fact that our bodies are superbly equipped to deal with the little demons and the best way of forestalling an attack is to maintain a sensible life-style.

年轻的时候，还种下了一种奇怪的念头，一种肉眼看不见的名为细菌的小妖怪在不断地向我们进攻，而我们必须长期不懈的保护自己不受伤害。然而，我们应该却没有给予同等重视的一点，那就是我们的身体装备精良，足够对付这些小妖怪。而防止它们进攻的最好方式是，保持一种合理的生活方式。

Exercise 5

Reading is a pleasure of the mind, which means that it is a little like a sport: your eagerness and knowledge and quickness make you a good reader. Reading is fun, not because the writer is telling you something, but because it makes your mind work. Your own imagination works along with the author's or even goes beyond his. Your experience, compared with his, brings you to the same or different conclusions, and your ideas develop as you understand his.

读书愉悦心灵，这几有点儿像运动。一个优秀的读者必须要有热情、知识、速度。读书之乐不在于，作者在告诉你什么，而在于它促使你思考。你跟随作者一起想象，有时你的想象甚至超越作者。你的经验加上他的经验，可以得到相同或者不同的结论。在理解作者想法的同时，也形成了自己的观点。

Every book stands by itself, like a one-family house, but books in a library are like houses in a city. Although they are separate, together they all add up to something; they are connected with each other and with other cities. The same ideas, or related ones, turn up in different places; the human problems that repeat themselves in life repeat themselves in literature, but with different solutions according to different writings at different times.每本书都隔成体系，就像一家一户的住宅。而图书馆

的藏书就像是城市里千家万户的居所。尽管他们相互独立，但相互结合才有意义。家家户户彼此相连，城市与城市彼此相依。相同或相似的思想在不同的地方涌现。人类生活中反复出现的问题在文学中也会不算重现。但因时代与作品的差异，答案也各不相同。

Reading can only be fun if you expect it to be. If you concentrate on books somebody tells you "ought" to read, you probably won't have fun. But if you put down a book you don't like and try another till you find one that means something to you, and then relax with it, you will almost certainly have a good time--and if you become as a result of reading, better, wiser, kinder, or more gentle, you won't have suffered during the process.

如果你希望的话，读书也能充满乐趣。倘若你只读别人告诉你应该读的书，那么就不会感觉有乐趣而言。但是如果你放下不喜欢的，尝试阅读另外的，直到找到中意的为止，然后轻轻松松的读下去，那一定会收获一段美好时光——而且如果你因为读书而变得更优秀，更睿智，更友善，更文雅时，你就不会觉得阅读是一种折磨。

Exercise 6

In some societies people want children for what might be called familial reasons: to extend the family line or the family name, to propitiate the ancestors; to enable the proper functioning of religious rituals involving the family. Such reasons may seem thin in the modern, secularized society but they have been and are powerful indeed in other places.

在一些社会，人们因为所谓的一些家庭原因而想要拥有孩子：传宗接代，光宗耀祖，讨好祖辈；使得有关家庭的宗教礼仪得以正常传承。这些原因在现代世俗化社会，似显苍白，而在其他地区，它却曾一度构成并确实仍在构成强有力的原因In addition, one class of family reasons shares a border with the following category, namely, having children in order to maintain or improve a marriage: to hold the husband or occupy the wife; to repair or rejuvenate the marriage; to increase the number of children on the assumption that family happiness lies that way. The point is

underlined by its converse: in some societies the failure to bear children (or males) is a threat to the marriage and a ready cause for divorce.

.此外，还有一个家庭原因与下列范畴不无共通之处。这便是，生儿育女可以维系，改善婚姻；可以拴住丈夫或者使妻子不再无所事事；修复或者是重振婚姻；多子多孙，以为家庭幸福唯有此法。而这一点由其反面得以彰显：在某些社会，无法生儿育女（或者是、无法生育儿子）对于婚姻而言，是一个隐患，还可以作为离婚的现成借口。

