英汉翻译课程讲义 下载本文

A. Translate the following sentences into Chinese.

1)One could not be too careful in a new neighbourhood. (J. Galsworthy)译

2)The importance of this conference cannot be overestimated. 译

3)I couldn‘t agree with you more. Someone‘s got to be tough if you want to stay in business. 译

4)It is a wise man that never makes mistakes. (= The wisest man sometimes makes mistakes) 译

5) If the walls of that room could speak, what an amount of blundering and capricious cruelty would they not bear witness to! (Samuel Butler) 译

6)I ran away, …I don‘t know how far I didn‘t run.译

7)I do not feel that we should leave them isolated in their rage. (R. Nixon) 译

8) I don‘t suppose you need to worry.译

9)I cannot consider the matter as in any way urgent. 译

10)Tell your old story to someone who believes it.译

11)Let me catch you at in again. 译

12)Bikini was the last thing she‘d like to wear.译

13) I‘m wiser than to believe what you call money talks.译

14) He would do anything he was asked to do but return to his old life. (A. Smedley)译

15)What has made you so out of humour today?译

16)Life is far from being a bed of roses.译

17)She has much more than just a pretty face.译

18)A Negro could ask no more. 译

19) His accent couldn‘t fool a native speaker.译

B、Translate the following passage into Chinese. Gratuitous gratuities By Michael Lynn

EVERYBODY loathes it, but everybody does it. A recent poll showed that 40% of Americans, the world?s most lavish tippers, hate the practice. It seems so arbitrary, after all. Why does a barman get a tip, but not a fast-food worker or a doctor who saves lives?

In America alone, tipping now amounts to $16 billion a year. Consumers acting rationally ought not to pay more than they have to for a given service. Tips should not exist. So why do they? The conventional wisdom is that tips both reward the efforts of good service and reduce uncomfortable feelings of inequality. The better the service, the bigger the tip.

Such explanations no doubt explain the purported origin of tipping in the 16th century, boxes in English taverns carried the phrase “To Insure Promptitude” (later just “TIP”). But according to new research from Connell University, tipping no longer serves any useful function.

The paper analyses 2,547 groups dining at 20 different restaurants. The correlation between larger tips and better service was very weak: only a tiny part of the variability in the size of the tip had anything to do with the quality of service. Customers who rated a meal as “excellent” still tipped anywhere between 8% and 37% of the meal price.

Tipping is better explained by culture than be economics. In America, the custom has become institutionalized: it is regarded as part of the accepted cost of a service. In a New York restaurant, failing to tip at least 15% could well mean abuse from the waiter. Hairdressers can expect to get 15-20%, the man who delivers you groceries $2. In Europe, tipping is less common; in many

restaurants, discretionary tipping is being replaced by a standard service charge. In many Asian countries, tipping has never really caught on at all.

How to account for these national differences? Look no further than psychology. According to Michael Lynn, the paper?s author, people who are more extrovert, sociable or neurotic tend to tip more. Tipping relieves anxiety about being served by strangers. And, says Mr. Lynn, “in America, where people are expressive, tipping is about social approval. If you tip badly, people think less of you. Tipping well is a chance to show off.” Icelanders, by contrast, do not usually tip a measure of their introversion and lack of neuroses, no doubt.

While such explanations may be crude, the hard truth seems to be that tipping does not work. It does not benefit the customer. Nor, in the case of restaurants, does it actually incentivise the waiter, or help the restaurant manager to monitor and assess his staff. 参考译文

无端的小费

解放军军需大学 李克访 译注

尽管人们憎恨小费,但却支付它。前不久的民意测验结果表明,40%的美国人——世界上付小费最慷慨的人——憎恨小费。毕竟,小费看上去如此不合情理。为什么酒吧招待能拿到小费,而供应快餐的工人及救死扶伤的医生却得不到呢?

