翻译考试试题与答案

I. Translate the following passage into English. (60%)

泡菜坛子

母亲从乡下来，住了十天。临走时，她老人家想为我们添置一件东西，留个纪念。母亲说：“你们什么都有，又好象什么都没有。电视机是你们的，里面走来走去的都是些陌生人，有时候，杀人犯、贼、贪官、小偷也在里面出出进进；收录机是你们的，可尽是人家在唱歌；书架上的书是你们的，可那都是别人写的字；电冰箱是你们的，一年四季都装一箱子不知从哪里落下来的霜。方便是方便，可就是没有一样是你们自己的。“

走的那天，母亲起了个早，从街上抱回一个泡菜坛子。她说：“在坛子里腌一些菜吧，调调自家的口味。”

我们的家里，从此有了泡菜，有了自己的味道。朋友上门，我们时常以泡菜佐酒，微醺中，大家就会说：“乡下的味道，不错；不错，乡下的味道！”

于是我们大家都有了自己的味道。再看那泡菜坛子，静静地守在那里，在喧嚣的日子，在钢筋混凝土的单元里，守着一坛平静的心情，酝酿着古老而纯朴的乡下味道。

II Translate the underlined parts of the following passage into English. (40%) 出生在天津的美国著名作家

岁月悠悠。一晃也是如云如烟的往事了。1981 年秋，天津作家协会刚刚恢复工作，曾任美国作家联盟主席的约翰赫塞到天津来了。他是自费来中国旅游，又是特地来重温故乡之梦的。

天津怎么是赫塞的故乡呢？原来他的父亲是传教士，曾任天津基督教青年会干事多年；他母亲应南开中学邀请到南开中学任英语教师。随他来得翻译多说了几句，说他母亲教出了一位世界知名的人物，那就是周恩来。说他曾经玩笑地说，他是在母亲的肚皮里就已经认识这位伟大的任务了。他1914 年出生在天津，11岁离开天津，回到美国。但天津一直留在他的心头，1939年和1946年都来重温过故乡之梦，这是第三次了。

赫塞这次重温故乡之梦，做了一定的准备。随他来的翻译又多说了几句，说他在北京请人为他译读了天津作家的一些作品，对孙犁的《荷花淀》与方纪的《来访者》评价很高，这就看出他对人生和现实的态度了。

转天，我应邀到他房间去长谈。他把微型录音机放在茶几上，要把我的原话和翻译的译语都留下来。他要我介绍唐山大地震给天津带来的灾情，又要我介绍天津作家的情况，说那两次重返故乡，他都没听说过天津也有作家，特别是听到作家写作不仅拿稿费而且月月有薪金时，仿佛是一大发现，惊奇得在笔记本上作乐记录。我也顺势提出一问，他又是怎么靠稿费维持生活的。他说他在作家身份之外还兼具记者与教授的两重身份。这样既保证了生活的收入，有丰富了创作的源泉，也开拓了学识的领域。他的许多小说都是从记者的报告文学中升华出来的，还有一些作品是在教学中酝酿成熟的。我觉得他的经验还是很宝贵的，为他铺平了现实主义的创作道路，是在雄厚的现实基础上撑开他的丰富想象力。他的成名作《阿丹诺镇的钟》(A Bell for Adano)写了在美军占领下西西里岛的农民的困苦生活，又一惊世之作《广岛》（Hirashima）写了在原子弹爆炸之后的幸存者挣扎的画面，又一长篇《大墙》（The Wall）写了华沙犹太人反纳粹起义失败悲惨绝境。这些丰硕成果都是他从记者到作家之路上得来的。

赫塞重温故乡之梦的自然重点仍在寻访他在新华路230故居。幸好小楼依旧，只是楼上楼下整整塞了七户人家。人人都笑脸相迎，任他在父母生前的客厅、书房、住室、琴室、餐厅看遍巡遍。有几家主人还请他坐下喝茶，一切都是那么突然而又自然。赫塞脸上洋溢着异样的光亮，说没想到家家户户都这么好客。这些好客的人是过去不能住在洋楼的人，现在住

进来了；还说，这在他童年记忆中是没有的，家家都有自行车，而且有那么多女人骑自行车。

赫塞的重温故乡之梦结束了。当我在车厢和他话别时，他满怀激情地说，将把所见所闻以连载的方式留下来。果然，他回到美国后发表了《故乡之行》专栏。赫塞本想再来天津的，遗憾的是被癌症夺去了生命，没能看到改革开放给他的故乡带来的翻天覆地的变化，也没能使他的《故乡之行》留下续集。

答案及评分标准

I. Translate the following passage into English. (60%)

A Pickle Pot

Mother came from our home village. She stayed with us for ten days. When she was about to leave, she wanted to buy us something as a present.

“You’ve got everything,”she said, “but you seem to have got nothing. The TV set is yours, but the people who walk back and forth in it are all strangers, even murderers, corrupt officials and thieves come in and out of it from time to time. The radio ca ssette player is yours, but it’s all others who sing in it. The books on the shelf are yours, but they are all written by others. The fridge is yours, but all the year round it’s filled with frost that comes from God knows where. Though they make your life easy and comfortable, none of them belongs to you in the real sense of the word. “On the day she was to leave for home, she got up early in the morning and brought back a pickle pot from the market.

“Make some pickles in it,”she said, “and have something that suits your own palate.”

Since then pickles of our own taste had been added to our diet. When we had guests, we often had pickles to go with wine. Slightly intoxicated everyone would comment,“A country flavor, not bad. Not bad, a country flavor.”

So we had something to our own taste. When we looked at the pot, it was standing quietly at the corner. Amid the hustle and bustle of our everyday life and in the apartment of reinforced concrete, the pot stood there by itself, brewing an dole and simple flavor.

II. Translate the underlined part of the following passage into English. (40%)

An American Writer Who Was Born in Tianjin

The next day I was invited to the hotel where he stayed and we had a long talk in his room. He put his pocket recorder on the tea table, saying that he wanted to not endow what I was going to say as it was being interpreted. He asked how Tianjin had been affected by the Tangshan earthquake and then he said he would like to be furnished with some information about Tianjin writers because, during his previous visits to Tianjin, it had never occurred to him that there was any writer in this city. When he learned that writers in China were paid regular salaries, apart from contribution fees for their writings, he was so amazed that he put it in his notebook as if he had discovered something unusual. Picking up the topic from where he left off I asked how he had managed to make a living by writing and he said he was concurrently employed as a journalist for a newspaper and a professor at a university. His employment in the two occupations not only ensured sufficient incomes for a living , but also provided him with materials for creative writing and widened the range of his learning. Some of his novels were developed on the reportage he had written as a journalist and others were conceived while he was teaching at university. This, I believed, with his luxuriant imagination growing out of the rich solid of social realities, was a