意思的有效、精美传输

1．我一下船就让一个人给缠住了，他向我兜销一枚钻戒。(I had no sooner got off the ship than I was assailed by a man who wanted to sell me a diamond ring.)

2．我无意要买钻戒，但我无法掩饰自己还是被钻石的个头给吸引住了。(I had no intention of buying one, but I could not conceal the fact that I was impressed by the size of the diamond.)

3．我们走经一家路边的商店时，他拿起一块钻石，紧紧地按在窗户上，在玻璃上划出了一道很深的印痕。(As we were walking past a shop, he held a diamond firmly against the window and made a deep impression in the glass.)

4．下一个走向我的人是卖贵重钢笔和手表的。(The next man to approach me was selling expensive pens and watches.)

5．我仔细查看了其中的一支钢笔，看起来的确像是真的。在金笔帽的底部整齐地刻着“美国造”字样。(I examined one of the pens closely. It certainly looked genuine. At the base of the gold cap, the words ‘Made in USA’ were neatly inscribed.)

6．这人讲这支笔值50英镑，但算我面子大，只需30镑便可拿走。(The man said that the pen was worth 50 pounds, but as a special favor, he would let me have it for 30 pounds.)

7．我摇了摇头，伸出了五个手指，意思是我只愿意付5英镑。(I shook my head and held up five fingers indicating that I was willing to pay 5 pounds.)

8．一边打着手势，嘴里面一边哇哇乱叫着，这人表现得好像感到我的出价让他发疯一般。但他最终还是把价格降到了10英镑。(Gesticulating wildly, the man acted as if he found my offer outrageous, but he eventually reduced the price to 10 pounds.)

9．我耸了耸肩膀便迈步走开了，此时，也就是那么一会儿的功夫，他追了上来并将笔塞到了我的手里面。(Shrugging my shoulders, I began to walk away when, a moment later, he ran after me and thrust the pen into my hands.)

10．虽然他绝望地不停地向空中甩着胳膊，然而还是很欣然地接过了我给他的那5英镑。(Though he kept throwing up his arms in despair, he readily accepted the 5 pounds that I gave him.)

11．我为自己杀价的本领沾沾自喜、得意忘形，但回到船上后这种感觉便荡然无存了。无论我怎么摆弄，就是没办法将这支漂亮的笔灌上墨水。时至今日，它还没写出过一个字呢。(I was especially pleased with my wonderful bargain—until I got back to the ship. No matter how hard I tried, it was impossible to fill this beautiful pen with ink and to this day, it has never written a single word! )

12．首先，沉湎于过去是无意义的。(First of all, it is futile to dwell on the past.)

13．其次，为未来而担忧也是没有用的。(Second, it is also useless to worry about the future.)

14．第三，现在的这一刻才是我所知晓的唯一现实，而我不想错失它。(Third, the present moment is the only reality I know and I don’t want to miss it.)

15．我信奉活在现在，因为沉湎于过去毫无意义，为未来担忧毫无意义，错失我所知晓的唯一现实中的任何东西毫无意义。(I believe in living in the present because it is futile to dwell on the past, to worry about the future, or to miss anything in the reality I know.)

16．过去存在或发生过的事情也许是很美的，令人兴奋，可以带来无穷的珍贵回忆，但是，过去已经死掉了，活着的生灵徘徊在鬼怪居住的世界里是不健康的。(What existed or happened in the past may have been beautiful or exciting and may bring profound and precious memories. But the past is dead and it is not healthy for living spirits to linger over a world inhabited by ghosts.)

17．必须把过去保持在属于它的地方，并且超越它。(The past must be kept in its place, outlived and outgrown.)

18．我想每个人都需要有一种历史感，特别是对自己根源的某种感觉，但是历史有必要与之拉开一段距离才好去欣赏。(Everyone needs a sense of history, particularly a feeling of his or her own roots, but history needs to keep its distance to be appreciated.)

19．小孩子在电脑上花费了太多的时间，而花在学习和锻炼身体方面的时间却少得可怜，这对他们的学习和健康带来了严重影响，值得我们密切关注。(Children are spending too much time on computers and too little time on study and physical exercises. This has greatly affected their study and health and is, thereby, well worth our deep concern.)

