-
第四册
Unit 1
If
you
ask
me,
real
life
is
not
all
it's
cracked
up
to
be. Twelve
years
at
school
and three
years
at
university,
teachers
banging on about
opportunities in the big wide world beyond our
sheltered life as students, and what do I find?
Try as I might to stay cheerful, all I
ever get is hassle, sometimes with people
(especially boys, god, when will they grow
up?), but mostly with money. It's just
so expensive out here! Everyone wants a slice off
you. The Inland Revenue wants
to deduct
income tax, the bank manager wants repayments on
my student loan, the landlord wants the rent, gas,
water,
electricity and my mobile bills
keep coming in, and all that's before I've had
anything to eat. And then some bright spark
calls me out of the blue, asking if I'm
interested in buying a pension. At this rate, I
won't even last till the end of the year,
let alone till I'm 60.
依我看，现
实生活与人们想象的不一样。我们上了
12
年的中、小学，又上
了
3
年的大学，这期间老师们一直在
没
完没了地谈论在安宁的学生生活之外那个广阔天地里的各种机会，可我遇到的又是什么呢？
无论我怎么想保持心情愉快，麻烦事总是接踵而来：有时是跟人争吵（尤其是跟男孩
，天哪！他们什么时候才能
长大？）
，但通常是为钱发愁。这个
地方什么东西都很贵！人人都想从我身上拿点钱去：国税局要收个人所得税，
银行经理要
我偿清学生贷款，房东催我交房租、燃气费、水费、电费，手机账单也不断地寄来。所有这些还没算
上吃饭的钱。更可气的是，不知从哪里冒出一个自作聪明的家伙冷不丁地给我打电话，问我要不要买养
老金。照
这样下去，我连今年都活不过去了，更别提活到
60<
/p>
岁领养老金了。
汉译英
我认为，选修第二专业并不适
合每一位本科生。我大学本科主修英语专业，大一时就开始辅修经济学了。无疑，
我是班
里最用功的学生。我竭尽全力想同时达到两个不同专业的要求，但还是有不及格的时候。因为经济学需要
良好的数学基础，我不得不花大量时间钻研数学，因而忽略了英语学习。
If you ask me
, taking a
second major isn't good for every undergraduate.
In my freshman year as English major, I took
economics as my minor.
By
all odds
, I was the most hardworking
student in my class. But
try as I
might
to meet the
requirements of the two different
subjects, I still couldn't do well enough to pass
all the exams.
Given that
the study of
economics
required a good command of mathematics, I had to
spend so much time on math that I neglected my
English
major.
第二学期
,
《英国文学》及《宏观经济学》两门课不及格给我敲响了警钟，这可是我一生中第
一次考试不及格，
这大大打击了我的自信心。虽然我不是一个容易向命运低头的人，在暑
假结束的时候，我还是决定放弃经济学，
以免两个专业都难以完成。当我只需修一个专业
的时候，一切似乎又回到了正轨。
(if you ask
me; odds; try as
?
might; sap one's confidence; given
that; bow to fate; come to a close; for fear that;
now that)
Failing English Literature
and Macroeconomics in the second semester sounded
the alarm for me. This was the first time
I did not pass a course in my life,
which had greatly
sapped my
confidence
. Although I was not a man
who would easily
bow to
fate
, as the summer break
came to a close
, I decided
to give up economics
for fear that
I would fail in both
subjects.
Now that
I had only one subject to attend to,
everything seemed to be on the right track
again.
第四册
Unit 2
Indubitably the vast majority of books
overlap one another. Few indeed are those which
give the impression of originality,
either in style or in content. Rare are
the unique books
–
less than
50, perhaps, out of the whole storehouse of
literature.
In
one
of
his
recent
auto-biographical
novels,
Blaise
Cendrars
points
out
that
Ré
my
de
Gourmont,
because
of
his
knowledge
and awareness of this repetitive quality in books,
was able to select and read all that is
worthwhile in the
entire
realm of rs himself
—
who
would suspect it?
—
is a
prodigious reader. He reads most
only
that, but when he likes an author he reads every
last book the man has written, as well as his
letters and all the books
that have
been written about him. In our day his case is
almost unparalleled, I imagine. For, not only has
he read widely
and deeply, but he has
himself written a great many books. All on the
side, as it were. For, if he is anything,
Cendrars, he
is a man of action, an
adventurer and explorer,
a man who has
known how to ―waste‖ his time royally. He is, in a
sense,
the Julius Caesar of literature.
不容置疑的是，大多数书都互相重复。在文体或内容上让人感到具有独创性的书实在是少
之又少。在整个文学库
藏中，只有极少数作品——或许不到
50
本——是独具一格的。在最近出版的一部自传体小说中，布莱斯·桑德
< br>拉尔指出，古尔蒙之所以能够选择并通读文学领域中一切值得读的书籍，就是因为他知识渊博，并且了解书 的这
种重复性。桑德拉尔本人就是一个博览群书的人，没有人会怀疑这一点。他阅读了大
部分作家的原作
.
