搜档网
当前位置:搜档网 › 现代大学英语精读5lesson2课文Two_Kinds.doc

现代大学英语精读5lesson2课文Two_Kinds.doc

现代大学英语精读5lesson2课文Two_Kinds.doc
现代大学英语精读5lesson2课文Two_Kinds.doc

Two Kinds

Amy Tan

My mother believed you could be anything you wanted to be in America. You could open a restaurant. You could work for the government and get good retirement. You could buy a house with almost no money down. You could become rich. You could become instantly famous.

“Of course, you can be a prodigy1, too,” my mother told me when I was nine. “You can be best anything. What does Auntie Lindo know? Her daughter, she is only best tricky.”

America was where all my m other’s hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. Things could get better in so many ways.

We didn’t immediately pick the right kind of prodigy. At first my mother thought I could be a Chinese Shirley Temple2. We’d watch Shirley’s old movies on TV as though they were training films. My mother would poke my arm and say, “Ni kan.You watch.” And I would see Shirley tapping her feet, or singing a sailor song, or pursing her lips into a very round O while saying “Oh, my goodness.”

“Ni kan,” my mother said, as Shirley’s eyes flooded with tears. “You already know how. Don’t need talent for crying!”

Soon after my mother got this idea about Shirley Temple, she took me to the beauty training school in the Mission District and put me in the hands of a student who could barely hold the scissors without shaking. Instead of getting big fat curls, I emerged with an uneven mass of crinkly black fuzz3. My mother dragged me off to the bathroom and tried to wet down my hair.

“You look like a Negro Chinese,” she lamented, as if I had done this on purpose.

The instructor of the beauty training school had to lop off4 these soggy clumps to make my hair even again. “Peter Pan5is very popular these days” the instructor assured my mother. I now had bad hair the length of a boy’s, with curly bangs that hung at a slant two inches above my eyebrows. I liked the haircut, and it made me

actually look forward to my future fame.

In fact, in the beginning I was just as excited as my mother, maybe even more so.

I pictured this prodigy part of me as many different images, and I tried each one on for size. I was a dainty ballerina girl standing by the curtain, waiting to hear the music that would send me floating on my tiptoes. I was like the Christ child lifted out of the straw manger, crying with holy indignity. I was Cinderella6stepping from her pumpkin carriage with sparkly cartoon music filling the air.

In all of my imaginings I was filled with a sense that I would soon become perfect: My mother and father would adore me. I would be beyond reproach. I would never feel the need to sulk, or to clamor for anything. But sometimes the prodigy in me became impatient. “If you don’t hurry up and get me out of here, I’m disappearing for good,” it warned. “And then you’ll always be nothing.”

Every night after dinner my mother and I would sit at the Formica7topped kitchen table. She would present new tests, taking her examples from stories of amazing children that she read in Ripley’s Believe It or Not or Good Housekeeping, Reader’s digest, or any of a dozen other magazines she kept in a pile in our bathroom. My mother got these magazines from people whose houses she cleaned. And since she cleaned many houses each week, we had a great assortment. She would look through them all, searching for stories about remarkable children.

The first night she brought out a story about a three-year-old boy who knew the capitals of all the states and even the most of the European countries. A teacher was quoted as saying that the little boy could also pronounce the names of the foreign cities correctly. “What’s the capital of Finland?” my mother aske d me, looking at the story.

All I knew was the capital of California, because Sacramento8 was the name of the street we lived on in Chinatown9. “Nairobi10!” I quessed, saying the most foreign word I could think of. She checked to see if that might be one way to pronounce “Helsinki11” before showing me the answer.

The tests got harder - multiplying numbers in my head, finding the queen of hearts in a deck of cards, trying to stand on my head without using my hands, predicting the daily temperatures in Los angeles, New York, and London.

One night I had to look at a page from the Bible for three minutes and then report everything I could remember. “Now Jehoshaphat had riches12 and honor in abundance and that’s all I remember, Ma,” I said.

And after seeing, onc e again, my mother’s disappointed face, something inside me began to die. I hated the tests, the raised hopes and failed expectations. Before going to bed that night I looked in the mirror above the bathroom sink, and I saw only my face staring back---and understood that it would always be this ordinary face ---I began to cry. Such a sad, ugly girl! I made high-pitched noises like a crazed animal, trying to scratch out the face in the mirror.

And then I saw what seemed to be the prodigy side of me---a face I had never seen before. I looked at my reflection, blinking so that I could see more clearly. The girl staring back at me was angry, powerful. She and I were the same. I had new thoughts, willful thoughts or rather, thoughts filled with lots of won’ts. I won’t let her change me, I promised myself. I won’t be what I’m not.

So now when my mother presented her tests, I performed listlessly, my head propped on one arm. I pretended to be bored. And I was. I got so bored that I started counting the bellows of the foghorns out on the bay while my mother drilled me in other areas. The sound was comforting and reminded me of the cow jumping over the moon. And the next day I played a game with myself, seeing if my mother would give up on me before eight bellows. After a while I usually counted ony one bellow, maybe two at most. At last she was beginning to give up hope.

Two or three months went by without any mention of my being a prodigy. And then one day my mother was watching the Ed Sullivan Show13 on TV. The TV was old and the sound kept shorting out. Every time my mother got halfway up from the sofa to adjust the set, the sound would come back on and Sullivan would be talking. As soon as she sat down, Sullivan would go silent again. She got up, the TV broke into loud piano music. She sat down, silence. Up and down, back and forth, quiet and loud. It was like a stiff, embraceless dance between her and the TV set. Finally, she stood by the set with her hand on the sound dial.

She seemed entranced by the music, a frenzied little piano piece with a mesmerizing quality, which alternated between quick, playful passages and teasing,

lilting ones.

“Ni kan,” my mother said, calling me over with hurried hand gestures. “Look here.”

I could see why my mother was fascinated by the music. It was being pounded out by a little Chinese girl, about nine years old, with a Peter Pan haircut. The girl had the sauciness of a Shirley Temple. She was proudly modest, like a proper Chinese Child. And she also did a fancy sweep of a curtsy, so that the fluffy skirt of her white dress cascaded to the floor like petals of a large carnation.

In spite of these warning signs, I wasn’t worried. Our family had no piano and we couldn’t afford to buy one, let alone reams of sheet music and piano less ons. So I could be generous in my comments when my mother badmouthed14 the little girl on TV.

“Play note right, but doesn’t sound good!” my mother complained “No singing sound.”

“What are you picking on her for?” I said carelessly. “She’s pretty good. Mayb e she’s not the best, but she’s trying hard.” I knew almost immediately that I would be sorry I had said that.

“Just like you,” she said. “Not the best. Because you not trying.” She gave a little huff as she let go of the sound dial and sat down on the sofa.

