1. 英语的一个习惯用法是:当否定谓语think(believe)时,实际上是否定其后面的宾语从句。否定就落在宾语从句上。这样宾语从句就变成了双重否定,译时可以按双重否定译,也可按肯定来译。
It is a valuable work. I do not think anyone writes so well that he cannot learn much from it.
2. "to have not…(as) to see…"中的不定式也有否定意味。
He had not the good breeding to see that simplicity and naturalness are the truest marks of distinction.
3. "It occurred to sb. that…"意为"突然想到","It dawned on sb.that…"."突然想起"等。 从句是想起的内容。
I remember once being on a bus and looking at a stranger. He suddenly looked back at me-i.e.our eyes met. My instinctive reaction was to avert my gaze. It occurred to me that if I had continued to maintain eye contact, I would have been rude and aggressive.
4. "It follows that…"="It happens as a result…"常常被译为"由此可见","因此","从前","可以推断"等等。
It follows that the housewife will also expect to be able to have more leisure in her life without lowering her standard of living. It also follows that human domestic servants will have completely ceased to exist.
5. "that's all there is to it",意思是"也不过如此而已"。可根据上下文视情况处理。
If I'm touched, I'm touched-that's all there is to it.
6. "The chances are that…"是一句型,译为"有可能……"。
The chances are you will never attempt that speed with poetry or want to race though some passages in fiction over which you wish to linger.
7. Feel, see, leave引起宾语的宾语补足语,或在被动语态中引起主语补足语的某些惯用句型,有时see和feel这两个词的被动式不大好译。遇到这种情况应挖掘其深层含义,不要拘泥于表面形式。
The education of the young is seen to be of primary importance.
8. 某此以no, nowhere, never, not…bout, not…any, nothing but, hardly, scarcely, seldom等否定词语引出的一些结构。
I never go past the theatre but I think of his last performance.
9. 某些用choice between, to know better, whether or, should have avoided(或done better)等表示从两种做法中选取一种更好的做法。
Then we are faced with a choice between using technology to provide and fulfil needs which have hitherto been regarded as unnecessary or, on the other hand, using technology to reduce the number of hours of work which a man must do in order to earn a given standard of libing.
10. 某些省略情况,应清单确认省略的内容。
The country had grown rich, its commerce was large, and wealth did its natural work in making life softer and more worldly, commerce in deprovincializing the minds of those engaged in it.
11. 修饰成分(包括定语、定语从句、同位语从句等)多而长。
Across the court from the Manhattan apartment that I have occupied for the past few years is a dog that often hurls insults into the darkness, a few of which my dog refuses to accept and makes a tart reply.
12. 一些外位语,所谓外位修饰,指从句子结构和内容上不起主要信息表达功能的部分。其作用是从语气和连接上下文等方面进行补充。在翻译成汉语时,往往可独立成句,外形上不保留修饰的痕迹。
Of course, nobody was hurt this time, because we had all been to dinner, none of us being novices excepting Hastings; and he having been informed by the minister at the time that he invited him that in deference to the English custom the had not provided any dinner.
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