大學英語三課文翻譯

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大學英語三課文翻譯一直是很多學生煩惱的問題,不知道怎麼下手,以下是小編整理的大學英語三課文翻譯,歡迎閲讀

大學英語三課文翻譯

Mr. Doherty Builds His Dream Life

Jim Doherty

多爾蒂先生創建自己的理想生活

吉姆·多爾蒂

There are two things I have always wanted to do -- write and live on a farm. Today I'm doing both. I am not in E. B. White's class as a writer or in my neighbors' league as a farmer, but I'm getting by. And after years of frustration with city and suburban living, my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country.有兩件事是我一直想做的――寫作與務農。如今我同時做着這兩件事。作為作家,我和E·B·懷特不屬同一等級,作為農場主,我和鄉鄰也不是同一類人,不過我應付得還行。在城市以及郊區歷經多年的悵惘失望之後,我和妻子桑迪終於在這裏的鄉村尋覓到心靈的滿足。

It's a self-reliant sort of life. We grow nearly all of our fruits and vegetables. Our hens keep us in eggs, with several dozen left over to sell each week. Our bees provide us with honey, and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season.這是一種自力更生的生活。我們食用的果蔬幾乎都是自己種的。自家飼養的雞提供雞蛋,每星期還能剩餘幾十個出售。自家養殖的蜜蜂提供蜂蜜,我們還自己動手砍柴,足可供過冬取暖之用。

3It's a satisfying life too. In the summer we canoe on the river, go picnicking in the woods and take long bicycle rides. In the winter we ski and skate. We get excited about sunsets. We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing. We watch for hawks in the sky and deer in the cornfields.這也是一種令人滿足的生活。夏日裏我們在河上盪舟,在林子裏野餐,騎着自行車長時間漫遊。冬日裏我們滑雪溜冰。我們為落日的餘輝而激動。我們愛聞大地回暖的氣息,愛聽牛羣哞叫。我們守着看鷹兒飛過上空,看玉米田間鹿羣嬉躍。

But the good life can get pretty tough. Three months ago when it was 30 below, we spent two miserable days hauling firewood up the river on a sled. Three months from now, it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn, weeding strawberries and killing chickens. Recently, Sandy and I had to retile the back roof. Soon Jim, 16 and Emily, 13, the youngest of our four children, will help me make some long-overdue improvements on the outdoor toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing when we are working outside. Later this month, we'll spray the orchard, paint the barn, plant the garden and clean the hen house before the new chicks arrive.但如此美妙的生活有時會變得相當艱苦。就在三個月前,氣温降到華氏零下30度,我們辛苦勞作了整整兩天,用一個雪橇沿着河邊拖運木柴。再過三個月,氣温會升到95度,我們就要給玉米鬆土,在草莓地除草,還要宰殺家禽。前一陣子我和桑迪不得不翻修後屋頂。過些時候,四個孩子中的兩個小的,16歲的吉米和13歲的埃米莉,會幫着我一起把拖了很久沒修的室外廁所修葺一下,那是專為室外幹活修建的。這個月晚些時候,我們要給果樹噴灑藥水,要油漆穀倉,要給菜園播種,要趕在新的小雞運到之前清掃雞舍。

In between such chores, I manage to spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewriter or doing reporting for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers. Sandy, meanwhile, pursues her own demanding schedule. Besides the usual household routine, she oversees the garden and beehives, bakes bread, cans and freezes, drives the kids to their music lessons, practices with them, takes organ lessons on her own, does research and typing for me, writes an article herself now and then, tends the flower beds, stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs. There is, as the old saying goes, no rest for the wicked on a place like this -- and not much for the virtuous either.在這些活計之間,我每週要抽空花五、六十個小時,不是打字撰文,就是為作為自由撰稿人投給報刊的文章進行採訪。桑迪則有她自己繁忙的工作日程。除了日常的家務,她還照管菜園和蜂房,烘烤麪包,將食品裝罐、冷藏,開車送孩子學音樂,和他們一起練習,自己還要上風琴課,為我做些研究工作並打字,自己有時也寫寫文章,還要侍弄花圃,堆摞木柴、運送雞蛋。正如老話説的那樣,在這種情形之下,壞人不得閒――賢德之人也歇不了。

None of us will ever forget our first winter. We were buried under five feet of snow from December through March. While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn, we kept warm inside burning our own wood, eating our own apples and loving every minute of it.我們誰也不會忘記第一年的冬天。從12月一直到3月底,我們都被深達5英尺的積雪困着。暴風雪肆虐,一場接着一場,積雪厚厚地覆蓋着屋子和穀倉,而室內,我們用自己砍伐的木柴燒火取暖,吃着自家種植的蘋果,温馨快樂每一分鐘。

When spring came, it brought two floods. First the river overflowed, covering much of our land for weeks. Then the growing season began, swamping us under wave after wave of produce. Our freezer filled up with cherries, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, peas, beans and corn. Then our canned-goods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves, tomato juice, grape juice, plums, jams and jellies. Eventually, the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes, squash and pumpkins, and the barn began to fill with apples and pears. It was amazing.開春後,有過兩次氾濫。一次是河水外溢,我們不少田地被淹了幾個星期。接着一次是生長季節到了,一波又一波的農產品潮湧而來,弄得我們應接不暇。我們的冰箱裏塞滿了櫻桃、藍莓、草莓、蘆筍、豌豆、青豆和玉米。接着我們存放食品罐的架子上、櫃櫥裏也開始堆滿一罐罐的醃漬食品,有番茄汁、葡萄汁、李子、果醬和果凍。最後,地窖裏遍地是大堆大堆的土豆、西葫蘆、南瓜,穀倉裏也儲滿了蘋果和梨。真是太美妙了。

