Life Sailor

原文

Having opened this cookbook, you are probably eager to inject some of the ungainly strings of parentheses and question marks you find in its chapters right into your code. If you are ready to plug and play, be our guest: the practical regular expressions are listed and described in Chapters 4 through 9.

But the initial chapters of this book may save you a lot of time in the long run. For instance, this chapter introduces you to a number of utilities-some of them created by the authors, Jan and Steven-that let you test and debug a regular expression before you bury it in code where errors are harder to find. And these initial chapters also show you how to use various features and options of regular expressions to make your life easier, help you understand regular expressions in order to improve their performance, and learn the subtle differences between how regular expressions are handled by different programming languages-and even different versions of your favorite programming language.

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原文

“BRITAIN does not dream of some cosy, isolated existence on the fringes of the European Community,” asserted Margaret Thatcher in 1988. Now, increasingly, it does. Opinion polls show that most Britons are in favour of leaving the European Union. Baroness Thatcher’s Conservative Party, which took Britain into Europe four decades ago, is divided between those who long for an arm’s-length relationship and those who want to walk out. The second camp is swelling.

Even the fiercest British critics of the EU are astonished by the speed at which things are moving. Parliamentary rebellions over Europe are becoming easier and easier to organise. Euroscepticism is hardening in the Conservative Party, in much the same way as social conservatism has gone from being a powerful current in America’s Republican Party to an intolerant orthodoxy. The United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP), which wants to leave the EU, has abruptly moved from the political margins to the mainstream. A referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU now seems a matter of timing.

Continental Europeans are surprised too—and annoyed. They are bewildered that the British should be talking of leaving a club that many believe has shifted decisively in a free-trading, Anglo-Saxon direction in the past two decades. They also resent the way Britain seems to be using the threat of an exit as a bargaining tool, especially at a time when the euro is in crisis. As they see it, Britain wants to carve out a privileged place for itself in the European club, where it can enjoy free trade without any of the other membership rules. In Berlin and Rome, political leaders argue that Britain needs to make up its mind once and for all: does it want to be in or out?

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原文

Once home to fishermen and farmers, modern Hong Kong is a teeming, commercially-vibrant metropolis where Chinese and Western influences fuse.

The former British colony became a special administrative region of China in 1997, when Britain’s 99-year lease of the New Territories, north of Hong Kong island, expired.

Hong Kong is governed under the principle of “one country, two systems” under which China has agreed to give the region a high degree of autonomy and to preserve its economic and social systems for 50 years from the date of the handover.

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原文

The last two months have seen some astonishing bidding in auctions of Chinese treasures.

Record after record has fallen away as newly wealthy collectors from mainland China have piled into salerooms in London, New York and Hong Kong, anxious to bring home their imperial cultural patrimony.

The market for Chinese art works has strengthened considerably over the past five years, and the high prices have drawn out a number of masterpieces from old collections in Europe and America.

However, there is a danger of sellers becoming over-confident, even greedy.

A close examination of some of the lots that have achieved record prices since early October shows that success cannot be taken for granted.

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图灵出版公司的编辑们在审稿及译者交流中收集了这些例句，它们的毛病比较典型。为避免其他译者犯同同样的错误，本节会详细指出问题所在，并给出修改之后的翻译。

例句1

原文：A moment’s reflection will convince the reader that it is extremely undesirable to change the pointers in every reference to A just because the first element of A is being deleted.
译文：略加考虑，读者就会相信，非常不希望仅因为删除A的第一个元素就改变对A的所有引用。

原文整句话很长，译者将其分为三个短句是正确的处理。但有两个单词的翻译不到位，一个是convince，一般做“说服、使相信”解，但“相信”的对象一般是某种陈述，所以这里取“使清楚明白/使认同”的意思更合适；另一个是undesirable，翻译为“不希望”比较勉强，“希望”一般必须是主体发出的动作，而这里的“非常不希望”没有明确主体，所以翻译为“讨厌、麻烦/不可取”更合适。另外，the pointers in every reference中的pointers在译文中漏掉了，这不是小问题，因为指针和引用是完全不同的概念。

改译：读者想想就会明白，如果仅仅删掉A的第一个元素，就得修改A的所有引用之处的指针，这种做法是极为麻烦的。

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稍微了解一点科学的人都知道，人类所使用的自然语言是不够严格精确的。这些语言既有规则（譬如句子要有完整的结构，英语中过去发生的动作要用过去式），又没有规则（譬如不规则动词，以及某些约定俗成而“毫无道理”的搭配）。从某种意义上说，语言的活力和创造力，就在于能够灵活游走于这种有/无规则的矛盾之间，“搭配”出不曾出现过，但意义完整的词句。