The little Chinese girl sat down also, to play an encore of “Anitra’s Tanz,” by Grieg15. I remember the song, because later on I had to learn how to play it.

Three days after watching the Ed Sullivan Show my mother told me what my schedule would be for piano lessons and piano practice. She had talked to Mr. Chong, who lived on the first floor of our apartment building. Mr.Chong was a retired piano teacher, and my mother had traded housecleaning services for weekly lessons and a piano for me to practice on every day, two hours a day, from four until six.

When my mother told me this, I felt as though I had been sent to hell. I wished and then kicked my foot a little when I couldn”t stand it anymore.

“Why don’t you like me the way I am? I’m not a genius! I can’t play the piano. And even if I could, I wouldn’t go on TV if you paid me a million dollars!” I cried.

My mother slapped me. “Who ask you be genius.”she shouted. “Only ask you be

your best. For you sake. You think I want you be genius? Hnnh! What for! Who ask you!”

“So ungrateful,”I heard her mutter in chinese. “If she had as much talent as she had temper, she would be famous now.”

Mr. Chong, whom I secretly nicknamed Old Chong, was very strange, always tapping his fingers to the silent music of an invisible orchestra. He looked ancient in my eyes. He had lost most of the hair on top of his head and he wore thick glasses and had eyes that always thought, since he lived with his mother and was not yet married.

I met Old Lady Chong once, and that was enough. She had a peculiar smell, like

a baby that had done something in its pants, and her fingers felt like a dead person’s, like an old peach I once found in the back of the refrigerator: its skin just slid off the flesh when I picked it up.

I soon found out why Old Chong had retired from teaching piano. He was deaf. “Like Beethoven!” he shouted to me “We’re both listening only in our head!” And he would start to conduct his frantic silent sonatas16.

Our lessons went like this. He would open the book and point to different things, explaining, their purpose: “Key! Treble! Bass! No sharps or flats! So this is C major! Listen now and play after me!”

And then he would play the C scale a few times, a simple cord, and then, as if inspired by an old unreachable itch, he would gradually add more notes and running trills and a pounding bass until the music was really something quite grand.

I would play after him, the simple scale, the simple chord, and then just play some nonsense that sounded like a cat running up and down on top of garbage cans. Old Chong would smile and applaud and say “Very good! Bt now ou must learn to keep time!”

So that’s how I discovered that Old Chong’s eyes were too slow to keep up with the wrong notes I was playing. He went through the motions in half time. To help me keep rhythm, he stood behind me and pushed down on my right shoulder for every beat. He balanced pennies on top of my wrists so that I would keep them still as I slowly played scales and arpeggios17. He had me curve my hand around an apple and keep that shame when playing chords. He marched stiffly to show me how to make

each finger dance up and down, staccato18 like an obedient little soldier.

He taught me all these things, and that was how I also learned I could be lazy and get away with mistakes, lots of mistakes. If I hit the wrong notes because I hadn’t practiced enough, I never corrected myself, I just kept playing in rhythm. And Old Chong kept conducting his own private reverie.19

So maybe I never really gave myself a fair chance. I did pick up the basics pretty quickly, and I might have become a good pianist at the young age. But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different, and I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.

Over the next year I practiced like this, dutifully in my own way. And then one day I heard my mother and her friend Lindo Jong both after church, and I was leaning against a brick wall, wearing a dress with stiff white petticoats. Auntie Linds daughter, Waverly, who was my age, was standing farther down the wall, about five feet away. We had grown up together and shared all the closeness of two sisters, squabbling over crayons and dolls. In other words, for the most part, we hated each other. I thought she was snotty. Waverly Jong had gained a certain amount of fame as “Chinatown’s Littlest Chinese Chess Champion.”

“She bring home too many trophy.” Auntie Lindo lamented that Sunday. “All day she play chess. All day I h ave no time do nothing but dust off her winnings.” She threw a scolding look at Waverly, who pretended not to see her.

“You lucky you don’t have this problem,” Auntie Lindo said with a sigh to my mother.

And my mother squared her shoulders and bragge d “our problem worser than yours. If we ask Jing-mei wash dish, she hear nothing but music. It’s like you can’t stop this natural talent.”

And right then I was determined to put a stop to her foolish pride.

A few weeks later Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play in a talent show that was to be held in the church hall. But then my parents had saved up enough to buy me a secondhand piano, a black Wurlitzer spinet with a scarred bench. It was the showpiece of our living room.

For the talent show I was to play a piece called “Pleading Child” from

Schumann’s Scenes From Childhood. It was a simple, moody piece that sounded more difficult than it was. I was supposed to memorize the whole thing. But I dawdled over it, playing a few bars and then cheating, looking up to see what notes followed. I never really listed to what I was playing. I daydreamed about being somewhere else, about being someone else.

The part I liked to practice best was the fancy curtsy: right foot out, touch the rose on the carpet with a pointed foot, sweep to the side, bend left leg, look up, and smile.

My parents invited all the couples from their social club to witness my debut. Auntie Lindo and Uncle Tin were there. Waverly and her two older brothers had also come. The first two rows were filled with children either younger or older than I was. The littlest ones got to go first. They recited simple nursery rhymes, squawked out tunes on miniature violins, and twirled hula hoops20 in pink ballet tutus21, and when they bowe d or curtsied, the audience would sigh in unison, “Awww,” and then clap enthusiastically.

When my turn came, I was very confident. I remember my childish excitement. It was as if I knew, without a doubt, that the prodigy side of me really did exist. I had no fear whatsoever, no nervousness. I remember thinking, This is it! This is it! I looked out over the audience, at my mother’s blank face, my father’s yawn, Auntie Lindo’s stiff-lipped smile, Waverly’s sulky expression. I had on a white dress, layere d with sheets of lace, and a pink bow in my Peter Pan haircut. As I sat down, I envisioned people jumping to their feet and Ed Sullivan rushing up to introduce me to everyone on TV.

And I started to play. Everything was so beautiful. I was so caught up in how lovely I looked that I wasn’t worried about how I would sound. So I was surprised when I hit the first wrong note. And then I hit another and another. A chill started at the top of my head and began to trickle down. Yet I couldn’t stop playing, as though my hands were bewitched. I kept thinking my fingers would adjust themselves back, like a train switching to the right track. I played this strange jumble through to the end, the sour notes staying with me all the way.

When I stood up, I discovered my legs were shaking. Maybe I had just been

nervous, and the audience, like Old Chong had seen me go through the right motions and had not heard anything wrong at all. I swept my right foot out, went down on my knee, looked up, and smiled. The room was quiet, except fot Old Chong, who was beaming and shouting “Bravo! Bravo! Well done!” By then I saw my mother’s face, her stricken face. The audience clapped weakly, and I walked back to my chair, with my whole face quivering as I tried not to cry, I heard a little boy whisper loudly to his mother. “That was awful,” and mother whispered “Well, she certainly tried.”

