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您现在的位置:首页 > 重要资讯 > 英文学习

向大师学英语(一)

作者简介:

李哲,武汉新东方原北美项目高级主管。十年英语教育经验,学术功底深厚,曾在《经济观察报》、《求知报》、《新语丝》等知名媒体上发表篇文章;担任大型电视教学片《汉字宫》的剧本翻译(汉译英);翻译出版多部英文著作,包括《品牌资产管理》(Brand Asset Management)、《品牌驱动力》(Building the Brand-Driven Business)、《可怕的历史》Horrible Histories系列(《可怕的科学丛书》)等;独特的诊断式教学方法,能精准分析问题核心、激发求知欲并让学生养成受益终身的思维方式,大批学生在李老师的指导下获得了出国考试高分,进入世界一流大学深造。


向大师学英语(一):我的推荐

李 哲

=== Oscar Wilde ===

   很多文学大家的句子不适合现在使用,但王尔德是个例外,他的文字和思想能够穿越时代。他的戏剧最有名,小说The Picture of Dorian Gray也被人津津乐道,因为大家喜欢看他“虐文字”。可是依我拙见,他骨子里是个很严肃的人。

   美剧里的一次引用让我震撼了。

   CSI(LV篇)里,McKeen假惺惺地说: So, Grissom, I'm not sure of your ambitions, but if you're interested in taking on more responsibility, maybe a promotion, I'd be glad to pass...

   老G打断他说:You know, Oscar Wilde once said: "Ambition is the last refuge of failure." I'm fine. Thanks.

   太解气了!淤积了40多分钟的情绪瞬间宣泄出来,爽到家了。以前在面试中,只知道傻乎乎地套用据称是王尔德回击美国海关工作人员的话:I have nothing to declare but /except my genius(一般都是换掉declare和genius的生硬操作)。这下多了一句,如果以后谁问我: What are your ambitions in life? 这种弱智的鸡汤问题,我肯定毫不犹豫地说:Ambition is the last refuge of failure. 就不配合你!

   王尔德写起论文来也毫不含糊,下面这段话来自The Soul of Man under Socialism中对Individualism(姑且翻译为带有中国特色的“个人主义”)的探讨。我是在企鹅出版的王尔德狱中记(书名:De Profundis and Other Writings)里读到全文的。那些喜欢干涉别人自由的人,尤其是那些企图控制自己子女的“无私”的中国父母们,都是这段话的讽刺对象。

   The Soul of Man under Socialism摘句:

   什么是别人眼中的“自私”,什么才是真正的“自私”——

   …Or a man is called selfish if he lives in the manner that seems to him most suitable for the full realization of his own personality; if, in fact, the primary aim of his life is self-development. But this is the way in which everyone should live. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them. Selfishness always aims at creating around it an absolute uniformity of type.

   就算是翻译成中文,这两句话也可以天天挂在嘴边:Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. And unselfishness is letting other people’s lives alone, not interfering with them.

=== Stephen Fry ===

   欣慰的是,大叔还健在。虽然影片Wilde有点遗憾,但大叔扮演的王尔德和裘德洛扮演的道格拉斯还是不错的。当然,我更喜欢他和Hugh Laurie(怪医豪斯)早年的合作,A Bit of Fry and Laurie和Jeeves & Wooster都是英式情景喜剧的佳作。习惯了他在荧幕上的伶牙俐齿,偶然翻翻他的书,伴着他自己的朗读,感觉很爽。他朗读的王尔德童话是小孩学英语的绝佳材料;虽然我对《哈利波特》电影嗤之以鼻,但却保存了他朗读的完整版音频。当然,想学英式英语写作,我极力推荐他的文集 Paperweight,里面收集了他为英国各大电台所做的专题节目文字稿,以及他在各大报刊上发表的文章。他写过很多书,我的推荐是:自传 Moab Is My Washpot,相当玩味的文字;小说The HippopotamusThe LiarThe Stars' Tennis Balls。我最想要的是Rescuing the Spectacled Bear(《拯救眼镜熊》),可惜只闻其声,不见其文。谈到英式发音,顺便说一句,Rowan Atkinson(憨豆先生)早年的脱口秀简直太棒了!

   Moab Is My Washpot 摘句:

   调侃自己没有音乐天赋,却对音乐十分狂热——

   Music matters to me desperately, I’ve made that clear, and I could cover pages and pages with my thoughts about Wagner and Mozart and Schubert and Strauss and all the rest of it, but in this book my passion for music and my inability to express it in musical terms stand really as symbols for the sense of separateness and apartness I have always felt.

   语言天赋给自己带来的好处——

   Language, I had to confess to myself, did get me places. It got me academic success, and later financial and worldly rewards that I could never have dreamed of. I learned to use it to save me from bullying, mockery and rejection. Language went on to give me the chance to do things that I am pleased to have done. I have no reason to complain about language.

