新概念第三册课文翻译及学习笔记【Lesson37、38、
39】
【课文】
We have learnt to expect that trains will be punctual. After years of conditioning, most of us have developed an unshakable faith in railway timetables. Ships may be delayed by storms; air flights may be cancelled because of bad
weather; but trains must be on time. Only an exceptionally heavy snow fall might temporarily dislocate railway services. It is all too easy to blame the railway authorities when something does go wrong. The truth is that when mistakes occur, they are more likely to be ours than theirs.
After consulting my railway timetable, I noted with
satisfaction that there was an express train to Westhaven. It went direct from my local station and the journey lasted a mere hour and seventeen minutes. When I boarded the train, I could not help noticing that a great many local people got on as well. At the time, this did not strike me as odd. I reflected that there must be a great many people besides
myself who wished to take advantage of this excellent service. Neither was I surprised when the train stopped at Widley, a tiny station a few miles along the line. Even a mighty
express train can be held up by signals. But when the train dawdled at station after station, I began to wonder. It
suddenly dawned on me that this express was not roaring down the line at ninety miles an hour, but barely chugging along at thirty. One hour and seventeen minutes passed and we had not even covered half the distance. I asked a passenger if
this was the Westhaven Express, but he had not even heard of it. I determined to lodge a complaint as soon as we arrived. Two hours later, I was talking angrily to the station master at Westhaven. When he denied the train's existence, I borrowed his copy of the timetable. There was a note of triumph in my voice when I told him that it was there in black and white. Glancing at it briefly, he told me to look again. A tiny asterisk conducted me to a footnote at the bottom of the page. It said： 'This service has been suspended.' 【课文翻译】
我们已经习惯于相信火车总是准点的。经过多年的适合，绝大部分人对火车时刻表产生了一种不可动摇的信念。轮船船期可能因风暴而推延，飞机航班可能因恶劣天气而取消，唯有火车必然是准点的。只有非同寻常的大雪才可能暂时打乱铁路运行。所以，一旦铁路上真出了问题，人们便不加思索地责备铁路*。事实上，差错很可能是我们自己，而不是铁路*的。
我查看了列车时刻表，满意地了解到有一趟去威斯特海温的快车。这是趟直达车，旅途总共才需1小时17分钟。上车后，我不禁注意到很多当地人也上了车。一开始，我并不感到奇怪，我想除我之外，想利用快车之便的也一定大有人在。火车开出几英里即在一个小站威德里停了下来。对此，我不觉得奇怪，因为即便是特别快车也可能被信号拦住。但是，当火车一站接着一站往前蠕动时，我便产生了怀疑。我突然感到这趟快车并没以时速90英里的速度呼啸前进，而是卟哧卟哧地向前爬行，时速仅30英里。1小时17分过去了，走了还不到一半路程。我问一位乘客，这是不是开往威斯特海温的那趟快车，他说从未听说过有这么一趟快车。我决定到目的地就给铁路部门提意见。两小时后，我气呼呼地同威斯特海温站站长说起此事。他说根本没有这趟车。于是我借他本人的列车时刻表，我带着一种胜利者的调子告诉
他那趟车白纸黑字。明明白白印在时刻表上。他迅速地扫视了一眼，让我再看一遍。一个小小的星形符号把我的目光引到了那页底部一个说明上。上面写着：“此趟列车暂停运行。” 【词汇】
express n. 快车;adj. 迅速的 punctual adj. 准时的 condition v. 使习惯于 unshakable adj. 不可动摇的 faith n. 信任 cancel v. 取消
exceptionally adv. 例外地 dislocate v. 打乱(计划等) blame v. 责怪
consult v. 请教，查阅 direct adv. 径直地 odd adj. 奇怪的，异常的 reflect v. 细想 advantage n. 优势
mighty adj. 强大的，有力的 dawdle v. 慢吞吞的动或做 chug v. 咔嚓咔嚓地响 lodge v. 提出
complaint n. 抱怨 triumph n. 胜利 asterisk n. 星号 conduct v. 引向，引导 Lesson38 【课文】
Future historians will be in a unique position when they come to record the history of our own times. They will hardly know which facts to select from the great mass of evidence that steadily accumulates. What is more they will not have to rely solely on the written word. Films, videos. CDs and CD-ROMs are just some of the bewildering amount of information they will have. They will be able, as it were, to see and hear us in action. But the historian attempting to
reconstruct the distant past is always faced with a difficult task. He has to deduce what he can from the few scanty
cluesavailable. Even seemingly insignificant remains can shed interesting light on the history of early man.
Up to now, historians have assumed that calendars came into being with the advent of agriculture, for then man was faced with a real need to understand something about the seasons. Recent scientific evidence seems to indicate that this assumption is incorrect.
Historians have long been puzzled by dots, lines and symbols which have been engraved on walls, bones, and the ivory tusk of mammoths. The nomads who made these markings lived by hunting and fishing during the last Ice Age, which
began about 35,000 B.C. and ended about 10,000 B.C. By correlating markings made in various parts of the world, historians have been able to read this difficult code. They have found that it is connected with the passage of days and the phases of the moon. It is, in fact, a primitive type of calendar. It has long been known that the hunting scenes depicted on walls were not simply a form of artistic
expression. They had a definite meaning, for they were as near as early man could get to writing. It is possible that there is a definite relation between these paintings and the markings that sometimes accompany them. It seems that man was making a real effort to understand the seasons 20,000 years earlier than has been supposed. 【课文翻译】
未来的历史学家在写我们这个段历史的时候会别具一格。对于逐渐积累起来的庞大材料，他们几乎不知道选择哪些好，而且，也不必完全依赖文字材料。电影、录像、光盘和光盘驱动器仅仅能为他们提供令人眼花缭乱的大量信息的几种手段。他们能够身临其境般地观看我们做事，倾听我们讲话。但是，历史学家企图重现遥远的过去不过一项艰巨的任务，他们必须根据现有的不充分的线索实行推理。即使
看起来微不足道的遗物，也可能揭示人类早期历史的一些有趣的内容。 历史学家迄今认为日历是随农业的问世而出现的，因为当时人们面临着了解四季的实际需要，但近期科学研究发现，好像这种假设是不准确的。
长期以来，历史学家一直对雕刻在墙壁上、骨头上、古代长毛象的象牙上的点、线和形形色色的符号感到困惑不解。这些痕迹是游牧人留下的，他们生活在从公元前约 35，000年到公元前10000年的冰川期的末期，以狩猎、捕鱼为生。历史学家通过把世界各地留下的这种痕迹放在一起究，终于弄懂了这种费解的代码。他们发现代码与昼
新概念第三册课文翻译及学习笔记Lesson37、38、39