Beyond all that is the profound significance of children to the very institution of the family itself. To many people, husband and wife alone do not seem a proper family —they need children to enrich the circle, to validate its family character, to gather the redemptive influence of offspring. Children need the family, but the family seems also to need children, as the social institution uniquely available, at least in principle, for security, comfort, assurance, and direction in a changing, often hostile, world. To most people, such a home base, in the literal sense, needs more than one person for sustenance and in generational extension后代对于家庭这一体制本身的意义远非如此。对于大多数人来说，只有夫妇二人并不是真正意义上的一个家庭——他们需要孩子去丰富这个二人世界，赋予这二人世界。真正意义上的家庭性质，并从后代子孙那里获得某种回报。孩子需要家，而家庭似乎也需要孩子。家庭作为一个独一无二的社会机构，至少在原则上，能在这样一个变化多端、到处都是敌对的世界能给予我们一定的安全感，慰藉。保证以及价值取向上。于大多数人而言，就字面意义上来说，也不需要一个人来维系并存在，并使其代代生息。Exercise 7

In his classic novel, ―The Pioneers‖, James Fenimore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest, ―Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?‖ she asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. ―Where! Why everywhere,‖ he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.

詹姆斯库伯在他的经典小说《拓荒者》中，塑造了一个主人公，一个土地开发商。他带着他的表妹去参观自己正在规划中的城镇，他津津乐道地描述着宽敞

的街道、林立的高楼，俨然一个熙来攘往的大都市。但表妹环顾四周，一脸迷茫。她看到就只是一片森林。“你要给我看得美景和被你改造了的地方在哪里啊？”开发商大惊：“在哪儿?这部到处都是么？”尽管一切还没动工破土，但在他的心里早就已经建好了，而且真切的就如同早已竣工一样。

Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, ―Life for the American is always becoming, never being.‖库伯在这里揭示了美国人的一种特有品性——前瞻性，站在未来的高度来看待现在的一切，不受过去的束缚而放眼未来。正如艾尔伯特所说：美国人永远生活在未来而不是现在。

Exercise 8

Winners do not dedicate their lives to a concept of what they imagine they should be: rather, they are themselves and as such do not use their energy putting on a performance, maintaining pretence, and manipulating others. They are aware that there is a difference between being loving and acting loving, between being stupid and acting stupid, between being knowledgeable and acting knowledgeable. Winners do not need to hide behind a mask. Winners are not afraid to do their own thinking and to use their own knowledge. They can separate facts from opinions and don’t pretend to have all the answers. They listen to others, evaluate what they say, but come to their own conclusions. Although winners can adore and respect other people, they are not totally defined, demolished, bound, or awed by them.

赢家从来都不会毕生致力于这样概念：即想象自己应该成为何种人。相反，他们就是自己。因为他们不会费尽心思去装腔作势，故作姿态，摆弄他人。他们知道在真爱与装爱之间，在真傻与装傻之间，在真正知识渊博与装作知识渊博之间是不同的。赢家从不藏匿于面具后。赢家敢于独立思考，敢于用自己的知识。他们能从纷繁的观点中剥离出事实而不是装作无所不知。他们倾听他人的意见。品评他人的言行，最后得出他们自己的结论。然后，赢家可以羡慕他们，尊重他人，但是他们不会被他人所局限，所摧垮，所束缚，所吓倒。

Winners do not play ―helpless‖, nor do they play th e blaming game. Instead, they assume responsibility for their own lives.

赢家不会佯装“无助”，也不怨天尤人，相反，他们会承担起自己的责任。Exercise 9

But Americans are a restless people who are always ready to move. So, although they enjoy the life in the suburbs, they will by no means end their pursuit there. When his income rises as his career makes progress, he soon looks for a better house, in a better district, with more land, a better view, a bigger and finer swimming pool. He may be attached to the house which is home for the time being but this does not mean that he will put his roots there. Today’s job, today’s income, today’s friends and neighborhood: all these are part of an American’s (and his family’s) identity. Instant coffee, instant friends—but nothing is seen as permanent; an American hopes and expects to exchange them all for something better; and he finds no difficulty in identifying himself with the new.