The next year we grew even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance. The timing was terrible. By then, Shawn and Amy, our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League schools and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank. Yet we kept coming back to the same question: Will there ever be a better time? The answer, decidedly, was no, and so -- with my employer's blessings and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket -- off I went. 第二年我們種了更多的作物,差不多就靠着從自家樹林砍斫的木柴以及僅僅100加侖的燃油過了冬。其時,我開始認真考慮起辭了職去從事自由撰稿的事來。時機選得實在太差。當時,兩個大的女兒肖恩和埃米正在費用很高的常春藤學校上學,而我們只有幾千美金的銀行存款。但我們一再回到一個老問題上來:真的`會有更好的時機嗎?答案無疑是否定的。於是,帶着老闆的祝福,口袋裏揣着作為累積津貼的半年薪水,我走了。

There have been a few anxious moments since then, but on balance things have gone much better than we had any right to expect. For various stories of mine, I've crawled into black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated, hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine, checked out the Lake Champlain for Science Digest, and canoed through the Boundary Waters wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations. 那以後有過一些焦慮的時刻,但總的來説,情況比我們料想的要好得多。為了寫那些內容各不相同的文章,我為《體育畫報》爬進過黑熊窩;為《史密森期刊》替參賽的一組組狗套上過雪橇;為《科學文摘》調查過尚普蘭湖水怪的真相;為《終點》雜誌在明尼蘇達划着小舟穿越美、加邊界水域內的公共荒野保護區。

I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time, but now we don't need as much either. I generate enough income to handle our $600-a-month mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. When it comes to insurance, we have a poor man's major-medical policy. We have to pay the first $500 of any medical fees for each member of the family. It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that. Although we are stuck with paying minor expenses, our premium is low -- only $560 a year -- and we are covered against catastrophe. Aside from that and the policy on our two cars at $400 a year, we have no other insurance. But we are setting aside $2,000 a year in an IRA.我掙的錢遠比不上擔任全職工作時的收入,可如今我們需要的錢也沒有過去多。我掙的錢足以應付每月600美金的房屋貸款按揭以及一家人的日常開銷。那些開銷包括了所有支出,如音樂課學費、牙醫賬單、汽車維修以及大學費用等等。至於保險,我們買了一份低收入者的主要醫療項目保險。我們需要為每一位家庭成員的任何一項醫療費用支付最初的500美金。醫療保險則支付超出部分的80%。雖然我們仍要支付小部分醫療費用,但我們的保險費也低--每年只要560美金--而我們給自己生大病保了險。除了這一保險項目,以及兩輛汽車每年400美金的保險,我們就沒有其他保險了。不過我們每年留出2000美元入個人退休金賬户。

We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back without appreciably lowering our standard of living. We continue to dine out once or twice a month, but now we patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city. We still attend the opera and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year. We eat less meat, drink cheaper wine and see fewer movies. Extravagant Christmases are a memory, and we combine vacations with story assignments...我們通過節約開支而又不明顯降低生活水準的方式來彌補收入差額。我們每個月仍出去吃一兩次飯,不過現在我們光顧的是當地餐館,而不是城裏的高級飯店。我們仍去密爾沃基聽歌劇看芭蕾演出,不過一年才幾次。我們肉吃得少了,酒喝得便宜了,電影看得少了。鋪張的聖誕節成為一種回憶,我們把完成稿約作為度假的一部分?? 12 I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do. It takes a couple of special qualities. One is a tolerance for solitude. Because we are so busy and on such a tight budget, we don't entertain much. During the growing season there is no time for socializing anyway. Jim and Emily are involved in school activities, but they too spend most of their time at home.

我想,不是所有熱愛鄉村的人都會樂意過我們這種生活的。這種生活需要一些特殊的素質。其一是耐得住寂寞。由於我們如此忙碌,手頭又緊,我們很少請客。在作物生長季節,根本就沒工夫參加社交活動。吉米和埃米莉雖然參加學校的各種活動,但他倆大多數時間也呆在家裏。

The other requirement is energy -- a lot of it. The way to make self-sufficiency work on a small scale is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices. Instead, you do the work yourself. The only machinery we own (not counting the lawn mower) is a little three-horsepower rotary cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw.另一項要求是體力――相當大的體力。小範圍裏實現自給自足的途徑是抵制誘惑,不去購置拖拉機和其他昂貴的節省勞力的機械。相反,你要自己動手。我們僅有的機器(不包括割草機)是一台3馬力的小型旋轉式耕耘機以及一架16英寸的鏈鋸。

How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess -- perhaps for quite a while, perhaps not. When the time comes, we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also with a sense of pride at what we've been able to accomplish. We should make a fair profit on the sale of the place, too. We've invested about $35,000 of our own money in it, and we could just about double that if we sold today. But this is not a good time to sell. Once economic conditions improve, however, demand for farms like ours should be strong again.沒人知道我們還能有精力在這裏再呆多久--也許呆很長一陣子,也許不是。到走的時候,我們會愴然離去,但也會為自己所做的一切深感自豪。我們把農場出售也會賺相當大一筆錢。我們自己在農場投入了約35,000美金的資金,要是現在售出的話價格差不多可以翻一倍。不過現在不是出售的好時機。但是一旦經濟形勢好轉,對我們這種農場的需求又會增多。

We didn't move here primarily to earn money though. We came because we wanted to improve the quality of our lives. When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening, fishing with Jim on the river or enjoying an old-fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family, Iknow we've found just what we were looking for.但我們主要不是為了賺錢而移居至此的。我們來此居住是因為想提高生活質量。當我看着埃米莉傍晚去收雞蛋,跟吉米一起在河上釣魚,或和全家人一起在果園裏享用老式的野餐,我知道,我們找到了自己一直在尋求的生活方式。

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