比如近年来出现的“积淀”、“积弱”之类的词语，就是这种搭配的结果；语句的例子就更多，比如“漂亮得一塌糊涂”，按常理“漂亮”和“一塌糊涂”似乎相距十万八千里，但是在某些情况下搭配使用，读者却觉得“写得很棒”。在阅读这样的词句时，读者依据的是母语的本能，而且这种本能是有规矩的，不能随意乱来。“漂亮得一塌糊涂”说得通，“漂亮得难以收拾”就不通了；“千锤百炼”可以调换成“百炼千锤”，但“千炼百锤”就非常别扭了。

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词语是语言的基本组成单位，所以进行翻译时，也应当首先确保准确认识原文的词意，然后在目的文字中选择合适的词汇进行表达。这个道理说起来似简单，做起来却很麻烦，因为词语的意思通常不只一种，有表意（denotation）和涵义（connotation）的区别。表意是刚性的、常见的意义，而涵义是词语蕴含的相关意义。比如英文中的fox，表意是“狐狸”，涵义则是“狡诈”；中文里的“牛”，表意是一种动物，涵义则是“壮实”或者“勤勉”。fox的表意和涵义在中英文里较为相似，但“牛”则相差较远。所以如果看到英文原文说“这人强壮如马”，译者必须知道这里取的是涵义，所以译成中文必须改为“这人强壮如牛”。

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不断提高自己的翻译效率以达到事半功倍的效果，是各位朋友都希望的。如何达到这个目标呢？根据我的经验，不断反思、总结自己的翻译经历，是很有成效的办法。下面是我自己总结的翻译步骤，按照这样的步骤，我可以获得最高的翻译效率，希望对大家有所帮助。

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对比过中外教材的人，很多都对外国教材有意见：篇幅太长，简单的东西需要翻来覆去地讲，生怕读者不明白。但是，如果大部分教材都这样啰嗦，就一定有啰嗦的道理。教材以保证学生能够学明白为目的的，不但要让资质最好的学生能够明白，而且要考虑资质一般甚至稍差一些的学生的理解能力。对于大多数人来说，教材表达出十分的信息，学生可能只能接收五六成，为保证效果，啰嗦一点才能真正起到传授知识的作用。

表达出十分，接收五六分，各种交流都有这个规律，翻译也是如此。原文表达十分，译者能接收到的通常也是五六分。如果译者作为原文的普通读者，接收五六分当然没有问题，因为这是原文读者的普遍水平。但译者将原文翻译出来，译文的读者能接收到的大概就只有三四分了。也就是说，译文读者接收的信息比原文读者少得多（这也是很多人强调一定要看原版的原因）。所以，好的译者必然会竭尽全力保证译文读者能接收到足够多的信息，减少翻译过程中的遗漏。要做到这一点，译者就不能以“原文普通读者”的身份来要求自己，一定要比普通读者多走一步才算称职。最典型的例子，就是典故的翻译。

所谓典故，就是文章中引用的古代故事或者有来历的词语。通常，典故都是与原文所处的文化有密切关联的，原文读者和译者大都懂得这样的关联，而典故与译文所处的文化并没有这样的关联，所以译文读者未必懂得其中的奥妙，如果仅仅是“忠实”翻译，“文字之外”的信息就丢失了。所以遇到典故，译者一定不能只求“忠实”，而需要多走一步，把“文字之外”的信息补全，才算称职。

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直译更好还是意译更好？这也是困扰许多译者的一大问题。不但资深译者时常为此犯难，就是初学者，尚未动笔便发愁直译更好还是意译更好，因此步履维艰的，也到有人在。所以，说清楚直译和意译的问题大有必要。

什么是直译？直译即word-for-word translation，也称作literal translation，意思是“按原有的形式来翻译”。典型的例子是将“I have a pair of shoes”翻译为“我有一双鞋子”，简直是字字对应，堪称百分百的直译。但是能这样翻译的情况并不多，稍复杂一点的句子，比如“they have many difficulties to overcome”翻译为“他们有许多困难需要克服”，“I can not walk”翻译为“我不能走了”，就已经有点“欧化”的味道了；如果遇上英文独有的结构，比如“I learned a lot during that period”，根本无法直译过来，因为按照中文习惯，during that time是必须放在主句之前的。这样看来，直译很多时候并不是可行的办法。

什么是意译？意译即sense-for-sense translation，也称作free translation，意思是“换用其他措辞重新表达，或者不受限制地翻译”。因为文化或者语言结构的不同，许多场合必须使用意译，否则很难“重新表达”。比如“Things will be mend in the end”，直译是“事情最终会得到解决”，意译则是“车到山前必有路/船到桥头自然直”，“To teach is to learn”，直译是“教书就是学习”，意译则是“教学相长”，两处都是意译的更清楚；更复杂的如“To carry coal to Newcastle”，直译是“运煤到纽卡斯尔”，意译是“多此一举”，两相对比，高下立判。更极端的例子是，不同语言对同一概念的表述习惯完全不同，这时候必须除了意译别无它法。比如常见的“去往xx方向”，在英文里对应的说法是“to/towards xx”，如果翻译为“to the direction of xx”就是典型的中式英语。

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