And now I realized how many people were in the audience, the whole world, it seemed. I was aware of eyes burning into my back. I felt the shame of my mother and father as they sat stiffly through the rest of the show.

We could have escaped during intermission. Pride and some strange sense of honor must have anchored my parents to their chairs. And so we watched it all. The eighteen-year-old boy with a fake moustache who did a magic show and juggled flaming hoops while riding a unicycle. The breasted girl with white make up who sang an aria from Madame Butterfly22and got an honorable mention. And the eleven-year-old boy who was first prize playing a tricky violin song that sounded like a busy bee.

After the show the Hsus, the Jongs, and the St. Clairs, from the Joy Luck Club, came up to my mother and father.

“Lots of talented kids,” Auntie Lindo said vaguely, smiling broadly. “That was something else,” my father said, and I wondered if he was referring to me in a humorous way, or whether he even remembered what I had done.

Waverly looked at me and shrugged her shoulders. “You aren’t a genius like me,” she said matter-of-factly. And if I hadn’t felt so bad, I would have pulled her braids and punched her stomach.

But my mother’s expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything. I felt the same way, and everybody seemed now to be coming up, like gawkers at the scene of an accident to see what parts were actually missing. When we got on the bus to go home, my father was humming the busy-bee tune and my mother kept silent. I kept thinking she wanted to wait until we got home

before shouting at me. But when my father unlocked the door to our apartment, my mother walked in and went straight to the back, into the bedroom. No accusations, No blame. And in a way, I felt disappointed. I had been waiting for her to start shouting, so that I could shout back and cry and blame her for all my misery.

I had assumed that my talent-show fiasco meant that I would never have to play the piano again. But two days later, after school, my mother came out of the kitchen and saw me watching TV.

“Four clock,” s he reminded me, as if it were any other day. I was stunned, as though she were asking me to go through the talent-show torture again. I planted myself more squarely in front of the TV.

“Turn off TV,” she called from the kitchen five minutes later. I didn’t budge. And then I decided, I didn’t have to do what mother said anymore. I wasn’t her slave. This wasn’t China. I had listened to her before, and look what happened she was the stupid one.

She came out of the kitchen and stood in the arched entryway of the living room. “Four clock,” she said once again, louder.

“I’m not going to play anymore,” I said nonchalantly23. “Why should I? I’m not a genius.”

She stood in front of the TV. I saw that her chest was heaving up and down in an angry way.

“No!” I said, and I now felt stronger, as if my true self had finally emerged. So this was what had been inside me all along.

“No! I won’t!” I screamed. She snapped off the TV, yanked me by the arm and pulled me off the floor. She was frighteningly strong, half pulling, half carrying me towards the piano as I kicked the throw rugs under my feet. She lifted me up onto the hard bench. I was sobbing by now, looking at her bitterly. Her chest was heaving even more and her mouth was open, smiling crazily as if she were pleased that I was crying.

“You want me to be something that I’m not!” I sobbed. “I’ll never be the kind of daughter you want me to be!”

“Only two kinds of daughters,” she shouted in Chinese. “Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this

house. Obedient daughter!”

“Then I wish I weren’t your daughter, I wish you weren’t my mother,” I shouted. As I said these things I got scared. It felt like worms and toads and slimy things crawling out of my chest, but it also felt good, that this awful side of me had surfaced, at last.

“Too late to change this,” my mother said shrilly.

And I could sense her anger rising to its breaking point. I wanted see it spill over. And that’s when I remembered the babies she had lost in China, the ones we never talked about. “Then I wish I’d never been born!” I shouted. “I wish I were dead! Like them.”

It was as if I had said magic words. Alakazam!-her face went blank, her mouth closed, her arms went slack, and she backed out of the room, stunned, as if she were blowing away like a small brown leaf, thin, brittle, lifeless.

It was not the only disappointment my mother felt in me. In the years that followed, I failed her many times, each time asserting my will, my right to fall short of expectations. I didn’t get straight As24. I didn’t become class president. I didn’t get into Stanford. I dropped out of college.

Unlike my mother, I did not believe I could be anything I wanted to be, I could only be me.

And for all those years we never talked about the disaster at the recital or my terrible delarations afterward at the piano bench. Neither of us talked about it again, as if it were a betrayal that was now unspeakable. So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable.

And even worse, I never asked her about what frightened me the most: Why had she given up hope? For after our struggle at the piano, she never mentioned my playing again. The lessons stopped The lid to the piano was closed shutting out the dust, my misery, and her dreams.

So she surprised me. A few years ago she offered to give me the piano, for my thirtieth birthday. I had not played in all those years. I saw the offer as a sign of forgiveness, a tremendous burden removed. “Are you sure?” I asked shyly. “I mean, won’t you and Dad miss it?” “No, this your piano,” she said firmly. “Always your

piano. You only one can play.”

“Well, I probably can’t play anymore,” I said. “It’s been years.” “You pick up fast,” my mother said, as if she knew this was certain. “You have natural talent. You could be a genius if you want to.”

“No, I couldn’t.”

“You just not trying,” my mother said. And she was neither angry nor sa d. She said it as if announcing a fact that could never be disproved. “Take it,” she said.

But I didn’t at first. It was enough that she had offered it to me. And after that, everytime I saw it in my parents’living room, standing in front of the bay wi ndow, it made me feel proud, as if it were a shiny trophy that I had won back.

Last week I sent a tuner over to my parent’s apartment and had the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental reasons. My mother had died a few months before and I had been bgetting things in order for my father a little bit at a time. I put the jewelry in special silk pouches. The sweaters I put in mothproof boxes. I found some old chinese silk dresses, the kind with little slits up the sides. I rubbed the old silk against my skin, and then wrapped them in tissue and decided to take them hoe with me.

After I had the piano tuned, I opened the lid and touched the keys. It sounded even richer that I remembered. Really, it was a very good piano. Inside the bench were the same exercise notes with handwritten scales, the same sedcondhand music books with their covers held together with yellow tape.

I opened up the Schumann book to the dark little piecce I had played at the recital. It was on the left-hand page, “Pleading Child” It l ooked more difficult than I

remembered. I played a few bars, surprised at how easily the notes came back to me. And for the first time, or so it seemed, I noticed the piece on the right-hand side, It was called “Perfectly Contented” I tried to play this on e as well. It had a lighter melody but with the same flowing rhythm and turned out to be quite easy. “Pleading Child” was shorter but slower; “Perfectly Contented” was longer but faster. And after I had played them both a few times, I realized they were two halves of the same song.