   书的最后一句,致谢。插入语用得精彩——

   They always taught me to be polite so, exhausted of further words, I can only say: Sorry and Thank you.

=== Alec Guinness ===

   如果你不熟悉这位已故爵士、奥斯卡影帝、英国的国宝级演员,那就回忆一下这些名字:《星球大战》、《桂河大桥》、《阿拉伯的劳伦斯》、《日瓦戈医生》、《仁心与冠冕》、《远大前程》、《雾都孤儿》、《怪宴》、《老妇杀手》、《天鹅》、《克伦威尔》、《罗马帝国沦亡录》、《印度之行》、《马嘴》、《白衣人》……虽然都是古董了,但总有几部电影你看过或听说过。无论是在影片中还是在访谈里,他的声音总是慵懒而悠扬,他一开口说英语,整个世界就清净了。虽然他的发音并不是我最想模仿的(因为要模仿他,最好等上了年纪再说),但相比那些整天叫嚣自己的发音有“磁性”和“穿透力”的跳梁小丑,这位爷爷才能让你领略到什么是不带引号的磁性和穿透力。

   我喜欢的是他那几本自传性质的书:My Name Escapes Me,他亲自朗读的自传都听两遍了,书却一直买不到;Blessings in Disguise 书都翻着看了一半,录音却一直找不到;A Positively Final Appearance,书和录音都有,但发现录音里有删节。怎么都不能完美,幸好有Piers Paul Read写的AG传记,那么厚,那么全,那么多书信,才十块钱。

   A Positively Final Appearance 摘句:

   戴安娜车祸的消息突然降临——

   The hotel is usually very quiet at night so I was astonished and angry to be jumped awake at five on Saturday morning by the radio from the next-door room being switched on monstrously loud.

   亲身体验印度的天气——

   The dogs lie outdoors contentedly sunning themselves or having an occasional exuberant roll, wriggling with their legs in the air – something which looks as if it would be fun to be able to do.

   老年AG对时间的感觉——

   The days, they say, are drawing out. All that strikes me is that in spite of the slowing up of time the weeks gallop apace; Sunday comes sharp on the heel of Sunday.

=== Nigel Hawthorne ===

   Yes Minister和Yes Prime Minister 让Sir Humphrey Appleby家喻户晓,这个角色的名气显然远远超过他本人。作品少而精,但也太少了。我能找到的书就这么一本,他的自传 Straight Face。我们已经领教过Humphrey玩弄英语的本领,但演员本人的文风却截然不同。原来他是一个亲切、坦诚、充满柔情的老头。

   Straight Face 摘句:

   全书第一段。虽然我一向讨厌描写的文字,但这段话实在细腻得让人心疼——

I came across a peacock butterfly battering its wings against the sitting room window. They’re always finding their way into the house and for some reason seem unable to get out again using the same route in reverse. I tried to catch it in my cupped hands but it kept avoiding me. Finally I snared it and, using words of encouragement which I was quite sure it understood, took it to an open window and released it. As it took off to freedom in the direction of the garden, a bird swooped down from nowhere and ate it.

   对南非的简单评述(作者的童年在南非度过)——

   In many ways, South Africa was, and probably still is, lagging behind the times, and being in Cape Town was like living somewhere that hadn’t caught up.

   全书最后一段,几乎都是短句,几乎都是小学单词,却充满了震撼人心的力量——

   Things did change – but for the better. We no longer felt the need to pretend. The ‘Straight Face’ we’d worn through the years was no longer necessary. Everybody knew. We’d been liberated. Life would never be quite the same again, but then, if it were, what a very dull place the world would be.



=== L. G. Alexander ===

   他不是只会弄弄《新概念》和《跟我学》这种教材。去听听他的演讲,看看他自己写的书(比如 For and Against,简直就是雅思写作的最佳范文集,比那些冒牌的满分作文……)和文章(比如Versatile Man,观点精辟,论述精彩)。实在不行,买一本《请教亚历山大》,里面也有一些关于英语学习的内容,还有原文,物超所值。

Versatile Man摘句:

   开篇前两句——

   It is, perhaps, no accident that many of the outstanding figures of the past were exceptionally versatile men. Right up until comparatively recent times, it was possible for an intelligent person to acquaint himself with almost every branch of knowledge.

   现状的无奈——

   Today, we rarely, if ever, hear that a musician has just invented a new type of submarine. Knowledge has become divided and sub-divided into countless, narrowly-defined compartments. The specialist is venerated; the versatile person, far from being admired, is more often regarded with suspicion.

   观点与举例——

   Little by little, we are becoming more and more isolated from each other. It is almost impossible to talk to your neighbour about his job, even if he is engaged in roughly the same work as you are.