仅在美国,现在每年的小费总额高达160亿美元。合理消费的人们在为得到的服务付费后不该另掏腰包。支付小费的行为本不该存在。那么,为什么它能长久不衰呢?约定俗成的说法是,小费既是对优质服务的回报,又能减轻不平等地位的那种不舒服感。服务得越好,得到的小费就越高。

这种解释毫无疑问解释了有关小费起源的流传说法。在16世纪,英国小酒馆的招牌上都写有一条短语―确保快捷‖,后来这3个英文词的首字母就成了小费一词。但根据康奈尔大学的最新调查报告,小费不再具有任何有用的功能。

该大学的调查报告分析了在20家不同餐馆的2547组食客支付小费的数据。较多小费与更好服务之间的联系是非常微弱的;小费的多寡中只有很小一部分与服务质量有关。称赞饭菜―棒极了‖的消费者支付的小费仍然在饭菜价格的8%至37%之间。

应该从文化的角度解释小费现象,而不是从经济学出发。在美国,这个习俗已经制度化:人们把它看成是一项服务的可接受价值的一部分。在纽约一家餐馆,没有支付至少15%小费的客人可能会遭到侍者的咒骂。理发师可以得到15%——20%的小费,送外卖的人可以得到2美元。在欧洲,支付小费的行为没那么普遍;在许多餐馆,标准服务价格取代了随意支付的小费。在许多亚洲国家,小费从未真正流行起来。

如何解释国与国之间的差别?那就从心理学的角度出发吧。据康奈尔大学的那份调查报告的作用迈克尔·林恩说,性格外向、热爱社交或者容易激动的人往往付较多的小费。付小费可以减轻接受陌生人服务的不安心理。林恩先生说:―在美国,人们慷慨大方,富于表现力,支付小费是有关社会认可的行为。如果你掏的小费少,人们就会小瞧你。多掏小费是炫耀卖

弄、表现自我的机会。‖相比之下,冰岛人通常不付小费,毫无疑问体现了他们的内向、平和的性格。

尽管这种解释也许是不完美的,而确凿的事实看起来就是,支付小费并不能起到作用。它对消费者没有什么好处。即使在餐馆里,它实际上既不能起到鼓舞侍者的作用,也不能帮助餐馆经理监督和评估手下职员。

C. Translate the following UNDERLINED PART of the text into Chinese within 30 minutes. I agree to some extent with my imaginary English reader. American literary historians are perhaps prone to view their own national scene too narrowly, mistaking prominence for uniqueness. They do over-phrase their own literature, or certainly its minor figures. And Americans do swing from aggressive overphrase of their literature to an equally unfortunate, imitative deference. But then, the English themselves are somewhat insular in their literary appraisals. Moreover, in fields where they are not pre-eminent-e.g. in painting and music-they too alternate between boasting of native products and copying those of the Continent. How many English paintings try to look as though they were done in Paris; how many times have we read in articles that they really represent an English “tradition” after all. To speak of American literature, then, is not to assert that it is completely unlike that of Europe. Broadly speaking, America and Europe have kept step. At any given moment the traveler could find examples in both of the same architecture, the same style in dress, the same books on the shelves. Ideas have crossed the Atlantic as freely as men and merchandise, though sometimes more slowly. When I refer to American habit, thoughts, etc., I intend some sort of qualification to precede the word, for frequently the difference between America and Europe (especially England) will be one of degree, sometimes only of a small degree. The amount of divergence is a subtle affair, liable to perplex the Englishman when he looks at America. He is looking at a country which in important senses grew out of his own, which in several ways still resembles his own-and which is yet a foreign country. There are odd overlappings and abrupt unfamiliarities; kinship yields to a sudden alienation, as when we hail a person across the street, only to discover from his blank response that we have mistaken a stranger for a friend. 参考译文

(注:原文及译文均选自《英语专业八级统考(TEM-8)真题解析》(1994---2001))刘玉珍、李家荣主编,南开大学出版社,2002年出版。编者作了个别改动。)

然而,谈到美国文学时,不能断言它与欧洲文学截然不同。广义上说,美国与欧洲齐头并进。在任可能何时间,旅行者都会在两地发现同样风格的建筑,相同式样的服装,书店出售相同的书籍。思想如同人和商品一样会自由自在地跨越大西洋,尽管有时速度慢些。谈到美国习惯、思想等问题时,我不打算使用绝对化的词语(我打算使用某种限定性的词语)。因为美国和欧洲(特别英国)的差别往往只表现于某种程度上,有时差别程度甚微。差别程之细微使望着美国的英国人困惑不解。英国人正在望着一个在很大程度上源于自己国家的国家,一个在诸多方面酷似自己国家的国家——然而却是一个外国。这里有奇怪的相似处,也有突然