听一分钟英文：Translation-英文

Translation is a tricky¹ business. There are so many things that are very difficult to translate from one language to another. Of course lots of words are easy. A book is a book in all languages. But is it? In English you can “go by the book” if you want to follow the rules. What book is this? Many of the things that are difficult to translate are cultural. I also think it’s pretty much impossible to translate jokes and humour². I think that’s why we have the expression “lost in translation”. Being a translator must be a difficult job. Especially translating things like legal³ documents. If you make one tiny mistake, you could mess everything up. One day we’ll translate everything on the Internet.

1 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

2 humour   

n.幽默，诙谐，情绪，体液；vt.使满足，迁就

参考例句：

• We can't always humour the child the way we do.不能总是顺着孩子。
• His new play is a mixture of saddness and humour.他的新剧本融悲哀和幽默于一体。

3 legal   

adj.法律的，依照法律的，合法的，法定的，正当的

参考例句：

• He is my legal adviser.他是我的法律顾问。
• This is partly a political and partly a legal question.这个问题部分是政治问题，部分是法律问题。