英译汉练习

Exercise 1

Adidas Sports Shoes

Over twenty-eight years ago, adidas gave birth to a new idea in sports shoes. And the people who wear our shoes have been running and winning ever since. In fact, adidas has helped them set over 400 world records in track and field alone.

Maybe that’s why more and more football, soccer, basketball, baseball and tennis players are turning to adidas. They know that, whatever their game, they can rely on adidas workmanship and quality in every product we make.

So whether you are pounding the roads on a marathon, or just jogging around the block, adidas shall be on your feet.

Y ou were born to run. And we were born to help you do it better. Y ou’ll find us anywhere smart sports people buy their shoes. Adidas, the all sports people.

Petal-Drops

For the girl who wants a petal-soft skin

With Petal-Drops Moisturizing Bath-Essence you can give your skin a petal-fresh softness and fragrance that will last and last the whole day through.

All sorts of oils, delicately perfumed herbal essences and the gentlest of toning agents---all combined with our loving care to give that oh-so-good-to-be-alive feeling.

Relax. Petal-Drops your way to a smooth, silky skin.

Choose from two exciting fragrances: New Petal-Drops Coriander---with its faintly spiced hint of seductiveness, or the classic Petal-Drops Lavender.

Exercise 2

1. The old man said, ―They say his father was a fisherman. Maybe he was as poor as we are.‖

2. They had been through it all at his side--- the bruising battles, the humiliations of the defeat…through empty mid-1960s---until at last, in 1968, they were able to savor the sweet taste of triumph.

3. The thesis summed up the new achievements made in electronic computers, artificial satellites and rockets.

4. An eagle and a fox had long lived together as good neighbors; the eagle at the summit of a high tree, the fox in a hole at the foot of it.

5. He remembered the incident, as had his wife.

6. Laura wished now that she was not holding that piece of bread-and-butter, but there was nowhere to put it and she couldn’t possibly throw it away.

7. It was just growing dark, as she shut the garden gate.

8. She laid her hand lightly on his arm as if to thank him for it.

9. If I had known it, I would not have joined in it.

10. As scheduled, American and Chinese diplomats met on January 20, at the Chinese Embassy in Poland. It was the first get-together in more than two years.

Exercise 3

Asia’s Spreading Shadow

Over the past decade, East Asia has been the world’s fastest growing region. And since most of its emerging economies import more than they export, they have provided a powerful stimulus to growth in rich economies. So it is not surprising that East Asia’s recent financial turmoil has been blamed for the lurches in global equity markets this week. But do East Asia’s troubles really carry such awful consequences for the world’s economy?

Developing Asia (i.e., excluding Japan) accounts for an impressive 23% of world output, if measured at purchasing-power parity (which adjusts exchange rates to account for differences in prices between countries). But that figure exaggerates the likely impact of the current crisis on the rest of the world. If China and India, which have not yet shared Asia’s troubles, are excluded, then the rest of Asia accounts for just 7.3% of world output and 4.4% of world trade in goods and services---the main channel through which developments in the region affect the rich economies.

As the financial turmoil spread from Thailand to Taiwan and now to Hong Kong, higher interest rates, falling equity and property prices and a loss of business and consumer confidence have started to take their toll on consumer spending and business investment. Many forecasters now expect Thailand to slip into recession in 1998. East Asia, excluding China, is expected to grow by perhaps only 4-5% next year, down from more than 7% in 1996. In turn, slower growth is likely to mean fewer imports from the rest of the world.

America sells almost a fifth of its exports to developing Asia countries, Japan a massive 44%, but Europe only 7%. However, a better measure of the potential impact of Asia’s economic troubles on rich countries’growth rates is their exports to Asia as a percentage of their GDP: a modest 2% in both America and Europe, a more significant 4.4% in Japan. Almost three-quarters of Japan’s export growth since 1990 has been generated by increasing sales into Asian markets. Thus Japan’s economy will be hardest hit.

The second way in which East Asia’s financial traumas will spill over into rich industrial economies is that manufacturers in the region have become super-competitive thanks to devaluations of up to 40% against the dollar. Add in the fact that the region has a glut of capacity in industries such as televisions, chemicals and steel as a result of over-investment, and it seems inevitable that Asia’s exports to rich economies will surge. American producers will therefore face fiercer competition. European and Japanese firms should get off more lightly because their currencies have also weakened against the dollar, albeit by less than the East Asians’, over the past year.

The silver lining of this cloud is that cheaper Asian imports into rich economies will help to hold down the latter’s inflation rate. Likewise, slower growth in Asia should depress commodity prices. This disinflationary pressure may mean that America’s Federal Reserve will not need to raise interest rates so soon or by as much as it otherwise would have needed to.