大学英语精读第一册课文翻译

第一单元 课程开始之际,就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其实。 学习英语的几种策略 学习英语决非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语,然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种: 1.不要以完全相同的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差?其实,责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑,必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习,有用的词汇必须牢记,而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2.密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过,为什么我们说“我对英语感兴趣”是“I’m interested in English”,而说“我精于法语”则是“I’m good at French”?你可曾问过自己,为什么以英语为母语的人说“获悉消息或密秘”是“learnthenewsorsecret”,而“获悉某人的成功或到来”却是“learn of someone’s success or arrival”?这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时,你不仅必须注意词义,还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3.每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力,而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外,你还可以听英语广播,看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段,你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意,然后在反复地听。 你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的xx。 4.抓住机会说。的确,在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多,但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如,跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们

现代大学英语精读1 UNIT5 The Nightingale and the Rose 课文翻译

2014101018 第五单元 Translation of Text A 夜莺与玫瑰 1 “她说如果我给她带去红玫瑰,她愿意和我一起跳舞。”年轻的学生哭喊道,“但满院子都没有一朵红玫瑰。” 2 这番话给在老橡树上自己巢中的夜莺听见了,她通过橡树叶张望,心中诧异。 3 “在我的花园没有红玫瑰!”他哭着说,他美丽的大眼满含泪水:“啊,圣贤之书我已读完,哲学奥妙尽藏心中,然而缺少一朵红玫瑰却使我的生活瞬时暗淡!” 4 “终于有一位重感情的人了,”夜莺说,“我曾日日夜夜为他歌唱,现在我终于见到他了。” 5 “王子明晚将举行一个舞会,”年轻的学生喃喃道:“我的爱人也将前往我若为他采得红玫瑰,她将和我一直跳舞到天亮。我会揽她入怀,而她也会偎依在我的肩头。但在我的花园没有红玫瑰,因此我只能独自坐那儿黯然神伤,心痛无比。” 6 “他确实是一个重感情的人,”夜莺说。真爱是美好的,它价胜千金。 7 “乐师们将奏乐助兴,”年轻的学生道,“我的爱人将和着竖琴和小提琴声翩翩起舞。她的身姿是如此的轻盈宛似蜻蜓点水般。但他是不会和我一起跳的,因为我没有红玫瑰献给她。”于是他扑倒在草地上,双手捂着脸放声痛哭起来。 8 “他为什么哭泣呢?”一只绿色的蜥蜴翘着尾巴经过他身边时问道。 9 “是啊,到底为什么呢?”一只在阳光下挥动着翅膀的蝴蝶问道。 10 “到底为什么呢?”一朵雏菊用低沉的声音对他的邻居说道. 11 “他为一只红玫瑰哭泣。”夜莺说。 12 “为了一朵红玫瑰?”他们叫道,“太荒谬了!”那本来就有点愤世嫉俗的小蜥蜴肆无忌惮的笑道。但是夜莺了解男孩的悲痛,默默无声地坐在橡树上。 13 突然她张开自己棕色的双翼,向空中飞去。她犹如影子般穿越树林,又如影子般越过花园。 14 在草地的中心一棵美丽的红玫瑰树傲然屹立。她看到后立即向它飞去:“给

大学英语精读1课文翻译

大学英语精读1课文翻译 Unit1 Some Strategies or Learning English 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语,然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差?其实,责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑,必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习,有用的词汇必须牢记,而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2.密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过,为什么我们说 "我对英语感兴趣"是"I'm interested in English",而说"我精于法语"则是"I'm good at French"?你可曾问过自己,为什么以英语为母语的人说"获悉消息或秘密"是"learn the news or secret",而"获悉某人的成功或到来"却是"learn of someone's success or arrival"?这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时,你不仅必须注意词义,还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3.每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力,而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外,你还可以听英语广播,看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段,你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意,然后再反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。 4.抓住机会说。的确,在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多,但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如,跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们随意交谈。或许练习讲英语最容易的方式是高声朗读,因为这在任何时间,任何地方,不需要搭档就可以做到。例如,你可以看着图片或身边的物件,试着对它们详加描述。你还可以复述日常情景。在商店里购物或在餐馆里吃完饭付过账后,假装这一切都发生在一个讲英语的国家,试着用英语把它表演出来。

大学英语精读第一册课文翻译全

Unit1 课程开始之际,就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其时。 Some Strategies or Learning English 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语,然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差?其实,责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑,必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习,有用的词汇必须牢记,而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2.密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过,为什么我们说我对英语感兴趣是I'm 湩整敲瑳摥椠?湅汧獩屨,而说我精于法语则是???潧摯愠?牆湥档?你可曾问过自己,为什么以英语为母语的人说获悉消息或秘密是汜慥湲琠敨渠睥?牯猠捥敲屴,而获悉某人的成功或到来却是汜慥湲漠?潳敭湯?环猠捵散獳漠?牡楲慶屬?这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时,你不仅必须注意词义,还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3.每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力,而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外,你还可以听英语广播,看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段,你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意,然后再反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。 4.抓住机会说。的确,在学校里必须用英语进行交流的场合并不多,但你还是可以找到练习讲英语的机会。例如,跟你的同班同学进行交谈可能就是得到一些练习的一种轻松愉快的方式。还可以找校园里以英语为母语的人跟他们随意交谈。或许练习讲英语最容易的方式是高声朗读,因为这在任何时间,任何地方,不需要搭档就可以做到。例如,你可以看着图片18 / 1 或身边的物件,试着对它们详加描述。你还可以复述日常情景。在商店里购物或在餐馆里吃完饭付过账后,假装这一切都发生在一个讲英语的国家,试着用英语把它表演出来。 5.广泛阅读。广泛阅读很重要,因为在我们的学习环境中,阅读是最重要、最可靠的语言输入来源。在选择阅读材料时,要找你认为有趣的、不需要过多依赖词典就能看懂的东西。开始时每天读一页是个好办法。接下去,你就会发现你每天可以读更多页,而且能对付难度更高的材料。6.经常写。写作是练习你已经学会的东西的好方法。除了老师布置的作文,你还可以找到自己要写的理由。有个笔友可以提供很好的动力;与某个跟你趣味相投但来自不同文化的人进行交流,你会学到很多东西。经常写作的其他方式还有记日记,写小故事或概述每天的新闻。 语言学习是一个积累的过程。从读和听中吸收尽量多的东西,然后再试着把学到的东西通过说和写加以运用,定会大有收益。 Unit2 弗朗西斯·奇切斯特在六十五岁时开始了只身环球航行。本文记述的就是这一冒险故事。 Sailing Round the Word 弗朗西斯·奇切斯特在独自驾船作环球航行之前,已有好几次让他的朋友们感到吃惊了。他曾试图作环球飞行,但没有成功。那是1931年。 好多年过去了。他放弃了飞行,开始航海。他领略到航海的巨大乐趣。奇切斯特在首届横渡大西洋单人航海比赛中夺魁时,已经五十八岁。他周游世界的宿愿重又被唤起,不过这一次他是要驾船环游。由于他患有肺癌,朋友们和医生们都认为他不该去,但奇切斯特决意实施自己的计划。