=== Linda Olsson ===

   我很少买女作家的书,Linda Olsson是其中一位。这个瑞典人能把英语写得如此有质感,她写得轻松,我读得平静。

   Astrid & Veronika摘句:

   我讨厌旅行,对“美”一向很迟钝,但,连我都觉得Linda的句子写得真美——

   There had been wind and drifting snow during her journey, but as darkness fell, the wind died and the snow settled.

It was the first day of March. She had driven from Stockholm in the gradually deepening dusk that seamlessly became night. It had been a slow journey, but it had given her time to think. Or erase thoughts.

   Next morning the sun was barely able to penetrate a white sky. She opened the window to a light wind and the possibility of more snow in the air.

She could hear the snow adjusting to the slowly rising temperature, the wind preparing to pick up, the rustling of small bodies scuttling across the hard crust of snow that had thawed and frozen over again.

=== Frank McCourt ===

   这位去年辞世的普利策奖得主晚年成名(也太晚了点),他的代表作是Angela’s Ashes,而我比较喜欢另两本’Tis和Teacher Man。记得当年在淘宝上买书的时候,问店主有没有Teacher Man,对方反问:“有《教书人》、《教书匠》和《教书先生》,你要哪一本?”太可爱了。

   Teacher Man摘句:

   作者总不忘提提自己在爱尔兰的童年——

   If I knew anything about Sigmund Freud and psycho-analysis I’d be able to trace all my troubles to my miserable childhood in Ireland.

   Frank老师的处子秀——

   On the first day of my teaching career, I was almost fired for eating the sandwich of a high school boy. On the second day I was almost fired for mentioning the possibility of friendship with a sheep. Otherwise, there was nothing remarkable about my thirty years in the high school classrooms of New York City. I often doubted if I should be there at all. At the end I wondered how I lasted that long.


=== Peter Hessler ===

   美国作家笔下的涪陵。

   River Town摘句:

   虽然后来的Oracle Bones似乎更有名,但River Town也许更朴实——

   I came to Fuling on the slow boat downstream from Chongqing. It was a warm, clear night at the end of August in 1996 — stars flickering above the Yangtze river, their light too faint to reflected off the black water. A car from the college drove us along the narrow streets that twisted up from the docks. The city rushed past, dim and strange under the stars.

=== W. S. Maugham ===

   无论是《月亮和六便士》、《人性的枷锁》还是他的短篇小说集,毛姆讲故事的功力总是让人叹为观止。我要推荐的是一本小书 The Summing Up,带有自传的色彩,也有总结的性质。你可能在类似《英国散文选读》、《名作精译》、《名篇名段集》这样的书里看到过他的不同文章。他是选集类书籍的常客,很受中国编者的青睐。但实际上,这些文章大部分都来自The Summing Up。要学英文写作,“必读”毛姆。

   The Summing Up摘句:

   这么多“I”开头的句子,换了别人肯定被骂弱智,但毛姆就能写得让人百感交集。说得更功利一点,要是在雅思口语考试里来上几句排比,说不定会有奇效(时态可调整)——

   I had many disabilities. I was small; I had endurance but little physical strength; I stammered; I was shy; I had poor health. I had no facility for games, which play so great a part in the normal life of Englishmen; and I had, whether for any of these reasons or from nature I do not know, an instinctive shrinking from my fellow men that has made it difficult for me to enter into any familiarity with them. I have loved individuals; I have never much cared for men in the mass. I have none of the come-hitherness that makes people take to one another on first acquaintance. Though in the course of years I have learnt to assume an air of heartiness when forced into contact with a stranger, I have never liked anyone at first sight. I do not think I have ever addressed someone I did not know in a railway carriage or spoken to a fellow-passenger on board ship unless he first spoke to me.

=== Charles Darwin ===

   《物种起源》,这个“平淡得有些沉闷”的书名,在我看来却震撼得令人窒息。我活到30岁还是个笨蛋,都是拜九年贻误制教育所赐。如果小时候就知道生物学原来这么有趣,我肯定会欢天喜地地选择这条路。Evolution和Selfish Gene这两个概念几乎解释了我对人生的全部疑问,语言远远不足以表达我的感激之情。

   The Origin of Species的最后一句话,对我来说,就是人类历史上最伟大的一句话:

There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.


