| 分类： 英语 |
跟参考消息学习地道英语
我国中小学校乃至大学，对英语阅读训练较之听说训练算是异乎寻常的重视了，每个孩子从小到大做的阅读理解卷子摞起来绝不会小于一米厚。但效果却不见得好，因为学生们日复一日面对的阅读材料，要么是为了配合语法句法炮制出来的，要么是已经老旧不堪的八股，鲜有将来工作和生活中会用得上的贴合实际的东西。
在《阅读原汁原味、杂七杂八的东西》
选择文章还是要从孩子的兴趣出发，如果觉得报纸中的哪一篇文章孩子可能感兴趣，可以去发表该篇文章的官方网站查询原始的英文原文给孩子读，这样孩子如果很想知道文章中某句英语的汉语表达，可以看看参考消息的译文，或者可以先看着参考消息试着想一想这句话英语该怎么表达。把这些英汉对照材料积累起来，时间久了，就可以做成孩子自己专属的英汉对照读物。
这样做对像我这样英语水平不高的家长非常有帮助，因为参考消息已经替我们把翻译工作完成了，而且还比较地道。
下面是我从昨天的《参考消息》找到的一篇文章《为什么耶路撒冷屡经磨难？》，原文出自《新闻周刊》。
先搜索新闻周刊网站，在百度或google搜索栏（search）中输入“newsweek”，到了新闻周刊的官网www.newsweek.com，在搜索栏中输入参考消息上该篇译文出现的几个关键词，这篇文章可以选“耶路撒冷，1898”,也就是“Jerusalem,1898”，与之相关的文章列表就列了出来。因为找的两个关键词与文章的关联度很高，所以，Blood in the Holy City列在第一条，这正是是我们要找的。再把相应的中文译文从网上搜出来，按照中英对照方式排好版，这样，一篇鲜活的阅读材料就完成了。值得注意的是，要尽可能在译文中选取几个精准度高的词，比如年代、百分比，地名，人名等，有些拿不准的不要选，比如《为什么耶路撒冷屡经磨难》一文标题中的“磨难”，就很难猜出原文用的是哪个词（至少以我的水平猜不出），所以要避免选用该词搜索。
下面所附的就是我按照上述方法做的一篇英汉对照阅读材料，很新鲜吧？
（读者可以再从今天《参考消息》找篇文章来试试这个方法，比如第6版刊登的基督教箴言报文章《美报认为利比亚战争“样板”作用有限》）
为什么耶路撒冷屡经磨难？
by Dan Ephron
【美国《新闻周刊》网站10月17日文章】题：圣城血光：一本以全新视角讲述耶路撒冷磨难史的书(作者丹·埃夫龙)
For all its holiness, Jerusalem has often been a disappointment to visitors, including those with designs on the city. T. E. Lawrence, the British officer who led the Arabs in revolt during World War I, called it a “squalid town” of “hotel servants.” Kaiser Wilhelm II, the German emperor who hoped to counter British influence in the Middle East, described it as a “dismal arid heap of stones.” Even the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, couldn’t wait to leave the city and return to Vienna. After a visit in 1898, he wrote: “The musty deposits of 2,000 years of inhumanity, intolerance and foulness lie in your reeking alleys.”
尽管“圣名”在外，但耶路撒冷常常令游客大失所望，那些打它主意的人也不例外。在第一次世界大战期间率领阿拉伯人抗击土耳其侵略的英国军官T·E·劳伦斯，把耶路撒冷称作一个满眼都是“旅馆佣人”的“肮脏城镇”。希冀在中东抗衡英国影响力的德皇威廉二世，将它描述为一个“压抑沉闷的石头堆”。就连现代犹太复国主义之父特奥多雷·赫茨尔，也迫不及待地要离开这座城市回到维也纳。在1898年去过耶路撒冷后，他写道：“在你那味道令人作呕的巷子里，沉积着两千年的腐朽历史，其间充斥着惨无人道、褊狭顽固和卑鄙下流。”
Their impressions are included in a new book by the British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore that traces the 3,000-year history of the city and tries to answer a question that even today, with all the news coverage, can seem vexing: Why Jerusalem? Why has it been so coveted, so revered, so fiercely fought over for so long? In unraveling that mystery, Jerusalem: The Biography reads like a richly drawn novel, with complex characters—kings, priests, philo-Semites, and anti-Semites—and riveting anecdotes. It also puts the region’s contemporary conflict in perspective. Long before Israelis and Arabs launched at each other a century ago, the city had suffered recurring episodes of the most grotesque violence. “Really, the past 60 years have been one of the most peaceful periods in Jerusalem’s history,” Montefiore said in an interview.