不仅如此，
一旦他喜
欢上一个作家，他就会阅读这个人写的每一本书，包括他的书信以及所有有关他的书籍。我猜想，在当
今世上，
几乎没有人能像他一样，
不仅读得广，<
/p>
读得深，
而且还著述颇丰。
可以说这一切
都是在业余时间完成的。
因为桑德拉尔是一个十足的行动家，
一
个四处跋涉的冒险家和探险家，
一个懂得如何大量
“肆意浪费”
时间的人。
从某种意义上说，他是文学界的凯撒大帝。
汉译英
张磊是在毕
业工作后才开始意识到读书的乐趣的。反思自己的大学教育时，他感慨不已：他的一些同学都沉浸于
从图书馆或书店找到的各种有趣的书籍，而他却只读了一些教科书，其中连一本真正能让他爱不释手、
值得一读
的书都没有。他可以说是被剥夺了通过书了解作家奇妙世界的特权。
It was not until after he had
graduated from university and started to work that
Zhang Lei became aware of the pleasure
of
reading.
Reflecting
on
his
undergraduate
studies,
he
lamented
that
he,
unlike
his
classmates
who
had
immersed
themselves
in
various
interesting
books
they
were
able
to
lay
hands
on
from
the
library
or
bookshop,
had
only
read
textbooks, none of which was really
worthwhile
, or could be read
in one sitting
. He was
deprived of the privilege of
gaining
access to the writers' fantastic worlds through
the windows their books have opened,
so
to speak
.
如今，他嗜书如命，废寝忘食，好像要把
大学期间没机会读的好书全都读一遍。到目前为止他已经利用业余时间
读了几百本小说、
传记和游记。他意识到书不仅能向他展示一个充满希望的前景，帮他消除现实生活中的压力和
疲劳，而且能够帮他澄清一些误解，找到生活的真谛
.
Now he has become an avid and
omnivorous reader. It is as if he wants to make up
for those marvelous books he hadn't
had
a chance to read in his university days. By now,
in his spare time, he has read several hundreds of
books, including
novels, biographies
and travel notes. He realizes that books can not
only reveal to him the
vista
of a hopeful future and
help
him
withstand
stresses
and
strains,
they
can
also
help
him
clear
up
some
misconceptions
and
discover
the
true
meaning of the life.
第四册
Unit 3
Sometimes the hemline indicator, as
it's called, can even precede and predict a change
in the mood of the stock market
long
before it actually happens. In September 2007, at
the New York fashion shows, which were displaying
their styles
for spring 2008, the trend
was for much longer dresses and skirts, many to
mid-calf or even down to the ankles. Some
people
felt
this
showed
that
the
hemline
indicator
was
no
longer
reliable,
and
that
designers
no
longer
dictated
what
people would wear.
During the London and New York fashion shows in
September 2008, hemlines continued to drop.
But
sure
enough,
in
the
fall
of
2008,
the
stock
market
indexes
fell
dramatically
when
the
banking
crisis
hit
the
US,
Europe and then the rest
of the world. Hemlines were no longer following
the stock market
–
they were
showing the way
and indicating future
economic trends.
有时候，所谓的裙摆指标甚至能事先早早就预告股
市的变化。
2007
年
9
月，纽约时装展展示了
2008
年春季流行
风格，潮流转向了长衣、长裙，许多裙摆降至小腿中线，甚至到了脚踝。有人觉得，这表明裙摆指
标靠不住了，
或者服装设计师不再左右着装的趋势了。在
200
8
年
9
月的伦敦和纽约时装展中，裙摆
继续下降。在
2008
年
9
月
的伦敦和纽约时装展中，裙摆继续下降。果然，
2008
年秋天金融危机袭击美欧，波及全球，股指急跌。此时，
裙摆不再被动追随股市升跌，而是引领潮流，预示未来的经济趋势了。
汉译英
一个人的穿着似乎能影响他的
行为方式。譬如，在校内要穿校服是中小学生所必须严格遵守的规矩之一。倘若在
学生着
装整齐划一和行为的统一规范之间不存在一种象征性关联的话，校服便不可能如此盛行。然而，多年的学
校生活让学生在内心里对随处可见的校服产生了抵触情绪，校服毕竟压制了个性的表达。为了弥补
这种损失，学
生常常会在周末穿流行的休闲装。直到上了大学，他们才会享受真正的着装
自由，而服装上的无序与大学培养创
造力、鼓励自由表达思想及展露才华密切相关。可惜
这样的好景不会太长，经过一段相对短暂的自由之后，他们
在毕业工作之后将再次经历着
装规范的压力。
(hard and fast; there is no
doubt that; currency; correlation; backlash;
ubiquitous; compensate for; anarchy;
obtain; revive)
What you wear seems to
dictate the kind of person you are supposed to be.
Take primary school and high school students
for example. One of the
hard
and fast
rules they have to observe is
that they must wear uniforms at school.
There is no
doubt
that
school
uniforms
would
not
have
achieved
their
currency
without
a
symbolic
correlation
between
the