大学英语精读第册-5课文全文翻译

大学英语精读第5册和第6册全文课文翻译

A Kind of Sermon

It is probably easier for teachers than for students to appreciate the reasons why learning English seems to become increasingly difficult once the basic structures and patterns of the language have been understood. Students are naturally surprised and disappointed to discover that a process which ought to become simpler does not appear to do so.

It may not seem much consolation to point out that the teacher, too, becomes frustrated when his efforts appear to produce less obvious results. He finds that students who were easy to teach, because they succeeded in putting everything they had been taught into practice, hesitate when confronted with the vast untouched area of English vocabulary and usage which falls outside the scope of basic textbooks. He sees them struggling because the language they thought they

一番说教

一旦在掌握了英语基本结构和句型之后，再往下学习似乎变得越来越困难了；这其中的原因，也许老师比学生更容易理解。当学生们发现一个本该变得越来越容易的学习过程似乎并未变的简单时，他们自然会感到惊讶并失望。

在知道老师在其努力所产生的效果似乎不及一开始明显时也会灰心丧气，学生们并不感到多少安慰。他发现那些学生很容易去教，因为他们能把所学的知识很快的用于实践；而现在，他们面对大量未曾接触过的英语词汇和惯用法时会显得踌躇不前，因为这些词汇和惯用法都是基础教科书上所没有涉及的内容。他看到学生们在挣扎，因为他们本以为已经认识的语言现在看上去似乎是由种种令人困惑不解的、在不同上下文中有不同含义的习语，陈词滥调和成语组成的。很难让他们相信，他们仍朝着流利的方向发展，并且

knew now appears to consist of a bewildering variety of idioms, clichéd and accepted phrases with different meanings in different contexts. It is hard to convince them that they are still making progress towards fluency and that their English is certain to improve, given time and dedication.

In such circumstances it is hardly surprising that some give up in disgust, while others still wait hopefully for the teacher to give them the same confident guidance he was able to offer them at first. The teacher, for his part, frequently reduced to trying to explain the inexplicable, may take refuge in quoting proverbs to his colleagues such as: "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink ”or, more respectfully if less grammatically :”It ain’t what you say, It's the way that you say it." His students might feel inclined to counter these with: "The more I learn, the less I know." 只要肯花时间和持之以恒，

他们英语一定会有所提高。

在此情况下，有些学生厌恶地放弃了学习并不出人意外；而另外一些学生则仍然满怀希望地等待着老师像最初那样给他们以满怀信心的指导。就教师来说，由于经常不得不去解释一些无法解释的东西，他们就可能对同事们引用一些谚语来聊以自慰，比如：“引马河边易，逼马饮水难”或者引用一句虽语法不严谨但比较尊重对方的话：“重要的不在于你说什么，而在于你怎么说。”对这些话，他的学生也许会反唇相讥道：我学的越多，懂得越少。

事实当然并非如此。不管是学生还是老师，他们都在经历着这样一个认识过程，即我们在某种语言中所遇到的较复杂的语言结构，在表达自己的意思来说

Of course this is not true. What both students and teachers are experiencing is the recognition that the more complex structures one encounters in a language are not as vital to making oneself understood and so have a less immediate field of application. For the same reason, from the teacher's point of view, selecting what should be taught becomes a more difficult task. It is much easier to get food of any kind than to choose the dish you would most like to eat on a given day from a vast menu.

Defining the problem is easier than providing the solution. One can suggest that students should spend two or three years in an English-speaking country, which amounts to washing one's hands of them. Few students have the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the time or the money to do that. It is often said that wide reading is the best alternative course of action but even here it is 并非至关重要，因此它们的直接应用范围很少。出于同样的理由，以教师的观点来看，选择适当的教材就成了一项更为困难的任务。比起在某个特定日子从一份丰盛的菜单中选出你最想吃的菜来，随便准备点吃的东西要容易的多。