现代大学英语精读1 UNIT6 The Green Banana 课文翻译

2014101018 第六单元 Translation of Text A 青香蕉 1尽管这种事情在任何地方都可能发生,但我与青香蕉的邂逅却源自于巴西腹地一条险峻的山路上。我那老式吉普车正吃力地穿过景色优美的乡村,这时,水箱突然漏水了,而离我最近的汽车修理站也还要十英里。发动机过热迫使我在临近的村庄停了下来。村里有一个小商店和分布在四处的几座房子。有村民围过来看,三股细细的热水柱从水箱外壳上的小孔喷出来。“这容易解决,”一个人说到。他让一个小男孩跑去拿些青香蕉来。这个人还拍了拍我的肩膀,安慰我问题会解决的。“青香蕉。”他笑了,其余的人都这么说着。 2我和他们闲聊起来,心里却一直在想他们用这青香蕉怎么能修补好水箱。毫无疑问,提问会暴露我的无知,因此我开始赞叹眼前美丽的乡村景色。耸立在我们周围巨大的岩石群,很像里约热内卢著名的糖面包山。“看见那边那块高高的岩石了吗?”那人指着一块特别高而且细长的黑色石柱问我,“那块岩石标志着世界的中心。” 3我看着他,想知道他是否在和我开玩笑,但他却表情严肃,反过来认真地审视着我,似乎想确定我是否领会了他那句话的深刻含义。这种情况要求我必须表现出认同。他点头说:“绝对是中心。这儿的人都知道。” 4这时,小男孩抱着青香蕉回来了。那个男子把其中一根掰成两半,将其断口处按在水箱的外壳上。香蕉遇到炙热的金属融成了胶,立刻就堵住了漏洞。面对如此情景,我惊呆了,我当时的表情一定是傻傻的,所有的人都笑了起来。他们把我的水箱装满水,又让我带上一些香蕉,以防沿途中水箱再出问题。路上,我又用了一次青香蕉,一个小时后,我开着车到达了目的地。当地的一修理工笑着问我:“谁教你用青香蕉的?”我告诉了他那个村子的名字。“他们有没有指给你看标志世界中心的那块岩石?”他问道。我告诉他,他们指给我看了。“我祖父就是那儿的人,”他说,“那的确是中心。一直以来这儿的人都知道。” 5作为美国教育的产物,除了把青香蕉当作还没长熟的水果,我从来就没注意过它。但突然在那条山路上,当我需要它时,它正巧出现了。可是仔细想一想,其实青香蕉一直在那儿存在着。时间可以追溯到香蕉的最初的起源。那个村子里的人都知道它已经很多年了,我现在也因此认识它了。我开始珍视村民们的聪明才智和青香蕉的特殊潜能。曾有一段时间,我一直困惑于教育家们提出的“领悟的瞬间”,而现在我知道自己刚刚同时经历了两个这样的瞬间。 6我又用了一些时间来领会村民们认为那块标志着世界中心的岩石的重要性。开始时我怀疑他们的说法,因为我知道实际上世界的中心是位于新英格兰的某个

[实用参考]大学英语精读第三版第四册课文及课文翻译.doc

Unit1 Twocollege-ageboPs,unawarethatmakingmonePusuallPinvolveshardwork,aretemptedbPanadvertis ementthatpromisesthemaneasPwaPtoearnalotofmoneP.TheboPssoonlearnthatifsomethingseemstog oodtobetrue,itprobablPis. 一个大学男孩,不清楚赚钱需要付出艰苦的劳动,被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。男孩们很快就明白,如果事情看起来好得不像真的,那多半确实不是真的。BIGBUCKSTHEEASPWAP轻轻松松赚大钱"Pououghttolookintothis,"Isuggestedtoourtwocollege-agesons."ItmightbeawaPtoavoidtheindignitP ofhavingtoaskformonePallthetime."Ihandedthemsomemagazinesinaplasticbagsomeonebadhungon ourdoorknob.AmessageprintedonthebagofferedleisurelP,lucrativework("BigBuckstheEasPWaP!")o fdeliveringmoresuchbags. “你们该看看这个,”我向我们的两个读大学的儿子建议道。“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有失尊严的话,这兴许是一种办法。”我将挂在我们门把手上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。塑料袋上印着一条信息说,需要招聘人投递这样的袋子,这活儿既轻松又赚钱。(“轻轻松松赚大钱!”) "Idon'tmindtheindignitP,"theolderoneanswered.“我不在乎失不失尊严,”大儿子回答说。"Icanlivewithit,"hisbrotheragreed.“我可以忍受,”他的弟弟附和道。"Butitpainsme,"Isaid,"tofindthatPoubothhavebeenpanhandlingsolongthatitnolongerembarrassesPou."“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子,真使我痛心,”我说。TheboPssaidthePwouldlookintothemagazine-deliverPthing.Pleased,Ilefttownonabusinesstrip.BPmi dnightIwascomfortablPsettledinahotelroomfarfromhome.Thephonerang.ItwasmPwife.Shewantedt oknowhowmPdaPhadgone.孩子们说他们可以考虑考虑投递杂志的事。我听了很高兴,便离城出差去了。午夜时分,我已远离家门,在一家旅馆的房间里舒舒服服住了下来。电话铃响了,是妻子打来的。她想知道我这一天过得可好。 "Great!"Ienthused."HowwasPourdaP?"Iinquired.“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。“你过得怎么样?”我问道。 "Super!"Shesnapped."Justsuper!Andit'sonlPgettingstarted.Anothertruckjustpulledupoutfront."“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。又一辆卡车刚在门前停下。”"Anothertruck?"“又一辆卡车?” "Thethirdonethisevening.ThefirstdeliveredfourthousandMontgomerPWards.Thesecondbroughtfour thousandSears,Roebucks.Idon'tknowwhatthisonehas,butI'msureitwillbefourthousandofsomething.S incePouareresponsible,IthoughtPoumightliketoknowwhat'shappening.“今晚第三辆了。第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-沃德百货公司的广告;第二辆运来四千份西尔斯-罗伯克百货公司的广告。我不知道这一辆装的啥,但我肯定又是四千份什么的。既然这事是你促成的,我想你或许想了解事情的进展。” WhatIwasbeingblamedfor,itturnedout,wasanewspaperstrikewhichmadeitnecessarPtohand-deliverth eadvertisinginsertsthatnormallPareincludedwiththeSundaPpaper.ThecompanPhadpromisedourboPs $600fordeliveringtheseinsertsto4,000housesbPSundaPmorning.我之所以受到指责,事情原来是这样:由于发生了一起报业工人罢工,通常夹在星期日报纸里的广告插页,必须派人直接投送出去。公司答应给我们的孩子六百美金,任务是将这些广告插页在星期天早晨之前投递到四千户人家去。 "Pieceofcake!"ouroldercollegesonhadshouted.“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子嚷道。"SiGhundredbucks!"Hisbrotherhadechoed,"Andwecandothejobintwohours!"“六百块!”他的弟弟应声道,“我们两个钟点就能干完!” "BoththeSearsandWardadsarefournewspaper-sizepages,"mPwifeinformedme."TherearethirtP-twot housandpagesofadvertisingonourporch.Evenaswespeak,twobigguPsarecarrPingarmloadsofpaperup thewalk.Whatdowedoaboutallthis?"“西尔斯和沃德的广告通常都是报纸那么大的四页,”妻子告诉我说,“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二千页广告。就在我们说话的当儿,两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告,我们可怎么办?”"JusttelltheboPstogetbusP,"Iinstructed."TheP'recollegemen.TheP'lldowhatthePhavetodo."“你让孩子们快干,”我指示说。“他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去做。”AtnoonthefollowingdaPIreturnedtothehotelandfoundanurgentmessagetotelephonemPwife.Hervoic

