2019年翻译资格考试三级口译练习题：男孩

　　Two nine-year-old boys, neighbors and friends, were walking home from school. The one in the bright blue windbreaker was laughing and swinging a heavy-looking book bag toward the head of his friend, who kept ducking and stepping back. "What's the matter?" asked the kid with the bag whooshing it over his head. "You chicken?"

　　两个九岁大的男孩一起放学回家，他们既是邻居又是好朋友。 其中一个身穿亮蓝色风衣，他一边大声笑着，一边将看上去很重的书包朝着同伴的脑袋甩来甩去。同伴不停地躲闪着、退让着，惟恐被打中。 “躲什么呀，胆小鬼?”呼呼挥舞着书包的那个男孩戏谑道。

　　His friend stopped, stood still and braced himself. The bag slammed into the side of his face, the thump audible all the way across the street where I stood watching. The impact knocked him to the ground, where he lay mildly stunned for a second. Then he struggled up, rubbing the side of his head. "See?" he said proudly. "I'm no chicken."

　　于是，他的同伴停止了躲闪，鼓足勇气，站在原地一动不动。 不出所料，书包“嗵”地一声打中了男孩的脸。书包撞在脸上的声音很大，连站在街对面观望的我都听到了。 男孩倒在了地上，有一小会儿没能站起来，我想他恐怕是被打晕了。 孩子挣扎着站起来后，只是随手擦了擦被打中的地方，就骄傲地宣告：“看到了吗?我不是胆小鬼!”

　　No. A chicken would probably have had the sense to get out of the way. This boy was already well on the road to becoming a man, having learned one of the central ethics of his gender: Experience pain rather than show fear.

　　是的，他不是胆小鬼。 胆小鬼可能早想办法逃之夭夭了。 不仅如此，甚至可以说这个男孩已经快要成为一名男子汉了，因为他已具备男子汉所应有的重要品质之一：不惧怕痛苦，勇于体验痛苦。

　　Women tend to see men as a giant problem in need of solution. They tell us that we're remote and uncommunicative, that we need to demonstrate less machismo and more commitment, more humanity. But if you don't understand something about boys, you can't understand why men are the way we are, why we find it so difficult to make friends or to acknowledge our fears and problems.

　　女人往往认为男人身上存在着令人头痛的问题，需要解决。 她们常念叨和我们男人之间距离遥远，无法沟通;还要求我们减少些男人气，增添些承诺和仁慈。 但是，如果不了解男孩子的某些特点，你就无法了解我们男人为什么是现在这种状况，也无法了解男人为什么会觉得交友如此困难，为什么感到恐惧和遇到难题时不愿承认。

　　Boys live in a world with its own Code of Conduct, a set of ruthless, unspoken, and unyielding rules:

　　男孩的世界自有其独特的行为准则，一套深藏于心的冷酷无情、坚定不屈的准则：

　　Don't be a goody-goody.

　　不能当老好人。

　　Never rat. If your parents ask about bruises, shrug.

　　不能背叛。假如父母问起身上的瘀伤，要表现得无所谓。

　　Never admit fear. Ride the roller coaster, and join the fistfight, do what you have to do. Asking for help is for sissies.

　　不能承认自己害怕。要敢于坐过山车，敢于参与拳斗，敢于做自己必须要做的事情。求人帮忙就会被指责为女里女气。

　　Empathy is for nerds. You can help your best buddy, under certain circumstances. Everyone else is on his own.

　　富于同情心的男孩令人讨厌，被人轻视。 男孩在个别情况下可以帮助他的死党， 而对其他人则不能轻易伸出援助之手。

　　Never discuss anything of substance with anybody. Grunt, shrug, dump on teachers, laugh at wimps, talk about comic books. Anything else is risky.

　　不能和任何人讨论有关钱财的问题。 要反抗、蔑视老师，不把他们当回事;嘲笑那些懦弱的人;高谈阔论读过的滑稽故事。 而其他话题则有可能让你显得没有男子气概。

　　Boys are rewarded for throwing hard. Most other activities — reading, befriending girls, or just thinking — are considered weird. And if there's one thing boys don't want to be, it's weird.

