新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson31-33.doc

新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson31~33

新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson31

　　【课文】

　　First listen and then answer the following question.

　　听录音，然后回答以下问题。

　　What do you have to be able to do to appreciate sculpture?

　　Appreciation of sculpture depends upon the ability to respond to form in three dimension. That is perhaps why sculpture has been desc ribed as the most difficult of all arts; certainly it is more difficult than the arts which involve appreciation of flat forms, shape in only two dimensions. Many more people are ‘form-blind’ than colour-blind. The child learning to see, first distinguishes only two-dimensional shape; it cannot judge distances, depths. Later, for its personal safety and practical needs, it has to develop (partly by means of touch) the ability to judge roughly three-dimensonal distances. But having satisfied the requirements of practical necessity, most people go no further. Though they may attain considerable accuracy in the perception of flat form, they do not make the further intellectual and emotional effort needed to comprehend form in its full spatial existence.

　　This is what the sculptor must do. He must strive continually to think of, and use, form in its full spatial completeness. He gets the solid shape, as it were, inside his head-he thinks of it, whatever its size, as if he were holding it completely enclosed in the hollow of his hand. He mentally visualizes a complex form from all round itself; he knows while he looks at one side what the other side is like, he identifies himself with its centre of gravity, its mass, its weight; he realizes its volume, as the space that the shape displaces in the air.

　　And the sensitive observer of sculpture must also learn to feel shape simply as shape, not as des cription or reminiscence. He must, for example, perceive an egg as a simple single solid shape, quite apart from its significance as food, or from the literary idea that it will become a bird. And so with solids such as a shell, a nut, a plum, a pear, a tadpole, a mushroom, a mountain peak, a kidney, a carrot, a tree-trunk, a bird, a bud, a lark, a ladybird, a bulrush, a bone. From these he can go on to appreciate more complex forms or combinations of several forms.

　　HENRY MOORE The Sculptor Speaks from The Listener

　　【New words and expressions 生词和短语】

　　auditory adj. 听觉的

　　colour-blind adj. 色盲的

　　perception n. 知觉

　　comprehend v. 理解

　　spatial adj. 空间

　　visualize v. 使具形象，设想

　　reminiscence n. 回忆，联想

　　tadpole n. 蝌蚪

　　mushroom n. 蘑菇

　　carrot n. 胡萝卜

　　bud n. 花蕾

　　lark n. 云雀

　　ladybird n. 瓢虫

　　bulrush n. 芦苇

　　【课文注释】

　　1.respond to 响应， 对 … 起反应

　　例句：He resolved to respond to the call of the Party.

　　他决心响应党的号召。

　　The patient did not respond to treatment.

　　病人经治疗后未见起色。

　　2.form-blind, 这是作者仿照colour-blind生造的一个词，意指“形盲”。

　　3.distinguish vt. 区别， 辨认， 使显著

　　例句：Speeches distinguish human beings from animals.

　　人类和动物的区别在于人会说话。

　　She distinguished herself by her coolness and bravery.

　　她因头脑冷静、敢作敢为而为人称道。

　　【词义辨析】

　　discern, disc riminate, distinguish这些动词均有“区别、辨别”之意。

　　discern: 语义较笼统，着重精深与准确的观察力，不一定有能力辨别关系密切的各项事物。

　　disc riminate: 语气强，指从十分相似的事物中辨出差异，尤其把好坏区分开来。

　　distinguish: 普通用词，指辨别者的能力或实际观察到的区别，强调辨别所需的技巧。

　　4.two-dimensional 二维的

　　prehend vt. 充分理解， 领悟， 包括

　　例句：I cannot comprehend this phrase.

　　我无法理解这个片语。

　　If you can use a word correctly and effectively you comprehend it.