他们的感想都收录在英国历史学家西蒙·塞巴格·蒙蒂菲奥里的一部新书中。该书追溯了耶路撒冷的三千年历史，试图解答一个即便在新闻媒体发达的今天，也让人百思不得其解的问题：为什么是耶路撒冷？为什么在如此长的时间里，人们对它如此垂涎，如此敬畏，又如此你死我活地争夺？《耶路撒冷考略》一书读来像是一部浓墨重彩的小说，里面有形形色色的人物，还有引人入胜的逸闻趣事。该书还涉及了这一地区的现代冲突。以色列人和阿拉伯人是从一个世纪以前开始“掐架”的，但在那之前很久，耶路撒冷就三番五次地领略过最丑陋的暴力活动。蒙蒂菲奥里在接受一次采访时说：“事实上，过去的60年要算是耶路撒冷历史上最平静的时期之一。”
As the narrative unspools, one overlord gives way to another in Jerusalem, but the themes remain constant: invasion, insurrection, religious and political persecution, and brutal crackdown. Only when the Ottoman Empire collapses on itself in the early 20th century does the chronicle shift to a struggle between rival nationalist movements. But even in the simplicity of the new drama, there’s more to the story. Montefiore describes in detail how divisions among Palestinians thwart their ability to counter the Jewish march to statehood. Their 1936 uprising quickly devolves into a campaign of internecine killing. Their increasingly fanatical leadership rejects compromises that would have left the Arabs controlling a large majority of the territory.
随着书中讲述的展开，一个个统治者在耶路撒冷轮番坐庄，但是主题永远都是：入侵，造反，宗教和政治迫害，野蛮镇压。20世纪初，奥斯曼帝国自己把自己压垮，在那以后，耶路撒冷的编年史才转入各种民族主义运动之间的争斗。但即便新剧情如此简单，事实也比表面上要复杂。蒙蒂菲奥里详细讲述了巴勒斯坦人内部的分歧如何导致他们没能阻止犹太人建国。巴勒斯坦人在1936年的起义迅速沦为一场自相残杀。日益丧失理智的巴勒斯坦领导层拒绝z出妥协，而那本可以让阿拉伯人控制那片土地的绝大部分。
He says he’s been visiting Israel all his life. To counter his own possible biases, Montefiore sent sections he wrote about the modern era to Palestinians and Israelis for review before the book’s publication. Some came back with insightful commentary, others with polemical nitpicking. “Writing about Jerusalem can be such a minefield,” he said in the interview. “I hardly slept for three years.”
蒙蒂菲奥里说自己一生中到过耶路撒冷多次。为了避免书中可能存在的偏见，蒙蒂菲奥里在本书问世前，把有关现代史的章节寄给巴勒斯坦人和以色列人看，让他们提意见。一些人反馈了富有见地的意见，其他人则存心找茬。他在接受采访时说：“耶路撒冷是写作的一大雷区。三年来，我几乎没睡过好觉。”
As for the question, why Jerusalem?, the answer is the Jewish Bible. By recording the early story of Jerusalem and acclaiming its holiness in a text that became the touchstone of the world’s main religions, authors of the Old Testament virtually guaranteed the city would be a focal point throughout history. “No other city has its own book and no other book has so guided the destiny of a city,” Montefiore writes. The reader can judge based on the torturous narrative whether it’s been more a blessing or a curse.
至于那个问题，为什么是耶路撒冷？答案是，犹太人的《圣经》(即《旧约全书》)《旧约》中记载了耶路撒冷的早期历史，并在一篇经文中赞颂了耶路撒冷的神圣，由此几乎注定了这座城市在以后的世世代代都是焦点。蒙蒂菲奥里写道：“没有任何其他城市在《圣经》中有自己的经文，也没有其他任何一篇经文如此左右了一个城市的命运。”读者可以通过阅读耶路撒冷所经历的磨难，来判断这到底是福赐还是诅咒。
“Jerusalem” by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Knopf. 688 p. $20.63.
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