　　男孩应该表现得冷酷(这对自己会有好处)。 其他大多数行为———读书、和女孩交朋友，或安静地思考问题———都被认为是很古怪的。 而如果说这世界上只有一件男孩不愿意去做的事情，那就是让自己显得怪里怪气。

　　More than anything else, boys are supposed to learn how to handle themselves. I remember the bitter fifth-grade conflict I touched off by elbowing aside a bigger boy named Barry and seizing the cafeteria's last carton of chocolate milk. Teased for getting aced out by a wimp, he had to reclaim his place in the pack. Our fistfight, at recess, ended with my knees buckling and my lip bleeding while my friends, sympathetic but out of range, watched resignedly.

　　最重要的是，男孩应该学会如何把握自己。 还记得上五年级时我和一位同学之间的那场激烈冲突。事情发生在学校的自助餐厅里。我用胳膊肘将一个名叫巴里的比我还高大的男孩推到一边，从而抢到了最后一盒巧克力奶。 巴里因为被一个比他弱小的男孩打败而遭到了同伴们的嘲笑，他决心要重树自己在同伴中的威信。 于是，课间休息时我俩进行了一场拳斗。结果我被打倒在地，嘴唇还流了血。我的好朋友都很同情我，但他们不能插手，只能无奈地在一旁观望。

　　When I got home, my mother took one look at my swollen face and screamed. I wouldn't tell her anything, but when my father got home I cracked and confessed, pleading with them to do nothing. Instead, they called Barry's parents, who restricted his television for a week.

　　回家之后，妈妈看到我肿胀的脸颊，不由得惊叫起来，但我什么都没跟她说。 爸爸回来后，我终于崩溃了，告诉了他们发生的一切，但恳求他们不要插手。 可爸妈却给巴里的父母打了电话，结果巴里被罚一个星期不能看电视。

　　The following morning, Barry and six of his pals stepped out from behind a stand of trees. "It's the rat," said Barry.

　　第二天早晨，在我去上学的路上，巴里和他的六个伙伴突然从一片树林里冒出来拦住了我。 巴里对他的朋友说：“这就是那个叛徒。”

　　I bled a little more. Rat was scrawled in crayon across my desk.

　　他们打了我，这一次出手更重; 而且还用蜡笔在我的书桌上涂满了“叛徒”的字样。

　　They were waiting for me after school for a number of afternoons to follow. I tried varying my routes and avoiding bushes and hedges. It usually didn't work.

　　接下来的几天，每逢下午放学，他们都会在半路上截我。 我试着改变回家的路线，不走有灌木丛或树篱的地方。 但基本上没用，他们总是能拦住我。

　　I was as ashamed for telling as I was frightened. "You did ask for it," said my best friend.

　　我又害怕，又羞于告人。 “你这真是自找的，”我最好的朋友跟我说。

　　In panic, I appealed to a cousin who was several years older. He followed me home from school, and when Barry's gang surrounded me, he came barreling toward us. "Stay away from my cousin," he shouted, "or I'll kill you."

　　惶恐中，只得向大我几岁的表哥求救。 放学回家的路上，表哥远远地跟在后面护送我。 巴里一伙人围住我时，表哥飞奔过来， 大喝道：“谁敢动我表弟，我就对他不客气!”

　　After they were gone, however, my cousin could barely stop laughing. "You were afraid of them?" he howled. "They barely came up to my waist."

　　巴里一伙人跑开了，表哥禁不住大笑起来， 高声说：“你还怕他们?个头儿才不过到我腰这儿嘛。” 男子汉在小时候很少得到别人的同情。

　　Men remember receiving little mercy as boys; maybe that's why it's sometimes difficult for them to show any.

　　或许就是这个原因，他们长大后有时觉得很难去同情别人。

　　"I know lots of men who had happy childhoods, but none who have happy memories of the way other boys treated them," says a friend. "It's a macho marathon from third grade up, when you start butting each other in the stomach."