界定问题比找出答案容易。有人可能会建议学生去讲英语的国家住两三年，这等于撒手不管他们。没有几个学生有时间或者有钱出国。人们常说：广泛阅读是最佳选择方法，但即使在这一方面，读书也需要进行某些选择。让学生走进图书馆随便拿起他们遇到的第一本书就读，这是无用的。我的建议是：要读无需查字典就能看懂的书（但并非一看即懂的书）；读你感兴趣的书；读有时间读的书（杂志和报纸而不是长篇小说，除非你能在一周左右的时间里读完它）；读当代写的英文，而不是二百年前的；要尽量多读并设法记住写作方法，而不要拘泥于令你困惑的个别单词。并且，除了读文章，我

necessary to make some kind of selection. It is no use telling students to go to the library and pick up the first book they come across. My own advice to them would be: "read what you can understand without having to look up words in a dictionary (but not what you can understand at a glance); read what interests you; read what you have time for (magazines and newspapers rather than novels unless you can read the whole novel in a week or so); read the English written today, not 200 years ago; read as much as you can and try to remember the way it was written rather than individual words that puzzled you." And instead of "read", I could just as well say "listen to."

My advice to teachers would be similar in a way. I would say "It's no good thinking that anything will do, or that all language is useful. It's no good relying on students to express themselves without the right tools for expression. It's still your duty to choose 也可以说听。

从某种意义上说，我对教师的劝告也是相同的。我会说：认为什么教材都可以或任何语言都有用，这种想法是没有好处的。让学生没有掌握表达方法就依靠自己去表达他们的思想是无益的。在接近山顶时为学生们选择最佳的攀登路线仍然是你的责任，正像在山麓小丘处为他们建议一条离开众人踏平的山路而又走的通的捷径曾是你的责任一样。如果你所选的路线荆棘丛生而难以举步，全队则需返

the best path to follow near the top of the mountain just as it was to propose a practicable short-cut away from the beaten track in the foothills. And if the path you choose is too overgrown to make further progress, the whole party will have to go back and you will have to choose another route. You are still the paid guide and expert and there is a way to the top somewhere."

The Fifth Freedom

More than three centuries ago a handful of pioneers crossed the ocean t Jamestown and Plymouth in search of freedoms they were unable to find in their own countries, the freedoms of we still cherish today: freedom from want, freedom from fear, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. Today the descendants of the early settlers, and those who have joined them since, are fighting to protect these freedoms at home and throughout the world. 回，而你就得另择佳途。你仍是花钱雇用的向导和专家，而在某个地方总能找到一条登顶之路。

第五种自由

三百多年前，少数早期拓荒者为了寻求在他们自己的祖国无法找到的自由，横渡大洋来到詹姆斯敦和普列茅斯。也是我们今天仍然格外珍惜的自由：免于匮乏的自由，免于恐惧的自由，言论自由以及宗教信仰的自由。如今这些拓荒者的后代以及后来加入其行列的人们仍然在美国国内和全世界为捍卫这些自由而战斗。

然而还有一个我们正面临着丧失危险的第五种自由：达到自己最佳水平的自由，而这一自由正是上述四种自由的基础。法国作家圣埃克休帕里把一个破

And yet there is a fifth freedom - basic to those four - that we are in danger of losing: the freedom to be one's best. St. Exupery describes a ragged, sensitive-faced Arab child, haunting the streets of a North African town, as a lost Mozart: he would never be trained or developed. Was he free? "No one grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time; and nought will awaken in you the sleeping poet or musician or astronomer that possibly inhabited you from the beginning." The freedom to be one's best is the chance for the development of each person to his highest power.

How is it that we in America have begun to lose this freedom, and how can we regain it for our nation's youth? I believe it has started slipping away from us because of three misunderstandings. 衣烂衫但长相聪明伶俐，经常在北非某市街头闲逛的阿拉伯少年描写成一个被埋没的莫扎特：他不可能受到训练或培养。这个孩子自由吗？“也许你有着与生俱来的成为诗人、音乐家或天文学家的潜能，但在时间还来得及的时候，没有人拉你一把，时机一过，就再也无法唤醒在你身上沉睡着的这些才能了。”达到自己最佳水平的自由是让每个人把自己的能力发展到最高水平的机会。

为什么我们在美国会开始失去这一自由呢？我们怎样才能为我国的青年人重新获得这一自由呢？我认为它之所以开始从我们身边悄然离去，是因为存在着以下三种误解。

第一种误解是对民主含义的误解。费城的一所名牌中学的校长被迫大声疾呼，号召人们反对一种观点，即为一些出类拔萃的学生实施一份特殊的教学大纲是不民主的。再如，当孟菲斯的一所教学质量好的私立学校在不久前停办时，一些有识之士