考研英语(一)长难句解析系列——2015年翻译

考研网

　　这篇文章来源于An outline of American history(1954)(《美国历史纲要(1954年英文版)》)，是其中一章The Colonial Period(殖民时期)的节选。整个段落共396词，20个句子，平均每句20词。从句子的类型上来讲，简单句12个，复合句5个，并列句3个。考题的5个划线句子最为复杂，难度较大。下面就这5个划线句子进行详解：
　　【典型例句1】This movement, driven by powerful and diverse motivations, built a nation out of a wilderness and, by its nature, shaped the character and destiny of an uncharted continent.
　　【例句分析】整个句子是一个简单句，由and并列谓语动词built和shaped。driven by powerful and diverse motivations是后置定语，修饰movement;out of a wilderness是后置定语，修饰nation;of an uncharted continent是后置定语，修饰character and destiny。
　　【例句译文】这项运动，由多种强大的动机驱动，在一片荒野上建起了一个国家，并且从本质上来讲，塑造了一块未知大陆的性格和命运。
　　【典型例句2】The United States is the product of two principal forces—the immigration of European peoples with their varied ideas, customs, and national characteristics and the impact of a new country which modified these traits.
　　【例句分析】句子的主干是The United States is the product of two principal forces，破折号解释说明forces。of European peoples with their varied ideas, customs, and national characteristics是后置定语，修饰immigration;of a new country which modified these traits是后置定语，修饰impact，其中包含一个定语从句which modified these traits，修饰country。
　　【例句译文】美国是两股主要力量的产物——带有不同思想、风俗习惯和国家特征的欧洲民族的移民，和修改这些特征的新兴国家的影响。
　　【典型例句3】But the force of geographic conditions peculiar to America, the interplay of the carried national groups upon one another, and the sheer difficulty of maintaining old-world ways in a raw, new continent caused significant changes.
　　【例句分析】整个句子是简单句，主语由三个名词短语用and并列承担，谓宾部分比较短小caused significant changes。主语1中，of geographic conditions peculiar to America是后置定语，修饰force;主语2中，of the carried national groups upon one another是后置定语，修饰interplay;主语3中，of maintaining old-world ways in a raw, new continent是后置定语，修饰difficulty。
　　【例句译文】但是，美国独特的地理条件具备的力量，国家性集团之间的相互影响关系，连同在一块原始、新型大陆上维持旧世界的方法具有的独特的困难，这些都引起了重大的变化。
　　【典型例句4】The first shiploads of immigrants bound for the territory which is now the United Sates crossed the Atlantic more than a hundred years after the 15th-and-16th-century explorations of North America.
　　【例句分析】整个句子的主干是The first shiploads of immigrants crossed the Atlantic。bound for the territory which is now the United Sates是后置定语，修饰immigrants，其中包含定语从句which is now the United Sates，修饰territory;more than a hundred years after the 15th-and-16th-century explorations of North America是时间状语，其中after the 15th-and-16th-century explorations of North America是后置定语，修饰a hundred years。
　　【例句分析】在15和16世纪北美探索的一百多年后，开往该领土的——即当今的美国——第一船移民，跨越了大西洋。
　　【典型例句5】The virgin forest with its richness and variety of trees was a real treasure-house which extended from Maine all the way down to Georgia.
　　【例句分析】整个句子的主干是The virgin forest was a real treasure-house。with its richness and variety of trees是后置定语，修饰virgin forest;which extended from Maine all the way down to Georgia是定语从句，修饰treasure-house。
　　【例句分析】拥有丰富和多样树种的原始森林是一个真正的宝库，它从缅因州一路延伸到乔治亚州。
　　综上所述，2015年真题的翻译部分，相比2014年来说，难度增大，但是出现的长难句都在备考的范围，考点集中在定语成分的翻译上。
　　(本文作者为中公考研英语指导名师——申虹)