20．我认为，经验丰富、掌握技能多的人对社会发展的贡献会更大。(I believe that those who have more experience and more skills make more contribution to social development.)

21．日本高科技消费品得以主导世界市场是因为日本人勤奋、重技术、重创新。(Japanese consumer products are able to dominate the world market because the Japanese are hard working, technologically oriented and innovation-focused.)

22．首先，我们知道日本人工作拼命，经常为了工作而牺牲自己的闲暇时间。(First of all, we know that the Japanese work very hard, often sacrificing their free time for work.)

23．鉴于核电太过危险，我认为所有国家应该禁止使用，并将注意力集中到诸如水电、风力发电、太阳能等可替代能源的开发上来。(As nuclear power is far too dangerous, I hold that all countries should ban its use and concentrate, instead, on the development of such alternative sources of energy as hydroelectric power, wind power and solar energy.)

24．每年都有成千上万的高技能、高学历人才离开中国前往发达国家工作或定居，这对我国的经济发展带来了负面影响，因为这些人才恰恰也是我们国家发展经济所需要的。(Every year thousands of highly skilled and well educated people leave China and go to work or live in a developed country. This is having a negative effect on the economic development of our country, for these are the very people China needs in developing our economy.)

25．人的社会地位究竟该如何衡定呢？有人认为应该以财富量为准，有人认为应该以对社会的贡献为准。(How can we measure or define one’s social status? Some people hold that it should be based on the wealth an individual owns while others argue that one’s social status should be awarded according the contribution he or she has made to the society. )

People have various ways of relieving stress. What are some of the ways that you find most effective in relieving stress? Give reasons and examples to support your response.

人们缓解压力的方式确实千差万别：有人痛哭，有人大笑，有人狂饮，有人狂舞，凡此种种，不一而足。可我感到对自己来讲最有效的方式是猛睡觉和散长步。

The way or ways that people relieve their stress are very much different: some cry, some laugh, some overdrink themselves and some dance wildly, so on and so forth, to name just a few. However, the two most effective ways that work on me are sleeping in and taking long walks.

我们先来看看睡大觉的诸多好处。睡大觉可以使我们紧张、疲劳的神经得到休息。压力大时，我们往往会感到烦躁、容易上火，这只会加重我们的压力感。一有机会，猛睡一场，我们的神经就会得到相应的调整，从而有助于克服紧张和疲劳。另外，睡大觉可以使我们暂时把压力忘记。进入睡眠状态后，我们便不会再去思考压力的问题，一切的一切都暂时归于平静，等醒来的时候，压力感往往会变得小了。当然，睡大觉并非是随时随地都可以做到的，而是要找时间，在工作允许的情况下。

Now let’s look at the many advantages of sleeping in. Sleeping in may help ease our nervousness and give our exhausted nerves a break. While under pressure, we tend to be impatient and easily lose our temper which could only aggravate our feeling of pressure. Sleeping in once there is a chance can help adjust our nerves and this is conducive to getting over nervousness and tiredness. Furthermore, sleeping in can let us forget all about the stress for the time being. Once falling asleep, we would be free from thinking about the stress any longer and everything recedes to temporary tranquility, so when we wake up, the stress is not that strong anymore. Of course, we are unable to sleep in wherever we are and whenever we want to, rather, we need to find time, that is, when work allows us to do so.

我们再来看看散长步的绝妙之处。散步本身就是最好的体育锻炼，可以使我们保持健康的身体，从而增强我们排压的能力和长远的健康。同时，散长步的过程中我们可以一边欣赏周围的景色，一边思考大脑中的问题。这样，我们一边锻炼，一边赏景，一边思考，三合一，压力也就成了很小的一部分烦扰了。

Next, let’s take a look at some of the positive points of taking long walks. As we know, taking a walk itself is the best form of exercise that can help us keep fit, thus improving our capability to alleviate or eradicate pressure which in turn makes for our long-term health. Meanwhile, taking long walks provides us with opportunities to enjoy the beauty of the surrounding sceneries and to think over the problems in our mind. Therefore, we are actually doing exercises, feasting our eyes on the sceneries and thinking about things at the same time: all three in one, which means that stress or pressure becomes only a small part of the whole process.