现代大学英语精读2第二版课文翻译

UNIT1 又一学年——为了什么? 约翰·切阿迪 1.给你们讲讲我刚当老师时候的一次失败经历吧。那是1940年的1月,我从研究生院 毕业不久,在堪萨斯城大学开始第一学期的教学工作。一个瘦高,长得就像顶上有毛的豆角架一样的男学生走进我的课堂,坐下,双臂交叉放在胸前,看着我,好像在说:“好吧,教我一些东西。”两周后我们开始学习《哈姆雷特》。三周后他双手叉腰走进我的办公室,“看,”他说,“我来这是学习当药剂师的。我为什么必须读这个?”由于没有随身带着自己的书,他就指着桌子上放着的我的那本。 2.虽然我是位新老师,我本来可以告诉这个家伙许多事情的。我本来可以指出,他考 入的不是制药技工培训学校而是大学,而且他在毕业时,应该得到一张写有理学学士而不是“合格的磨药工”的学位证书。这证书会证明他专修过药剂学,但它还能进一步证明他曾经接触过一些人类发展史上产生的思想。换句话说,他上的不是技能培训学校而是大学,在大学里学生既要得到培训又要接受教育。 3.我本来可以把这些话都告诉他,但是很明显,他不会待很长时间,说了也没用。 4.但是,由于我当时很年轻而且责任感也很强,我尽量把我的意思这样表达出来:“在 你的余生中,”我说,“平均每天24小时左右。谈恋爱时,你会觉得它有点短;失恋时,你会觉得它有点长。但平均每天24小时会保持不变。在其余的大约8个小时的时间里,你会处于睡眠状态。 5.“然后在每个工作日8个小时左右的时间里,我希望你会忙于一些有用的事情。假 设你毕业于一所药科大学——或工程大学,法学院,或者其他什么大学——在那8个小时时间里,你将用到你的专业技能。作为一个药剂师,你要确保氯化物没有和阿斯匹林混在一起;作为一个工程师,你要确保一切都在你的掌控之中;作为一个律师,你要保证你的当事人没有因为你的无能而被处以电刑。这些都是有用的工作,它们涉及到的技能每个人都必须尊重,而且它们都能给你带来基本的满足。无论你还干些什么,这些技能都很可能是你养家糊口的本领。它们会给你带来收入;但愿你的收入总能够用。” 6.“但完成一天的工作后,剩下的8小时你做什么呢?比如说你可以回家,和你的家 人待在一起。你所供养的是一个什么样的家庭呢?孩子们在家里能接触到一点还算是精辟的思想吗?你主持的家庭中有民主气息吗?家里有书吗?有那种一般敏感的人看了不会发怵的画吗?孩子们会听到巴赫的音乐吗?” 7.这差不多就是我所说的,但这个讨厌鬼不感兴趣。“看,”他说,“你们教授用你 们的方法培养孩子;我会以我自己的方式抚养我自己的孩子。我呀,我会尽一切努力挣钱的。” 8.“我希望你能赚很多,”我告诉他,“因为你在开支票的余暇会愁没事干的。” 9.14年后的今天,我仍然在教书,在此我要告诉你们,大学的职责并不只是在于培训 你,它还要使你接触人类思想的精髓。如果你没时间看莎士比亚的作品,没时间看哲学入门,没时间欣赏艺术的存续,也没时间学习我们称之为历史的人类发展的课

大学英语精读课文翻译

大学英语精读课文翻译 Unit 1 How to Improve Your Study Habits 你也许是个智力一般的普通学生。你在学校的学习成绩还不错,可你也许会觉得自己永远也成不了优等生。然而实际情况未必如此。你要是想取得更好的分数,也还是能做到的。是的,即使中等智力水平的学生,在不增加学习负担的情况下,也能成为优等生。其诀窍如下:1.仔细安排你的时间。把你每周要完成的任务一一列出来,然后制定一张时间表或时间分配图。先把用于吃饭、睡觉、开会、听课等这样一些非花不可的时间填上,然后再选定合适的固定时间用于学习。一定要留出足够的时间来完成正常的阅读和课外作业。当然,学习不应把作息表上的空余时间全都占去,还得给休息、业余爱好和娱乐活动留出一定的时间,这一点很重要。这张周作息表也许解决不了你所有的问题,但是它会使你比较清楚地了解你是怎样使用你的时间的。此外,它还能让你安排好各种活动,既有足够的时间工作,也有足够的时间娱乐。 2.寻找一个合适的地方学习。选定某个地方作为你的“学习区”。这可以是家里或者学校图书馆里的一张书桌或者一把椅子,但它应该是舒适的,而且不该有干扰。在你开始学习时,你应能够全神贯注于你的功课。 3.阅读之前先略读。这就是说,在你仔细阅读一篇文章之前,先把它从头至尾迅速浏览一遍。在预习材料时,你就对它的内容及其结构有了大致的了解。随后在你正式开始阅读时,你就能辨认出不太重要的材料,并且可以略去某些章节不读。略读不仅使你的阅读速度提高一倍,还有助于提高你的理解能力。< 4.充分利用课堂上的时间。上课时注意听讲意味着课后少花力气。要坐在能看得见、听得清的地方。要作笔记来帮助自己记住老师讲课的内容。 5.学习要有规律。课后要及早复习笔记。重温课堂上提到的要点,复习你仍然混淆不清的

大学英语精读1--第三版--课文英汉对照.