　　你如果可以正确有效地使用一个词，你就是了解它了。

　　【词义辨析】

　　know, learn, comprehend, understand这些动词都含“懂、知道、明了”之意。

　　know: 普通用词，多指通过学习、经验或他人传播而得到知识，含直接知道的意味。

　　learn: 通常指通过他人而获得消息或情况，侧重从不知到知的变化过程。

　　comprehend: 侧重熟悉了解的过程。

　　understand: 指对事物已有彻底的认识，不仅知其性质、含义和细节，而且了解其内外的关系。

　　understand, comprehend, appreciate, apprehend, grasp这些动词均有“理解”之意。

　　understand: 一般用词，很常用，指对事实或意义知道得很清楚。

　　comprehend: 较正式用词，指对较复杂的事物能透彻理解其意义。

　　appreciate: 欣赏，指对某事物或意义有正确的认识，对其价值的肯定。

　　apprehend: 指知道某事物或某观念的大概意义，但未能理解其内涵意义，暗含一知半解意味。

　　grasp: 从本义抓紧、抓住，引申作“理解、掌握”。

　　6.in its full spatial existence 存在于空间的整个(形体)。

　　spatial adj. 空间的

　　例句：Fluctuations are spatial and temporal in character.

　　这种波动的特点是空间性和瞬时性的。

　　7.strive to 争取， 追求

　　例句：Let us strive, I beseech you,--let us strive to be cheerful.

　　让我们奋斗吧，我求求你——让我们用奋斗去寻找快乐吧。

　　8.as it were 可以说是

　　例句：He is my best friend, my brother, as it were.

　　他是我的朋友，可以说是我的兄弟。

　　He is, as it were, a walking dictionary.

　　他可说是个活字典。

　　9.whatever its size, 这是一个省略了may be的让步状语从句。

　　10.visualize v. 使 … 看得见，形象化，设想

　　例句： I remember meeting him but I just can’t visualize him.

　　我记得我见过他，可就是想不起他的样子了。

　　11.from all round itself 从它的各个角度构想。

　　12.identify vt. 鉴定， 识别， 认明

　　例句：Can you identify your umbrella among this lot?

　　你能在这些伞中认出你自己的伞吗?

　　One can not identify happiness with wealth.

　　幸福和财富不能混为一谈。

　　【词义辨析】

　　identify, recognize, make out这些动词均含“认出、识别”之意。

　　identify: 指辨别、确定人的身份或物品的归属等。

　　recognize: 指所辨认的人或物多是以前所熟悉的。

　　make out: 通常指通过人的感觉器官来辨别事物。

　　【错句举例与错句分析】

　　错句：The police identified Mary.

　　订正：The police identified her as Mary.

　　翻译：警察认出她是玛丽。

　　分析：identify指“识别，鉴别”时，与介词as连用。

　　13.centre of gravity 重心

　　14.reminiscence n. 回想，回忆，记忆力

　　例句：He has a pleasant reminiscence of his college life.

　　他对大学生活有着幸福的回忆。

　　15.apart from 缺少，除……以外，且不说

　　例句：It’s a good piece of work, apart from a few slight faults.

　　除了一些小缺点之外，这不失为一件漂亮的工作。

　　【参考译文】

　　对雕塑的鉴赏力取决于对立体的反应能力。雕塑被说成是所有艺术中最难的艺术，可能就是这个道理。欣赏雕塑品当然比欣赏平面的艺术品要难。“形盲”的人数比“色盲”的人数要多得多。正在学看东西的儿童起初只会分辨二维形态，不会判断距离和深度。慢慢地，由于自身安全和实际需要，儿童必须发展(部分通过触觉)粗略判断三维空间距离的能力。但是。大部分人在满足了实际需要后，就不再继续发展这种能力了。虽然他们对平面形式的感觉能达到相当准确的程度，但他们没有在智力和感情上进一步努力去理解存在于空间的整个形态。

　　而雕塑家就必须做到这一点。他必须勤于想像并且利用形体在空间中的完整性。可以说，当他想像一个物体时，不管其大小如何，他脑子里得到的是一个立体的概念，就好像完全握在自己手心里一样。他的大脑能从物体周围的各个角度勾画出其复杂的形象，他看物体的一边时，便知道另一边是个什么样子。他把自身和物体重心、质量、重量融为一体。他能意识到物体的体积，那就是它的形状在空气中所占的空间。

