TED演讲: 我的多调人声(1)

 　　I'd like you all to ask yourselves a question which you may never have asked yourselves before: 我希望你们先问你们自己一个问题，这个问题可能你们从没问过自己

　　What is possible with the human voice?  人的声音能干些什么？

　　What is possible with the human voice?  人的声音能干些什么？

　　It was coming straight for me. I had to. It was, yeah.  它直接朝我飞过来，打到我了，疼啊

　　As you can probably well imagine, I was a strange child. 你们大概能想到，我原先是个怪小孩儿

　　Because the thing is, I was constantly trying to extend my repertoire¹ of noises to be the very maximum that it could be. 因为我时常尝试把我的声音技能发挥到极限

　　I was constantly experimenting with these noises. And I'm still on that mission. 我时常用这些声音做实验。现在我仍在干那事儿

　　I'm still trying to find every noise that I can possibly make. 我仍希望找到自己能够制造出的声音

　　And the thing is, I'm a bit older and wiser now,  但是我现在年龄大了，也变聪明了

　　and I know that there's some noises I'll never be able to make because I'm hemmed² in 因为身体构造的局限性，我知道有些声响是我永远都发不出来的

　　by my physical body, and there's things it can't do.  总有事情是它做不了的

　　And there's things that no one's voice can do.  有些声响没有人的嗓音能够完成

　　For example, no one can do two notes at the same time.  比如说，人声不能同时发出两个音符

　　You can do two-tone singing, which monks³ can do, which is like... 但你可以同时发出双音调，和尚们就能做到，像这样

　　But that's cheating. And it hurts your throat. 但那是作弊。而且会伤到喉咙。

1 repertoire   

n.(准备好演出的)节目，保留剧目；(计算机的)指令表，指令系统， <美>(某个人的)全部技能；清单，指令表

参考例句：

• There is an extensive repertoire of music written for the flute.有很多供长笛演奏的曲目。
• He has added considerably to his piano repertoire.他的钢琴演奏曲目大大增加了。

2 hemmed   

缝…的褶边( hem的过去式和过去分词 )； 包围

参考例句：

• He hemmed and hawed but wouldn't say anything definite. 他总是哼儿哈儿的，就是不说句痛快话。
• The soldiers were hemmed in on all sides. 士兵们被四面包围了。

3 monks   

n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The monks lived a very ascetic life. 僧侣过着很清苦的生活。
• He had been trained rigorously by the monks. 他接受过修道士的严格训练。 来自《简明英汉词典》