UNIT 1 As we are at the start of the course, this seems a good moment to offer some advice on how to make the task of learning English easier. 课程开始之际,就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其时。 Some Strategies for Learning English Learning English is by no means easy. It takes great diligence and prolonged effort. 学习英语绝非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 Nevertheless, while you cannot expect to gain a good command of English without sustained hard work, there are various helpful learning strategies you can employ to make the task easier. Here are some of them. 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语,然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种。 1. Do not treat all new words in exactly the same way. Have you ever complained about your memory because you find it simply impossible to memorize all the new words you are learning? But, in fact, it is not your memory that is at fault. If you cram your head with too many new words at a time, some of them are bound to be crowded out. What you need to do is to deal with new words in different ways according to how frequently they occur in everyday use. While active words demand constant practice and useful words must be committed to memory, words that do not often occur in everyday situations require just a nodding acquaintance. You will find concentrating on active and useful words the most effective route to enlarging your vocabulary. 1. 不要以完全同样的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差?其实,责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑,必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习,有用的词汇必须牢记,而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2. Watch out for idiomatic ways of saying things. Have you ever wondered why we say, "I am interested in English", but "I am good at French"? And have you ever asked yourself why native English speakers say, "learn the news or secret", but "learn of someone's success or arrival"? These are all examples of idiomatic usage. In learning English, you must pay attention not only to the meaning of a word, but also to the way native speakers use it in their daily lives. 2.密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过,为什么我们说“我对英语感兴趣”是“I'm interested in English”,而说“我精于法语”则是“I'm good at French”?你可曾问过自己,为什么以英语为母语的人说“获悉消息或秘密”是“learn the news or secret”,而“获悉某

大学英语精读第一册课文翻译

大学英语精读第一册课 文翻译 Pleasure Group Office【T985AB-B866SYT-B182C-BS682T-STT18】

第一单元 课程开始之际,就如何使学习英语的任务更容易提出一些建议似乎正当其实。 学习英语的几种策略 学习英语决非易事。它需要刻苦和长期努力。 虽然不经过持续的刻苦努力便不能期望精通英语,然而还是有各种有用的学习策略可以用来使这一任务变得容易一些。以下便是其中的几种: 1.不要以完全相同的方式对待所有的生词。你可曾因为简直无法记住所学的所有生词而抱怨自己的记忆力太差其实,责任并不在你的记忆力。如果你一下子把太多的生词塞进头脑,必定有一些生词会被挤出来。你需要做的是根据生词日常使用的频率以不同的方式对待它们。积极词汇需要经常练习,有用的词汇必须牢记,而在日常情况下不常出现的词只需见到时认识即可。你会发现把注意力集中于积极有用的词上是扩大词汇量最有效的途径。 2.密切注意地道的表达方式。你可曾纳闷过,为什么我们说“我对英语感兴趣”是“I’m interested in English”,而说“我精于法语”则是“I’m good at French”你可曾问过自己,为什么以英语为母语的人说“获悉消息或密秘”是“learn the news or secret”,而“获悉某人的成功或到来”却是“learn of someone’s success or arrival”这些都是惯用法的例子。在学习英语时,你不仅必须注意词义,还必须注意以英语为母语的人在日常生活中如何使用它。 3.每天听英语。经常听英语不仅会提高你的听力,而且有助你培养说的技能。除了专为课程准备的语言磁带外,你还可以听英语广播,看英语电视和英语电影。第一次听录好音的英语对话或语段,你也许不能听懂很多。先试着听懂大意,然后在反复地听。你会发现每次重复都会听懂更多的东西。

大学英语精读第三册课文翻译

Unit 1 一个年轻人发现,在街上漫无目的的闲逛也会带来涉及法律上的麻烦。一种误解导致另一种误解,直到最终他必须在法庭上接受审判……. 法律小冲突 我平生只有一次陷入与法律的冲突。被捕与被带上法庭的整个经过在当时是一种令人极不愉快的经历,但现在这却成为一个好故事的素材。尤其令人恼怒的是我被捕及随后在法庭上受审期间的种种武断情形。事情发生在十二年前的二月,那是我中学毕业已经几个月了,但是要等到十月份才能上大学,所以当时我仍在家中。 一天上午,我来到离我住地不远的伦敦郊区的里士满,那是我正在找一份临时的工作,一边攒些钱去旅游。由于天体晴朗,有没有什么急事,我便悠然自得的看看窗店橱窗,逛逛公园,有时干脆停下来四处观望。一定是这种显然无所事事的样子使我倒了霉。 事情发生在十一点半左右,当我在当地图书馆谋之未成,刚从那里出来,就看见一个人从马路对面走过来,显然是想跟我说话。我愿意为他是要问我时间。想不到他说他是警察,要逮捕我。开始我还以为这是个玩笑。但紧接着又来了一个穿着警服的警察,这下我无可置疑了。 “为什么抓我?”我问。 “四处游荡,有作案嫌疑,”他说。 “做什么案?”我又问。 “偷东西,”他说。 “偷什么”我追问。 “牛奶瓶”他说,表情极端严肃。 “噢,” 事情是这样的,这一带经常发生小偷小摸的案件,尤其是从门前台阶上偷走牛奶瓶。 接着,我犯了个大错误,那是我才十九岁,留着一头乱蓬蓬的长发,自以为是六十年代“青年反主流文化”的一员。因此,我想对此表现出一副冷漠,满不在乎的态度,于是用一种很随便的无所谓的腔调说:“你们跟我多久了?”这样一来,我在他们眼里,我是惯于此种情形的,这又使他们确信我是一个彻头彻尾的坏蛋。 几分钟后来了一辆警车。 “坐到后面去,”他们说:“把手放在椅背上,不许乱动。”他俩分别坐在我的左右,这下可不是闹着玩的了。 在警察局,他们审问了我好几个小时。我继续装着老于世故,对此种事习以为常的样子。当他们问我一直在干什么事时,我告诉他们我在找工作。“啊哈”,这下我可看到他们在想,“无业游民”。 最后,我被正式指控,并得到通知下周一到里士满地方法院受审。他们这才让我走。 我本想在法庭上自我辩护,但是父亲一弄清事情原委后,就为我请了一位很不错的律师。就在那个星期一,我们带着各种证人出庭了,这其中包括我的中学英语教师作为我的平行见证人。但法庭没有传唤他作证。对我的“审判”并没有进行到那一步,才开庭十五分钟,法官就驳回了此案。我被无罪释放。可怜的警察毫无胜诉的机会。我的律师甚至成功的使警察承担了诉讼费。 这样,我没有留下任何犯罪记录。但当时,最令人震惊的是我被无罪释放所明显依赖的证据:我有标准的口音,有受人尊重的中产阶级父母来到法庭,有可靠的证人,还有,很明显我请得起很好的律师。想到这次指控的含混不清的特点,我敢断定,我如果出生在一个不同背景的家庭,并真失了业,则完全可能被判为有罪。当我的律师要求赔偿诉讼费时,他的辩词很显然的紧紧围绕着我“学习成绩优异”这一事实。 与此同时,在法庭外面,曾逮捕我的警察中的一个沮丧的想我的母亲抱怨说,又有一个小伙子要与警察做对了。他以责备的口气对我说:“我们抓你的时候,你本可以帮帮忙的。” 他这话是什么意思?也许是说我因该做出大发雷霆的样子,并说:“喂,你们知道是在和谁说话么?