　　因此，敏锐的雕塑观赏者也必须学会把形体作为形体来感觉，不要靠描述和印象去想象。以鸟蛋为例。观赏者必须感觉到它是一个单一的实体形态，而完全不靠它的食用意义或它会变成鸟这样的文字概念来感觉。对于其他实体，如，贝壳、核桃、李子、梨子、蝌蚪、蘑菇、山峰、肾脏、胡萝卜、树干、鸟儿、花蕾、云雀、瓢虫、芦苇以及骨头也应这样来感觉。从这些形体出发，观赏者可进一步观察更为复杂的形体或若干形体的组合。

新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson32

　　【课文】

　　First listen and then answer the following question.

　　听录音，然后回答以下问题。

　　What has modified out traditional view of Galileo in recent times?

　　In his own lifetime Galileo was the centre of violent controversy; but the scientific dust has long since settled, and today we can see even his famous clash with the Inquisition in something like its proper perspective. But, in contrast, it is only in modern times that Galileo has become a problem child for historians of science.

　　The old view of Galileo was delightfully uncomplicated. He was, above all, a man who experimented: who despised the prejudices and book learning of the Aristotelians, who put his questions to nature instead of to the ancients, and who drew his conclusions fearlessly. He had been the first to turn a telescope to the sky, and he had seen their evidence enough to overthrow Aristotle and Ptolemy together. He was the man who climbed the Leaning Tower of Pisa and dropped various weights from the top, who rolled balls down inclined planes, and then generalized the results of his many experiments into the famous law of free fall.

　　But a closer study of the evidence, supported by a deeper sense of the period, and particularly by a new consciousness of the philosophical undercurrents in the scientific revolution, has profoundly modified this view of Galileo. Today, although the old Galileo lives on in many popular writings, among historians of science a new and more sophisticated picture has emerged. At the same time our sympathy for Galileo’s opponents has grown somewhat. His telescopic observations are justly immortal; they aroused great interest at the time, they had important theoretical consequences, and they provided a striking demonstration of the potentialities hidden in instruments and apparatus. But can we blame those who looked and failed to see what Galileo saw, if we remember that to use a telescope at the limit of its powers calls for long experience and intimate familiarity with one’s instrument? Was the philosopher who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope more culpable than those who alleged that the spiral nebulae observed with Lord Rosse’s great telescope in the eighteen-forties were s cratches left by the grinder? We can perhaps forgive those who said the moons of Jupiter were produced by Galileo’s spyglass if we recall that in his day, as for centuries before, curved glass was the popular contrivance for producing not truth but illusion, untruth; and if a single curved glass would distort nature, how much more would a pair of them?

　　MICHAEL HOSKIN Galileo Reborn from The Listener

　　【New words and expressions 生词和短语】

　　controversy n. 争议，争论

　　dust n. 纠纷，骚动

　　clash n. 冲突

　　Inquisition n. (罗马天主教的)宗教法庭

　　perspective n. 观点，看法

　　despise v. 蔑视

　　generalize v. 归纳

　　undercurrent n. 潜流

　　apparatus n.器官, 机构,仪器

　　theoretical adj. 理论上的

　　potentiality n. 潜能

　　intimate adj. 详尽的

　　familiarity n. 熟悉的

　　culpable adj. 应受遣责的

　　Aristotelian n. 亚里士多德学派的人

　　Aristotle n. 亚里士多德(公元前384-322，古希腊哲学家)

　　Ptolemy n. 托勒密(公元90-168，古希腊天文学家)

　　Leaning Tower of Pisa 比萨斜塔

　　spiral adj. 螺旋状的

　　nebula n. 星云

　　sc ratch n. 擦痕

　　contrivance n. 器械

　　distort v. 歪曲

　　【课文注释】

　　1.violent controversy 激烈论战

　　controversy n. 争议, (公开的)争论

　　例句：The remark touched off a heated controversy.

