TED演讲 不要固执于英语(6)

 　　My daughter came to England from Kuwait.  我的女儿从科威特回到英国。

　　She had studied science and mathematics¹ in Arabic².  她已经用阿拉伯语学了科学和数学。

　　It's an Arabic medium school.  那是在一所阿拉伯中校。

　　She had to translate it into English at her grammar school.  在文法学院学习时，她要把所学的内容翻译成英语。

　　And she was the best in the class at those subjects. 在她们班上，她的这些科目是最好的。

　　Which tells us that when students come to us from abroad, 这告诉我们，当学生从海外来就读

　　we may not be giving them enough credit³ for what they know, and they know it in their own language. 也许我们没有给他们足够的认可，对于那些他们已经懂得的知识而言，因为他们已经通过他们的语言掌握了这些知识。

　　When a language dies, we don't know what we lose with that language. 当语言消失，我们不知道我们还失去了什么。

　　This is -- I don't know if you saw it on CNN recently --  我不知道你们是否看最近的CNN--

　　they gave the Heroes Award to a young Kenyan shepherd⁴ boy 他们颁发了一枚英雄奖给一个年轻的肯尼亚牧童，

　　who couldn't study at night in his village, like all the village children, 在他所住的村庄里，他和其他在村里的孩子一样，无法在夜晚读书，

　　because the kerosene⁵ lamp, it had smoke and it damaged his eyes. 因为煤油灯烟会弄伤他的眼睛。

　　And anyway, there was never enough kerosene, because what does a dollar a day buy for you? 而且，他也没有足够的煤油，他们每天只有一美元的收入，能买什么呢？

　　So he invented a cost-free solar lamp. 所以他发明了不需要花钱的太阳能灯。

　　And now the children in his village get the same grades at school as the children who have electricity at home. 现在他们村里的孩子们都能在学习上取得一样的好成绩，跟那些家里有电的孩子一样。

　　When he received his award, he said these lovely words: 当他得到这个奖励时，他说了这些可爱的话：

　　"The children can lead Africa from what it is today, a dark continent, to a light continent." “儿童可以带领今天的非洲，从一个黑暗的大陆，走向一个光明的大陆。”

　　A simple idea, but it could have such far-reaching consequences. 一个简单的想法，但是其影响是深远的。

　　People who have no light, whether it's physical or metaphorical⁶, 无论是实际生活中还是社会意义上，不能享受光明的人

　　cannot pass our exams, and we can never know what they know. 都无法通过我们的测试，我们也无法了解他们拥有的知识。

　　Let us not keep them and ourselves in the dark. 我们不能让他们和我们自己都身处于黑暗里。

　　Let us celebrate diversity⁷. Mind your language. 让我们一起为多元化欢呼。重视你的语言。

　　Use it to spread great ideas. Thank you very much. 用它来传播优秀的思想。非常谢谢。

1 mathematics   

n.（用作单）数学；（用作单或复）计算(能力）

参考例句：

• He has come out in front in the study of mathematics.他在数学方面已名列前茅。
• She is working at a difficult problem in mathematics.她在做一道数学难题。

2 Arabic   

n.阿拉伯语；adj.阿拉伯语的，阿拉伯人的，阿拉伯式的

参考例句：

• It is not easy to learn Arabic.学阿拉伯语不容易。
• Arabic script reads from right to left.阿拉伯文是从右至左读的。

3 credit   

n.信用，荣誉，贷款，学分；v.归功于，赞颂，信任

参考例句：

• I credit him with a certain amount of sense.我认为他有一定的见识。
• He got the credit,and we did the dirty work.他得荣誉，我们做不讨好的工作。

4 shepherd   

n.牧羊者，牧师，指导者；v.看守，领导，指导

参考例句：

• The shepherd boy waited for his sheep to drink.牧童等羊喝水。
• The shepherd and his dog gathered in the sheep.牧羊人和牧羊狗把羊群赶到一块。

5 kerosene   

n.(kerosine)煤油，火油

参考例句：

• It is like putting out a fire with kerosene.这就像用煤油灭火。
• Instead of electricity,there were kerosene lanterns.没有电，有煤油灯。

6 metaphorical   

a.隐喻的，比喻的

参考例句：

• Here, then, we have a metaphorical substitution on a metonymic axis. 这样，我们在换喻（者翻译为转喻，一种以部分代替整体的修辞方法）上就有了一个隐喻的替代。
• So, in a metaphorical sense, entropy is arrow of time. 所以说，我们可以这样作个比喻：熵像是时间之矢。

7 diversity   

n.差异，多样性；vt.使不同，使多样化

参考例句：

• Our party believes in encouraging cultural diversity,not diversion.我们党鼓励多种文化，而不是文化分歧。
• His object is to gather as great a diversity of material as possible.他的目标就是尽可能多地搜集各种材料。