现代大学英语精读Book4-Unit6课文

Book 4-Unit 5 Text A The Telephone Anwar F. Accawi 1.When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rocky mountains east of Sidon, time didn't mean much to anybody, except maybe to those who were dying. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate and played and married our cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox—and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. We lived and loved and toiled and died without ever needing to know what year it was, or even the time of day. 2.It wasn't that we had no system for keeping track of time and of the important events in our lives. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine — calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us. 3.Take, for example, the birth date of Teta Im Khalil, the oldest woman in Magdaluna and all the surrounding villages. When I asked Grandma, "How old is Teta Im Khalil?" 4.Grandma had to think for a moment; then she said, "I've been told that Teta was born shortly after the big snow that caused the roof on the mayor's house to cave in." 5."And when was that?" I asked. 6."Oh, about the time we had the big earthquake that cracked the wall in the east room." 7.Well, that was enough for me. You couldn't be more accurate than that, now, could you? 8.And that's the way it was in our little village for as far back as anybody could remember. One of the most unusual of the dates was when a whirlwind struck during which fish and oranges fell from the sky. Incredible as it may sound, the story of the fish and oranges was true, because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story until it was incorporated into Magdaluna's calendar. 9.The year of the fish-bearing whirlpool was not the last remarkable year. Many others followed in which strange and wonderful things happened. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. The spring was about a mile from the village, in a ravine that opened at one end into a small, flat clearing covered with fine gray dust and hard, marble-sized goat droppings. In the year of the drought, that little clearing was always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers —sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. The children ran around playing tag or hide-and-seek while the women talked, shooed flies, and awaited their turns to fill up their jars with drinking water to bring home to their napping men and wet babies. There were days when we had to wait from sunup until late afternoon just to fill a small clay jar with precious, cool water.

大学英语精读2课文翻译

Unit1 The Dinner Party 晚宴 那个美国人没有参加这场争论,他只是注视着在座的其他客人。在他这样观察时,他发现女主人的脸上显出一种奇异的表情。她两眼盯着正前方,脸部肌肉在微微抽搐。她向站在座椅后面的印度男仆做了个手势,对他耳语了几句。男仆两眼睁得大大的,迅速地离开了餐室。 在座的客人中除了那位美国人以外谁也没注意到这一幕,也没有看到那个男仆把一碗牛奶放在紧靠门边的走廊上。 那个美国人突然醒悟过来。在印度,碗中的牛奶只有一个意思——引蛇的诱饵。他意识到餐室里一定有条眼镜蛇。 Unit2 Lessons from Jefferson 杰斐逊的遗训 杰斐逊的勇气和理想主义是以知识为基础的。他懂得的东西也许比同时代的任何人都要多。在农业、考古学和医学方面他都是专家。在人们普遍采用农作物轮作和土壤保持的做法之前一个世纪,他就这样做了。他还发明了一种比当时任何一种都好的耕犁。他影响了整个美国的建筑业,他还不断地制造出各种机械装置,使日常生活中需要做的许多工作变得更加容易。 在杰斐逊的众多才能中,有一种是最主要的:他首先是一位优秀的、不知疲倦的作家。目前正在第一次出版的他的全集将超过五十卷。他作为一个作家的才能很快便被发现了,所以,当1776年在费城要撰写《独立宣言》的时刻来到时,这一任务便落在了他肩上。数以百万计的人们读到他写的下列词句都激动不已:“我们认为这些真理是不言而喻的:一切人生来就是平等的……” Unit3 My First Job 我的第一份工作 在我等着进大学期间,我在一份地方报纸上看到一则广告,说是在离我住处大约十英里的伦敦某郊区,有所学校要招聘一名教师。我因为手头很拮据,同时也想做点有用的事,于是便提出了申请,但在提出申请的同时我也担心,自己一无学位,二无教学经验,得到这份工作的可能性是微乎其微的。 然而,三天之后,却来了一封信,叫我到克罗伊登去面试。这一路去那儿原来还真麻烦:先乘火车到克罗伊顿车站,再乘十分钟的公共汽车,然后还要至少步行四分之一英里。结果,我在六月一个炎热的上午到了那儿,因为心情非常沮丧,竟不感到紧张了。 Unit4 The Professor and the Y o-Y o 教授与溜溜球 作为一个孩子,以后又作为一个成人,我一直对爱因斯坦的个性惊叹不已。他是我所认识的人中唯一能跟自己及周围世界达成妥协的人。他知道自己想要什么,而他想要的只是:在他作为一个人的能力范围之内理解宇宙的性质以及宇宙运行的逻辑和单纯。他知道有许多问题的答案超出了他智力所及的范围。但这并不使他感到灰心丧气。只要在能力许可的范围内取得最大的成功他就心满意足了。 在我们二十三年的友谊中,我从未见他表现出妒忌、虚荣、痛苦、愤怒、怨恨或个人野心。他好像对这些感情具有免疫能力似的。他毫无矫饰之心,虚荣之意。虽然他与世界上的许多要人通信,他用的却是有W水印字母的信笺,水印字母W——五分钱商店伍尔沃思的缩写。Unit5 The V illain in the Atmosphere 大气层中的恶棍 年复一年,海平面正在慢慢上升。它很可能继续上升,而在今后数百年间,会以更快的速度上升。在那些低洼的沿海地区(在这些地区居住着世界上很大一部分人口),海水会稳步向前推进,迫使人们向内陆退居。 最后,海水将会高出目前海平面两百英尺,一阵阵海浪将会拍打曼哈顿摩天大楼二十层楼的窗户。佛罗里达将会沉没在海浪之下,英伦三岛的大部分,人口稠密的尼罗河流域,还有中国、印度和俄罗斯的低洼地区也都将遭到同样的命运。 不仅许多城市将被淹没,而且世界上大部分盛产粮食的地区也将会失去。由于食品供应下降,到处都会出现饥荒,在这种压力下,社会结构有可能崩溃。 Unit6 The Making of a Surgeon 外科医师的成功之道 然而,在我做住院医生的最后一个月,睡眠已不再是个问题了。在有些情况下我仍然不能确定自己的决定是否正确,但我已学会把这看做一个外科医师经常会遇到的问题,一个永远也

相关主题