　　这句话引起了热烈的争论。

　　【词义辨析】

　　controversy, argument, conflict, debate, dispute, quarrel, strife 这组名词均有“争执、不和”之意。

　　controversy: 侧重指深刻的意见分歧，多指对引起广泛兴趣或非常重要的问题的辨论。

　　argument: 指辩论双方均以事实或理由来说服对方的辨论。

　　conflict: 指双方坚持已见、互不妥协，怀有敌意的争论，多暗示分歧极为严重，有时用语言无法解决，只得诉诸武力。

　　debate: 通常指经过仔细组织和计划的个人或团体之间的辩论。

　　dispute: 普通用词，侧重指长时间，言词激烈，针锋相对的争辩。

　　quarrel: 普通用词，既可指言词激烈的争吵，也可指温和的言词上的不和。

　　strife: 指因不可缓和的矛盾而引起的争吵或斗殴。

　　2.something like 多少，大约

　　3.a problem child 做定语，修饰child。这是一种比喻修辞法，意思是“新出现的问题”。

　　4.a man who... who...who...who...,这里一连用了4个定语从句，均用who引导，构成了排比结构，起加强语气的作用。

　　5.despise vt. 轻视

　　例句：I despise his refusing to accept responsibility.

　　他拒不承担责任，我鄙视他。

　　You must not despise a man because he is poor.

　　你不可因一个人贫穷而轻视他。

　　【词义辨析】

　　despise, scorn, look down upon 这些动词或短语动词均表示“轻视，蔑视”之意。

　　despise: 指由于卑鄙、软弱，渺小或无价值等而被轻视。

　　scorn: 语气较强，指极端的蔑视，常伴有愤怒或恼怒的情感。

　　look down upon: 指自视地位优越而蔑视他人或事。

　　6.overthrow v. *, *, *

　　例句：The rebels have overthrown the government.

　　反叛者已*了政府。

　　【词义辨析】

　　conquer, overcome, overthrow, defeat, beat, subdue 这些动词均含“征服，战胜”之意。

　　conquer : 侧重战胜和控制。书面用词。

　　overcome : 多指战胜或克服非物质的东西，如困难和不良习惯等。语气较弱也可指在斗争或竞争中战胜或压倒对方。

　　overthrow : 指彻底击败对手，使其丧失力量和地位。

　　defeat : 普通用词，多指在战争、比赛、竞选或辩论中战胜对手，侧重胜利的暂时性。

　　beat : 口笔语均可用，可与defeat换用。

　　subdue : 正式用词，与conquer同义，但强调失败后的臣服状态;也可用作借喻，表克制、压抑感情、欲望等。

　　7.generalize v. 概括, 归纳, 使一般化

　　例句：It is dangerous to generalize about people.

　　以偏概全地谈论人是危险的。

　　8.at the time 当时

　　9.use a telescope at the limit of its powers 用望远镜的极限放大率。

　　10.intimate adj.

　　①精通的,深入的,详细的

　　例句：He has an intimate knowledge of American literature.

　　他精通美国文学。

　　②亲密的，私人的

　　例句：Both of them felt that they had become very intimate.

　　他俩都感到他们已经相当亲密了。

　　11.culpable adj. 该责备的, 有罪的

　　例句：None of this necessarily means that Gap is a bad company, or culpable in the Saipan case.

　　这都不意味着盖普是个差劲的公司，或者在西潘事件中是有罪的。

　　12.distort vt. 歪曲, 扭曲, 变形

　　例句：You have distorted my motives.

　　你曲解了我的动机。

　　The bias of a reporter can easily distort the news.

