2022考研英语：《经济学人》中英读译Day168

英语阅读能力依靠什么？必然是词汇的积累，但，仅仅是词汇的积累是不够了，更应该了解英语句式，不同句型所表达意义。如何培养自己的阅读语感呢？那么就跟着聚创考研网小编每天学一点英语，一起为考研筑起坚实的地基。阅读是需要积累的，就像我们需要经常和人沟通才会促进我们的表达能力一样~小伙伴跟着小编一起，每天坚持打卡，培养英语阅读能力及语感，了解文章一些经典词汇的用法。

经济学人: 冬季的天气--雪(1)

Anthony wood remembers sitting in the classroom one snowy morning as his teacher eyed the “saucer-size flakes” swirling outside the window. “Please boys and girls”, she implored, “pray that it stops snowing.” How little she grasped the mind of children, Mr Wood observes: “We were praying, alright—praying that it would snow until June.”Everyone knows children love snow. Mr Wood’s new book is meant for adults who remain infatuated. It is less a systematic history than a meander through assorted snow-related subjects—beginning with the snowflake itself, which the author describes poetically as “the DNA of God”.

译文

安东尼·伍德还记得，在一个下雪的清晨，他坐在教室里，他的老师则看着窗外盘旋的“碟子大小的雪花”。她恳求道，“孩子们，请祈祷大雪停下来吧。”老师对孩子们的想法把握的太少了，伍德说：“我们其实是在祈祷雪能下到六月份。”每个人都知道，小孩子喜欢雪。伍德的新书是写给那些仍然热爱雪的成年人的。与其说这本书是一部系统性的历史书，倒不如说是一部讲述各种与雪有关的主题的漫谈。书的开端，作者阐述了雪花本身，并诗意地将雪花描述为“上帝的DNA”。

 

These miniature ice crystals were once neglected by scientists, who saw little practical benefit in studying them. Their disdain, however, was not shared by Wilson Bentley, a farm boy in Vermont who was given a microscope on his 15th birthday in 1880; later he acquired a bellows-camera, which he adapted to take the first-ever photomicrographs of snowflakes, being careful not to breathe on his evanescent subjects before tripping the shutter.
译文

这些微型冰晶曾一度为科学家们所忽视，他们认为研究雪花没有什么实际效益。然而，威尔逊·本特利并不认同科学家对雪花研究的不屑一顾。威尔逊·本特利是佛蒙特州的一个农家男孩，1880年，15岁的威尔逊得到了一台显微镜作为生日礼物；后来，他买了一台折叠暗箱照相机，并用它拍摄了有史以来第一张雪花的显微照片。在按动快门之前，他万分小心，唯恐自己的呼吸影响到雪花这个瞬息即逝的对象。

 

Inspired by Bentley’s ethereal images, in 1936 Nakaya Ukichiro, a Japanese nuclear physicist, became the first person to manufacture snow in the lab. His research on how the crystals form showed that snowflakes develop on the fly, during their sometimes hours-long journey to the ground. The higher the humidity that they encounter on the way, the more intricate their architecture becomes.
译文

1936年，日本核物理学家中谷宇吉郎受到本特利超凡图像的启发，成为第一个在实验室制造雪的人。他对雪花晶体形成方式的研究表明，雪花有时要历经数小时飘落到地面，而它们就是在飘落的过程中形成的。飘落过程中，空气湿度越高，雪花的结构就越复杂。

注释

1. be meant for 为……准备的

The chair was clearly meant for a child.

这椅子显然是专为儿童预备的。

 

2. less...than 与其说……倒不如说……

They claim to perceive in our policy a devious, self-seeking strategy that was influenced less by the facts than by a preconceived theory.

他们声称从我们的政策中看到了一种不正当的、专为追求私利的战略思想，这与其说是从事实出发的，倒不如说是受了先入为主理论的影响。