　　“我知道很多男人都有快乐的童年，但谈到儿时其他男孩如何对待自己时，没有一个人有美好的回忆，”一位朋友说， “一到三年级，男孩之间就开始打打闹闹;也正是从那时起，一场男人气概耐力赛也就拉开序幕了。”

　　"The thing is," adds another friend, "you learn early on to hide what you feel. It's never safe to say, 'I'm scared.' My girlfriend asks me why I don't talk more about what I'm feeling. I've gotten better at it, but it will never come naturally."

　　另一位朋友补充道：“最重要的是你得尽快学会隐藏自己的感情。永远都不要说‘我害怕。’我女朋友常问我为什么总是避而不谈自己的感觉，我想原因可能就在这儿。不过，现在好一些了，但真正谈论起来，还是不太自然。”

　　You don't need to be a shrink to see how the lessons boys learn affect their behavior as men. Men are being asked, more and more, to show sensitivity, but they dread the very word. They struggle to build their increasingly uncertain work lives but will deny they're in trouble. They want love, affection, and support but don't know how to ask for them. They hide their weaknesses and fears from all, even those they care for. They've learned to be wary of intervening when they see others in trouble. They often still balk at being stigmatized as weird.

　　要了解男人在孩提时代所吸取的教训如何影响他们长大之后的行为，你完全没有必要成为一名精神病学家，因为这并不难。 现在，男人越来越多地被要求应该敏感一些。殊不知，“敏感”正是男人最惧怕的字眼。 虽然他们每天都要为自己日益不稳定的工作环境而挣扎、奋斗，却不愿意承认自己处境艰难。 虽然他们也需要抚爱、安慰和帮助，却不知道如何向别人提及。 他们向所有人，包括他们钟爱的人，隐藏自己的软弱和恐惧。 看到别人陷入麻烦之中，他们也已习惯了小心翼翼地不去干涉。 实际上，他们依然害怕别人指责自己“怪里怪气”。

　　Some men get shocked into sensitivity — when they lose their jobs, their wives, or their lovers. Others learn it through a strong marriage, or through their own children.

　　有的男人由于受到某些事件———如失去工作、妻子或情人———的震撼而开始变得敏感。 有的男人则通过和睦的婚姻生活或通过自己的孩子学会了敏感。

　　It may be a long while, however, before male culture evolves to the point that boys can learn more from one another than how to hit curve balls. Last month, walking my dog past the playground near my house, I saw three boys encircling a fourth, laughing and pushing him. He was skinny and rumpled, and he looked frightened. One boy knelt behind him while another pushed him from the front, a trick familiar to any former boy. He fell backward.

　　到什么时候男孩子们从彼此身上学到的东西才能比从曲线球游戏中学到的东西多呢?事实上，男子汉文化要发展到这一步可能还需要相当长的一段时间。 上个月，我遛狗时经过我家附近的儿童游乐场，看到三个男孩正把一个男孩围在中间，一边笑着，一边推搡那个男孩。 被围在中间的孩子很瘦小，衣服已被那三个孩子弄得凌乱不堪，脸上也显出害怕的神情。 一个男孩跪在他的身后，另一个则从前面推搡他(这是以前所有男孩都熟悉的把戏)， 那个瘦小的男孩便向后摔倒在地。

　　When the others ran off, he brushed the dirt off his elbows and walked toward the swings. His eyes were moist and he was struggling for control.

　　其他三个男孩跑开后，那孩子从地上站起来，拍了拍胳膊肘上的土，然后向秋千走去。 男孩的眼里含着泪，但看得出他在使劲控制自己不让泪水流出来。

　　"Hi," I said through the chain-link fence. "How ya doing?"

　　我隔着钢丝网眼栅栏对他说：“嗨，你没事吧?”

　　"Fine," he said quickly, kicking his legs out and beginning his swing.

　　“没事，”那男孩一边飞快地说着，一边小腿用劲往地上一蹬，荡起了秋千。