=== 许孟雄 ===

   中国英语界,在我有限的认知范围内,许孟雄教授是我唯一的偶像。另外两位姓许的教授被一致公认为大师,但我个人很不敢苟同。虽然上课老给学生们讲辜鸿铭和林语堂,我却总是没有热情去读他们的书,而且也读不懂。许孟雄就不同了……

   中学的时候,花6.25元买了他的《英语难题解答400则》,前几年又在网上淘到了1982年版的《英语难题研究一千则》,原价1.30元。对于非英语专业的我来说,这两本书真的能解答疑难。许老能用最简单的语言、最恰当的例子把看似复杂的语法和用词问题解释得清清楚楚,有些分析(特别是他对介词的精辟论述)令人拍案叫绝,而不像著名的XX老师那样,擅长把本来很简单的问题解释得跟弦论一样高深。

   我以前只知道许老的语法造诣了得,没想到那只是他在《英语世界》里答读者问时,为了帮助大家理解而做的粗浅工作。实际上,他的英文功底深不可测,以至于我偏执地认为——现在的大学教授们,没几个人有资格做他的学生。

   许老生前留下的其它作品已经很难找了,其中的两部译作(矛盾的《子夜》和周立波的《暴风骤雨》)可以说是汉译英的极品。虽然我对这类文学名著没有任何兴趣,但许老的翻译还是能让我一口气读上几十页。虽然没有看过原文,但我敢断定他的译文绝对比原文精彩。当年的学术界没有今天这么多的限制和弱智,孕育出了一大批有真材实料的高人,许老是英语领域的佼佼者。

(注:中国文学作品的英译可能有不同译者,如果要找许孟雄的版本,请核对译者名的拼写是不是:Hsu Meng-hsiung或 Xu Mengxiong)

   Midnight(《子夜》)摘句:

   开篇,黄昏,苏州河——

   Faint strains of music were borne on the wind from the riverside park, punctuated by the sharp, cheerful patter of kettledrums.

   人物描写——

   Mrs. Tu paused and sighed slightly, her eyes reddening at the edges. She was going to say something more when a steam-whistle screeched, and a boy dashed in announcing excitedly…

   工整的句式——

   It is one of life’s little ironies that someone should be driving through the wide streets of Shanghai – that great city of the East with a population of three million – in such a modern conveyance as a motorcar, yet holding The Supreme Scriptures(《太上感应篇》)in his hands, his mind intent upon one text: “Of all the vices sexual indulgence is the cardinal; of all the virtues filial piety is the supreme.”(这两句不说也知道是什么意思)

   The Hurricane(《暴风骤雨》)摘句:

   下面这一段在网上可以找到中英文对照版——

   一个年纪挺小的小王,这时插嘴说:“你老伴多大岁数?”
   老孙头说:“'四十九。”
   小王笑笑说:“那不用着忙,还会生的。八十八,还能结瓜呀。”

   “How old is your wife ?” chimed in a young man whom everybody called Little Wang.

   “Forty-nine.”

   “Then there’s no hurry,” Wang pursued with a grin. “She will yet bless you with offspring. Eighty-eight, not too late.”

   (最后一句简单精妙,配合汉语看,还押韵。)

   第一眼看见元茂屯——

   The leader of the work team raised his head and saw in the distance a hill half enveloped in mist, above a line of clay-coloured houses interspersed with dark green trees.

   土改工作队来了。有个句子让你想起雪莱的名言——

   The arrival of the land-reform work team in Yuanmao meant the real beginning of a tremendous change. People who live near hills know that when wind comes, rain is nor far behind. But was it going to be a downpour, or just a drizzle? Nobody could say. Even wily Han the Sixth, who had special sources of information, was at a loss.

   老孙头讲故事——

   Sun narrowed his left eye to a slit and continued: “The bear agreed, and the tiger wandered off. But the bear, instead of resting or eating something, started clearing the wood to make a good arena — he pulled up all the big and small trees until nothing was left standing around him.

   人的转变。简单,准确,一目了然——

   As head of the village militia, Bai was practically rushed off his feet, often going out before dawn and returning only after midnight. He had been a rather lazy and easy-going person, disliking hustle and bustle. He had always said: “What’s the hurry? Take it easy. Tomorrow the sun is sure to rise again, and no dog will gobble it up.” Now he was a new man, and was generally found working, seldom at home. He was always making plans for getting things done. Neighbours who knew what he had been like would tease him: “Brother Bai, what’s the hurry? Rest a while. Nothing will happen to the sun tomorrow!” But Bai would refuse. “I must get on with my work, ”he would say.

   累了,就写到这儿。我的阅读习惯极差,从没读完一本书,还总是找借口说等退休了再慢慢读。相比之下,以前看电影,现在看剧集就格外疯狂。每周必追美剧The Big Bang Theory, Criminal Minds, CSI LV, Lie to me(等待中), How I met your mother, Two and a half men…Friends也看过好几遍。英剧虽然没同步追,但曾在一周之内看完Hustle,几天之内看完Little Britain,等等。虽然看得多,但注意力并不在英语上,对水平提高意义不大,有时觉得还不如把LBC打开听听:http://www.lbc.co.uk/


   想去想来,每天读半小时书,比什么都有效。


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