大学体验英语快速阅读教程2修订版翻译

Unit 1The Evolving Notion of Home“Home, sweet home” is a phrase that expresses an essential attitude in the United States. Whether the reality of life in the family house is sweet or not so sweet, the ideal of home has great importance for many people.This ideal is a vital part of the American dream. This dream, dramatized in the history of nineteenth-century European settlers of the American West, was to find a piece of land, build a house for one’s family, and start a farm. These small households were portraits of independence: the entire family — mother, father, children, even grandparents — living in a small house and working together to support each other. Everyone understood the life-and-death importance of family cooperation and hard work.Although most people in the United States no longer live on farms, the ideal of home ownership is just as strong in the twentieth century as it was in the nineteenth. When U.S. soldiers came home after World War II, for example, they dreamed of buying houses and starting families. So there was a tremendous boom in home building. The new houses, typically in the suburbs, were often small and nearly identical, but they satisfied a deep need. Many saw the single-family house as the basis of their way of life.For the new suburbanites of the 1950s and 1960s, however, life inside their small houses was very different from life on a farm. First, the family spent much less time together in the house. The father frequently drove, or commuted, as much as an hour to work each morning. The children went to school all day and played after school with neighborhood children. The suburb itself was sometimes called a bedroom community because people used their houses basically for sleeping. Second, the suburb was not a stable community: Families moved frequently as the fathers sought upward mobility — better-paying jobs and bigger houses. Although the idea of home was still as precious as always, it had taken on a different meaning.In the 1970s and 1980s, as more women entered the labor force, the family spent even less time together. But the picture is changing: People can now telecommute, or work at home, while being linked to the office by means of their computers. More and more people can now stay at home. So the old expression could change from“Home, sweet home” to “Home, sweet office,” but the emphasis on the ideal of home will most likely stay the same.不断发展的家的概念“家,甜蜜的家”是一个短语,表达一个基本态度在美国。

是否现实家庭生活的房子是甜的或不那么甜,最理想的家有许多人重视。

这个理想是美国梦的一个重要部分。

这个梦想,戏剧化的19世纪美国西部的欧洲移民的历史,是找到一块土地,建造一座房子的家庭,并开始一个农场。

这些小的家庭肖像画的独立性:整个家庭——母亲,父亲,孩子,甚至爷爷奶奶——生活在一个小房子和工作在一起,互相支持。

每个人都明白生死攸关的家庭合作和努力工作的重要性。

虽然大多数美国人不再生活在农场,居者有其屋的理想一样强大的二十世纪十九。

二战后美国士兵回家时,例如,他们梦想开始买房子和家庭。

所以是一个巨大的房屋建筑的繁荣。

新房子,通常在郊区,通常是小,几乎相同,但它们满足需要。

许多人认为独栋的房子作为他们的生活方式的基础。

为新郊区居民的1950年代和1960年代,然而,生活在自己的小房子非常不同于生活在农场。

首先,家庭花费更少的时间在一起。

爸爸经常开车,或减刑,每天早晨一个小时的工作。

孩子们去上学,和邻居的孩子玩放学后。

郊区本身有时被称为一个卧室社区,因为人们使用他们的房子基本上睡觉。

第二,郊区没有一个稳定的社区:家庭移动频繁的父亲寻求向上流动,更好的工作和更大的房子。

虽然家里的想法仍总是宝贵的,它在一个不同的意义。

在1970年代和1980年代,随着越来越多的女性加入劳动力大军,家庭花费更少的时间在一起。

但这幅画正在改变:人们现在可以远程办公,或在家工作,而与办公室的电脑。

现在越来越多的人可以呆在家里。

所以旧的表达式可以改变从“家,甜蜜的家”到“家,甜蜜的办公室”,但强调家庭的理想很可能保持不变。

Unit 2Charcoal DrawingFour to five decades ago, when cameras were not common, people who wanted to have their photograph taken as a memento had to go to a photographic studio. Techniques in photographic processing were rudimentary then, and photographs gradually turned yellow and the colours faded. Many people wanted to have imagesof their elder relatives or ancestors, so they went to roadside charcoal-portrait artists.Mr. Fung Kwok, now sixty-one years old, has been working as a charcoal-portrait artist for more than thirty years. As a young man, he studied western painting and sketching in Guangzhou, and in 1957, he came to Hong Kong where he made a living producing oil paintings for export. But the trade was in decline at that time, so hislife was hard. By chance, he saw a roadside artist drawing charcoal portraits, and being trained in sketching, Mr. Fung learned some tricks of the trade after makingthe artist’s acquaintance. He decided to set up a stall on Shanghai Street to draw charcoal pictures.“In the beginning, I felt very uneasy running a roads ide stall. People just examined and criticized you,” says Mr. Fung. “I told myself that I had to do it to make a living. Eventually, I got used to it and built up my confidence. Business was fair in the early 1970s. I drew an average of ten pictures every month, six to seven Hong Kong dollars for a small picture and 30 to 40 dollars for a bigger one. When China opened up in the early 1980s, many mainland Chinese requested their relatives in Hong Kong to have a charcoal portrait made because artists specializing in drawing these portraits were rare in mainland of China. I have also recently had foreign tourists as customers. Most of them like charcoal portraits of their children.” To draw a charcoal portrait, the photograph provided by the customer must first be reprinted and enlarged. The artist then makes an outline pencil drawing on a piece of drawing paper in proportion to the enlarged photograph. Color is added with a woollen brush, using black carbon powder. The background is also painted with a big woollen brush, while the details, such as facial features, hair and the folds of clothing, are drawn with a smaller brush. The current price for a charcoal portrait ranges from 600 to2,000 dollars. A full-length portrait is more expensive than a half-length one, and extra payment is required for a complicated photograph.素描四到五年前,当相机并不常见,人想要他们的照片作为纪念品去摄影工作室。