然而，美国是一个静不下来的民族，他们时刻准备搬家。因此就算他们在郊区享受生活，他们也绝不会停止他们的追求。只要事业有进步，收入有所提高时，他就会很快寻找在更高的街区，更宽敞的有着更好的视野的，有更大更高的游泳池的，更棒的住所，可能在暂时在那里落脚定居一段时间，但这并不意味着他就一直会在那里扎根。今天的工作，今天的收入，今天的朋友，今天的邻居，所有的一切都是一个美国人和他的家庭的身份象征。速溶咖啡，瞬间的朋友——好似没有什么被看成是永恒的；美国人总是希望，期盼着该改变现状。以求更好。并且，美国人发现先于新事物打交道并不困难。

Exercise 10

The UN General Assembly, the central political forum, is composed of 193 members, including virtu ally all the world’s nation-states. Two thirds of its members are developing countries, which account for about three-quarters of the world’s population.

联合国大会。一个政治中心论坛。由193个成员国组成。几乎包括了世界上所有国家。其中三分之二是发展中国家，其人口总数达世界总人口的四分之三左右。

Reaching decisions is difficult, especially since all agreements by custom must be reached by consensus. As a result, important agreements are often held hostage by narrow special interests, and most agreements are reached only by reducing them to their lowest common denominators. But the real question is whether the major

countries of the world will allow democracy to function at the highest level.

联合国大会决策是比较困难的事。尤其是所有按照惯例决出的协议必须是全体赞成才能通过。因此，一些重要协议经常被少数特殊利益集团所控制，大部分协议的通过都是为了使自己的利益最大化，然后其中最大的问题就是世界上的主要大国是否愿意高度民主。

The Security Council, which is responsible for peace and security, deals with issues of the greatest political importance. The Council has only 15 members so it can meet frequently and deal with crises. Once impotence due to Cold War rivalries, it has regained much of the authority accorded by the UN charter.

联合国安理会，负责和安全，处理重大的政治问题。安理会由15个成员国组成，所以经常举行会里处理危机。安理会曾一度因冷战对抗而无所作为，然后现在安理会已重新获得联合国赋予的许多权力。

Exercise 11

But such policies seem instead to have created the conditions for even more campus violence．Some college students who previously drank in bars and lounges under the watchful supervision of bouncers (not to mention owners eager to keep their liquor licenses) now retreat to the sanctuary of their fraternity houses and apartments, where they no longer control their behaviour or their drinking．The boomerang effect has also played a role in attempts to reduce the availability of illicit drugs．During recent years, the federal government has been quite successful in reducing the supply of street drugs．As fields are burned and contraband confiscated, the price of street drugs has skyrocketed to a point where cheap altematives have begun to compete in the marketplace．Unfortunately, the cheap alternatives are even more harmful than the illicit drugs they replace.

然后上述政策。似乎相反为更过得校园暴力创造了条件。以前，一些大学生会在酒吧买醉，但仍在酒吧保安严密的监控下，<酒吧老板为了保住自己卖酒的招牌，也不会让这样的过激行为发生>而现在，他们躲在互助会会所和公寓里面，对自己饮酒的数量和行为不再控制。政府在打击非法毒品买卖方面采取的措施

同样取得适得其反的效果。近年来，联邦政府成功遏制了街头毒品买卖。警方摧毁了许多毒品种植园，没收了违禁品，导致街头毒品买卖的价格暴涨。因为廉价毒品作为替代品开始有了竞争力。更糟糕的是，那些廉价的替代品比之前的毒品

危害更大。

Exercise 12

Suppose he could take one meal so compact and comprehensive that he should never hunger any more; suppose him, at a glance, to take in all the features of the world and allay the desire for knowledge; suppose him to do the like in any province of experience - would not that man be in a poor way for amusement ever after?

假如一个人一顿饭吃得紧凑而丰盛，那他就不会再感到饥饿;假如一眼就能看透人间世事，他就不会再有求知的欲望。如果他在生活中其它任何领域都是如此，那他的生活还有乐趣可言吗?

One who goes touring on foot with a single volume in his knapsack reads with circumspection, pausing often to reflect, and often laying the book down to contemplate the landscape or the prints in the inn parlour; for he fears to come to an end of his entertainment, and be left companionless on the last stages of his journey.

一个徒步旅行的人，背包里只有一本书，他会精心的研读，不时停下来思考一番，还经常会放下书，凝视着风景，或者观赏酒馆里的装饰图案;他害怕一但读完，便没有什么乐趣了，剩下的旅程将寂寞而无以为藉