总之，经过我多年的实际验证，这两种方式对于缓解，甚至是彻底排除压力具有极佳的效果，因此，我向朋友们高度推荐，希望它们在你的身上也能产生实际效果。

In general, my own experience across the years has proved that the above mentioned two ways are the most effective in terms of relieving and even eradicating stress, so I highly recommend them to you and hope they would produce the same effect on you.

Passage 1:
French are elegant people.(此话非常概括，是“帅才”，所以会统领一只队伍) They are artists in everyday life, having a very good taste in everything. They don’t like American tourists wearing jeans to go into their luxurious and exquisite five-star restaurants, so one of the restaurants put a notice outside its front door. It read ‘No trousers, please!’(读完了，感觉是个很具体的例子，对吗？)
 A gourmet coffee was sold in Tokyo as an antidote to stress. Its name supposedly meant to people that it would soothe the troubled breast, yet when it was printed in English, it turned out to be ‘Ease Your Bosoms.’(又是一个例子，我们开始揣摩：作者要说什么呢？)
 Swedes started a promotion stunt to promote the sales of their vacuum cleaner named Electro. Their original ad slogan was translated as ‘Nothing sucks like Electro.’(又一个例子！意图何在？)
 The selling of Chevrolet was very bad in South America. And the reason? The translation of this brand sounds like ‘no va’—which means ‘It doesn’t go’ in Spanish.(还是例子！！为什么呀？)
 When Pepsi-cola invaded the huge Chinese and German markets, the efforts initially fizzled. The product’s slogan, ‘Come alive with the Pepsi generation’, was rendered into German as ‘come out of the grave with Pepsi’. Coca-Cola also discovered something had gone wrong in Taiwan. The Chinese characters chosen for the world-famous product sound like its name means ‘Bite the Wax Tadpole.’(依然是例子！！！肯定要说明某个道理，那这个道理是什么呢？)
 A pliers company’s slogan ‘Turn it loose’ became, in Spanish, equivalent to ‘suffer from diarrhea.’ A company translated its sticky tape slogan into Japanese and came up with a sticky problem. The slogan ‘Sticks like crazy’ became literally ‘it sticks foolishly’ in Japanese.(更多的例子！如果没有目的，那是不可能的！)
 A tonic product in China is made of royal jelly and is supposed to be very effective for some chronic diseases. Yet it was translated as ‘oral liquid’, which means ‘saliva’ in English. In the brochure, it was described in this way: ‘it tastes like medicine’, when the language in the original meant to use it as a food therapy.(例子！！)
 Even the wrong nonverbal cue can bring havoc to a product.(此话也是“帅才”) A baby food company initially packaged their African products just the same as in the US—with a cute baby picture on the jar. They didn’t realize that because so many Africans cannot read, nearly all packaged products sold in Africa carry pictures of what is inside. Pureed baby! How horrible!(例子越举越厉害了，看来是要举到头了！)
 In an Asian city, where traffic is really very bad, to secure people’s safety, the municipal government has built underground passageways. Pedestrians are asked to use them whenever they need to cross the main street. A sign was posted once on the roadside, pointing to the entrance to an underground passageway, intending to notify English-speaking passengers, ‘Go Underground’.(眼睛的余光已经看到全篇的结束了，所以，这肯定是最后一个例子啦！同时，马上也就要看到作者想说明什么问题啦！)
 We chuckled at such clumsy translations.(比较概括，“帅才”，那为什么忍不住要笑呢？下面的解释就必然是作者的写作意图了)Is there anything wrong in the language? We must be aware that few words and idioms can be literally translated. It’s best to hire the best for translation. Don’t take it for granted that as long as one speaks a little English, he is autonomously able to do the translation. It takes a while to learn to be a good translator.(就是它！千呼万唤使出来！)