　　记者的偏见很容易歪曲新闻的报导。

　　【参考译文】

　　伽利略在世时是激烈论战的中心。但是，自他逝世以来，那场科学上的纷争早已平息了下来，甚至他和宗教法庭的冲突，我们今天也能正确如实地看待。但是相比之下，对于科学史家来说，伽利略只是在现代才变成了一个新的难题。

　　令人高兴的是，过去对伽利略的看法并不复杂。他首先是个实验工作者，他蔑视亚里士多德学派的偏见和空洞的书本知识。他向自然界而不是向古人提出问题，并大胆地得出结论。他是第一个把望远镜对准天空的人，观察到的论据足以把亚里士多德和托勒密一起*。他就是那个曾经爬上比萨斜塔，从塔顶向下抛掷各种重物的人;他是那个使球体沿斜面向下滚动，然后将多次实验结果概括成的自由落体定律的人。

　　但是，对那个时代的深化了解，尤其是以科学家革命中哲学潜流的新意识为依据，进一步仔细研究，就会极大地改变对伽利略的看法。今天，虽然已故的伽利略继续活在许多通俗读物中，但在科学史家中间，一个新的更加复杂的伽利略形象出现了。与此同时，我们对伽利略的反对派的同情也有所增加。伽利略用望远镜所作的观察确实是不朽的，这些观察当时引起人们极大的兴趣，具有重要的理论意义，并充分显示出了仪表和仪器的潜在力量。但是，如果我们想到，使用一架倍数有限的望远镜需要长期的经验和对自己仪器的熟悉程度，那么我们怎么能去责备观察了天空但没有看到伽利略所看到的东西的那些人呢?某位哲学家曾拒绝使用伽利略的望远镜去观察天空;到了19世纪40年代，有人硬把罗斯勋爵高倍望远镜观测到的螺旋状星云说成是磨镜工留下的磨痕。难道反对伽利略的哲学家比诋毁罗斯勋爵造谣者应受到更大的谴责吗?如果我们回想一下伽利略之前几个世纪期间，曲面镜一直是一种用于产生幻影而不是产生真象的把戏装置，那么我们就会原谅那些当时把伽利略观察到的木星卫星说成是伽利略用他的小望远镜变出来的人们，何况一片曲面镜就可歪曲自然，那么伽利略的两片曲面镜对自然的歪曲又该多大呢?

新概念第四册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson33

　　【课文】

　　First listen and then answer the following question.

　　听录音，然后回答以下问题。

　　Why is education democratic in bookless, tribal societies?

　　Education is one of the key words of our time. A man without an education, many of us believe, is an unfortunate victim of adverse circumstances, deprived of one of the greatest twentieth-century opportunities. Convinced of the importance of education, modern states ‘invest’ in institutions of learning to get back ‘interest’ in the form of a large group of enlightened young men and women who are potential leaders. Education, with its cycles of instruction so carefully worked out, punctuated by textbooks -- those purchasable wells of wisdom-what would civilization be like without its benefits?

　　So much is certain: that we would have doctors and preachers, lawyers and defendants, marriages and births -- but our spiritual outlook would be different. We would lay less stress on ‘facts and figures’ and more on a good memory, on applied psychology, and on the capacity of a man to get along with his fellow-citizens. If our educational system were fashioned after its bookless past we would have the most democratic form of ‘college’ imaginable. Among tribal people all knowledge inherited by tradition is shared by all; it is taught to every member of the tribe so that in this respect everybody is equally equipped for life.

　　It is the ideal condition of the ‘equal start’ which only our most progressive forms of modern education try to regain. In primitive cultures the obligation to seek and to receive the traditional instruction is binding to all. There are no ‘illiterates’ -- if the term can be applied to peoples without a s cript -- while our own compulsory school attendance became law in Germany in 1642, in France in 1806, and in England in 1876, and is still non-existent in a number of ‘civilized’ nations. This shows how long it was before we deemed it necessary to make sure that all our children could share in the knowledge accumulated by the ‘happy few’ during the past centuries.

　　Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means. All are entitled to an equal start. There is none of the hurry which, in our society, often hampers the full development of a growing personality. There, a child grows up under the ever-present attention of his parent; therefore the jungles and the savannahs know of no ‘juvenile delinquency’. No necessity of making a living away from home results in neglect of children, and