请各位再回顾一下本文的写作思路是怎么设计的？

Passage 2:
One day, in a zoo, a female ape held something in her hand, clutching it tightly.(虽然是一个事实，但对于我们读者来讲就会做出各种猜测，所以，这里面肯定有文章) A zookeeper was anxious to get it from the ape, for (表原因)he was suspicious that the thing was dangerous or valuable.(真是如此吗？想必不会的，否则故事讲起来就没劲了) First he offered the ape some peanuts, only to be met with a blank stare. Realizing that they were negotiating, the zookeeper upped the ante and offered a piece of pineapple. At this point, while maintaining eye contact, the ape opened her hand and revealed a key chain, to the zookeeper’s great relief. As he gave the pineapple to the ape, she suddenly changed her mind. Instead of giving him the whole chain, she broke it and gave him a link, perhaps figuring why give him the whole thing if she can get a bit of pineapple for each piece. What an astute bargainer she was!(很有趣，不是吗？但这个东西究竟要派做什么用场呢？难得就是为了换好东西吃吗？恐怕不会那么简单，否则文章开头就不会那么安排了)
 The first time an ape named Coco broke out, the zookeepers chalked it up to human error.(猩猩跑出来了，虽然讲是由于管理员的疏忽，但肯定不会那么简单的。否则，开始时讲的内容就与此无关了，是吗？) It was a balmy day, and the apes at the zoo had been playing in their big outdoor enclosure. Afterward, shocked zookeepers looked up and saw Coco and his family hanging out in trees near the elephant barn. Later investigation revealed the door connecting the furnace room to the outdoor enclosure was open. The director chewed out his staff, and the incident was forgotten. But (不看后面内容就知道又出问题了，为什么？因为有but)the next time the weather was nice, Coco escaped again. The director fumed. He was getting ready to fire someone. But(这里肯定要出现转机了，为什么？因为有but嘛) soon afterwards, he caught Coco in the act. First the young ape climbed down some air-vent louvers into a dry moat. Then, taking hold of the bottom of the furnace-room door, he pulled it back just enough to slide a wire into the gap, slip a latch and pop the door open. The following day, the director noticed something shiny sticking out of Coco’s mouth: that was the wire lock-pick, stowed there between escapes.(谜团解开了，但又是为了说明什么问题呢？眼睛的余光一扫，看到下面还有很多内容，所以，作者的真实意图还在后面)
 An anthropologist tried to teach an ape human sign language and also some virtuous habits such as saving and sharing. Indeed, the ape set up an example of sharing that a robber baron might envy. When he was given some grapes and asked to share them with the anthropologist, he promptly ate all the fruit. Then seemingly remembered he had been asked to share, he handed the anthropologist the stem.(幽默啊！但恐怕不会仅仅为了这点幽默吧？意图在后！)
 A whale, called Charles once helped save his family.(肯定要讲述全过程的，否则读者没法理解其中的诀窍，所以，此话也是“帅才”) He was kept in a big tank with his mate in a zoological consulting firm. When his mate gave birth to a baby, who did not thrive at first, keepers took him out of the tank by a stretcher for emergency care. After that they returned the big baby back to the tank. As the boom operator halted the stretcher a few feet above the water, the baby suddenly began to throw up through his mouth and blowholes. The keepers feared it would aspirate vomit, which could bring pneumonia, but they could not reach the baby to help it. Apparently sizing up the problem, Charles swam under the stretcher and allowed one of the men to stand on his head, something he had never been trained to do. Then, using his tail flukes to keep steady, Charles let the keeper reach up and release the bridle so the 420-pound baby could slide into the water within reach of help.(又是一个精美的例子！该说明举这些例子的意图了吧？)
 Do animals really have thoughts, what we call consciousness? (这才是作者要揭示的真实意图，而且是以一个问句的形式摆出的)If animals can think, they will probably do their best thinking when it serves their purposes. There are more and more evidences to show how little we know about animal intelligence.(深入到这个层面了) Besides,(表示递进) what is intelligence anyway? If life is about perpetuation of a species—and intelligence is meant to serve that perpetuation—then we can’t hold a candle to pea-brained sea turtles, which predated us and survived the calamity that wiped out dinosaurs. Still,(层层递进) it is comforting to realize that other species besides our own can stand back and appraise the world around them even if their horizons are more constrained than ours.(写作的真实意图出现在了结论段里)